Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) – Request report According to a published report on Wednesday, the single-use candidate vaccine has been shown to be safe and generate a meaningful immune response at an early stage of research.
A single injection of the vaccine “produces durable antibodies,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer at J&J, to CNBC. The results have given the company “confidence” that the vaccine will be effective, Stoffels told CNBC.
The results of phase 1-2 studies were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate is also undergoing Phase 3 trials to determine its actual effectiveness. The results of that study are expected later this month.
If successful and approved, the vaccine would become the third available to combat the COVID-19 pandemic that is spiraling out of control in the US and much of the world.
Nearly 400,000 Americans have died of the disease and more than 22 million have been infected.
A vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer (PFE) – Request report and BioNTech (BNTX) – Request report won emergency use approval last month, along with a second vaccine from Moderna (MRNA) – Request report. Both require follow-up shots and are kept at very low temperatures, which makes distribution and deployment of the vaccines difficult. The US is lagging far behind predicted vaccination schedules, which required 20 million vaccinations by the end of December. Only about 10 million have done so so far.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine only requires one injection and can be stored at higher temperatures. However, the rollout is also behind schedule and will probably not begin in earnest until April, due to production delays, assuming it is approved for use by the FDA.
Shares of Johnson and Johnson were up 1.08% on Wednesday to $ 159.60 in after-hours trading.