Johnson & Johnson said this week it will enroll 60,000 participants at almost 215 sites in the U.S. and overseas for the third stage testing of its single-dose COVID-19 vaccine.
The potential treatment being developed by the pharmaceutical group is the fourth vaccine to enter a final phase trial as part of the Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed that will determine whether the vaccines are safe and effective.
Johnson & Johnson chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels said the advanced-phase tests would commence immediately - with the first subjects being administered with the vaccine this week. The experimental drug was developed by J&J subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
The candidate treatment was formulated using the same science from the pharmaceutical company's Ebola vaccine - which consolidates genetic material from the coronavirus with a modified adenovirus, the virus that triggers the common cold in people, Johnson & Johnson said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the U.S., projects that Johnson & Johnson's final trial could likely generate results as early as December this year or in January.
The world's biggest health care group began preliminary human testing in the U.S. and Belgium in July. While results have not been released from those trials, Stoffels said the findings were promising. Initial data would be published in the next two days, he said.
Johnson & Johnson is testing a single dose, whereas other treatments undergoing clinical trials in the U.S. require a second shot spaced between three to four weeks to cause a protective immune effect. The company said it was on course to produce 1 billion doses a year.
According to Dan Barouch, chief of vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, if proven safe and effective, a single-shot vaccine would have "substantial logistic advantages for global pandemic control," The Washington Post quoted him as saying.
