UMass Lab in $60M Merck Deal
Ryan McBride4/21/09
The Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories, a Boston lab that is part of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, will share an upfront fee of $60 million with Princeton, NJ-based biotech firm Medarex (NASDAQ:MEDX) that U.S. drug giant Merck (NYSE:MRK) is paying for an exclusive worldwide license to two monoclonal antibodies that the UMass lab and Medarex are co-developing for the treatment of clostridium diffficile infection, according to a press release. The deal also provides the UMass lab and Medarex up to $165 million in additional fees for reaching development goals related to the antibody drugs and double-digit royalties on Merck’s potential sales of the products.
