The Merck Digital Sciences Studio (MDSS) continues to deliver on its mission to accelerate groundbreaking digital health and biotech startups. With recent milestones from several alumni, the studio’s unique combination of mentorship, capital, and corporate access is clearly helping to turn early-stage innovation into real-world impact.
Here are two notable updates from MDSS portfolio companies shaping the future of precision oncology.
Serinus Bio Named on $23.6M ARPA-H Award for Predictive Cancer Modeling
Serinus Bio, an MDSS Cohort 2 company, has been selected as a key partner on a major ARPA-H award led by Trey Ideker, the company’s scientific cofounder and a professor at UC San Diego. The award provides up to $23.6 million in funding for a project titled Dynamic Digital Tumors for Precision Oncology.
The initiative aims to transform cancer care by building AI-based Drug Recommender Engines (DREs) that can simulate tumor evolution and predict therapy response. These tools are designed to support more accurate and personalized treatment decisions in oncology.
Serinus Bio is contributing its proprietary platform for mapping protein-protein interactions. Unlike traditional approaches that target and neutralize individual proteins, Serinus focuses on identifying combination therapies that disrupt critical protein-protein interaction networks specific to each disease. This approach has the potential to address therapeutic resistance and uncover new, more effective treatment strategies while minimizing negative side effects.
This award marks a major validation of Serinus’s platform and highlights the growing role of systems biology in the future of cancer therapeutics.
Nine Diagnostics and Orbits Oncology Team Up on Biomarker Discovery
Two other MDSS alumni, Nine Diagnostics (Cohort 3) and Orbits Oncology (Cohort 2), have announced a collaboration that brings together their respective platforms to advance biomarker discovery in oncology.
Nine Diagnostics has developed a novel nanosensor-based system that leverages AI for high-throughput proteomics and metabolomics. This technology enables rapid, multiplexed detection of biological signatures in clinical samples.
Orbits Oncology, on the other hand, has built an AI-powered computational platform to match cancer patients with the most appropriate therapies based on patient-tumor-specific organoids. The collaboration will combine Nine’s detection capabilities with Orbits’ organoids and predictive algorithms to identify and validate new multi-modal signature profiles that could accelerate therapy matching and improve outcomes for patients.
This partnership exemplifies a growing trend in the biotech sector towards combining molecular tools and AI platforms to deliver more personalized, effective treatments for patients.
About the Merck Digital Sciences Studio
The Merck Digital Sciences Studio is a collaboration between Merck and the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), a New Jersey Institute of Technology corporation, with investments from the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Northpond Ventures and McKesson Ventures. Technology support is provided by Microsoft for Startups.
Through curated cohorts and intensive support, MDSS continues to empower biotech startups tackling some of the most complex challenges in healthcare—from drug development to diagnostics and patient care.