Merck CEO says raising COVID-19 vaccine hopes is a 'grave disservice'

Hype over prototype coronavirus vaccines and raising hopes they will be available this winter is ‘a grave disservice,’ says Merck CEO

• Kenneth Frazier, CEO of drugmaker Merck cautioned warned that vaccines under development may not be effective or available by early next year
• He called raising hopes for a shot a ‘grave disservice to the public in a Harvard Business School interview
• Merck is developing a vaccine but has not yet begun human trials for its shot 
• The stock market rallied on the heels of Moderna’s announcement of promising early data from trials of its shot on Wednesday  

Kenneth Frazier, Merck’s CEO, warned that progress on prototype vaccines may be overhyped as it’s not yet clear how effective they are (file) 

COVID-19 vaccines under development are not guaranteed to work and people who say to expect a vaccine before year-end are doing a ‘grave disservice to the public,’ drugmaker Merck’s chief executive officer said, interview published on a Harvard Business School website on Monday.

The potential vaccines may not have the qualities needed to be rapidly deployed in large numbers of people, CEO Kenneth Frazier said in an interview with Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School.

‘If you’re going to use a vaccine on billions of people, you better know what that vaccine does.’

A US official said Monday that drugmakers partnered with the U.S. government are on track to begin actively manufacturing a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the summer, Reuters reported.

The Trump administration aims to produce 300 million vaccine doses by the end of 2021 though its Operation Warp Speed Program.

Some previous vaccines ‘not only didn’t confer protection, but actually helped the virus invade the cell, because it was incomplete in terms of its immunogenic properties,’ Frazier said. 

Several coronavirus vaccines have reported positive data from early human trials, but some, including Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier warn the shots are not yet proven and may not be ready by year-end as some US officials have promised (pictured: Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine being given to a trial participant) 

‘So we have to be very careful.’

Merck announced in May plans to study potential vaccine and therapy candidates for COVID-19 through partnerships and an acquisition of Austrian vaccine maker Themis Bioscience. 

At the time time said it planned to dose human study participants with the vaccine in July, but it has not started clinical trials for its vaccine to-date. 

Merck and Johnson & Johnson joined the vaccine race late in the game, and have both been racing to catch up, banking on their vast technologies and funding to help them close the gap. 

Johnson & Johnson announced Thursday that it plans to begin late-stage, large clinical trials for its vaccine candidate in September – putting the company ahead of its previously announced development schedule. 

Both, however, are behind the timeline of Moderna, whose vaccine is considered the lead candidate in the US. 

Data from early human tests of Moderna’s vaccine showed it triggered an immune response in 45 patients and brought on only mild side effects. The company’s stocks rose 18 percent on the heels of the announcement. 

But not everyone was as enthusiastic as investors about the trial data. 

‘I thought the media hype was too high on Moderna,’ New York University bioethicist Dr Arthur Caplan told DailyMail.com.

‘Forty-five patients doesn’t really tell you that much. Getting [an immune] reaction – that’s nice, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to last.’  

He and Frazier are not alone in their wariness of the ‘warp speed’ race for a vaccine in the US.  

While stocks have jumped up in response to reports of positive but early results of vaccines tests and members of the Trump administration have hailed the speedy development of vaccines, health officials have remained more cautious. 

‘I can’t predict when a vaccine will be available,’ Dr Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told ABC’s This Week on July 5.

A recent Reuters/Ipsos survey found that Americans would be more nervous to get a coronavirus vaccine if President Trump endorsed it. 

The majority cited the speed of vaccine development as the source of their concern. 

Despite the fact that Black communities have suffered higher rates of coronavirus infections and deaths, Black Americans surveyed by the poll were even more skeptical than their white peers about the safety of a vaccine.  

Frazier, one of only four Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, said the US pandemic, with a higher death rate among non-white people, has highlighted ‘huge structural elements of racism that have existed in this country for a long time.’

American companies must work to dismantle processes and systems that impede Black employees from advancing, he said. 

‘At the end of the day, if you’re complacent with the status quo, you’re complicit in the racism that the status quo hides.’ 

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