Washington (AFP)
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 group said in a statement it had signed an agreement with the Authority for advanced research and development in the biomedical field, which depends on the United States government, to invest $ 1 billion for this purpose.
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 uses a deactivated version of the virus to try to provoke an immune response in humans.
The company said it is expanding its global manufacturing capacity, in the United States and elsewhere, to help deliver more than a billion doses of its vaccine worldwide.
J&J is also working on antiviral treatments for the coronavirus.
For its part, the American pharmaceutical company Moderna is already carrying out clinical trials for its vaccine candidate, just like the Chinese group CanSinoBIO.
There is no approved vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 yet.
Several treatments are being studied, such as the antiviral remdesivir, the antimalarial chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine, but their effectiveness is not yet clear.
Pharmaceutical groups and research laboratories around the world have embarked on a time trial to develop treatments and vaccines against Covid-19, using a variety of new technologies.
© 2020 AFP