CEO scouts top E&W Coast scientific talent to secure Merck & Co.'s future

‘Don’t underestimate Merck's vaccine business,’ says CEO

By Dan Stanton

- Last updated on GMT

Merck & Co.'s top-selling vaccine is its HPV vaccination Gardasil/Gardasil 9. Image: By Jan Christian @ www.ambrotosphotography.com CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons
Merck & Co.'s top-selling vaccine is its HPV vaccination Gardasil/Gardasil 9. Image: By Jan Christian @ www.ambrotosphotography.com CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Related tags Vaccine

CEO Ken Frazier has told investors investments and partnerships, such as collaboration with messenger RNA firm Moderna Therapeutics, have bolstered Merck & Co.’s vaccine division.

In 2016, Merck & Co. (known as MSD outside North America) reported worldwide sales of $4.7bn (€4.2bn) for its vaccines business.

This was down 8% year-on-year, and the sector’s contribution to the big pharma’s total revenues (12%) also dropped, but CEO Ken Frazier told investors at last week’s Sanford Bernstein Strategic Decision Conference he is “excited” by the pipeline and it remains a strong part of Merck’s business.

“I think if you look at how well Gardasil [Merck’s human papillomavirus vaccine] was doing now with that launch of Gardasil 9, if you look at the work that we are doing early on with Moderna in terms of the RNA platform that we’re able to use there, we have a PCV [pneumococcal conjugate vaccine] vaccine in the pipeline, I am very excited about that.”

Merck and Moderna have a collaboration and license agreement focused on the discovery and development of messenger RNA-based (mRNA-based) vaccines, and last year Merck paid the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm $200m upfront o advance Novel a personalised cancer vaccines with its best-selling biologic Keytruda (pembrolizumab).

“That’s the kind of transaction where I think we can create value for our shareholders, because our scientists see something that they believe they can employ in the context of vaccine development down the line,”​ Frazier said on Friday.

Attracting and recruiting top talent

Merck is one of just a handful of players which control the vaccine industry, the others being GSK, Sanofi, and Pfizer. Recently Sanofi Pasteur warned of a lack of skilled workers​ in the vaccine space jeopardising future opportunities.

But Frazier said his firm was looking ahead to the future through scouting scientific talent both for its vaccine and other divisions.

“We are starting at the very early stages to recruit the next generation of scientific talent in San Francisco and in Cambridge and on new discovery hubs and I have just visited San Francisco a couple of weeks ago,”​ he said.

“And when you walk around the halls there, you have really tremendously talented young scientists who are eager to make their career at a place like Merck. And I know that’s a little long range, but at the end of the day, the quality of a company like Merck really ultimately hinges on our ability to recruit and retain the top scientific talents.”

Related news

Show more

Related products

show more

Connectivity & Integration in Biomanufacturing

Connectivity & Integration in Biomanufacturing

Wheeler Bio | 17-Nov-2022 | Technical / White Paper

As the Pharma 4.0 initiative sets a new industry paradigm, more biomanufacturing companies are asking how they can design and build facilities that apply...

GMP manufacturing of buffers and liquid blends

GMP manufacturing of buffers and liquid blends

Actylis – The Partner of Choice | 16-Nov-2022 | Technical / White Paper

Actylis manufactures buffers, process solutions, cleaning solutions, Water for Injection (WFI) for further processing, and custom liquid blends in compliance...

Custom manufacturing of protease inhibitor PMSF

Custom manufacturing of protease inhibitor PMSF

Actylis – The Partner of Choice | 09-Nov-2022 | Technical / White Paper

By combining 75+ years of manufacturing and sourcing expertise, Actylis provides a wide portfolio of GMP ingredients to the pharma & biopharma market,...

Related suppliers

Follow us

Products

View more

Webinars