(This July 14 story corrects to show interview was published by a Harvard Business School website, not Harvard Business Review)<\/p>\n
By Carl O\u2019Donnell<\/p>\n
(Reuters) – COVID-19 vaccines under development are not guaranteed to work and people who say to expect a vaccine before year-end are doing a \u201cgrave disservice to the public,\u201d Merck & Co Inc\u2019s (MRK.N<\/a><\/span>) chief said, according to an interview published on a Harvard Business School website on Monday.<\/p>\n The potential vaccines may not have the qualities needed to be rapidly deployed in large numbers of people, Chief Executive Kenneth Frazier said in an interview with Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re going to use a vaccine on billions of people, you better know what that vaccine does.\u201d<\/p>\n A U.S. official said Monday that drugmakers partnered with the U.S. government are on track to begin actively manufacturing a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the summer, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n The Trump administration aims to produce 300 million vaccine doses by the end of 2021 though its Operation Warp Speed Program.<\/p>\n Some previous vaccines \u201cnot only didn\u2019t confer protection, but actually helped the virus invade the cell, because it was incomplete in terms of its immunogenic properties,\u201d Frazier said. \u201cSo we have to be very careful.\u201d<\/p>\n Merck announced in May plans to study potential vaccine and therapy candidates for COVID-19 through partnerships and an acquisition of Austrian vaccine maker Themis Bioscience. It has not started clinical trials for its vaccine.<\/p>\n Frazier, one of only four Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, said the U.S. pandemic, with a higher death rate among nonwhite people, has highlighted \u201chuge structural elements of racism that have existed in this country for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n American companies must work to dismantle processes and systems that impede Black employees from advancing, he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, if you\u2019re complacent with the status quo, you\u2019re complicit in the racism that the status quo hides.\u201d<\/p>\n