The vials are prepared to receive doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, which the company claims is highly effective against the disease.
Johnson & Johnson
By Jon Cohen
ScienceCOVID-19 reports are supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
Less than 24 hours after the small biotechnology Novavax announced the largely successful results of its vaccine COVID-19, a pharmaceutical giant, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), said its candidate was also highly effective against the pandemic coronavirus, including several new ones. variants that were interested scientists. In a press release this morning, the company reported an 85% effectiveness in preventing severe cases of COVID-19, including complete protection against hospitalization and death from 28 days after the dose was administered. Unlike other proven COVID-19 vaccines that were designed to include a booster dose weeks later, J&J bet on a single dose strategy that could help to greatly expand the number of people immunized against SARS-CoV- two.
Some protection was observed as early as 14 days after the dose, and on the 28th, the overall effectiveness against any COVID-19, mild or severe, was 72% among trial participants in the United States, 66% in Latin America and 57 % in South Africa, the company said. The results are based on a provisional analysis of the ongoing effectiveness trial, but they appear strong enough to meet the emergency use authorization limit in many countries. They do not correspond to the greater than 90% efficacy of Moderna’s two-dose messenger RNA vaccines and the Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration, but many countries are likely to welcome the J&J candidate due to the scant supply of other COVID-19 vaccines.
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“These first-line results with a single-shot COVID-19 candidate vaccine represent a promising moment. The potential to significantly reduce the burden of serious illness by providing an effective and well-tolerated vaccine with just one immunization is a critical component of the global public health response, ”Paul Stoffels, vice president, executive committee and scientific director at J&J, said in the company statement. “A single vaccine is considered by the World Health Organization to be the best option in pandemic settings, improving access, distribution and compliance.”
The J&J vaccine was developed by its Janssen division and strongly supported by the United States government. It centralizes a projected version of adenovirus 26 (Ad26), which normally causes common colds, but has been disabled so that it cannot replicate. The company’s scientists sewed into this “vector” a gene for the peak, the SARS-CoV-2 surface protein. Janssen is testing this same Ad26 platform in vaccines against Ebola, HIV, respiratory syncytial virus and Zika. J&J had $ 42 billion in pharmaceutical sales in 2019, making it the sixth largest pharmaceutical company.
This is a developing story and will be updated.