Merck Partners with Mayo Clinic on AI-Driven Drug Discovery Platform

Merck and Mayo Clinic announced a research and development agreement on February 18, 2026, to leverage artificial intelligence and advanced analytics for drug discovery and development. This marks Mayo Clinic's first strategic collaboration of this scale with a global biopharmaceutical company.

The collaboration will integrate Mayo Clinic's Platform architecture, clinical insights and genomic datasets with Merck's AI and machine learning capabilities to enhance disease understanding and improve target identification in early drug development. Through Mayo Clinic Platform_Orchestrate, Merck will gain access to de-identified clinical and multimodal data sets, including laboratory results, medical imaging, clinical notes and molecular data.

The partnership will initially focus on three therapeutic areas: inflammatory bowel disease, atopic dermatitis, and multiple sclerosis. These areas were selected as ones where advanced analytics and multimodal approaches could potentially advance the development of more effective and tailored therapies.

The chairman and CEO of Merck stated that by working with Mayo Clinic, the company aims to integrate high-quality clinical data and AI-enabled insights into discovery research to improve target identification and, ultimately, the probability of success for its programs. The CEO emphasized that new cutting-edge technologies are enhancing the company's ability to innovate with the potential to bring important new therapies to patients faster.

The president and CEO of Mayo Clinic stated that by combining Mayo Clinic Platform's de-identified data, clinical expertise and Platform technology with Merck's world-class research and development capabilities, the organizations are poised to speed innovative breakthroughs to patients and redefine drug development. The CEO added that this collaboration represents a new present and future for healthcare—one where platform-based collaboration leads to more answers, more cures and better outcomes for patients worldwide.

Mayo Clinic Platform_Orchestrate provides Merck direct access to Mayo Clinic's world-class clinical and scientific expertise; platform data including de-identified clinical and multimodal data sets, registries and biorepositories; advanced AI tools and analytics; and the ability to scale solutions. This wealth of data will be crucial for validating AI models and translating research into tangible development strategies.

The agreement builds on Merck's broader investments in AI/ML-enabled discovery across computational biology, AI foundation models and real-world data analysis. The initiative builds upon Merck's existing investments in AI and machine learning, encompassing computational and spatial biology, and real-world data analysis.