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Merck: Vaccines
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[L]ast year, the Merck researchers decided to take a bold step, one that makes their vaccine different from others in the works. They stitched the internal genes into an adenovirus, a microbe that can cause a nasty bout of the common cold. For its vaccine, Merck has rendered the adenovirus defective, making it incapable of causing either colds or AIDS.
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For their part, Merck and other vaccine makers, along with many government health officials and scientists, say there is no credible evidence of harm from the amounts of mercury once widely present in kids' shots. They cite a report in May by a committee of the national Institute of Medicine concluding that the evidence "favors rejection of a causal relationship" between vaccines and autism.
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Merck has stopped further vaccinations but will continue to follow volunteers in the trial. The Merck trial was being carried out in conjunction with the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), a prestigious trial network funded by the US National Institutes of Health.
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South Africa, where about one person in nine is infected with HIV, stopped all trials of vaccines against the virus because of concerns about the Merck trial, the Star in Johannesburg reported today. Tests will be suspended until the government has studied the effects of the Merck shot, and whether it made test subjects more vulnerable to infection, the newspaper reported.
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CytRx Corporation today announced that scientists from Merck & Co., Inc. presented data from extensive preclinical studies in their efforts to develop an HIV-1 vaccine, at the Keystone Symposium in Keystone, Colorado. In November 2000, Merck licensed from CytRx the right to use CytRx's TranzFect technology in DNA-based vaccines targeted to four infectious diseases, one of which is HIV.
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Clark said that the restructuring plan is Merck's "important first step" in creating "a leaner, more cost-effective, customer-focused market model." Clark said the restructuring will "enable us to deliver the next generation of vaccines and medicines faster and more efficiently."
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