Merck Just Made a Big Move -- but Will It Be Enough for Investors Right Now?
Big pharmas have the resources to make big, multi-year moves that can reshape or even redefine their businesses. As you may know, Merck (NYSE: MRK) is one of the largest of the big pharmas, with a market capitalization of $262 billion, and it just made one of those moves.
Now, with a gloomy market environment and generic competition to its most profitable drug looming on the horizon, Merck may well need such a move to wow the market. Let's learn about what the company committed to doing recently, and whether it can help move the needle and drive its stock upward.
On Oct. 19, Merck announced that it will be teaming up with the Japanese drug developer Daiichi Sankyo (OTC: DSNKY) to try to commercialize three of Daiichi's clinical-stage antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidates, intended for use in treating solid tumors across a few different cancers. Merck will pay $4 billion up front, and it could eventually be on the hook for as much as $22 billion in total costs when including the agreed-upon milestone payments. Daiichi will retain the rights to commercialize all three programs in Japan, assuming that the clinical data look good to regulators.
Source Fool.com
Merck KGaA Stock
Our community is currently high on Merck KGaA with 5 Buy predictions and 1 Sell predictions.
At the moment Merck KGaA has reached the predicted target price of 172 €, with a current price of 171.35 €.
