Bill Taranto

And so that was another big subtle change that happened along the growth of the fund.

But today we're very focused on pharma problems.

Like I said, pharma services, which is kind of defines where the biggest use cases exist for the industry.

and instead trying to price equity in order to solve those problems.

And as like any sort of solution, we're one tool in the toolbox for external innovation for Merck.

Merck has BD, they have licensing, they have

external partnerships that don't require equity.

But we think we're really one of the forefronts of external innovation for Merck.

And what's really interesting, the other thing that's evolved and the final thing I'll say is the integration of Merck into working with our portfolio.

In the last five years, Merck has really engaged with our portfolio companies.

In fact, over 70% of our portfolio companies has some type of commercial engagement with Merck.

We have 70 plus agreements valued at over $225 million in contract value.

And what's interesting, one of the most fascinating things that happened this year in our AI and ML and drug discovery, Merck licensed the first AI ML created vaccine from one of our portfolio companies.

They licensed it in to try to create a phase one product going forward.

So that was a big first step even in that space.

So the good news is,

We're providing financial returns for Merck, which we have to do as an evergreen fund, but we're also providing the strategic return, which is extremely important as well.

Sure.

So on the PE side, one of the big things we did, we originally, when we started in 2010, Merck was actually in cardiovascular care.

We ended up leaving, but we're back in cardiovascular today, which shows you how the evolution of pharma works.