- 1. Merck Statement on SmartCells Provided on March 15, 2012 by Nancy Thornberry, Senior Vice President and Research Head, Diabetes and Endocrinology “Merck is very committed to bringing new innovative products to market that meet unmet medical needs and diabetes remains one of their core areas of research. The SmartCells acquisition reflects this commitment, and we understand that Merck continues to be very excited about the possibilities with this technology; it is a very important early stage program for them. In fact, Merck recently mentioned SmartCells as one of its important areas of research in diabetes during its November 2011 investor briefing.” 1
- 2. Source: Merck's 2011 R&D and Business Briefing Thursday, November 10, 2011 2
- 3. Merck Public Comments on SmartCells Nancy Thornberry, Senior Vice President and Research Head, Diabetes and Endocrinology “In addition, late last year we invested in the acquisition of SmartCells. SmartCells developed a technology that could potentially result in a glucose responsive insulin, that is an insulin with a substantially lower risk of hypoglycemia, relative to currently available insulin analogues. While this is still an early stage program, we believe that this approach has the potential to be a game changer and this illustrates the kind of new mechanisms that we are pursuing in the labs in both the oral and the non oral space to identify next generation therapies for the treatment of both type 2 and type 1 diabetes.” Source: Merck's 2011 R&D and Business Briefing, Thursday, November 10, 2011 3 (Thomson StreetEvents Final Transcript, p.33)