Merck to end HPV vaccine production in Durham, laying off 154 workers

The pharmaceutical giant Merck will stop producing the HPV, or human papillomavirus, vaccine Gardasil at its north Durham facility, a decision it attributes to lower global demand for its second-best selling drug.

In a Feb. 24 WARN letter to the North Carolina Department of Commerce and Durham County, Merck said this move will result in 154 layoffs. Separations are expected to begin May 1.

Merck’s decision comes one year after the New Jersey company unveiled a new $1 billion manufacturing plant on Durham’s Old Oxford Road to make Gardasil and Gardasil 9. This facility added 225,000 square feet of production space to a campus that already produced vaccines against measles, rubella, mumps and chickenpox, among other illnesses.

In her WARN letter this week, plant manager Amanda Taylor wrote Gardasil production would cease at this site due to “the recent worldwide reduction in demand for this product.” Businesses must file WARN notices to North Carolina officials at least 60 days before conducting certain mass layoffs, including the closing of a site “that affects at least 50 employees during any 30-day period.”

In its latest annual report, released Tuesday, Merck recorded a significant drop in what remains its No. 2 product: Gardasil. The company sold about 40% less last year compared to 2024, dropping from $8.6 billion in Gardasil revenue to $5.2 billion.

Merck attributed this decrease to suppressed demand in China and Japan, during an investors call in early February. Its executives noted U.S. sales were up, though “largely due to price.”

Merck’s long history in Durham

Merck has been in north Durham since 2004. Last year, the company told The News & Observer it had roughly 1,000 employees in the city. The company has told The N&O its layoffs will only impact HPV vaccine manufacturing operations at the site.

“We continuously assess our operations and evolving business needs,” Merck’s media relations team wrote in an email.

Seven years ago, Merck signed incentive deals with North Carolina and local governments to expand its operations in Durham and Wilson County. As of 2022, the company had met or surpassed its incentive requirements by creating 353 jobs and retaining 1,247 positions between these two campuses, state records provided to The N&O show. In 2024, the company estimated its Bull City campus produced 70.7 million doses.

Merck is the world’s 48th-largest public company, by market capitalization, behind fellow drugmakers Eli Lilly and Roche but ahead of than Amgen and Novo Nordisk. Its top-selling product, by a wide margin, is the cancer treatment Keytruda.

In July, Merck made one of the last year’s largest health care acquisitions when it spent around $10 billion to buy the British drugmaker Verona Pharma, which has its U.S. headquarters in Raleigh. Verona makes a treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, that the Food and Drug Administration approved in June 2024.