The Hyderabad-based firm Biological E, which was in talks with Johnson & Johnson to manufacture their single-shot COVID-19 vaccine in India, is aiming to produce 600 million doses of the vaccine. This, in addition to the one billion doses it plans for its own vaccine candidate.
"We are targeting 600 million doses for J&J," said Mahima Datla, Biological E managing director, adding, "This will be in addition to our own product for which we are targeting approximately 1 billion doses."
The company has set ambitious targets before. In October 2020, Datla said it was readying a billion doses for the Texas-based Baylor College of Medicine vaccine for its recombinant protein vaccine, which entered Phase I/II clinical trials in November 2020.
Then too, Biological E eyed a production target of 500 million doses of the J&J vaccine, after it struck a technology transfer agreement with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (a J&J company) for the “creation / enhancement of manufacturing capacities for drug substance and drug product for Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Ad26.COV2.S.”
Amid concerns over new variants of the coronavirus—some more infectious, others rendering existing vaccines less effective—South Africa has dropped its plans to utilise the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as it battles a new variant that the vaccine could not protect against.
Health minister Zweli Mkhize said South Africa has scrapped plans to use the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because it “does not prevent mild to moderate disease” of the variant. However, the one-shot J&J vaccine has not yet been approved in any country.
South Africa plans to give the unapproved vaccine to its front-line health workers from next week to see if it can protect against the dominant new variant.
"The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been proven effective against the 501Y.V2 variant (dominant in South Africa) and the necessary approval processes for use in South Africa are underway," Mkhize said.
In global efficacy trials, the J&J vaccine was found to be 66 per cent effective overall and 85 per cent effective against severe infections. In the US, it was found to be 72 per cent effective against moderate and severe disease.
The European Medicines Agency is also expected to approve the J&J vaccine by March. Massimo Scaccabarozzi, head of Italy’s pharmaceutical company association Farmindustria, said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera the vaccine had been tested on almost 44,000 people and “hence shields us from variants”.
