Merck signed a research and development collaboration with the Mayo Clinic to integrate Mayo Clinic Platform clinical and genomic datasets with Merck’s AI‑enabled virtual cell technologies. The initial focus areas are inflammatory bowel disease, atopic dermatitis, and multiple sclerosis, with the stated goal of accelerating target identification and improving candidate validation. Under the agreement, Merck gains access to Mayo’s clinical registries, biorepositories and computational tools to validate and translate AI‑driven hypotheses into drug discovery programs. Company leadership framed the deal as an effort to combine high‑quality clinical data with machine‑learned insights to raise program success probabilities and speed preclinical decisions.