Merck & Co. signed a R&D collaboration deal with data and technology provider Culmination Bio, a recent spinoff from Intermountain Health.
Under the deal, Merck gets access to Culmination’s clinical records and bio specimen data collected from several cohorts, the companies said in a Jan. 25 press release.
Culmination has exclusive rights to a physical library and cloud-based data pool that spans more than 40 years of de-identified patient electronic health records and paired biospecimen data as part of a partnership with Intermountain. The data can be used to dramatically speed clinical trial recruitment for pharmaceutical research.
Financial terms of the agreement weren't disclosed.
“Our collaboration with Merck represents a significant milestone in our mission to accelerate healthcare research,” Lincoln Nadauld, president and CEO of Culmination Bio, said in the release. “This agreement exemplifies the need for rapid access to high-quality longitudinal patient data spanning decades to inform clinical research.”
Intermountain, a Utah-based not-for-profit health system of 33 hospitals, spun Culmination off in March 2023.
In November, Culmination reeled in a $10 million investment from the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Amgen Ventures.