MassBio is partnering with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt Germany’s Next Gen Drug Delivery (NGDD) team on May 11 to host R&D Reimagined – Advanced Modalities, the first in a series of events designed to connect biotech and pharma R&D leadership with the technology innovators and solution providers transforming the life sciences with new tools and services.
Targeted mRNA delivery has been discussed for years, but discussion and durable progress are not the same. While payload innovation continues to accelerate, the gap between a promising construct and a delivery strategy that is both targeted and translatable remains significant. That gap is rarely addressed through a single decision or handoff. It is shaped over time through design choices, experimentation strategy, and close collaboration. Closing that gap is what the Next Gen Drug Delivery (NGDD) team at MilliporeSigma (a business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) was built to do.
NGDD grew out of a strong foundation in lipid manufacturing, formulation expertise, and the infrastructure needed to support programs from preclinical development through commercialization. What was less established, even with those capabilities in place, was a consistent way to move beyond untargeted systems toward delivery approaches that are more precise, programmable, and predictive. NGDD was formed to address that need by bringing formulation, targeting, conjugation, and digital tools into a single integrated workflow designed specifically for next-generation targeted delivery.
What distinguishes this approach is not any single capability on its own, but how those capabilities are connected and applied in practice. Often, partners come to NGDD at very different stages. Some arrive with a defined concept and a specific conjugation challenge, while others bring a payload and a binder but lack a formulation that performs reliably. Many start with a payload alone and need support building a delivery strategy from the beginning. The team works from each partner’s actual starting point rather than a fixed model, allowing the workflow to adapt to where a program truly is as it evolves.
A key part of making that adaptability practical is how NGDD approaches experimentation. Rather than offering an expansive lipid catalog and leaving teams to navigate it independently, the group developed a focused, internally screened lipid library informed by in vitro, in vivo, and toxicity data. By leveraging this finely tuned benchmark set as a springboard, teams can move more quickly toward formulations with a genuine likelihood of success. Formulation optimization, binder screening and conjugation are designed to work together, evaluated within real targeted Lipid Nanoparticles (LNPs), so as to reflect the conditions under which a delivery system must ultimately perform.
Digital and AI-driven tools extend this integrated model further. They guide lipid and binder design that is informed by compatibility with LNPs and the SPOTTM platform from the outset, allowing computational and experimental workstreams to reinforce one another. Machine learning supports how experiments are designed, how results are interpreted, and how next steps are prioritized. Throughout the process, the emphasis remains on enabling clear decisions, reducing unnecessary experimentation, and helping teams move from uncertainty to direction more efficiently and quickly.
That focus on speed, clarity, risk reduction, and progress reflects a consistent lesson NGDD has seen across programs. Targeted mRNA delivery challenges are rarely one-size-fits-all, and the teams that move most effectively do so with partners who can operate in a single, flexible, and collaborative framework. At MassBio’s R&D Reimagined on May 11, the NGDD team will be sharing how that model has taken shape in practice and how closer partnership, alongside data-driven design, is beginning to change what targeted delivery programs can realistically achieve.
About the Author
Dr. Jae Hyeon Park is Head of Technology Development for the Next Gen Drug Delivery team at MilliporeSigma. A materials scientist by training, he brings deep expertise in lipid‑based biomaterials and therapeutic delivery, working with developers to advance more effective delivery strategies for emerging modalities. He earned his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and completed postdoctoral research at UCLA, where he focused on lipid nanoparticle (LNP) design for gene and drug delivery. His career spans roles at ReCode Therapeutics, Mirai Bio, and MilliporeSigma, supporting early‑stage drug discovery, formulation development, and delivery strategies aligned with preclinical priorities across both biotech and life science environments.
Today, through the Next Gen Drug Delivery (NGDD) platform, Dr. Park and his team partner with customers to tackle complex delivery challenges and advance next‑generation delivery solutions. By combining delivery science with advanced analytics and AI/ML‑enabled approaches to LNP design, the NGDD team enables new possibilities for targeted delivery and helps expand the reach of mRNA‑based medicines.