Merck announced a research-and-development collaboration with the Mayo Clinic to combine clinical and genomic datasets from the Mayo Clinic Platform with Merck’s AI-enabled virtual cell technologies. The initial focus includes inflammatory bowel disease, atopic dermatitis and multiple sclerosis. Under the agreement Merck will access Mayo’s registries, biorepositories and analytical tools to validate AI models and accelerate target identification and early discovery. The deal does not disclose financial terms but emphasizes integration of high-quality clinical data with computational biology to improve hit‑to‑lead translation. For drug developers, the pact underlines the strategic value of clinical-scale, multi‑modal human datasets to reduce translational risk and expedite target selection—especially in immune and inflammatory diseases where patient heterogeneity complicates discovery.