Infinimmune's Anthrobody platform has drawn Merck (NYSE: MRK) into a multi-target antibody discovery collaboration structured around human immune repertoire screening and AI-guided antibody engineering. Under the agreement, the Alameda, California-based biotech will apply its Anthrobody® discovery system and GLIMPSE antibody language model against multiple undisclosed targets designated by Merck, with all resulting candidates licensed exclusively to the pharma for development and commercialization. The deal covers a discovery-stage pipeline with no named clinical assets at signing.
Infinimmune will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and is eligible for milestone payments across multiple programs totaling up to approximately USD 838 million. No royalty terms were disclosed. Merck retains exclusive global rights to develop and commercialize any antibody candidates arising from the collaboration.
Deal context
The Anthrobody platform interrogates naturally occurring human B cells at single-cell resolution, isolating natively paired antibody sequences from individuals whose immune systems have already selected and refined candidates against disease-relevant antigens. This distinguishes the approach from animal immunization, which requires subsequent humanization, and from phage or yeast display systems, which select antibodies from synthetic libraries in vitro rather than from in vivo human immune responses. The GLIMPSE model, described by Infinimmune as an antibody language model trained on a dataset of naturally occurring human antibody sequences, is then applied to guide engineering of identified candidates for affinity, manufacturability, and reduced immunogenicity. No independently published benchmarking data for either component was available in the source materials.