NewLink Genetics Corp. today announced that it has been notified by Merck & Co. Inc. that a key clinical trial for its Ebola vaccine candidate has been achieved. Under the terms of its agreement it entered into in November 2014 with Merck, the Ames-based biopharmaceutical company will receive a payment of $20 million for achieving the milestone. The rVSV-EBOV vaccine candidate was originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed by BioProtection Systems Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of NewLink Genetics. Canada’s public health agency will be entitled to a payment from NewLink Genetics in connection with this milestone. “We hope that the initiation of large scale clinical trials in Africa represent another step forward toward finding a solution for this difficult, global problem,” said Dr. Charles Link, NewLink’s chairman, CEO and chief scientific officer. “This milestone payment will help us continue our significant investment into vaccines for infectious diseases, including Ebola in collaboration with Merck.”