MRK vs SAGE

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.

Sage Therapeutics Inc.

Sage Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes medicines to treat central nervous system disorders. Its lead product candidate is ZULRESSO, an intravenous formulation of brexanolone for the treatment of postpartum depression (PPD) in adults. The company's product pipeline also includes zuranolone, a neuroactive steroid, which is in Phase III clinical trials for treating PPD, major depressive disorders, bipolar depression, and generalized anxiety disorders; and SAGE-324, a compound that is in Phase II clinical trial to treat essential tremors, as well as has completed Phase I clinical trial for epilepsy and Parkinson's diseases. In addition, its product pipeline comprises SAGE-718, an oxysterol-based positive allosteric modulator of the NMDA receptor, which has completed Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of depression, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, and neuropathic pain. Sage Therapeutics, Inc. has a strategic collaboration with Shionogi & Co., Ltd. for the development and commercialization of zuranolone in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; and a collaboration and license agreement with Biogen MA Inc. to jointly develop and commercialize SAGE-217 and SAGE-324 products. The company was formerly known as Sterogen Biopharma, Inc. and changed its name to Sage Therapeutics, Inc. in September 2011. Sage Therapeutics, Inc. was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.