Overview

• Genmab submitted a takeover offer valued at roughly $8 billion, or about €6.8 billion, for Merus on September 29, and the transaction has not yet closed.
• CEO Jan van de Winkel said he has high expectations for the deal and that Genmab plans to retain ownership of acquired drugs and sell them itself.
• Merus’s antibody petosemtamab has produced encouraging head‑and‑neck cancer data and remains in clinical development with hopes for a 2027 launch subject to further trials and approvals.
• The companies’ Utrecht R&D sites sit side by side, and the move is viewed as strengthening the local biotech cluster and keeping Dutch expertise from shifting abroad.
• Merus, founded in 2003 with a Cambridge, Massachusetts site and about 260 staff earlier this year, saw its market value jump after releasing promising petosemtamab results in May.