Frontier IP, notes the following announcement from portfolio company Exscientia plc ("Exscientia" or the "Company") of a new collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, ("Merck") focused on the discovery of novel small molecule drug candidates across oncology, neuroinflammation and immunology. Under the terms of the agreement, Exscientia will receive an upfront cash payment of $20 million from Merck and will be eligible for discovery, development, regulatory and sales-based milestone payments of up to $674 million in aggregate if all milestones for three initial programmes are achieved. Frontier IP holds a 0.4% equity stake in Exscientia.