Dragonfly Therapeutics Announces Multi-Target Expansion of its Collaboration with Merck to Use Dragonfly's Proprietary TriNKET™ Platform to Develop Novel Therapeutic Candidates in the fields of Oncology, Infectious Disease, and Immune Disorders

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Mar 19, 2020, 09:00 ET

WALTHAM, Mass., March 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc. ("Dragonfly"), today announced an expansion of its strategic collaboration with Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada to discover, develop and commercialize a number of Dragonfly's candidate natural killer ("NK") cell engager immunotherapies for oncology, infectious disease, and immune disorders.

Under the agreement Dragonfly will grant Merck, through a subsidiary, the option to license exclusive worldwide intellectual property rights to multiple candidates developed using Dragonfly's TriNKET™ technology platform for a number of new targets. Merck will pay Dragonfly approximately $47.5 million consisting of an upfront cash payment and an equity investment in the company. In addition, Dragonfly is eligible to receive additional payments associated with development, regulatory and sales milestones as well as potential royalties on sales of approved product.

"Merck is a world leader in drug development across a wide number of therapeutic areas, has a demonstrated history of delivering breakthrough treatment options for patients, and has been a fantastic partner for us over the past several years," said Bill Haney, co-founder and CEO of Dragonfly Therapeutics. "We're excited to expand our work with Merck beyond cancer into infectious disease and immune disorders, where we believe our novel NK-cell engager therapies may have strong advantages as drug candidates."

"We are pleased with the progress made to date working with our colleagues at DragonFly and look forward to expanding our work to include additional therapeutic candidates," said Dr. Dean Li, Senior Vice President Discovery and Translational Medicine, Merck Research Laboratories.

About Dragonfly
Dragonfly Therapeutics is committed to discovering, developing and commercializing therapies that use its novel TriNKET™ technology to harness the body's innate immune system to bring breakthrough cancer treatments to patients.

For more information visit: www.dragonflytx.com, https://twitter.com/dragonflytx https://www.linkedin.com/company/dragonfly-therapeutics-inc./, or www.facebook.com/dragonflytherapeutics/

Media Contact: Anne Deconinck [email protected]

SOURCE Dragonfly Therapeutics, Inc.