Merck has ceased development of its two COVID-19 vaccine candidates because they failed to generate a sufficient immune response. Instead, the pharmaceutical company plans to focus on two promising drug therapies.
US pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co announced that it is discontinuing development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidates V590 and V591 after they failed to generate immune responses as compared to a natural infection or existing vaccines .
Drugmaker Merck & Co on Monday said it will end development of its two COVID-19 vaccines, and will focus pandemic research on treatments, with initial efficacy data on an experimental oral antiviral expected by the end of March.
Merck said in a statement it will record a pretax discontinuation charge in the fourth quarter for vaccine candidate V591, which it acquired with the purchase of Austrian vaccine maker Themis Bioscience, and V590, developed with nonprofit research organization IAVI.
In early trials, both vaccines generated immune responses that were inferior to those seen in people who had recovered from COVID-19 as well as those reported for other COVID-19 vaccines, the company said.
Merck, France s Pasteur Institute end development of 3 COVID-19 vaccines
By (0) The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for our company and our industry to continue to invest in research to address threats to health security, Merck said Monday. File Photo by Justin Lane/EPA-EFE
Jan. 25 (UPI) Drugmaker Merck and France s internationally renown Pasteur Institute both announced on Monday that they re ending development of three separate potential coronavirus vaccines.
The pharmaceutical company said research has been terminated for its V590 and V591 vaccine candidates, because the immune responses it produced in first-stage trial volunteers were inadequate.
Advertisement In these studies, both V590 and V591 were generally well tolerated, but the immune responses were inferior to those seen following natural infection and those reported for other SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccines, Merck said in a statement.