American drug giant Merck on Tuesday said it plans to work alongside nonprofit scientific research organization IAVI to develop a potential vaccine against the coronavirus.
When news of the partnership broke it helped send Merck shares up about 3% during the premarket.
Merck's announcement comes as drugmakers pause other clinical trials and scramble to find an antidote for Covid-19, which has infected more than 5.5 million people worldwide and killed over 346,000.
Clinical researchers agree could take 12 to 18 months to roll out a safe vaccine to the market. And, even if an effective vaccine becomes available, many have warned of significant logistical challenges around distributing enough doses for the global population.
Both Merck and IAVI said their vaccine candidate would use the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus technology that is the basis for its Ebola Zaire virus vaccine — which was the first rVSV vaccine approved for use in humans.
More: CNBC.COM