Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) – Get the report as reported in a report released on Wednesday, the single vaccine candidate has been shown to be safe and generate a significant immune response in an early-stage trial.
A single shot of the vaccine “gives sustainable antibodies,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J’s scientific director, told CNBC. The results have given the company “confidence” that the vaccine will be effective, Stoffels told CNBC.
The results of the phase 1-2 trials 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 this study are expected later this month.
If successful and approved, the vaccine would become the third available to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to spiral out of control in the United States and much of the world.
About 400,000 Americans have died from the disease and more than 22 million have become infected.
A vaccine developed jointly by Pfizer (PFE) – Get the report and BioNTech (BNTX) – Get the report obtained emergency use approval last month along with a second Moderna vaccine (MRNA) – Get the report. Both require monitoring of booster shots and are stored at very low temperatures, which complicates the distribution and deployment of vaccines. The United States is far behind planned vaccination programs, which had called for 20 million inoculations by the end of December. So far there are only about 10 million.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine requires only a single shot and can be stored at higher temperatures. However, its release is also running late and will probably not really start until April, due to delays in manufacturing, assuming the FDA is authorized for use.
Shares of Johnson and Johnson were up 1.08%, to $ 159.60, on trading outside of Wednesday hours.