Serum Institute of India Ltd and Merck & Co have entered into an agreement to work together to develop and commercialize a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) for use in the emerging and developing world countries. It is estimated that one out of every two children immunized in the world is vaccinated by a vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute. In addition, Merck has developed more than one-third of the world's vaccines for children, adolescents and adults.

“Serum Institute is committed to improving access to and affordability of vaccines for children throughout the world,” said Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman and managing director, Serum Institute, “In working closely with Merck in the development of this collaboration it became clear that we share parallel public health goals and that our passion for getting vaccines to everyone who needs them is made even stronger by working together.”

Pneumococcal disease is a bacterial infection that causes pneumonia, meningitis, sepsis and other life-threatening ailments. Current estimates show that at least one million children die of pneumococcal disease every year, including mostly young children in developing countries.

“Working side by side with Serum gives us the best chance of developing and bringing a product to the market that will help to protect more babies and children,” said Julie L Gerberding, president, Merck Vaccines. “Expanding vaccine access to emerging and developing markets is a top priority and we feel strongly that this collaboration will be a giant step toward impacting the devastation of pneumococcal disease.”

Together, Merck and Serum will form a Product Advisory Committee to oversee the activities required to develop and seek approval for PCV and pursue World Health Organization (WHO) pre-qualification. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck, through an affiliate, will receive specific rights to market PCV in certain designated territories and Serum will receive specific rights in other territories. Both companies will contribute to the development and manufacture of PCV. Specific financial details of this agreement are confidential. This collaboration does not impact the on-going vaccine development programmes in both the organizations.