Published 17 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3804
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3804

News

Wellcome Trust and Merck join forces to develop vaccines for low income countries

Lynn Eaton

1 London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A leading research trust and a major drug company have launched a £90m ({euro}100m; $150m) initiative to boost research into vaccines for diseases that are prevalent in low income countries.

The Wellcome Trust and Merck have announced that they will jointly fund the creation of a new laboratory, to be based in India, that will develop affordable vaccine technology.

The MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories will be based in India and will be equally funded by the two organisations, which will also share decision making rights in the venture. It will operate as a not for profit company, developing new vaccines and improving existing products.

Many existing live viral vaccines do not have a long shelf life and cannot tolerate either extremes of heat or sudden changes in temperature. The researchers hope to design vaccine formulations and production processes that will be more suited to hot countries. Although they . . . [Full text of this article]


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