Merck’s R&D head Peter Kim has often discussed the excitement at the company on the day in late 2009 that its acquisition of Schering-Plough closed and the curtain shielding the two organization’s pipelines from one another was drawn. Kim himself spent hours in front of a computer, gleefully filing through the database of compounds now under his watch. But in today’s rough R&D climate, pharma companies simply can’t afford to do everything and anything. Almost as soon as the pipelines were combined, Merck also had to file through all its compounds and decide which to shed. Though Merck has not specified a number for how many programs it is cutting overall, the pipeline reorganization is said to be substantial. At the BIO annual meeting, held last week in DC, I sat down with Meeta Chatterjee, Merck & Co.’s head of global outlicensing and asset management, to chat about how Merck is going about finding new homes for those compounds.
