New hope: US giant starts production of its own vaccine candidate - is everything going very quickly now? 

In the EU, there is great anger about possible delivery bottlenecks for corona vaccines.

When looking for alternatives, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is now the focus. 

• In the fight against the

  corona

  pandemic, further vaccines are about to be approved.

• The vaccine from

  Astra-Zeneca

  could already

  receive the green light for use in the EU

  on Friday

  .

• With the vaccine from

  Johnson & Johnson

  , the next great hope is in the starting blocks.

• Compared to the

  competition

  , the preparation offers a number of tangible

  advantages

  .

Munich - The US corporation

Johnson & Johnson

(J&J) is working flat out on the planned market launch of its

corona

vaccine in Europe.

The production of the vaccine * candidate at the

J&J

subsidiary

Janssen

at the plant in Leiden, the Netherlands "has already started," a Janssen spokeswoman told Merkur.de *.

However, the spokeswoman did not want to comment on a specific date for the market launch in the EU.

To do this, one must first wait for the results of clinical phase III.

However, the relevant data should be available by the end of January.

Depending on the outcome, one would then "promptly

submit

the application for approval to the European Medicines Agency (

EMA

)," it said.

Corona Vaccine: J&J Vaccine Candidate - Promising Interim Results

The interim results with the vaccine candidate

Ad26.COV2-S

are apparently promising.

According

to an article in the renowned New England Journal of Medicine,

more than 90 percent of the study participants in phases 1 and 2a developed neutralizing antibodies against

Sars-CoV-2

after the first dose

.

After 57 days, 100 percent of the test subjects would have developed antibodies.

The vaccine also worked very well with older participants.

Professor

Emil Reisinger

from the University of

Rostock

recently came to a similar conclusion

.

The data from test phases 1 and 2 are “very satisfactory”, the infectiologist and study director recently said in a conversation with the Ostsee-Zeitung.

Now the

J&J

subsidiary could also get the

green light

in the

EU

.

Brussels has

ordered 200 million doses of the vaccine

from

J&J

, with an option for a further 200 million doses.

Ad26.COV2-S is a so-called

vector vaccine

.

Adenoviruses and cold viruses, which are harmless to humans, are used as messengers that transport the information for the production of the Sars-CoV-2 cover.

After the vaccination, they ensure that small parts of the coronavirus shell are reproduced in the body, thus triggering the immune system.

The antibodies that develop should then protect against Sars-CoV-2.

In contrast to the mRNA vaccines from Biontech or Moderna, vector vaccines have been in use for a long time, for example against

Ebola

or

dengue fever

.

Corona vaccine candidate J&J: Central pluses

Compared to the already approved vaccines from

Biontech

or

Moderna

*

or the

Astra-Zenaca

preparation, which is also about to be approved

J & J's

vaccine candidate promises

several key benefits.

First, one vaccine dose is likely to be enough.

With Biontech or Moderna, however, two rounds of vaccination are necessary.

In addition, according to Janssen, the preparation can be stored for three months at refrigerator temperatures.

The

mRNA

vaccine from Biontech, on the other hand, has to be transported and stored at minus 70 degrees.

In addition, the development of the J&J Pharma subsidiary is apparently also effective in older people.

At Astra-Zeneca, a discussion has recently broken out about whether the vaccine also triggers a strong immune defense in seniors.

Vaccines: Severe setbacks in the fight against Corona

A lower effectiveness of the Astra-Zeneca active ingredient in older people would be a further setback in the fight against the corona pandemic.

Only last Friday (January 22nd) Astra-Zeneca drastically cut the promised delivery of its vaccine candidate.

Instead of the agreed 80 million cans, the British-Swedish group plans to deliver just 31 million units in the first quarter.

The company had cited difficulties in the supply chain to justify this.

The surprising reduction in the promised delivery volume caused outrage in Brussels.

In order

not to fall further behind

against other countries such as the

USA

or Great Britain, the

EU

now

wants to take

action.

According to the ideas of EU Health Commissioner

Stella Kyriadkides

,

Brussels

now

wants

to oblige pharmaceutical manufacturers to report possible exports from the EU at an early stage.

To this end, the

EU Commission

now

wants

to quickly introduce a corresponding transparency register.

* Merkur.de is part of the Ippen Digital network.

Note to editors: In the first version of this post, we reported that the J&J vaccine is already approved and being vaccinated in the UK. This is wrong. We have corrected the relevant passages accordingly after a note from a reader.