McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Frankfurt, November 26, 2025 — McDermott Will & Schulte has advised Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, on entering into a strategic partnership with Valo Health, Inc., a US-based company pioneering the use of human data and AI to accelerate drug discovery and development, 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, as well as royalties and R&D funding.

Valo Health, Inc., headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, was founded in 2019 and has developed an AI-powered platform for human genetic causation research that provides access to more than 17 million anonymized patient records and biobank samples to identify drug targets and small molecule therapeutics faster and more accurately than traditional R&D methods.

Merck KGaA, a leading pharmaceutical company, is active in the fields of healthcare, life science, and performance materials. With over 62,000 employees, the group generated sales of €21.2 billion in 65 countries in 2024.

The McDermott team was led by partner Monika Richter and comprised partners Johannes Eckhardt and David M. Santangelo.

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