MSD (Merck) and Mayo Clinic have entered into a research and development agreement to use artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics and multimodal clinical data to support drug discovery and development.[1][2] The agreement integrates the Mayo Clinic Platform architecture, along with clinical and genomic data, with MSD's ambitions in AI-powered virtual cell technologies for better disease understanding, target identification and early development decisions.[1][2] Through the Mayo Clinic Platform, MSD gains access to de-identified clinical and multimodal data, registries, biorepositories, advanced AI tools, and expertise from both the US and an international network of partners.[1][2] The Mayo Clinic PlatformOrchestrate program provides direct access to data including laboratory results, medical images, clinical notes and molecular data to validate AI models and translate research into strategies.[1][2] This is Mayo Clinic's first strategic collaboration of this size with a global biopharmaceutical company.[1][2][3] The collaboration will initially focus on the fields of gastroenterology (inflammatory bowel diseases), dermatology (atopic dermatitis) and neurology (multiple sclerosis).[3] The goal is to accelerate innovation and bring more effective and personalized therapies to patients.[1][2][3]