Announcing several partnerships today, Merck will pursue two vaccines and a therapy for COVID-19. By Jon CohenScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.Merck, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, has been conspicuously absent from the race to develop COVID-19 vaccines and drugs.
No longer. The company this morning announced it has cut deals to develop and manufacture two different COVID-19 vaccines and a much-discussed experimental antiviral compound that is already in early clinical trials.Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories, portrays the company as deliberate rather than a latecomer.