J&J signs pact with US for 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine

Johnson & Johnson has that Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies have entered into an agreement with the US government for domestic manufacturing and delivery in the US of 100 million doses of Janssen’s SARS-CoV-2 investigational vaccine, Ad26.COV2.S, for use in the United States following approval or Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, in collaboration with the US Department of Defense, is committing over $1 billion for this agreement. The vaccine will be provided at a global not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use. The US government may also purchase an additional 200 million doses of Ad26.COV2.S under a subsequent agreement.

“Johnson & Johnson’s global team of experts has worked tirelessly alongside BARDA and scientific partners to pursue a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine that can help to stop the spread of COVID-19. We greatly appreciate the US government’s confidence in, and support for, our R&D platform and efforts and the scalability of our vaccine technology. We are scaling up production in the US and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use,” said Paul Stoffels, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson.

Johnson & Johnson’s efforts to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine have been undertaken pursuant to an ongoing research and development collaboration with BARDA and under the oversight of the FDA. Based on the positive preclinical data recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, the Phase 1/2a first-in-human clinical trial of the vaccine candidate, Ad26.COV2.S, is underway in healthy volunteers in the US and Belgium.