Merck Enters Cancer Vaccine Collaboration With Geron

Merck acquires expertise in telomerase-targeting cancer vaccines in a deal with Menlo Park, Calif.-based Geron. Under the agreement, Geron will receive an upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties. Merck also gains the option to partner on Geron’s investigational prostate cancer vaccine.

Merck is moving toward developing a telomerase-targeted cancer vaccine through an agreement with Geron Corporation announced July 18.

Merck is licensing Geron's expertise in telomerase, an enzyme prevalent in most cancer tumors that plays a role in cancer cell replication and growth.

Geron said the companies have not decided how the telomerase-targeting technology will be incorporated into a potential product.

One option would be to develop a telomerase-targeted priming vaccine and then use Merck's DNA- and viral-based vaccine technology to develop boosters, Geron said.

Under the agreement, Geron will receive royalties, an upfront payment from Merck and payments when certain regulatory and development milestones are achieved, Geron said.

Merck has committed to purchasing equity in Geron should the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company pursue another round of public financing.

The deal also gives Merck the exclusive right to negotiate an agreement for Geron's existing dendritic cell-based telomerase vaccine.

In a Phase I/II trial in metastatic prostate cancer patients, the vaccine generated telomerase-specific T-cell responses in 19 of 20 patients, with 1%-2% of circulating CD8+ T-cells demonstrating anti-telomerase specificity.

Merck is one of several big pharma companies exploring cancer vaccines through licensing deals - others include GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Johnson & Johnson.

Bristol-Myers Squibb/Medarex' MDX-010/1379 is the furthest in development; the antibody/vaccine combination entered Phase III trials for metastatic melanoma in 2004, according to F-D-C Reports' ¹ NDA Pipeline .

- Andrew Kasper