Merck Shuts Down Covid Vaccine Program After Lackluster Data

[durablend]

Source: Bloomberg

Merck & Co. is discontinuing development of its two experimental Covid-19 vaccines after early trial data showed they failed to generate immune responses comparable to a natural infection or existing vaccines.

The U.S. drug giant, which has a long history of successfully developing vaccines, had adopted a different strategy from rivals Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, using a more traditional approach of focusing on shots based on weakened viruses. One, called V590, borrowed technology from Merck’s Ebola inoculation, while the other, V591, is based on a measles vaccine used in Europe.

Both V590 and V591 were laggards in the vaccine-development race. Merck finished recruiting the first participants for early-stage safety studies near the end of 2020, when front-runners Pfizer and Moderna were preparing to report late-stage data on their shots’ effectiveness. Merck received interim results from its trials this month.

The results were “disappointing, and a bit of a surprise,” said Nick Kartsonis, senior vice president of clinical research for infectious diseases and vaccines at Merck Research Laboratories. Both shots generated fewer neutralizing antibodies to halt infection than other Covid-19 vaccines, and produced inferior immune responses compared with people who had naturally contracted the coronavirus. (continues)

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-25/merck-shuts-down-covid-vaccine-program-after-lackluster-data

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I don't think this will be the last of the vaccine trials that won't pan out, sadly....

[hlthe2b]

1. Merck should have learned from its past experience with Veterinary Coronavirus vaccines...

Those targeted towards respiratory-transmitted coronaviruses in poultry and livestock have never been as effective on even the short term as those targeted at coronaviruses with a gastrointestinal transmission.

Sorry to see, though. Merck has some very good people working on this.

[lagomorph777]

5. Merck didn't get to choose which Coronavirus to target. It chose us.

COVID-19 is primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets, but also there is some potential for GI transmission (lots of ACE-2 receptors in the upper GI tract).

We go to war against the virus we have, not the one we wish we had.

[hlthe2b]

7. Totally not the point. The approach (traditional vaccine development has failed with other

Respiratory-transmitted coronaviruses. Further mRNA vaccines had already shown promise and had been developed for SARS-COV-1, where traditional development had failed, suggesting the same might well be true for SARS-COV-2. This is my field.

It is a technical issue, not a philosophical one.

[lagomorph777]

8. I see. You're saying traditional vaccine development is the source of their failure.

Intriguing point!

I don't know that we could have predicted (until it worked) that the radically new vaccine types would actually work better. So it was reasonable to give it a shot, the old-fashioned way. Although the failure is unfortunate, it adds to our knowledge base.

And looking forward... There are a lot of very unpleasant coronaviruses and other viruses that have had very poor vaccine coverage. Maybe COVID has forced us to advance the state of the art in a huge quantum leap.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Wow. GSK-Sanofi had similar issues and will try a different entity

with expectations for attempting again by the end of this year.

[groundloop]

3. I wonder if Merck could use its facilities to produce one of the other vaccines under license

It seems to my feeble little mind that this could be made to happen under the Defense Production Act that we keep hearing about. Merck surely has the facilities to produce vaccines, and the more doses that can be produced the better (assuming we figure out how to get them distributed, and I'm sure President Biden's team will accomplish that).

[lagomorph777]

6. My thought too! Surely they could do it, with a bit of DPA encouragement.

[Historic NY]

4. Ok now we have 3 versions lets get them ramped up..

put all the manufacturers on one page working for us (US)

[LovingA2andMI]

9. Interesting....

n/t.

[DENVERPOPS]

10. Would hate to be the CEO

when the board of Merck invites him to a meeting with them........LOL