Vaccine venture boosts health hopes

摘要

US pharmaceutical giant Merck and Company and the UK Wellcome Trust will create a joint, not-for-profit £90-million (US$150-million) research centre in India to develop affordable vaccines against diseases that afflict the poor - including neglected diseases for which inadequate or no vaccines exist. The move marks the first time that a major medical-research charity and a pharmaceutical company have directly partnered to create vaccines aimed at low-income countries.rn"It's a tremendous development," says Adel Mahmoud, a former president of Merck Vaccines and now a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. Unlike drugs for neglected diseases, he says, "vaccines for neglected diseases have not been given any significant attention over the years."