Wellcome Trust, Merck To Develop Affordable Vaccines For Low-Income Countries

The Wellcome Trust and Merck & Co. have announced the creation of the MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories, a not-for-profit research and development joint venture to focus on developing affordable vaccines to prevent diseases that commonly affect low-income countries.

Merck and the Wellcome Trust will invest equally in the R&D joint venture, which will be primed with a combined cash contribution of 90m GBP (approximately 130 million USD) over the next seven years and will support a staff of approximately 60 researchers and developers. The venture will be based in India to facilitate engagement and partnership with a broad range of experts in vaccine research, policy and manufacturing to develop and mature its R&D pipeline.

The Hilleman Laboratories will work to advance projects to ‘proof of concept’ by providing key expertise in product development and optimisation that is available within large vaccine companies. The Hilleman Laboratories will also work with vaccine manufacturers to ensure production can be scaled and that the vaccines are affordable. While an initial portfolio of projects will be selected only after consultation with the international community and careful technical assessment.

The Hilleman Laboratories will operate with a combination of core funding from the founders, third party grants, and other revenue streams.

Mark Walport, director and CEO of the Wellcome Trust, said: “Linking the ingenuity of academic research with the know-how of industry is vital if we are to produce a new generation of vaccines to reduce the burden of infectious diseases in low- income countries. The Hilleman Laboratories partnership brings together the requisite skills in a powerful way and Merck is the ideal partner because of its impressive history of innovation and contributions to global health which provide a perfect complement to the Wellcome Trust mission to improve health in the developing world.”