Mer­ck scraps Covid-19 vac­cine pro­grams af­ter they fail to mea­sure up on ef­fi­ca­cy in an­oth­er ma­jor set­back in the glob­al fight

Af­ter turn­ing up late to the vac­cine de­vel­op­ment game in the glob­al fight against Covid-19, Mer­ck is now mak­ing a quick ex­it.

The phar­ma gi­ant is re­port­ing this morn­ing that it’s de­cid­ed to drop de­vel­op­ment of 2 vac­cines — V590 and V591 — af­ter tak­ing a look at Phase I da­ta that sim­ply don’t mea­sure up to ei­ther the nat­ur­al im­mune re­sponse seen in peo­ple ex­posed to the virus or the vac­cines al­ready on or near the mar­ket.

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