MSD Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd (India), a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck and Co Inc, will be launching a vaccine for pneumonia, a product for the treatment of Glaucoma and an antibiotic in the coming months.

While the vaccine has been sent for the approval of the regulatory authorities and is expected to be launched in six months time, the other two products would be launched at a later stage. The antibiotic product, which is also supposed to be launched soon, would be for dealing with community infection.

The study on these products had been going on for the past two years and now it has been completed. Hence, the company hopes to launch the products by the end of this year. "If we have to launch the vaccine, then we have to conduct the study on 100 people. We have completed all those aspects and now we have applied with the regulatory affairs. Once that is through, we would be launching the product," said Murali Parthasarathy, business unit director, MSD India.

Speaking about the funding of research activities, Murali said, that his company would be willing to fund any institution which has a research proposal of international quality. MSD was very much keen on promoting research in Diabetes, oncology and in the area related to vaccines.

"We have been speaking to Dr Mohan's diabetes centre in Chennai. Their research proposals are really good. If they are interested we will surely fund them. And similar is the case with other organizations which have research proposals of international standards," said Murali.

Speaking about increasing the workforce, he said that MSD was planning to induct more number of people into the organization. The company will also be providing scientific training to those inducted. "We will be hiring around 100 to 200 people in the coming days. We had a strength of around 70 people in the administration, sales and marketing etc. And now it has increased to 100. We also invest a lot into the training of our staff," he said.

Speaking about Merck's research tie up with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), he said it was a privilege to work with such top research institution.

As Pharmabiz had reported earlier, Merck and ICMR are jointly carrying out phase III clinical trials of Merck's investigational cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil (quadrivalent human papillomavirus types 6,11,16,18, recombinant vaccine) in the Indian population. MSD India has given a commitment to ICMR to make the vaccine available at affordable rates to public sector establishments for treating the poor patients of the country.