The Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD) is under construction at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research as part of the NICA Accelerator Complex. It aims to study the phase diagram of QCD matter at maximum baryonic density, determine the nature of the phase transition between the deconfined and hadronic matter and search for the critical point. Following an introduction to the physics program of the MPD, recent developments related to the preparation of the experiment and physics performance studies will be presented and discussed.
