Merck, via its Themis buy, to move first COVID-19 vaccine into clinical development in Q3

Merck was purposely cautious during the start of the pandemic when it came to vaccine development but is now slowly but surely ramping up its efforts into the clinic.

The U.S. Big Pharma, which has good form in creating a new vaccine against a sweeping threat after gaining approval for its Ebola vaccine, said in its second-quarter update that, via its recent buyout of Themis, it’s plotting a third-quarter start for human testing of its thus preclinical V591.