Covid-19 Good News - Sept 23

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Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) announced on Wednesday that its coronavirus vaccine candidate had entered the late stage clinical phase, becoming the fourth company to do so in the global search for an effective COVID-19 inoculation.

The drug giant, whose candidate is a late entrant into the Phase 3 stage of development, previously announced its single-dose candidate. However, JNJ’s treatment differs in key ways from those being developed by the likes of Moderna (MRNA), Pfizer (PFE) and Novavax (NVAX), and will have more than 60,000 participants globally. The news helped to boost markets in pre-market action.

While two of the U.S. frontrunners employ mRNA technology, J&J’s approach is more similar to AstraZeneca (AZN) which has halted trials in the U.S. after an unexplained illness in a participant in the U.K. trial. While the U.K. has resumed its Phase 3 trial, the U.S. continues to investigate.

J&J’s candidate does not need the same freezing temperatures for storage that are making the two leading candidates a challenge to distribute. The adenovirus vector technology is stable at room temperature, which bodes well for global distribution and production.

J&J’s trials, done in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adds to a growing portfolio of COVID-19 inoculation candidates in the U.S. that are being developed at a record-breaking pace.

“Four COVID-19 vaccine candidates are in Phase 3 clinical testing in the United States just over eight months after SARS-CoV-2 was identified,” said NIAID director Anthony Fauci, in a statement.

“This is an unprecedented feat for the scientific community made possible by decades of progress in vaccine technology and a coordinated, strategic approach across government, industry and academia,” he added.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) is gearing up for distribution of whichever candidate is proven safe first, having earlier notified states to prepare for such an event.