MRK vs PTGX

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.

Protagonist Therapeutics Inc.

Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, discovers and develops peptide-based therapeutic drugs to address unmet medical needs. It is developing PTG-300, an injectable hepcidin mimetic that is in Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of patients with polycythemia vera and hereditary hemochromatosis, as well as for the treatment of other blood disorders; PTG-200, an oral, interleukin-23 receptor specific antagonist peptide, which is in phase II clinical trial for the treatment of moderate-to-severe Crohn's disease; and PN-943, an oral, alpha-4-beta-7 specific integrin antagonist that is in Phase II clinical trial for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The company has a license and collaboration agreement with Janssen Biotech, Inc. for the development, manufacture, and commercialization of PTG-200 for the treatment of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis; and PN-235 and PN-232 oral interleukin-23 receptor antagonist candidates for IBD and non-IBD indications. Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Newark, California.