Merck & Co to pay up to $576 million for Calporta Therapeutics

13 November 2019

New Jersey, USA-based drug major Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) has agreed to pay up to $576 million for Calporta, a startup working on neurodegenerative and lysosomal storage disorders.

Calporta was nurtured by California’s COI Pharmaceuticals, an R&D incubator created by venture capital firm Avalon Ventures and British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK).

The biotech is developing selective small molecule agonists to TRPML1, which is thought to play a role in lysosomal function.

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