MSD to acquire Themis Bioscience

Privately-owned Austrian biotech Themis Bioscience and MSD (the trading name used by US pharma giant Merck & Co [NYSE: MRK] outside North America) have entered into a definitive agreement under which MSD will acquire Themis.

Themis has a broad pipeline of vaccine candidates and immune-modulatory therapies developed using its innovative measles virus vector platform based on a vector originally developed by scientists at the Institut Pasteur, a world-leading European vaccine research institute, and licensed exclusively to Themis for select viral indications. In March, Themis joined a consortium together with the Institut Pasteur and The Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, supported by funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), to develop a vaccine candidate targeting SARS-CoV-2 for the prevention of COVID-19.

“Building on the pioneering work of the Institut Pasteur, the Themis team has established specialized expertise that complements MSD’s own capabilities in the discovery, development, manufacturing and global distribution of vaccines,” said Dr Roger Perlmutter, president, R&D at MSD, adding: “We are eager to combine our strengths both to develop an effective COVID-19 vaccine in the near term and to build a pandemic preparedness capability directed toward emerging agents that pose a future epidemic threat.”