Merck CEO Rob Davis told CNBC on Wednesday that he expects the company’s breakthrough cancer vaccine with Moderna to get faster to manufacture over time.
Shortening the current six-week timeline could potentially help the companies reach more patients.
“We are going to drive for improvement, but right now the focus really is, let’s make sure we have the supply ready, we have the market ready to bring this important innovation to the market, and then we’ll talk about how do we accelerate,” he told CNBC in an exclusive interview. “But I do think over time you’re going to see that timeline shortened.”
The personalized cancer vaccine turnaround spans from sequencing a patient’s tumor to delivering it to the hospital. Merck and Moderna’s vaccine is designed to target the specific mutations in each individual patient’s tumor rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, which makes it complicated to produce.
The idea is to train the…
