One-shot COVID vaccine could give Johnson & Johnson an advantage

Less can be more when it comes to deploying a coronavirus vaccine.

Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine could have an advantage over injections from Pfizer and Moderna – although there are still several weeks to go before approval in the United States, Wall Street analysts told the Post.

That’s because single doses are likely to be easier to distribute across the country than the two-dose regimens of its slowly hugging rivals.

“It’s not that late, considering that they’re looking for a single-dose vaccine, which will certainly be a lot more convenient,” Sel Hardy, CFRA Research analyst, told the Post. “They have obvious advantages in terms of logistics.”

J&J plans to release data from its large-scale vaccine study at the end of January and ask the federal government to release the vaccine for emergency use soon after. That would put about two months behind Pfizer and Moderna, which obtained emergency approvals in mid-December.

J&J is also studying a two-dose regimen, but a single dose generated an immune response in more than 90% of participants in an early clinical trial.

This means that every dose produced by the New Jersey-based company could inoculate a person, potentially doubling its impact compared to the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, according to Jeylan Mammadova of Third Bridge.

“If I say I have the capacity to produce a billion doses… that’s a billion people that you vaccinate” with a single-dose vaccine, said Mammadova, global team leader for the research firm. investment in health care. “If I make the same statement with Moderna and with Pfizer, it’s only half.”

There is another key difference – the J&J shot elicits an immune response in the body by delivering a gene for the coronavirus ‘spike’ proteins via a cold virus that cannot make the recipient sick. This is a different method from the so-called messenger RNA found in Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

The J&J technology already has a lot of experience – it was used to develop the company’s Ebola vaccine that European Union regulators approved last July. This could help reassure those skeptical of the brand new COVID-19 shots, analysts say.

“Although they’re late, some people might be thinking, ‘OK, they’re using a traditional vaccination platform,’” Hardy said. “There could also be a trust issue, a perception issue, I would say, that could work to their advantage.”

Additionally, J & J’s vaccine is expected to have a longer shelf life than Moderna’s and does not require ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, which must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit to be effective.

J&J estimates that his vaccine will remain stable for at least three months at standard refrigerator temperatures and for two years in a freezer at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Moderna, on the other hand, can last up to 30 days in the refrigerator and up to six months when frozen.

Despite these apparent benefits, analysts don’t expect the vaccine to have a significant impact on J&J’s results. The firm said it plans to make the vaccine available “on a not-for-profit basis for use in an emergency pandemic,” and it has secured approximately $ 454 million in research and development funding from the US government.

J&J will also eventually have to grapple with other single-dose COVID vaccines from companies such as Merck, which is further behind in development.

“I don’t think it makes a difference financially [J&J] although it’s a fantastic victory, ”Sam Fazeli, senior pharmaceutical analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, told The Post. “The question is whether this is something they are going to be able to monetize beyond the pandemic.”