Washington will fund to the tune of a billion a demonstration project of large-scale manufacturing of the vaccine experimental laboratory Johnson & Johnson.
The government of Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a new investment of a billion dollars in the vaccine project, the Covid-19 of the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, raising the total investment to more than nine billion dollars.
Johnson & Johnson through its subsidiary Janssen, has already received the end of march approximately $ 456 million. The new billion will fund a demonstration project of large-scale manufacture of its investigational vaccine, with the delivery promised 100 million doses, if the vaccine proves its effectiveness.
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The parties provide for a potential amendment of $ 200 million additional doses. This cheque brought up the us public investment to at least $ 9.4 billion in vaccine projects, including supply contracts signed with five companies providing for the delivery of at least 700 million doses.
provided that the vaccines are licensed, the United States could obtain, in theory, 100 million doses of four groups (Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, Pfizer/BioNTech, Sanofi/GSK), and 300 million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca, the latter alliance has also signed or is in negotiations with other countries, including 400 million doses to the european Union.
The race to vaccines requires that you run the production in parallel of clinical trials and potentially at a loss, before we even know if the vaccine is effective. The most advanced project in the United States is one of the national Institutes of health (NIH), associated with the biotech Moderna.
Anthony Fauci “cautiously optimistic”
The final phase of clinical trials has been launched at the end of July, a record time “, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago”, pointed out Wednesday, Anthony Fauci, who heads the institute of infectious diseases, managing the trial, during an exchange organized by Harvard university. He hopes to recruit 30,000 participants by three months, of which half will receive a placebo. It will then wait to see if the placebo group is naturally more infected with the coronavirus that the vaccinated group.
“My estimate, which is only an estimate, is that towards the end of the year or at the beginning of 2021, we will know if we have a safe and effective vaccine,” said dr. Fauci. “I am cautiously optimistic about our success,” he added, because of the immune response generated by the vaccine in tests on a small number of volunteers since march.
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“Covid-19”, the new coronavirus
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The u.s. government has also spent billions for the construction of production sites, for companies in the manufacturing of syringes and vials that will be required to distribute or future vaccines, not to mention the support given to the development of treatments. The United States has purchased virtually all of the production of the antiviral drug remdesivir until September, the first to have demonstrated a relative benefit for the sick of the Covid-19.
