The pharmaceutical giant will now begin testing its candidate vaccine in humans.
Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson stepped forward with its candidate for the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, posting promising data after tests on monkeys while simultaneously announcing the start of human clinical trials.
According to the results published in the scientific journal Nature, scientists discovered that the vaccine appeared to protect a group of monkeys who were vaccinated, and then deliberately exposed themselves to the virus that causes COVID-19. The monkeys that were not vaccinated became ill with the infection.
These promising results in monkeys follow similar findings from another vaccine company, Moderna, which published equally promising findings in monkeys in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday.
Unlike many other vaccination efforts, scientists say recent monkey data shows that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, called Ad26, could be given as one injection instead of two.
“We show that a single immunization of the Ad26 COVID-19 vaccine induces protection of neutralizing antibody response,” said Dan H. Barouch, MD, Ph.D., director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Medical Center. Deaconess.
“These data essentially provide the foundation for the clinical development program,” said Barouch, who collaborated with Johnson & Johnson on the recently published research.
Now Johnson & Johnson is advancing its vaccine candidate in human testing. Announced the launch of a Phase 1/2 trial in the United States and Belgium this week.
Volunteers in this trial will be monitored for safety, and their blood will be analyzed for signs that the vaccine may trigger an immune system reaction, the hallmark of a good vaccine.
If all goes well, the company has announced that it will move forward with a much larger Phase 3 trial in September, which will be the true test of whether the vaccine is effective.
Johnson & Johnson is one of the few companies that has been awarded funds as part of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed, including Moderna and AstraZeneca, in association with Oxford.
Although other companies are already enrolling patients in Phase 3 trials, vaccine experts say society will need more than one successful vaccine to ensure everyone has a chance to immunize against the virus that causes COVID-19.
Barouch, meanwhile, said he hopes the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be easier to implement if it can be successfully administered as a single injection.
“A single injection vaccine would have particle advantages for global deployment,” he said. “We believe that a single injection vaccine has incredible value in terms of pandemic control.”
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