U.S. Authorizes Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) Single-Dose COVID-19 Vaccine

By Amit Chowdhry ● Feb 27, 2021
  • Today the U.S. government officially authorized the Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) single-dose COVID-19 vaccine. These are the details.

Today the U.S. government officially authorized the Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) single-dose COVID-19 vaccine. This will speed up the process for millions of Americans and others around the world to receive the vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had announced the emergency use authorization for adults aged 18 and older following a unanimous endorsement by a panel of outside experts on Friday.

“The authorization of this vaccine expands the availability of vaccines, the best medical prevention method for COVID-19, to help us in the fight against this pandemic, which has claimed over half a million lives in the United States,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock in a statement via Reuters.

Prior to deploying the vaccine, Johnson & Johnson launched a 44,000 person clinical trial. And the vaccine ended up being 66% effective at preventing moderate-to-severe COVID-19 four weeks after inoculation and 100% effective for preventing hospitalization and death. Plus there were minimal side effects reported during the trial, indicating that the vaccine had reduced asymptomatic infections. It is unclear how long the protection from the vaccine lasts.

Besides being a single-dose, another advantage offered by the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is the storage requirements. The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine can be used more around the globe since it can be shipped in normal refrigerator temperatures whereas the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech and Moderna Inc vaccines have to be shipped frozen.

The U.S. government bought 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine and is planning to distribute about 3 million to 4 million this week. This on top of the 16 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines that the U.S. government is already planning to ship around the country. J&J is planning to offer a total of 20 million doses by the end of March.

The J&J vaccine uses a common cold virus called adenovirus type 26 for introducing coronavirus proteins into the body to trigger an immune response. But the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are based on a new messenger RNA technology, which shows higher efficacy rates in pivotal trials when tested.

Currently, the J&J vaccine is under review by the European Union. And deliveries are expected to start in April. South African health agencies were also waiting for the FDA decision in order to deploy more J&J vaccines against a coronavirus variant called B.1.351.

On Friday, J&J also said it is developing a second generation of the vaccine to target the South African variant and it will be ready to begin Phase I trials this summer.