AEGiS-WSJ: Merck and Aventis Combine AIDS Drugs

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Merck and Aventis Combine AIDS Drugs

Wall Street Journal - March 27, 2003
Gardiner Harrism, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Merck & Co. and Aventis SA are combining their two most promising AIDS vaccines candidates in a joint human test in the U.S. that will begin later this year.

For reasons neither company understands, monkeys that were injected first with the Merck vaccine and then later with the Aventis medicine got their immune systems better prepared to fight off AIDS than monkeys given either vaccine separately or in reverse order.

"It's very clear that there's a certain order of these candidates that's preferred," said John Shiver, who leads Merck's HIV vaccine program. The HIV vaccine field has been rocked by disappointments, most notably the recent failure of VaxGen Inc.'s vaccine candidate. Some scientists worry that provoking immune responses in monkeys may tell researchers very little about whether a vaccine will work in humans.

Aware that hopes have been raised and dashed numerous times, Dr. Shiver warned that the vaccine programs of Merck, Aventis and their newly combined effort are still in their early stages.

Merck, Whitehouse Station, N.J., is a leader in studying cold viruses and its vaccine candidate is a modified version of one. Aventis has long been a leader in studying pox viruses, and its vaccine candidate comes from the pox family.

Merck called the French-German company to see if they could test them together. Late last year, data started to develop that a certain combination seemed to work well, Dr. Shiver said.

"This is not a sign of desperation" that the companies have decided to test their two vaccine candidates together, Dr. Shiver said. Both companies are continuing to develop vaccines independently of each other. Right now, Merck is testing its vaccine in 1,300 HIV-infected and uninfected volunteers in 70 clinical sites.

Write to Gardiner Harris at gardiner.harris@wsj.com
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