New York: Global healthcare company Johnson & Johnson has reached a $1 billion deal with the US government for manufacturing and delivery of 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine that is being tested.
The US government may also purchase an additional 200 million doses of the vaccine, Ad26.COV2.S, under a subsequent agreement, the company said on Wednesday.
“We greatly appreciate the US government’s confidence in, and support for, our R&D platform and efforts and the scalability of our vaccine technology”
Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson
“We are scaling up production in the US and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use,” Stoffels said.
Based on the positive preclinical data recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, early-stage clinical trial of the vaccine candidate, Ad26.COV2.S is underway in healthy volunteers in the US and Belgium.
The company is evaluating one- and two-dose regimens, in its clinical programme.
Johnson & Johnson said it aims to meet its goal to supply more than one billion doses globally through the course of 2021, provided the vaccine is safe and effective.
J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine programme is leveraging Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies’ (Janssen) adenovector technology that provides the ability to rapidly develop new vaccine candidates.
It is planning to start a Phase-3 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine ahead of its original schedule, potentially in late September.