Merck Covid-19 Vaccine Begins Human Testing--Update
12 September 2020 - 8:17AM
Dow Jones News
By Jared S. Hopkins
Merck & Co. has begun testing one of its experimental
Covid-19 vaccine candidates in healthy volunteers.
The study, located in Belgium and seeking to enroll 260
subjects, was reported by Merck on a government database and
confirmed by the company. The company said dosing in study subjects
has begun, but declined to comment further.
The Phase 1 /2 trial would evaluate the shot in healthy
volunteers to make sure it is safe and as look for signs the
vaccine generates an immune response to the new coronavirus.
The study is projected to complete in April 2022, according to
the government database clinicaltrials.gov, though it could finish
much faster. Several early-stage Covid-19 vaccine trials have
produced results within months.
Merck's experimental shot contains a weakened version of the
virus that causes measles. The weakened measles virus aims to
deliver the coronavirus's spike protein to the immune system to
help trigger an immune response to the novel coronavirus, according
to Merck.
To develop the vaccine, Merck in May said it was acquiring
privately held Austrian company Themis Bioscience. The vaccine was
developed by the French research nonprofit Institut Pasteur and
licensed to Themis.
Merck, based in Kenilworth, N.J., is a longtime maker of
vaccines and antivirals, including human papillomavirus shot
Gardasil.
For Covid-19, the company has said it wanted to develop a
vaccine that would provide protection with a single dose so a
second shot isn't needed and uses a proven technology that can be
scaled up readily for manufacture.
Other potential Covid-19 vaccines further along in development
than Merck use different technologies. Vaccines from Pfizer Inc.
and partner BioNTech SE, and Moderna Inc. use an unproven
gene-based technology called mRNA and both also require two
shots.
Those vaccines, along with one from AstraZeneca PLC, are in
late-stage, or Phase 3, clinical trials seeking to enroll 30,000
subjects in the U.S.
For its experimental Covid-19 vaccine, Merck plans to test the
shot in subjects 18 years to 55 years, and then 60 years and older,
according to the government database. It is also testing giving
patients one or two doses.
Merck's second coronavirus vaccine effort is through a
partnership with the scientific-research organization IAVI, whose
experimental vaccine uses the same technology that is the basis for
Merck's Ebola Zaire virus vaccine. Merck has said that human
testing for the trial testing this second vaccine could begin later
this year.
Write to Jared S. Hopkins at jared.hopkins@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 11, 2020 18:02 ET (22:02 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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