Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine could become a two-dose regimen if it turns out to provide more protection than one, a White House adviser said Thursday.
“Johnson & Johnson is currently evaluating how their vaccine is performing with two doses – in other words, their own booster,” Andy Slavitt, a senior advisor on the COVID-19 response team, said in an interview on Washington Post Live
“Pending the results of that, pending what the FDA has to say if the vaccine is approved in the first place, there could be a second injection of Johnson & Johnson.”
The drugmaker announced a large-scale trial in November to test the two-dose regimen.
The company said it plans to enroll as many as 60,000 participants worldwide in the study, which ran in parallel with a single-dose trial.
Participants will receive either a placebo or the experimental injection, currently called Ad26COV2, followed 57 days later by a second dose or placebo.
“The study will assess the efficacy of the study vaccine after both the first and second doses to evaluate protection against the virus and possible additional benefits for the duration of protection with a second dose,” J&J said in a statement.
The company has already applied for an emergency permit for its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, which has been shown to be 66 percent effective against moderate to severe cases.
If approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it will compete with rivals with two doses of Pfizer and Moderna, both of which offer greater than 90 percent efficacy.
With pole wires