BioPharma, Policy

J&J in $1B supply pact with federal government for one-shot Covid-19 vaccine

Under the agreement with BARDA and the Department of Defense, the drugmaker would supply 100 million doses of its vaccine, for which it published preclinical data last and is currently running a first-in-human clinical trial.

Federal authorities will pay up to $1 billion for supplies of vaccine against the virus that causes Covid-19 from a company that has become the latest to sign such a supply agreement.

New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson said Wednesday that it had made a deal with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the Department of Defense to manufacture and deliver 100 million doses of Ad26.COV2.S, its adenovirus serotype 26 vector-based vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, for use under an approval or emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. A potential subsequent agreement would allow the purchase of a further 200 million doses.

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,” said Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer, in a statement. “We are scaling up production in the U.S. and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use.”

The agreement mirrors similar pacts that BARDA and the Department of Defense have made with other companies developing vaccines. Last week, the federal government signed an agreement with French drugmaker Sanofi and U.K. drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline for $2.1 billion, whereby the two companies would provide 100 million doses of the vaccine they have jointly developed, which they plan to enter into a Phase I/II clinical trial in September. And in the preceding week, the government made a deal with New York-based Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech to provide 100 million doses of their vaccine, worth $1.95 billion.

But a key difference is that where many of the vaccines under development require a priming and a booster shot, J&J’s is designed to be administered in one dose.

As with Sanofi and GSK’s program, Johnson & Johnson’s has yet to produce clinical data. The company announced last Thursday the publication of preclinical data from a test of the vaccine in primates, showing that it produced a “robust” neutralizing antibody response. Nevertheless, the vaccine has already entered a Phase I/IIa first-in-human clinical trial of more than 1,000 healthy adult volunteers that is underway in the U.S. and Belgium. The company plans to start a Phase III trial in September.

Photo: Bill Oxford, Getty Images

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