Merck Annual Report 2000

7 of 18

Cancidas – From a pond in Spain to production in Pennsylvania:
Timothy Schimmel, Ph.D., process scientist, helps put the finishing touches on a new manufacturing unit in Danville, Pa., for Cancidas, Merck’s novel medicine to combat Aspergillus. Aspergillus is a fungus responsible for fatal infections in people whose immune systems are compromised. The medicine is sometimes described as “penicillin for fungi,” because Cancidas interferes with the process by which the fungus builds its cell wall.
Merck scientists are just finishing late-stage clinical trials to assess whether Cancidas is effective at treating Candida, another fungus that also can cause life-threatening infections. Log on to the annual report Web site to learn how Merck scientists found the organism that produces the compound in a Spanish pond and developed it into a life-saving medicine.
Click here for more.

    Forging external links
    Merck accounts for about 1 percent of the biomedical research in the world. To tap into the remaining 99 percent, we must actively reach out to universities, research institutions and companies worldwide to bring the best of technology and potential products into Merck. The cascade of knowledge flowing from biotechnology and the unraveling of the human genome – to name only two recent developments – is far too complex for any one company to handle alone. That is why we are helping fund such initiatives as Nobel laureate Al Gilman’s Alliance for Cell Signaling at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and Professor Leroy Hood’s Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. What we see are new ways to approach currently intractable diseases such as Alzheimer’s, HIV/AIDS, schizophrenia and cancer.
    Looking outside for insight and innovation is not new for Merck. Two of the five products that are our key drivers of growth – Fosamax and Cozaar/Hyzaar – came to us via license agreements with other companies and were then developed by Merck researchers. In 2000, we entered into a joint venture with Schering-Plough to combine its experimental cholesterol absorption inhibitor, ezetimibe, with Zocor to achieve increased cholesterol lowering. In addition, the joint venture will evaluate the combination of Singulair and Schering-Plough’s Claritin for allergic rhinitis and asthma.
     In 2000, however, we stepped up the pace of the search for such ventures. Under the direction of Bennett Shapiro, M.D., executive vice president, our external reach has broadened. “Every senior scientist here running a project should think of herself or himself as being in charge of all the research in that field,” says Dr. Shapiro. “Not just the 30 people working in our lab but the 3,000 people, say, in the world working in that field. Our challenge is to see how effective a virtual lab we can put together.”

Merck and Schering-Plough join forces on two fronts: Merck’s Bob McMahon, right, and Schering-Plough’s Ratnakar Mitra lead the Merck/Schering-Plough partnerships established in July. Mr. McMahon oversees the development and marketing of Zocor in combination with ezetimibe, Schering-Plough’s investigational cholesterol absorption inhibitor, and ezetimibe alone as once-daily monotherapy and in co-administration with statins. Mr. Mitra leads the teams working together to develop and market a once-daily, fixed-combination tablet of Singulair and Claritin for the treatment of allergic rhinitis (hay fever) and asthma. (Claritin is Schering-Plough’s non-sedating antihistamine for treatment of seasonal allergic rhinitis.)

    Building a global lab
    This external reach feeds potential compounds into an internal laboratory system that we also are reorganizing on a global basis. Our global lab has Rahway, N.J., and West Point, Pa., at its core. Researchers there interact regularly with Merck’s other international centers of scientific excellence at Terlings Park, England; Tsukuba, Japan; Merck Frosst in Canada; and IRBM in Italy. Each center has its own particular scientific strengths. This cross-fertilization has been, and will continue to be, extremely important in the development of unique medicines.
    To this impressive mix, we added San Diego-based SIBIA, a biotech company with strong capabilities in the neurosciences, and we are building a new laboratory in Boston near Harvard University Medical School and a number of the associated teaching hospitals.
    A steady movement of information between these centers is facilitated by use of Merck’s internal Web, videoconferencing and heavy email traffic. These steady information flows permit senior management to keep track of programs and ensure the right ones are receiving the necessary resources. Occasionally, these discussions result in a project being moved from one center to another. Vioxx, for example, began life at Merck Frosst in Canada but was largely completed at Rahway, N.J. With the scientists at all these centers taking an active role in their individual areas of expertise, little that goes on in the world of science escapes Merck’s attention.

Back to top

7 of 18