On Mar. 13, 2020, Johnson & Johnson announced that its Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies have entered a collaboration with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) to support the development of a preventive vaccine candidate for COVID-19. The parties have commenced preclinical testing of multiple vaccine prospects, with the aim to identify by the end of the month a COVID-19 vaccine candidate for clinical trials.

Janssen is optimistic that, in collaboration with multiple global strategic partners, it can initiate a Phase 1 clinical study of a potential vaccine candidate by the end of the year. In parallel to these efforts, Janssen is preparing to upscale production and manufacturing capacities to levels required to meet global public health vaccination needs.

Janssen’s vaccine program will use the Janssen AdVac^® and PER.C6^® technologies that provide the ability to rapidly upscale production of an optimal vaccine candidate. The company is leveraging its proven vaccine technology that it is also using to develop its investigational Ebola (which also utilizes its MVA-BN^® technology), Zika, RSV and HIV vaccines. Research and collaboration on preclinical work for our Zika and HIV vaccine candidates at the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was foundational to developing these vaccines.