Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) became the fourth company that is apart of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed to enter large, Phase III clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccine candidate to determine whether or not it is safe and effective.
What sets JNJ's vaccine apart from the other vaccine candidates--AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE)--that are currently in trials involving 30,000 healthy participants is, in part, because JNJ plan to enroll 60,000 volunteers across 215 locations in the United States and other countries. The candidate also does not require the frozen storage temperatures that Pfizer and Moderna need, thus simplifying the distribution of hundreds of millions of doses in the emergency effort.
Another unique factor of JNJ's candidate is that it only requires a single shot, which greater guarantees effectiveness by not requiring the public to make a follow-up appointment a month later for a second dose. The potential vaccine uses a technology that has a long safety record in other vaccines against other diseases; the vaccine uses a rare form of the adenovirus that carries a modified coronavirus to jumpstart an immune system response.
Like the other vaccine frontrunners, JNJ has released a detailed blueprint about how it will conduct its Phase III trial in order to make decisions with heightened public transparency. In JNJ's trial, participants will be randomly selected to receive either a dose of the vaccine candidate or a placebo, similar to other major trials.
JNJ predicts that it may have even trial data to prove the effectiveness of the potential vaccine by the end of the year, with a batch of the shot potentially available pending a U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization by early 2021. The company stated that is will continue to upscale production to manufacture 1 billion doses throughout next year.
Canada's Testing Issue
In recent weeks, Canada has experienced a spike in new coronavirus infections, creating long lines at testing centers and long waits for results as the nation's system relies heavily on traditional laboratory tests over faster diagnostic technologies, according to a Reuters report.
In recent months, other nations have pushed to approve new rapid, point-of-care coronavirus tests that help cut down on the need for laboratories, but these tests have yet to be approved for use in Canada. Canada has persisted with the first developed test that requires deep nasal swabs that are collected by healthcare workers and laboratory testing.
Health Canada issued in a statement that it is reviewing new kinds of tests "as quickly as possible without compromising patient safety," according to Reuters. The government health agency is also working closely with manufacturers both domestic and aboard.
Canadian labs tested about 47,000 samples each day last week, with the country aiming to expand its testing capacity to 200,000 per day it transitions towards colder months and flu season. Canada's current positive test rate rests at only 1.4% last week, which is under the World Health Organization's guidance to test populations until less than 10% of samples are positive. However, Canada is preparing for the worst possible scenario, with health experts urging for wider testing to limit this outbreak's spread.