NAPSR News: J & J Spends $200 Million to Accelerate Ebola Vaccine Development

WASHINGTON - Oct. 22, 2014 - PRLog -- Johnson & Johnson  will spend $200 million for further expansion on their Ebola vaccine program at Janssen Pharmaceuticals. From collaborative research with the  National Institutes of Health (NIH), a vaccine regimen was discovered by combining a Janssen preventative vaccine with another vaccine developed by Bavarian Nordic, a biotechnology company based in Denmark.

According to the company, from preclinical studies conducted, the regimen produced favorable results showing complete protection against the Kikwit Zaire strain of Ebola, similar to the current virus which is the cause of the current outbreak.  The vaccine regimen will be tested for safety and immunogenicity in healthy volunteers in Europe, the United States of America and Africa by early January.  Janssen has set a target goal to produce one million doses of the vaccine regimen in 2015 and 250, 000 are expected to be available for broad application in clinical trials by May 2015. The company will collaborate with the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), other key stakeholders, governments, and public health officials on the clinical developmental process, production and distribution of the vaccine regimen.

“We are urgently working to provide our vaccine expertise, production capabilities, our people and resources to address the Ebola crisis,” said Alex Gorsky, Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson. “Our innovation model enables us to quickly mobilize our extensive resources to collaborate with health authorities and governments and other experts to help contain this disease, save lives, and protect the health and lives of those at risk. We have an important responsibility as a leading global healthcare company to do all we can to address this urgent unmet medical need."

Johnson & Johnson is committed to supporting the global initiative to combat the Ebola outbreak by collaborating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization (WHO). The company is also seeking additional partnerships to assist in vaccine productions and to further accelerate the clinical trial program.

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