Tempus expands multi-year Merck deal to accelerate AI biomarkers

Tempus AI, Inc. and Merck announced an expanded, multi-year collaboration aimed at accelerating the discovery and development of precision-medicine biomarkers, with an initial emphasis on oncology, according to a press release issued from Chicago on March 3, 2026. The deal will let Merck use Tempus’ library of de-identified multimodal data and the company’s Lens Platform, leveraging substantial GPU computing capacity to train and fine-tune models for healthcare.

The companies described the agreement as strategic and intended to support Merck’s oncology and potentially broader therapeutic portfolios, allowing for the identification of novel precision biomarkers and mechanisms of cancer cell resistance. The press release, posted by Business Wire and republished on Tempus’ corporate site and multiple aggregators, included a single quoted executive from Tempus.

"This collaboration builds on our existing relationship and reflects our shared commitment to harnessing the power of multimodal datasets with AI to deliver better options for patients," said Ryan Fukushima, CEO, Data & Apps at Tempus. "We’ve spent years configuring our Lens Platform to seamlessly leverage our library of de‑identified multimodal data with the necessary AI computing power to train and fine‑tune specific models for healthcare. Working with the great scientists at Merck, we have exciting opportunities to translate the insights from AI models into precision medicine strategies and improve patient outcomes across oncology and beyond."

Tempus’ computational assets were singled out in coverage of the announcement. Aggregators described the Lens Platform as built on what they called one of the industry’s largest GPU infrastructures for complex analyses, a capability the press release said Merck will be able to use alongside Tempus’ data library.

The collaboration arrives against a backdrop of recent top-line growth at Tempus: in February the company reported quarterly revenue of $367.21 million, up from $200.68 million a year earlier, and a loss of $0.04 per share that was in line with consensus; revenue beat the Street estimate of $362.29 million. Market feeds showed share declines for both companies amid a broader sell-off that left the S&P 500 down 1.78% and the Nasdaq down 2.18% on the same trading day, though intraday percentages for the individual tickers varied across aggregators.

The announcement did not disclose any financial terms, contract length beyond the "multi-year" descriptor, intellectual property arrangements, or operational governance around data use. Merck offered no quoted comment in the distributed materials; the company is identified in the release as Merck, known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada.

For investors and policymakers, the deal highlights two converging trends in drug development: a shift toward data- and compute-intensive discovery workflows and growing commercial partnerships between life-science incumbents and AI platform providers. While access to large de-identified datasets and GPU capacity can theoretically speed biomarker discovery and reduce time to experimental proof points, the lack of disclosed financial or governance terms leaves open questions about cost, exclusivity, regulatory compliance, and how value will be shared if and when discoveries advance to clinical development.

The press release was published by Business Wire (CHICAGO) on March 3, 2026, and republished on Tempus’ site and multiple financial news aggregators.