MRK vs RIGL

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.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company, discovers and develops small molecule drugs to treat hematologic disorders, cancer, and rare immune diseases. The company offers Tavalisse, an oral spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor for the treatment of adult patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia. It also develops Fostamatinib that is in phase III clinical trial for the treatment of warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia; phase II clinical trial for the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients; and phase II clinical trial for the treatment of COVID-19. In addition, the company is developing R835, an oral interleukin receptor associated kinase 1/4 inhibitor, which is in phase I clinical trial for autoimmune, inflammatory, and hematology-oncology diseases; and R552, a receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 inhibitor that has completed phase I clinical trial for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. It has research and license agreements with Aclaris Therapeutics International Limited for the development and commercialization of janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors for the treatment of alopecia areata and other dermatological conditions; AstraZeneca AB for the development and commercialization of R256, an inhaled JAK inhibitor; BerGenBio AS for the development and commercialization of AXL inhibitors in oncology; and Daiichi Sankyo to develop murine double minute 2 inhibitors for solid and hematological malignancies, as well as license and supply agreement with Kissei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. to develop and commercialize Fostamatinib. The company also has a license agreement and strategic collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company to co-develop and commercialize R552 for various indications, including autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, as well as other non-central nervous system (non-CNS) disease development candidates. Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.