March 30, 2020 -- Johnson & Johnson has selected a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate from a number of options it has been working on since January. The company hopes to release a vaccine by 2021.
The lead vaccine has been developed in partnership with Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center using Janssen's AdVac technology, the company said.
Johnson & Johnson plans to begin human clinical studies on the vaccine candidate by September 2020, and anticipates the first batches of it could be available for emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in early 2021.
The company also plans to scale its manufacturing capability so it can produce more than 1 billion doses of the vaccine, it said.
The company's vaccine development efforts have been supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a partnership that is part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.