J&J CEO says people could get annual vaccines over the next few years

People may need to get the Covid-19 vaccine every year, just like seasonal flu shots, over the next several years, Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, as [the virus] spreads, it can also mutate, “he told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell at a Healthy Returns Spotlight event.” Every time it mutates it’s almost like another click on the dial so say where we can see another variant, another mutation that may impact its ability to resist antibodies or have a different type of response not only to a drug but also to a vaccine. “

Public health officials and infectious disease experts have said there is a high likelihood that Covid-19 will become an endemic disease, meaning it will become present in communities at any time, although likely at lower levels than it is now. Health officials will need to constantly monitor for new variants of the virus, so scientists can produce vaccines to fight them, medical experts say.

Gorsky’s comment came after J&J said it requested emergency use clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for its coronavirus vaccine. Unlike Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which require two doses given about three to four weeks apart, J&J’s only require one dose, making logistics easier for healthcare providers.

U.S. officials and Wall Street analysts are eagerly awaiting J&J vaccine clearance, which could take place as early as this month. President Joe Biden is trying to speed up the pace of vaccinations in the United States and experts say his administration will need a range of drugs and vaccines to defeat the virus, which has killed more than 450,000 Americans during the last year, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had reached an agreement with Janssen, the pharmaceutical subsidiary of J&J, worth about $ 1 billion for 100 million doses of its vaccine. The deal gives the federal government the ability to order an additional 200 million doses, according to the announcement.

Gorsky told CNBC that the company’s first priority is to work with the FDA to get clearance from the United States. He said J&J was working “full blast” on vaccine manufacturing, adding that the company was “extremely confident” that it will meet its goal of delivering 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine to the United States of America. here at the end of June.

“We will honor our commitments and at the same time do all we can to speed up ‘production safely and efficiently,” he said, adding that people are “strongly anticipating” that they can get just one vaccine against the virus.

J&J is also continuing work on a two-dose vaccine against the coronavirus, he said. The company expects two-dose vaccine data from clinical trials in the second half of 2021, he said.