Amongst large pharma companies, Merck & Co Inc has kept its plans for responding to the coronavirus pandemic under the radar. This changed on 26 May, when the US company announced one acquisition and two collaborations aimed at developing both vaccines and a treatment for the disease.
The vaccines are based on separate technologies, one of which is already in use in an approved vaccine for Ebola virus disease. The therapy is an antiviral which is currently in early clinical development. Merck said it is committed to making all three of the candidate products “broadly accessible and affordable globally.”
The boldest of the three initiatives is Merck’s decision to acquire the Austrian biotech company Themis Bioscience GmbH which is developing a vaccine for COVID-19 based on measles vaccine vector technology. The product consists of the classic measles vaccine which has been altered to include antigen for the coronavirus. The technology was developed by Institut Pasteur in France and licensed to Themis in 2010. Themis has incorporated the technology into several other vaccines which are currently in clinical development, including one for the mosquito-borne viral disease chikungunya fever.
Merck, through a subsidiary, will make an undisclosed cash payment for Themis. The Austrian company already has an ongoing partnership with Merck as well as a COVID-19-specific collaboration with Institut Pasteur and the University of Pittsburgh in the US. Work that has taken place thus far will be rolled into the new project. The candidate vaccine is in preclinical development and is expected to begin human studies later in 2020.
The second deal is a licencing agreement with IAVI, the research charity, for rights to a coronavirus vaccine designed and engineered by IAVI scientists. It is based on recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) technology which is the same technology underpinning Merck’s vaccine for Ebola virus disease. The Ebola vaccine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in December 2019.
The rVSV vaccine platform uses an attenuated strain of vesicular stomatitis virus, a common animal virus, which has been modified to express proteins that stimulate an immune response. The vaccine is in preclinical development and expected to enter human studies later in 2020. The project is to receive financial support from the US government agency, BARDA.
The third deal is a licencing agreement with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP of the US for rights to an antiviral treatment for COVID-19. The candidate, EIDD-2801, is being investigated in patients with the disease, and will be progressed through late-stage studies and regulatory filings by Merck. Merck will make an undisclosed upfront payment to Ridgeback along with milestone payments and a share of net sales from the drug and related molecules.
EIDD-2801 is a small molecule ribonucleoside analog that is said to inhibit the replication of multiple RNA viruses including the virus responsible for COVID-19.
“Though the challenge of this pandemic is immense, we know that science and collaboration will triumph,” Merck’s chief executive Kenneth Frazier, said in a prepared statement.
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