CDMO vs MRK

Avid Bioservices Inc.

Avid Bioservices, Inc., a contract development and manufacturing organization, provides process development and current good manufacturing practices (CGMP) clinical and commercial manufacturing services focused on biopharmaceutical drug substances derived from mammalian cell culture. It produces monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins; and offers services, including CGMP clinical and commercial drug substance manufacturing, bulk packaging, release and stability testing, and regulatory submission and support. The company also provides various process development services, such as upstream and downstream development and optimization, analytical methods development, testing, and characterization. It serves biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. The company was formerly known as Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and changed its name to Avid Bioservices, Inc. in January 2018. Avid Bioservices, Inc. was incorporated in 1981 and is headquartered in Tustin, California.

Merck & Company Inc.

Merck & Co., Inc. operates as a healthcare company worldwide. It operates through two segments, Pharmaceutical and Animal Health segments. The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular, diabetes, and women's health, as well as vaccine products. The Animal Health segment provides discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets a range of veterinary pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and health management solutions and services, as well as a suite of digitally connected identification, traceability, and monitoring products. The company has collaborations with AstraZeneca PLC; Bayer AG; Eisai Co., Ltd.; and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. It serves drug wholesalers and retailers, hospitals, and government agencies; managed health care providers, such as health maintenance organizations, pharmacy benefit managers, and other institutions; and physicians and physician distributors, veterinarians, and animal producers. The company has collaboration agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to co-develop and co-commercialize long-acting investigational treatment combinations of Lenacapavir and Islatravir in HIV; Amathus Therapeutics to develop treatments for neurodegenerative diseases; and Linnaeus Therapeutics, Inc. to evaluate LNS8801 in combination with KEYTRUDA for patients with advanced cancer. It also has a collaboration with Biomed X Gmbh for building on ongoing research projects in the fields of oncology (DNA damage response and RNA splicing) and autoimmunity (intestinal epithelial barrier in autoimmune diseases); and a collaboration agreement with NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. to focus primarily on the development of novel medicines for unmet patient needs in retinal and CVM diseases, including heart failure. Merck & Co., Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Kenilworth, New Jersey.