As Mod­er­na dou­bles down on vac­cines, Mer­ck pulls out of a long-run­ning col­lab­o­ra­tion

In the wake of their Covid-19 ef­fort, Mod­er­na is dou­bling down on vac­cines for in­fec­tious dis­ease, but they an­nounced to­day they’ll be do­ing so with­out one of their long­time part­ners.

In one of a flur­ry of an­nounce­ments Thurs­day morn­ing, the Cam­bridge biotech an­nounced that Mer­ck has ced­ed back rights to the adult res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­cy­tial virus vac­cine the pair had been co-de­vel­op­ing. One of two dif­fer­ent can­di­dates Mod­er­na was help­ing push for­ward in a hot­ly com­pet­i­tive space, the vac­cine had en­tered Phase I last year. Mer­ck will com­plete that tri­al be­fore for­mal­ly hand­ing it over, giv­ing Mod­er­na rights to both a vac­cine for adults and in­fants.

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