Merck Will Soon Have A Strong Competitor To Pfizer's Prevnar 13 In The US...

Our ever erstwhile commenter points us to another fine piece of Merck vaccine news. We were distracted by the hoop and scoop on Bennu, of course -- so forgive the delay.

But a second source of supply, in this critical juvenile vaccine market in the US is easily a two to three billion dollar a year franchise. Likely in 2021, now -- as schools get back to normal, and a COVID vaccine eventually becomes all but universal.

In fact, it seems Merck's PNEU-PATH 114-016 and PNEU-DAY 114-017 candidates offer protection against a slightly wider array of bacterium than Pfizer's current on-market offering. Here's Merck's presser -- and a bit of the now slightly dated FiercePharma story:

. . . .Two more phase 3 trials of Merck’s challenger to Pfizer’s Prevnar 13 have met their immunogenicity endpoints. The results suggest the V114 vaccine provides broader protection from pneumococcal bacteria than Prevnar 13 does, positioning Merck to muscle in on Pfizer’s turf. . . .

Prevnar 13 generated sales of $5.8 billion for Pfizer last year. The size of the market has attracted the attention of Merck, which is running a broad clinical development program to show V114 is a better choice than Prevnar 13. V114 is designed to provide protection against the 13 serotypes covered by Prevnar 13, plus two other serotypes.. . .

Now you know -- and grinning that the hoop and scoop has likely met with success. Onward -- just eight years ago, then. Smile.

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