# Historic Biotech IPO, Merck, Protillion’s AI Deal, Testing a Lassa–Rabies Vaccine Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/touching-base-6714887/historic-biotech-ipo-merck-protillion-s-ai-deal-testing-a-lassa-rabies-vaccine Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/touching-base-6714887/historic-biotech-ipo-merck-protillion-s-ai-deal-testing-a-lassa-rabies-vaccine.md Podcast: [Touching Base](https://stenobird.com/podcast/touching-base-6714887) Published: 2026-06-18T17:14:57+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/touching-base/episodes/historic-biotech-ipo-merck-protillions-ai-deal-testing-a-las Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/65736d39d32e730012c98919/e/6a34279ff1612f1c695286eb/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/touching-base-6714887/episodes/historic-biotech-ipo-merck-protillion-s-ai-deal-testing-a-lassa-rabies-vaccine Duration seconds: 2082 ## Resource We are still talking about big pharma deals and biotech fundraising in this episode. The big news this week was Parabilis Medicines’s history-making IPO. We dive into the drug developer’s plans for the eye-popping $770.5 million that it raised. Next, we discuss the details of a collaboration between Merck and Protillion Biosciences to use artificial intelligence to discover multiple therapeutic candidates. Turning to some newly published research, we discuss the early results of a first-in-human clinical trial that is testing a dual vaccine against Lassa fever and rabies, a CRISPR system engineered to selectively trigger cancer cell death by chromatin shredding, and a novel mRNA delivery platform for delivering gene therapies starting with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.   Join GEN editors Corinna Singleman, PhD, Alex Philippidis, Uduak Thomas, and Fay Lin, PhD, for a discussion of the latest biotech and biopharma news.      Listed below are links to the GEN stories referenced in this episode of Touching Base :    StockWatch: Parabilis Medicines Makes Wall Street History with $770.5M IPO By Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge , June 14, 2026 Merck, Protillion Launch AI Drug Discovery Collaboration with Up-to-$510M in Milestone Payments By Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge , June 16, 2026 First-in-Human Trial Reports Promising Dual Lassa–Rabies Vaccine Data GEN , June 9, 2026 CRISPR Shreds Undruggable Cancer Cells with Precision By Fay Lin, PhD, GEN Edge , June 8, 2026 New mRNA Delivery Platform Restores Muscle Function in DMD Models GEN , June 11, 2026 Touching Base Podcast   Hosted by Corinna Singleman, PhD    Behind the Breakthroughs   Hosted by Jonathan D. Grinstein, PhD  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/touching-base-6714887/episodes/historic-biotech-ipo-merck-protillion-s-ai-deal-testing-a-lassa-rabies-vaccine/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/touching-base-6714887/historic-biotech-ipo-merck-protillion-s-ai-deal-testing-a-lassa-rabies-vaccine.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.