Johnson & Johnson are one step closer to help the U.S. government fight against COVID-19, as they filed an application on Thursday for emergency use authorization for its single-shot coronavirus vaccine, reported The Hill.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on the move, and needs to convene a meeting of its vaccine advisory panel to review the evidence, which could happen in two weeks.
It’s expected that the company will meet its commitment and deliver 100 million doses of the vaccine by the middle of the year. The company gave a statement that it “expects to have product available to ship immediately following authorization,” but did not say how much.
“Upon authorization of our investigational COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, we are ready to begin shipping. With our submission to the FDA and our ongoing reviews with other health authorities around the world, we are working with great urgency to make our investigational vaccine available to the public as quickly as possible,” it said in a statement given by Johnson & Johnson’s vice chairman and chief scientific officer, Paul Stoffels.
The vaccine that Johnson & Johnson presented requires only one dose, which means that will be easier to distribute, as opposed to the two-dose vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
The one-shot vaccine is estimated to remain stable for two years at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit, and at least three months in standard refrigerators at temperatures of 36 to 46 degrees, which makes it much easier to store.
Compared to Pfizer’s vaccine which requires ultra-cold that keeps it between minus 112 and minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit, and Moderna’s vaccine that needs to be shipped between minus 13 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has an advantage.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases doctor, as well as other experts, praised the vaccine as an important tool in the U.S. arsenal, referring to the data from Johnson & Johnson’s third phase clinical trial, which showed it was 66 percent effective in preventing moderate or severe disease.
Be the first to comment