Merck flu deal boosts CSL, but won't add KofP jobs

Merck & Co. has a deal with longtime vaccine partner CSL Biotherapies Inc., King of Prussia, to distribute CSL's Afluria influenza vaccine from next year into 2016. Announcement here.

Wish we could say this will boost hiring locally; but it won't. "CSL has really only had a small sales force for Afluria," spokeswoman Sheila Burke told me. "Merck has a much larger field sales force. So we won't be putting any more people in the field." Of CSL Biotherapies' headquarters staff of less than 100 here, just two have sales jobs, and their work will be taken over by Merck; both "will stay with the company and work in other capacities," Burke said.

CSL makes Afluria in Marburg, Germany and in Melbourne, Australia, and packages and distributes it for the US market in Kankakee, Ill. The company is owned by Australia's publicly-traded CSL Ltd., whose other main unit is CSL Baring Inc., which makes treatments for blood diseases, among other maladies, and employs around 1,000 at its own Philadelphia-area operations.