J&J announces the big news of starting the final phase of clinical trials for the Covid-19 vaccine. With this, J&J becomes the fourth company to reach this stage in the U.S. in such a short period. Johnson & Johnson is behind in the race of a Covid-19 Vaccine followed by Sanofi and Novavax.
This is said to be the largest trial that is going to take place across three major continents with 60,000 people participating in it. A diverse set of participants starting from the age of 18 would be selected focusing mainly on elder people aged over 60.
Unlike other vaccines, you would only need one shot or a dose of the vaccine. This would prove to be a lot beneficial as the whole world needs the vaccine and a single shot would mean the vaccine will reach more people. Another major advantage of this vaccine is that there is no need to keep it frozen. Its accessibility would increase as it would be much easy to store and transport it throughout the world. In terms of safety, the technology it uses has a good record.
On Wednesday, Trump, claiming it to be the big news, suggested that the Food & Drugs Administration must move quickly with the authorization. Trump has ensured the people that the vaccine would be ready before elections as the government has invested around 1.5 billion dollars in Johnson & Johnson for the development of the vaccine.
Such a vaccine has never been manufactured this early as it takes years, even decades to develop one. But with the help of advanced technology, Johnson & Johnson or any other vaccine company might be able to do the impossible.
Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson has high hopes for the success of the vaccine and claims that the vaccine might be ready by end of 2020 and be available for emergency use in early 2021. The manufacturers of the vaccine hopes that it may be made available right after its approval as Alex ensures that the company has the production capacity to meet the needs of the masses.
Let’s hope that more companies come up with such good news because one company certainly cannot fulfill the demand for 7.6 billion people.
