Merck Withdraws from COVID-19 Vaccine Race Due to Sub-par Response

January 25th, 2021 – Biopharma giant Merck who joined late in the COVID-19 vaccine race, has decided to pull the plug on two of its candidates, V590 and V591. The decision to scrap its vaccine candidates is a direct result of early trial data showing that they failed to generate immune responses comparable to a natural infection or existing vaccines (Moderna, Pfizer). This led to a drop in their shares by 1.4% on Monday before markets opened.

In a statement released by the company, Merck intends to record a pretax discontinuation charge in the fourth quarter for V590 and V591, developed with research organization IAVI and acquired with the purchase of Themis Bioscience, respectively.

Dr. Dean Y. Li, president, Merck Research Laboratories, said, “We are grateful to our collaborators who worked with us on these vaccine candidates and to the volunteers in the trials. We are resolute in our commitment to contribute to the global effort to relieve the burden of this pandemic on patients, health care systems, and communities.”

Since then, the company announced that it has decided to shift gears and focus on SARS-CoV-2 research on therapeutic treatments with data from one of its two promising candidates (MK-4482 and MK-7110) due by the end of March.

MK-4482 and MK-7110

Merck is continuing to bet big with its two therapeutic candidates already in clinical trials. MK-4482 or Molnupiravir is a novel, oral COVID-19 pill being developed in collaboration with Ridgeback Bio. The pill is currently in Phase 2/3 clinical trials in hospitals and out-patient settings. Both companies expect to have preliminary data on the drug’s efficacy by May 2021.

MK-7110 is a first-in-class investigational recombinant fusion protein that regulates the response to SARS-CoV-2 by utilizing an immune pathway checkpoint. Several of Merck’s manufacturing facilities are being revamped to produce this drug. The intravenous therapy, which is difficult to generate in bulk, has racked up encouraging results from interim Phase 3 trials. The data shows major improvement in the likelihood and speed of recovery for critical COVID-19 patients and cutting down the death rate by more than 50%. Although complete results are expected by early 2021, the U.S government has already signed on to pay $365 million for 60,000 – 100,000 doses.

Impact of COVID-19 on Finances

Merck’s failure to bring a vaccine to the market means its age-old rivals now stand a strong chance of dominating the market, thus denting their prospects of garnering huge profits. Before the pandemic struck, Merck was well on its way to meet its projected sales.

However, in the third quarter, the company said it expects a setback of $2.5 billion due to COVID-19 and posted a 1% sales growth as compared to its 8%-9%. This is primarily due to a pandemic-related decline in doctor visits that have cut into two of their most popular drugs, Gardasil for human papillomavirus and Keytruda for cancer.

These stumbling blocks have not deterred the company from achieving higher than usual business for their Pneumovax, with sales up by 58%. Merck is now trying to get back into its winning ways by betting big on their COVID-19 drugs, which by the shortage of vaccines worldwide and other logistics challenges, might just keep them afloat in this competitive market.

By T. Chakraborty, Ph.D.

Related Article: Lilly’s Antibody Treatment Prevents COVID-19 Spread at Nursing Home

References

1. https://www.merck.com/news/merck-discontinues-development-of-sars-cov-2-covid-19-vaccine-candidates-continues-development-of-two-investigational-therapeutic-candidates/

Author

Tulip Chakraborty