Johnson & Johnson's CEO on the Newest Vaccine

The Biden administration has already begun shipping almost four million doses of Johnson and Johnson's COVID nineteen vaccine on Sunday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally recommend at the shot for adults. Now that all regulatory hurdles have been cleared, providers can finally start administering doses of the first one shot vaccine. The first deliveries of the vaccine

will arrive as early as Tuesday. That's according to senior administration officials who held a briefing call on condition of anonymity. The officials said the shots will be shipped through every distribution channel, including to states on a per capita basis, as well as directly to pharmacies. And community health centers. The UK is trying to trace a person infected with

the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus. Six cases of the mutation, which originated in the Amazonian city of Manaus, have been detected in the UK, while five have been found. The identity of the final patient is still unknown because they fail to complete a test register ration card, leaving health officials without the information needed to find them. Over twenty million people in the UK have now been vaccinated, according

to Britain's Health Minister Matt Hancock. Finally, Russians are skeptical of the locally developed spot NICK five vaccine. Some of Russians said they wouldn't take the injections the most since the question was introduced in August. That's according to a February poll by the independent Lovada Center. The responses highlight problems with the inoculations rollout despite evidence that it is

safe and effective. And now for today's main story. Now that Johnson and Johnson's COVID nineteen vaccine has been cleared by regulators, the company needs to ramp up doses fast. J and J is looking for manufacturing partnerships to increase supply. The company wants to speed up its timeline to immunize twenty million Americans by the end of the month and one million by the end of June. Riley Griffin interviewed the company's chief executive officer, Alex Gorsky. I spoke to

her about what else she learned from their interview. So you recently spoke to the CEO for Johnson and Johnson, Alex Gorski, about the recent authorization of their single shot COVID nineteen vaccine in the US. So tell me what does he see as the role for a one dose vaccine, either in terms of the US vaccine campaign or or more globally. Alex Scorski said, a one shot back scene is going to be a critical tool in reaching populations that interface less frequently with the health care system, like

US top infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci. He discussed it particularly as a boon to rural communities in the US. The impact that a single dose vaccine I think can have on access and distribution around the world just can't be overstated. We have now three vaccines that have been approved, we have dozens more that are in development. All these vaccines have been shown to be incredibly safe, incredibly effective.

Now that we have that kind of a profile, with a single dose that requires standard refrigeration um as you would expect with very commonly used vaccines, and not for profit price, we think that that will significantly reduce some of the administrative some of the logistical challenges you know, associate add with the actual vaccine administration. Administering a single dose is going to be fairly cost effective for health

systems to a one and done vaccine. Doesn't require the time and the resources needed to orchestrate and schedule out a second dose. Administration and administering shots cost money, so this will certainly lessen the burden on health systems around the country. Finally, the Johnson and Johnson CEO mentioned that price point here is a critical factor and will be important at global scale. Jange is offering the shot on a not for profit basis, which means less than ten

dollars per regiment. Now compare that Defiser and bion Tech, which are asking in the US thirty nine per regiment, or Maderna at thirty three per regiment. That's going to create a more affordable option globally, and with the logistical convenience to boot. You can see it as the vaccine of choice for many and low in middle income countries. So, given that jane J has now received emergency use authorization for its vaccine in the US, what does the pace

of production look like for j and J moving forward. Yeah, so jane J is going to deliver three point nine million doses of its one shot vaccine within the next twenty four to forty eight hours, Gorsky said, And the company wants to speed up its timeline actually of supplying enough vaccines to immunize twenty million Americans by the end of the month and a total of a hundred million Americans by the end of June. How are they going to do that, Well, they're going to focus on two

different parts of the production process. First is its capacity for making a live cold virus called an adena virus that's used in the shot to trigger an immune response that fights off infection. They actually have to create proteins and that takes some time to grow, so they want to build out capacity there. Another space they want to augment is the company's phil finished process US. That's the facilities where the drug substance at the very final part

of the production process are actually placed inside files. Phil finished capacity is fairly limited in this country and beyond, and as a result, the company is looking to increase it in the future. I mean, I don't believe that there's ever been a time in history to see that many actual doses produced in that period of time. Based upon the work that we've already done, as you noted, we're getting at three point nine literally within the next

forty eight hours. And what's really important in this riley is that those three point nine million doses are regiments also, and so that means three point nine million more people during the United States will be vaccinated. We're also simultaneously going through the regulatory approval process for our other manufacturing facilities. Over the course of March, you'll see a ramp up to twenty million doses and then it will continue to wrap up the way that we just talked about by

June to a hundred billion doses. And and we are doing everything we can, partnering um with the United States government and other external manufacturers to see what we can do to accelerate an increase that number as well, so that uh in our goal consystem from the very beginning is to achieve almost a billion doses by the end.

We actually also heard from a Biden administration official today suggesting that distribution and delivery are going to be a bit uneven across these early first weeks of March, but we'll see more supply in the back half of the month, and it ramp up even further as we make it past March. You know, at this point, Riley, there are several COVID nineteen vaccines authorized for use in the US, Johnson and Johnson's, of course, alongside now what's available from

Finzer and Maderna. What do you think it's important for Americans to know as more people confront whether to get the vaccine and indeed which vaccine to it. A lot of our readers are listeners, and the generally the public are looking at the data and trying to compare results out of clinical trials, and I think it's important for them to know that you can't have a apples to

apples comparison here. These clinical trials were conducted at different parts of the course of the pandemic, and J and J IS notably was really at peak infections around the world. It's actually the largest COVID nineteen vaccine trial to date, and they had plenty of sites here in the US, of course, but also in places like Brazil and in South Africa where more transmissible virus variants have really dominated.

I think what we've been particularly pleased with is that when you consider that our trial was done really at likely the most one of the most challenging times of this pandemic, so are are faced a clinical trial started in September October that did not finish until it's still not finished, we're ongoing, but was measured through January, and if you look at the incidents rates around the world,

they were at some of their highest levels. Number two, our our trial is conducted on a global basis, so approximately our patients were in Latin America, I believe around for we're in the United States, were in South Africa, and in South Africa. Over the patients that were infected had the South African the one one variant, and we saw a significant number with the P two variant in

northern Brazil. And so at a time when the infection rates were at among the highest, when we were seeing these new strains at a very significant level, we were still able to demonstrate very strong overall efficacy rates, but particularly in the severe cases where we saw efficacy rates higher than and we saw a pent of the time we were effective in keeping patients out of the hospital and keep them from dying, which we think are two of the more and most important data points for patients,

for consumers, for health care systems to understand. The most important point to note again is as a public health tool, Jane Jay's vaccine serves its purpose. It keeps people from getting very sick and was ad effective in keeping people out of the hospital and from dying. That is critical

because that reduces the strain on the health system. I spoke actually with Michelle Williams and epidemiologists and the dean of the Harvard Hands School of Public Health, and she said, quote, this is not the time to be quibbling over decimal places where the levels of efficacy that we're seeing, and her message was really clear. Vaccines as a public health tool are meant to keep people from getting sick, becoming hospitalized,

and overwhelming the healthcare system. And that's precisely what Jane Jay's vaccine does. That was Riley Griffin, and that's it for our show today for coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus around the world. Visit bloomberg dot com, slash Coronavirus, and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Tophor

foreheads Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Riley Griffin. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.