Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL) has entered into a collaboration agreement with Merck & Co Inc., which operates in India through its subsidiary MSD Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, in the area of research and development to discover and develop new drugs for two selected targets provided by Merck.

NPIL will be responsible for carrying out an integrated drug discovery programme from hits to leads through pre-clinical candidate selection, followed by Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling non-clinical studies and human clinical trials demonstrating proof-of-concept primarily for oncology. Merck will have an option to advance the most promising drug candidates into late stage clinical trials and to commercialize these drug candidates. NPIL will be eligible to receive milestone payments associated with progress in the development of drug candidates of up to $175 million per target, plus royalties on sales of any products resulting from the collaboration.

Commenting on the collaboration agreement, Dr Swati Piramal, director - strategic alliances and communications, NPIL said, "The Merck-Nicholas Piramal research collaboration is a major step in bringing the cross-border synergies to drug development which should have cost, quality and time advantages and should benefit patients worldwide in reducing the burden of disease".