In the first of a two-part series, the managing director of Merck Healthcare Australia and New Zealand, Leah Goodman, discusses how the company has supported the frontline response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Accelerating development of urgently needed treatments, enabling the rapid testing of vaccine safety and efficacy, and generating privacy-protected digital contact tracing are three areas where Merck is actively contributing resources and expertise to help fight the challenges posed by COVID-19.
Merck has joined a new consortium called CARE (Corona Accelerated R&D in Europe) which is supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and the largest undertaking of its kind dedicated to discovering and developing much-needed treatment options for COVID-19. It will accelerate R&D by bringing together the leading expertise and projects of 37 teams into a comprehensive drug discovery engine.
CARE is also committed to advancing long-term understanding of the disease as well as urgently repurposing existing therapies as potential immediate treatments.
This year, Merck has already contributed more than 303,000 units of one of its medicines for various Government and research institution-led trials of potential COVID-19 treatments, being undertaken by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the French Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) and the World Health Organisation.
In addition, Merck has initiated a Phase 2 trial of an investigational new drug application for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The aim is to investigate if intervention at a critical point in the course of COVID-19 disease may prevent or ameliorate the hyper-inflammatory response in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and prevent progression to ‘cytokine storm’.
In another 2020 collaboration with organisations including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Merck activated an expert group or ‘Supermind’, bringing together 180 leaders from around the world, including Australia, in science, healthcare and other sectors. This powerful collective of minds discussed ways to address five key areas including diagnostics and monitoring, viral transmission controls, and therapies and vaccines.
In the group’s first report, the rapid testing of vaccine safety and efficacy were identified as having the greatest impact against COVID-19. They considered ways to accelerate clinical trials through global, harmonised protocols and the possible removal of competitive barriers to encourage the broad sharing of antiviral and vaccine candidate clinical trial data.
The group is also exploring solutions that could suppress the pandemic including using sewerage data, genomic analysis and implementing privacy-protected digital contact tracing. Among these are options to enhance data standards that could be implemented to create interoperable, privacy-focused contact tracing applications that share community data and update in real-time. People and resources are being recruited to progress these ideas to action.
In the ‘new normal’ of this COVID world, Merck is committed to supporting solutions to this global health crisis and working closely with health authorities to meet the needs of people impacted by COVID-19.
