Mer­ck wins a third FDA nod for an­tibi­ot­ic; Mereo tack­les TIG­IT with $70M raise in hand

→ Mer­ck — one of the last big phar­ma bas­tions in the be­lea­guered field of an­tibi­ot­ic drug de­vel­op­ment — on Fri­day said the FDA had signed off on us­ing its com­bi­na­tion drug, Re­car­brio, with hos­pi­tal-ac­quired bac­te­r­i­al pneu­mo­nia and ven­ti­la­tor-as­so­ci­at­ed bac­te­r­i­al pneu­mo­nia. The drug could come handy for use in hos­pi­tal­ized pa­tients who are af­flict­ed with Covid-19, who car­ry a high­er risk of con­tract­ing sec­ondary bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tions. Once SARS-CoV-2, the virus be­hind Covid-19, in­fects the air­ways, it en­gages the im­mune sys­tem, giv­ing oth­er pathogens free rein to pil­lage and plun­der as they please — the is­sue is par­tic­u­lar­ly per­ti­nent in pa­tients on ven­ti­la­tors, which in any case are breed­ing grounds for in­fec­tious bac­te­ria.

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