MRK vs NCNA

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.

NuCana plc

NuCana plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, engages in the development of products for the treatment of cancer. The company develops its products based on its proprietary ProTide technology. Its lead product candidate includes Acelarin, which is in Phase I clinical trial for patients with advanced solid tumors; Phase Ib for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer; Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of patients with biliary tract cancer; Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer; and Phase III clinical trial for the treatment of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The company is also developing NUC-3373, a ProTide transformation of the active anti-cancer metabolite of 5-fluorouracil, which is in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors; and NUC-7738, a nucleoside analog that is in Phase I clinical trial for the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors and hematological tumors. NuCana plc has a research, collaboration, and license agreement with Cardiff University and University College Cardiff Consultants Ltd. for the design, synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of ProTides; and an assignment, license, and collaboration agreement with Cardiff ProTides Ltd. The company was formerly known as NuCana BioMed Limited and changed its name to NuCana plc in August 2017. NuCana plc was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom.