PharmaTelevision - Merck Serono Secures Future Pipeline

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Video title: Merck Serono Secures Future Pipeline

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In March 2009 Merck Serono announced that they had set up a strategic Venture Fund to invest in biotech companies with interesting programmes that are in line with Merck Serono’s strategic thinking. At BIO 2009 Dr. Jöern-Peter Halle, VP Early Stage Licensing, joined Fintan Walton to discuss how this fund will give the company enviable access to exciting innovation in their main therapy areas.

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Merck Serono early stage licensing and focused therapeutic areas.

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaVentures business review here at Bio in Atlanta. On this show I have Joern Peter Halle who is Vice President of Early Stage Licensing at Merck Serono. Welcome to the show.

Joern Peter Halle:

Thank you.

Fintan Walton:

Merck Serono is an interesting company. It's based in Switzerland. It's a product of merger between the German E. Merck and Serono a Swiss biotech company very famous, pulled together to create this new entity, your role obviously as I said is to bring in licensing opportunities. Could you describe what that role really is? What do you mean by early stage licensing and the type of products you are trying end license?

Joern Peter Halle:

Right, so early stage means for us everything prior to IND filing, so everything that is not yet in the clinic. However I also have research and evaluation function, so people of my in my team look for opportunities across the board so pre clinical development, discovery stage but also in clinical stage so really have to have a comprehensive view about what's going on in biotech companies and other pharma companies. As I said I do the pre clinical meaning prior to IND negotiations with my team.

Fintan Walton:

And the types of product areas that you are trying to cover at now are just one of those?

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Joern Peter Halle

VP Early Stage Licensing

Joern Peter Halle is heading the Early Stage Licensing function at Merck Serono, which includes a Search & Evaluation function for all therapeutic areas and development stages and the negotiation of enabling technology and pre-clinical candidate deals. Previously Senior Licensing Manager for Merck KGaA he led several successful in-licensing projects and made significant contributions to acquisitions. Prior to joining Merck in 2005, he co-founded the biotech company Switch Biotech in 1997 where he held management positions with increasing responsibilities including the position of Chief Business Officer. He has a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Konstanz, Germany, did his post-doc in biochemistry at the Gene Center in Munich, and worked as a freelance bioinformatics consultant.

Merck Serono

Merck SeronoEMD Serono in the United States and Canada is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company combines its complementary expertise in new chemical entities (NCEs) and new biological entities (NBEs) to offer innovative prescription drugs of either origin. With comprehensive skills in all areas from research and development to manufacturing, marketing and sales, the division offers its world-class products in over 150 countries worldwide. Their strategically positioned workforce of 8,000 sales and marketing employees ensures commercial coverage in the U.S and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan. Merck Serono focuses on finding ways of responding to significant unmet medical needs. They do this by bringing treatments and services to patients in the therapy areas they know best: oncology, neurodegenerative diseases, fertility, endocrinology, cardiometabolic care and other specialist areas such as dermatology. They have six innovative biotechnology products on the market, which together generate more than half of their sales worldwide: Erbitux, Saizen, Rebif, Serostim, GONAL-f.