Partnership includes upfront and potential milestone payments totaling up to over 3 billion dollars

Valo Health, Inc. (“Valo”), a company pioneering the use of human data and AI to accelerate drug discovery and development, today announced a strategic collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, to advance therapeutic discovery in Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. The partnership will leverage Valo’s AI-enabled human causal biology platform to identify and validate novel disease targets and its closed loop discovery platform to rapidly generate preclinical compounds. The partnership includes upfront and potential milestone payments totaling up to over 3 billion dollars, as well as royalties and R&D funding.

“Our research engine is focused on delivering meaningful medicines for patients with high unmet medical needs. Valo Health’s AI‑enabled platforms utilizing human data will help sharpen target selection and streamline drug discovery, enabling us to advance the most promising candidates faster,” said Amy Kao, Global Head of Neurology & Immunology Research Unit at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

Valo’s human causal biology platform harnesses unique access to more than 17 million de-identified patient records—some spanning 20 to 30 years—and biobank samples, combined with advanced AI, to uncover disease patterns and pinpoint potential targets for therapeutic intervention. In neurological conditions specifically, this robust human data has enabled Valo to identify distinct patient phenotypes across the disease spectrum, each defined by unique clinical characteristics that influence progression and reveal areas of unmet need. Using human-validated targets as a starting point, Valo’s closed loop chemistry platform is designed to rapidly develop and optimize small molecules that are engineered to engage these novel disease targets.

“We look forward to partnering with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leader in developing novel therapeutics for neurological conditions, to expand their pipeline of drug candidates for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders,” said Brian Alexander, MD, MPH, CEO, Valo Health. “Starting with human causal biology in vast amounts of real-world data allows us to unravel the complexity of heterogeneous diseases like Parkinson’s and start experimentation with human validated mechanisms, giving us greater confidence that a target will translate into a successful therapeutic candidate.”

Valo has a dual approach to therapeutic discovery: advancing its own pipeline of assets across multiple disease areas, while partnering with pharmaceutical companies like Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany to accelerate pre-clinical R&D. By integrating Valo’s early R&D capabilities with the clinical development expertise and scale of its pharmaceutical partners, promising drug candidates can be advanced more efficiently and delivered to patients, faster.

About Valo Health:

Valo is redefining drug discovery and development through its AI-enabled human causal biology and closed loop chemistry platforms. Valo uses AI to understand disease causality, identify patient subtypes across heterogeneous diseases, and pinpoint novel drug targets. The company validates targets using proprietary 3D engineered human tissue models that mimic mature human physiology and structure. Its closed loop chemistry platform enables rapid development of potential molecules from trillions of starting points. Valo’s approach aims to identify more impactful drug targets and small molecule therapeutics, faster, and with greater precision than traditional R&D methods. Valo was founded by Flagship Pioneering in 2019. Follow us on LinkedIn and X.

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