Merck announced Tuesday that it will spend $15 million renovating and expanding its facility in Wilson.

The capital projects, which include overhauling existing manufacturing space and adding a cold storage facility for vaccine packaging, will not increase the company’s workforce at the site.

Merck employs about 400 people at its 225-acre packaging center in Wilson, which opened in 1983.

Most of the Merck pharmaceutical products now packaged in Wilson are done so at room temperature.

Vaccines, which are a growing part of Merck’s business, require expansive cold storage space.

Merck has a vaccine plant in Durham that is poised to become the largest live-vaccine production facility in the world.

The rapidly growing lab, which makes chicken pox vaccine, employs more than 700 today and could expand to 1,000 workers at full production.

By 2013 Merck expects to be making at the Durham facility at least four vaccines for shingles, measles, mumps and rubella.

GlaxoSmithKline got more good news about its malaria vaccine today.

Results published online by the New England Journal of Medicine show that the vaccine has provided significant protection to young African children.

Earlier trials involving the vaccine, RTS, S, had focused more on safety than effectiveness.

The results are from a phase III trial, one of the final stages the vaccine must go through before GSK files to get the drug approved by regulators.

GSK, which is based in Britain but has its North American headquarters in Research Triangle Park, has spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing a malaria vaccine over the past two decades.
 

Pfizer announced this morning that it may sell its animal-health business, which employs more than 250 people in the Triangle.

The world's largest drugmaker will consider a sale or spin-off of its animal-health and nutrition divisions to focus more resources on expanding its pharmaceutical business.

The New York corporation could pick different strategies for each division, and doesn't expect to make any more announcements until sometime in 2012. Any transaction could take up to two years to complete.

The animal-health poultry division employs about 250 people in Durham and 20 more in Laurinburg.

Merck is moving ahead with ambitious hiring plans at a massive vaccine factory in Durham, with a goal of adding another 150 employees this year.

The new jobs will come on top of the 230 people Merck hired last year, increasing the current total to 450. The facility is preparing to package and eventually grow vaccines to protect against chicken pox and other diseases.

The company announced plans in 2004 for the campus on 262 acres in northern Durham's Treyburn Corporate Park, further reinforcing the Triangle as a hub for vaccine production. In December, Novartis announced plans to expand its massive Holly Springs vaccine plant, and add 100 more jobs during the next two years.

At Merck this year, one focus is to catch up with expansions and rapid hiring, plant manager John Wagner said in a phone interview.

Novartis plans to expand its massive Holly Springs vaccine plant, adding a $36 million research lab focused on preventive medicine and 100 jobs during the next two years.

This morning, state officials approved giving the Swiss drug maker incentives worth as much as $3.7 million if it meets hiring and investment goals. Holly Springs will also provide $1 million.

The new jobs will pay average wages of $106,200. Novartis also considered building the facility in Italy.

Novartis opened the $600 million Holly Springs plant last year, and expects to begin commercial vaccine production in 2013. The facility now employs about 230 people.

GlaxoSmithKline has stopped efforts to develop a vaccine to block genital herpes in women after the experimental drug failed a major clinical trial.

The failure of the vaccine, known as Simplirix, is a blow for GSK, which is seeking promising new products to bolster its pipeline. The British company employs about 5,000 people in the Triangle, home to its North American headquarters.

It's also a setback in the quest for a vaccine against genital herpes, which afflicts about one in four women in the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A company developing new vaccines announced this morning that it will parlay a $21 million Defense Department grant to build an 87,000-square-foot production facility in Research Triangle Park.

Medicago, a Quebec company, said this morning it would create 85 jobs here paying $50,229 on average, not including benefits. Creating the jobs, which pay lower than the Durham County average wage, would net the company a $128,000 state grant.

Medicago specializes in producing vaccines by growing cultures on tobacco leaves, a process that reduces the time needed to create vaccines from six months to several weeks. The technology could produce high quantities of vaccine in emergencies, such as epidemics or bioterror attacks, according to state and company officials.

"This is really breakthrough science they're working on," said Sam Taylor, president of N.C. Biosciences Organization, an industry trade group.

As Merck officials await regulatory approval to begin commercial production at a new vaccine plant in Durham, the company is cutting back other places.

Merck announced this morning that it plans to close eight research labs and eight manufacturing plants worldwide, as part of a broader cost-cutting effort following its acquisition of rival Schering-Plough last year.

The restructuring also is tied to a plan to eliminate about 15,000 jobs, or 15 percent of Merck's workforce.

Meanwhile, Merck expects to receive word this month from the Food and Drug Administration to begin selling vaccines made at its Durham facility. Two more phases of expansion at the plant are expected to be ready in 2012.

Merck & Co. continues to expand its vaccine manufacturing operations in Durham.

In August, the company plans to begin building a 40,000 square-foot testing lab at its massive campus under construction in Treyburn Corporate Park. The lab is expected to open in 2012 and employ 50 to 60 people, said plant manager John Wagner.

That's in addition to the 275 people now employed at the main vaccine operations, a total that will reach about 400 by the end of the year.

Merck is awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin selling vaccines made at its Durham facility and expects to receive word in July. Two more phases of expansion at the plant are expected to be ready in 2012.

GlaxoSmithKline has joined a global effort to vaccinate children in the world's poorest countries against pneumonia.

The pharmaceutical company, which employs about 5,000 in the Triangle, said it would supply 300 doses of its Synflorix vaccine over a 10-year-period at a steep discount. The drugs have a U.S. value of $1.3 billion but will be discounted by about 90 percent, according to the company.

The New York Times is reporting that the first 20 percent of the vaccines will cost $7 a dose and then drop to $3.50 a dose.

The deal was announced Tuesday by the GAVI Alliance, a nonprofit organization. According to the organization, pneumococcal disesases such as pneumonia and meningitis are the leading cause of death in children under age 5 in developing countries.

The deal was made possible by financing from GAVI, five donor countries (the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Norway and Italy) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jean Stephenne, president of GSK Biologicals, said the first doses are expected to be available in Africa later this year.