Johnson & Johnson targets 100 million doses of vaccine by spring. The stock market is counting on that.

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Johnson & Johnson

A board member said the company plans to have sufficient doses of its Covid-19 vaccine available by “April or later” to inoculate 100 million Americans, assuming that clinical trials are successful.

Speaking at CNBC on Thursday, Dr. Mark McClellan, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner on the Johnson & Johnson board (ticker: JNJ), said the company is working to maximize production of the vaccine.

“Johnson & Johnson is supplying a very large supply, going as far as possible with its production here in the United States and other parts of the world, with the goal of having perhaps enough vaccines for 100 million Americans by spring, by April this year. ”. Said McClellan. “So it will make a big difference to the supply available in the coming weeks and months, if the clinical trial works.”

Data from a Phase 3 trial of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine are expected in the coming days. The trial tests the vaccine as a single dose, rather than the two-dose regimen required by the two Covid-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use by the FDA.

Johnson & Johnson shares rose 0.6% on Friday morning in the pre-market negotiations. The stock is up 2.8% this month and 9% in the last 12 months.

Last week, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson said the company intended to have hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine available in the first half of the year and nearly one billion by the end of the year. The New York Times later reported that the company had faced production problems, but the company did not stray from its long-term production goals.

The vaccine is expected to be slightly less effective than currently available

Pfizer

(PFE) and

Modern

(MRNA) vaccines. Last week, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, then chief adviser to the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed, said he hoped the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would show 80 to 85% effectiveness in his trial. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have shown around 95% effectiveness. But Slaoui said the single-dose regimen had significant advantages.

“What people need to realize is that in real life, a very large percentage of people immunized with the first dose will not receive the second dose, for various reasons,” said Slaoui at a health investor conference organized by JP Morgan.

In a note to investors late on Thursday, Jared Holz, analyst at Jefferies’ healthcare trading desk, wrote that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would need to show 80% or more effectiveness to be seen as a competitor to Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

“An injection of JNJ vs. two is a key differentiator and a justification for why effectiveness may fall short of PEF / MRNA and still be considered a respectable treatment option, ”wrote Holz.

Data on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, when it comes, will have a ripple effect across the market. Holz noted that the Phase 3 data releases on the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines changed the

S&P 500

about 1.5% each.

“We do not expect the market to move so high in case the JNJ reports success, but we believe that the entry of another participant in the market would result in more positive momentum,” he wrote.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]