Johnson & Johnson will begin human trials for a coronavirus vaccine candidate by September at the latest to be approved by early 2021, a timeline that would be on the faster end of what officials have said is possible.
The New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant announced Monday that researchers aim to speed up the development process, which can take five to 15 years under normal circumstances, and gain emergency-use approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Johnson & Johnson is among many pharmaceutical companies working to introduce a vaccine by early next year. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last week during a White House press briefing that vaccines still in early development must be produced for public use even before final clinical trials show that they effectively prevent infection, “because once you know it works, you can’t say, ‘Great, it works. Now, give me another six months to produce it.’”
The company has also committed to investing more than $1 billion to co-fund vaccine research with the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Johnson & Johnson is well positioned through our combination of scientific expertise, operational scale and financial strength to bring our resources in collaboration with others to accelerate the fight against this pandemic,” Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky said Monday.
