Pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson announced Monday that it has selected a vaccine candidate for the new coronavirus, which is to be tested in humans by September and could be ready for emergency use by the start of the year. next.
The American group said in a press release that it had signed an agreement with the Authority for advanced research and development in the biomedical field, which depends on the American government, to invest 1 billion dollars for this purpose.
Rely on Ebola
J&J started work in January on the experimental vaccine, Ad26 SARS-CoV-2, using the same technology it used to develop a vaccine candidate against Ebola.
This technology combines the common cold virus unable to replicate to fragments of Covid-19, in an attempt to elicit an immune response in humans. "We tested several vaccine candidates on animals to select the best one. It took 12 weeks," J&J chief scientist Paul Stoffels told AFP.
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Although there has never been an effective vaccine against a virus of the coronavirus family so far, he believes he can do it this time, because the team working there is the same as that which had developed a vaccine - candidate for SARS in 2002-2003.
"Protect against infection or a serious form of the disease"
"The question is whether to protect against infection or a serious form of the disease," said Stoffels. "For many diseases, like the flu, when you vaccinate annually, it is to protect against the severe form, not always against infection."
Johnson & Johnson said it is expanding its global manufacturing capacity, in the United States and elsewhere, to help it deliver more than a billion doses of its vaccine worldwide. The company is also working on antiviral treatments for the coronavirus.