LEXINGTON, Mass. — Valo Health, Inc., a company applying human data and artificial intelligence to accelerate drug discovery and development, has announced a major collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany to identify and develop new treatments for Parkinson’s disease and related neurological disorders. The agreement includes upfront and potential milestone payments totaling more than 3 billion dollars, along with royalties and research and development support.
The partnership combines Valo’s AI-enabled human causal biology platform with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s deep expertise in neurology and immunology. Valo’s platform analyzes more than 17 million de-identified patient records—some covering 20 to 30 years of longitudinal data—along with biobank samples to uncover disease patterns, patient phenotypes and novel therapeutic targets. These insights will help guide discovery efforts aimed at identifying new mechanisms involved in Parkinson’s disease. Valo’s closed-loop chemistry platform will then rapidly generate and optimize small molecules designed to engage the validated targets.
“Our research engine is focused on delivering meaningful medicines for patients with high unmet medical needs. Valo Health’s AI-enabled platforms utilizing human data will help sharpen target selection and streamline drug discovery, enabling us to advance the most promising candidates faster,” said Amy Kao, Global Head of Neurology & Immunology Research Unit at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
Distinct patient subgroups identified through Valo’s human data analysis have already revealed clinical variations that shape disease progression and highlight unmet needs across the neurological spectrum. Beginning with human-validated mechanisms allows for greater confidence that early discoveries will translate into successful therapeutic candidates.
“We look forward to partnering with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leader in developing novel therapeutics for neurological conditions, to expand their pipeline of drug candidates for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders,” said Brian Alexander, M.D., MPH, CEO of Valo Health. “Starting with human causal biology in vast amounts of real-world data allows us to unravel the complexity of heterogeneous diseases like Parkinson’s and start experimentation with human validated mechanisms, giving us greater confidence that a target will translate into a successful therapeutic candidate.”
Valo continues to advance its own pipeline across multiple disease areas while working with pharmaceutical partners to accelerate preclinical research. By pairing its early discovery capabilities with the clinical development scale of companies such as Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, Valo aims to advance drug candidates more efficiently and deliver new therapies to patients sooner.
