Nearly six years after becoming a standalone business, Merz Therapeutics is expanding beyond its neurotoxin heritage to build a broader specialty neurology platform across Europe and internationally. Newly appointed Region Europe Head Dan Staner discusses the company’s long-term ambitions in specialty neurology, while also reflecting on the growing importance of market access, execution, and strategic focus in an increasingly complex healthcare environment.
What attracted you to Merz Therapeutics, and how do you see the company evolving over the coming years?
When I interviewed with Stefan König, there was an immediate alignment around the ambition for the business and the direction we want to take Merz Therapeutics by 2030. Coming from large American public companies into a 118-year-old German family-owned organisation was a very interesting transition for me. One of the major differences is the ability to think much more long term. In a privately owned business like Merz Therapeutics, you are not constantly driven by quarterly optimisation or short-term market expectations, which creates the space to build sustainable strategies and continue investing with a longer horizon. At the same time, there is a strong desire to preserve the values and culture that have historically defined the organisation while bringing in the execution discipline needed to scale the business further.
That focus on execution is extremely important to me personally. We are a growing organisation of over 1,000 people, and one of the advantages of that scale is the ability to remain agile and close to the business. People speak openly, there are fewer layers, and there is a genuine willingness to move quickly and make things happen.
Strategically, our ambition is to strengthen Merz Therapeutics as a focused specialty neurology player while building on the strong heritage we already have in neurotoxins and movement disorders. We are now expanding beyond that foundation through both internal R&D and external acquisitions, with the objective of building a broader specialty neurology platform. The 2024 acquisition of INBRIJA for Parkinson’s disease and FAMPYRA for multiple sclerosis-related walking impairment from Acorda Therapeutics is a good example of that direction. Alongside our internal pipeline, we continue evaluating opportunities that can complement our capabilities in neurology and support the next phase of growth for Merz Therapeutics in Europe and internationally.
Why has Merz Therapeutics chosen to deepen its focus on specialty neurology despite the scientific and commercial complexity of the field?
Over the last three to five years, neurology has seen one of the highest levels of activity in terms of approvals and clinical development alongside oncology, which reflects both the scale of the unmet medical need and the growing momentum behind neuroscience innovation.
What makes the field particularly compelling is the demographic and societal shift we are all witnessing. People are living longer, but they increasingly want those additional years to come with quality of life, mobility, and independence. Whether you look at stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, migraine, pain, or paediatric neurological conditions, the unmet need remains enormous. Merz itself has a long history in neuroscience through the development of memantine, marketed internationally as Namenda and Ebixa, which reinforced our conviction that neurodegenerative diseases remain the right area in which to invest, even if they are among the most scientifically challenging fields in medicine. Neurology research remains difficult because endpoints can be complex, placebo effects are often high, and the brain is still one of the least understood organs in medicine.
That complexity is also what makes the field so rewarding because even incremental innovation can have a profound impact on a patient’s daily life. Helping a stroke patient regain mobility and independence, improving quality of life for someone living with Parkinson’s disease, or supporting children affected by severe neurological conditions can fundamentally change the trajectory of a person’s life over many years. Migraine and pain are also areas where the unmet medical need remains enormous despite decades of research and development, which is why we continue to believe this is the right place for us to focus.
Our strategy therefore combines internal R&D with external innovation, partnerships, and acquisitions in order to continue building scale in specialty neurology. The family remains highly supportive of that long-term approach, and we continuously evaluate opportunities that can complement our existing capabilities and strengthen the value we bring to neurologists and specialist treatment centres. Neurotoxins also remain a very important foundation for us. There is still considerable untapped potential in botulinum toxin science across neurology and other therapeutic areas, which is why we continue to see a large number of investigator-initiated trials exploring new applications and indications.
Neurotoxins are now well established across Europe and the US, with approvals spanning multiple neurological indications including spasticity, cervical dystonia, blepharospasm, and sialorrhea, supported by a strong long-term efficacy and safety profile. We believe there is still substantial room to continue developing that platform while simultaneously broadening Merz Therapeutics into a wider specialty neurology organisation.
How does paediatrics fit into Merz Therapeutics’ broader neurology strategy, and what role could rare neurological diseases play in the company’s future direction?
It is both a strategic expansion and a natural extension of the work we have already been doing for many years in neurology. We are increasingly broadening our focus towards specialty neurology, and you can see the same evolution taking place across the industry as companies move deeper into neurology and rare diseases because the unmet medical need remains very significant. At Merz Therapeutics, we see the same opportunity, particularly as scientific understanding and treatment possibilities continue to advance across neurodegenerative and neuromuscular conditions. At the same time, our move into paediatrics emerged very organically from the close relationships we have built over decades with neurologists and specialist treatment centres working in areas such as spasticity and sialorrhea.
When you see the impact that severe spasticity can have on an adult patient following a stroke, where something as simple as opening an arm or holding a glass again can restore a degree of mobility, independence, and dignity, it naturally raises broader questions around children affected by cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders. In those cases, treatment is not simply about managing a clinical symptom, but about helping children maintain mobility, reduce stigma, and improve quality of life over many years. We therefore developed those paediatric indications progressively. The response we have seen so far from caregivers and physicians has been extremely encouraging.
For the latest regulatory submission, the target population is primarily children and adolescents with spasticity of the lower and upper limb, which is commonly associated with neurological conditions, such as cerebral palsy (CP). In more severe cases, spasticity associated with CP can also affect speech, swallowing and fine motor skills, which highlights the unmet need associated with the condition.
How do you assess the current market access environment in Europe for neurological and paediatric therapies, and what does this mean for the future of innovation in these fields?
Market access remains one of the most challenging aspects of healthcare innovation in Europe, particularly in areas such as neurology and paediatrics where the scientific complexity is already extremely high. In paediatrics, that caution is understandable because children are the most vulnerable patient population, which means regulators and healthcare systems naturally require very robust safety and efficacy data before expanding access. Even so, reimbursement and access discussions remain difficult, and in many cases almost as challenging as the research itself. That is why market access has become such a critical function for us. Shortly after joining Merz Therapeutics, one of my first priorities was to strengthen the organisation in that area because, ultimately, innovation only matters once it reaches patients rather than remaining confined to publications, presentations, or theoretical discussions.
What often becomes most frustrating is not necessarily the scientific scrutiny itself, but the delays and complexity of the reimbursement pathway after the clinical work has already been completed. Neurology and neuropsychiatry are inherently difficult research areas because placebo effects can be high, endpoints are often subjective, and demonstrating meaningful clinical benefit is not always straightforward. In many cases, you are dealing with diseases where progression, cognition, mobility, or quality of life can be difficult to quantify through traditional assessment frameworks. As a result, the reimbursement effort can sometimes become almost as demanding as the R&D effort itself, particularly when innovative therapies are benchmarked against very low-cost generic comparators without fully recognising the level of scientific risk and investment required to develop new treatments in these fields.
You can see the long-term consequences of that dynamic in areas such as psychiatry and antibiotics. Once major therapies became generic, the economic incentive for companies to continue investing in high-risk neuroscience or anti-infective research declined significantly because any new product would immediately be compared against very inexpensive existing treatments. Over time, that gradually reduces innovation despite the fact that the unmet medical need remains substantial, whether in neurodegenerative disease, psychiatry, or antimicrobial resistance. If Europe wants companies, whether large pharmaceutical groups, biotechs, or smaller innovators, to continue investing in difficult areas such as neurology, then the broader policy and reimbursement environment must continue creating meaningful incentives for long-term R&D and for companies willing to take scientific risk in fields where progress remains urgently needed.
What importance does Europe hold within Merz Therapeutics’ long-term strategy, and how are you building the company’s broader pan-European presence?
Europe remains central to Merz Therapeutics, both strategically and culturally. We are a European company with more than 118 years of history, founded in Frankfurt in 1908 and still family-owned today, so Europe will always remain part of our DNA even as we continue expanding globally. Over time, the business has evolved from a much smaller organisation into a multi-billion-euro company with a growing international footprint and an expanding specialty neurology portfolio. The US has become an increasingly important growth market over recent years, but Europe continues to represent a substantial part of the organisation, not only commercially, but also in terms of heritage, infrastructure, R&D capabilities, and long-term strategic direction.
From an operational perspective, our approach is very similar to that of many mid-sized biopharma companies. In markets where we see sufficient scale, access potential, and long-term strategic relevance, particularly across Western Europe, we build direct affiliates with local capabilities and teams on the ground. In newer or smaller markets, we often begin through distribution partnerships before progressively transitioning towards a direct affiliate model once the business reaches the necessary maturity and critical mass. Poland is a good example of that progression. We initially operated through distribution partners before establishing our own affiliate once the market became strategically important enough, and we are now following a similar approach in other parts of Europe, including through the expansion of our Nordics affiliate. Slowly but steadily, we are building a broader direct presence across the region.
At the same time, continuing to grow across Europe depends not only on expanding the portfolio through internal and external R&D, but also on strengthening local market access capabilities. We already have the infrastructure, specialist neurology expertise, and operational know-how to support additional assets both in Europe and in the US, but execution ultimately happens country by country. While we do have global and regional market access leadership based in Germany, reimbursement and access decisions remain local, which means strong in-country capabilities and close coordination between global, regional, and local teams are essential if we want patients across Europe to benefit from innovation in a meaningful and timely way.
How is Merz Therapeutics building its identity within the increasingly competitive specialty neurology landscape?
Merz Therapeutics is still a relatively new company, so part of our focus today is continuing to build broader awareness of who we are becoming as a specialty neurology organisation. At the same time, within neurotoxins and movement disorders, neurologists already know us very well because of the long-standing presence and our history in the field. What we are now doing is extending that recognition into areas such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and broader neurospecialty care while establishing a more distinct identity following the separation of the businesses. That also means becoming increasingly visible internationally through major neurology and movement disorder congresses across both Europe and the US, while continuing to strengthen our corporate identity and broader presence within the neuroscience ecosystem.
That visibility is becoming even more important as competition for external innovation and acquisitions intensifies across the pharmaceutical industry. Many large pharmaceutical companies are now focused primarily on very large commercial opportunities with multi-billion-dollar revenue potential, whereas in neurology, outside areas such as Alzheimer’s disease, many assets may have peak sales potential closer to $500 million or $1 billion. For some of the largest organisations, those opportunities are no longer sufficiently material, particularly if neurology is not one of their core operational capabilities. For a focused specialty company like Merz Therapeutics, however, those assets can be highly meaningful provided you have the expertise, infrastructure, and long-term commitment required to operate effectively in the field. That is why our ambition is very clearly centred around becoming a recognised neurospecialty organisation, including in selected rare neurological diseases, while continuing to build the scale, capabilities, and critical mass needed to grow sustainably over the coming years.
What role do you believe European mid-sized pharmaceutical companies can play in the current global healthcare and innovation landscape?
I feel very proud today to carry a European flag. I spent almost 30 years in American companies, which was an extraordinary school, but I believe Europe still has the talent, scientific capability, and industrial foundations to compete strongly in innovation. For me, it ultimately comes down to ambition, leadership, and execution. I am not intimidated by companies 20 times our size because I have already seen what focused organisations can achieve. At Moderna, we competed head-to-head with Pfizer during the COVID-19 vaccine race, which showed very clearly that scale alone does not determine success. Under both the European flag and the Merz Therapeutics flag, I believe we can continue growing, competing, and bringing meaningful innovation to patients.
At the same time, Europe sometimes risks becoming too cautious or underestimating its own capabilities. We are operating in a highly competitive global environment, but that applies to everyone. If you have the right talent, a clear vision, and strong execution, European companies can absolutely continue playing an important global role, particularly in specialised areas where expertise, agility, and long-term commitment matter as much as scale.
