Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty two since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Today's main story Johnson and Johnson's one shot vaccine has
Speaker 1: been approved by regulators. We asked the CEO how he
Speaker 1: plans to increase supply to get one million people vaccinated
Speaker 1: by summer. But first, here's what happened in virus News today.
Speaker 1: The Biden administration has already begun shipping almost four million
Speaker 1: doses of Johnson and Johnson's COVID nineteen vaccine on Sunday.
Speaker 1: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally recommend at
Speaker 1: the shot for adults. Now that all regulatory hurdles have
Speaker 1: been cleared, providers can finally start administering doses of the
Speaker 1: first one shot vaccine. The first deliveries of the vaccine
Speaker 1: will arrive as early as Tuesday. That's according to senior
Speaker 1: administration officials who held a briefing call on condition of anonymity.
Speaker 1: The officials said the shots will be shipped through every
Speaker 1: distribution channel, including to states on a per capita basis,
Speaker 1: as well as directly to pharmacies. And community health centers.
Speaker 1: The UK is trying to trace a person infected with
Speaker 1: the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus. Six cases of the mutation,
Speaker 1: which originated in the Amazonian city of Manaus, have been
Speaker 1: detected in the UK, while five have been found. The
Speaker 1: identity of the final patient is still unknown because they
Speaker 1: fail to complete a test register ration card, leaving health
Speaker 1: officials without the information needed to find them. Over twenty
Speaker 1: million people in the UK have now been vaccinated, according
Speaker 1: to Britain's Health Minister Matt Hancock. Finally, Russians are skeptical
Speaker 1: of the locally developed spot NICK five vaccine. Some of
Speaker 1: Russians said they wouldn't take the injections the most since
Speaker 1: the question was introduced in August. That's according to a
Speaker 1: February poll by the independent Lovada Center. The responses highlight
Speaker 1: problems with the inoculations rollout despite evidence that it is
Speaker 1: safe and effective. And now for today's main story. Now
Speaker 1: that Johnson and Johnson's COVID nineteen vaccine has been cleared
Speaker 1: by regulators, the company needs to ramp up doses fast.
Speaker 1: J and J is looking for manufacturing partnerships to increase supply.
Speaker 1: The company wants to speed up its timeline to immunize
Speaker 1: twenty million Americans by the end of the month and
Speaker 1: one million by the end of June. Riley Griffin interviewed
Speaker 1: the company's chief executive officer, Alex Gorsky. I spoke to
Speaker 1: her about what else she learned from their interview. So
Speaker 1: you recently spoke to the CEO for Johnson and Johnson,
Speaker 1: Alex Gorski, about the recent authorization of their single shot
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen vaccine in the US. So tell me what
Speaker 1: does he see as the role for a one dose vaccine,
Speaker 1: either in terms of the US vaccine campaign or or
Speaker 1: more globally. Alex Scorski said, a one shot back scene
Speaker 1: is going to be a critical tool in reaching populations
Speaker 1: that interface less frequently with the health care system, like
Speaker 1: US top infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci. He discussed it
Speaker 1: particularly as a boon to rural communities in the US.
Speaker 1: The impact that a single dose vaccine I think can
Speaker 1: have on access and distribution around the world just can't
Speaker 1: be overstated. We have now three vaccines that have been approved,
Speaker 1: we have dozens more that are in development. All these
Speaker 1: vaccines have been shown to be incredibly safe, incredibly effective.
Speaker 1: Now that we have that kind of a profile, with
Speaker 1: a single dose that requires standard refrigeration um as you
Speaker 1: would expect with very commonly used vaccines, and not for
Speaker 1: profit price, we think that that will significantly reduce some
Speaker 1: of the administrative some of the logistical challenges you know,
Speaker 1: associate add with the actual vaccine administration. Administering a single
Speaker 1: dose is going to be fairly cost effective for health
Speaker 1: systems to a one and done vaccine. Doesn't require the
Speaker 1: time and the resources needed to orchestrate and schedule out
Speaker 1: a second dose. Administration and administering shots cost money, so
Speaker 1: this will certainly lessen the burden on health systems around
Speaker 1: the country. Finally, the Johnson and Johnson CEO mentioned that
Speaker 1: price point here is a critical factor and will be
Speaker 1: important at global scale. Jange is offering the shot on
Speaker 1: a not for profit basis, which means less than ten
Speaker 1: dollars per regiment. Now compare that Defiser and bion Tech,
Speaker 1: which are asking in the US thirty nine per regiment,
Speaker 1: or Maderna at thirty three per regiment. That's going to
Speaker 1: create a more affordable option globally, and with the logistical
Speaker 1: convenience to boot. You can see it as the vaccine
Speaker 1: of choice for many and low in middle income countries. So,
Speaker 1: given that jane J has now received emergency use authorization
Speaker 1: for its vaccine in the US, what does the pace
Speaker 1: of production look like for j and J moving forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so jane J is going to deliver three point nine
Speaker 1: million doses of its one shot vaccine within the next
Speaker 1: twenty four to forty eight hours, Gorsky said, And the
Speaker 1: company wants to speed up its timeline actually of supplying
Speaker 1: enough vaccines to immunize twenty million Americans by the end
Speaker 1: of the month and a total of a hundred million
Speaker 1: Americans by the end of June. How are they going
Speaker 1: to do that, Well, they're going to focus on two
Speaker 1: different parts of the production process. First is its capacity
Speaker 1: for making a live cold virus called an adena virus
Speaker 1: that's used in the shot to trigger an immune response
Speaker 1: that fights off infection. They actually have to create proteins
Speaker 1: and that takes some time to grow, so they want
Speaker 1: to build out capacity there. Another space they want to
Speaker 1: augment is the company's phil finished process US. That's the
Speaker 1: facilities where the drug substance at the very final part
Speaker 1: of the production process are actually placed inside files. Phil
Speaker 1: finished capacity is fairly limited in this country and beyond,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the company is looking to increase
Speaker 1: it in the future. I mean, I don't believe that
Speaker 1: there's ever been a time in history to see that
Speaker 1: many actual doses produced in that period of time. Based
Speaker 1: upon the work that we've already done, as you noted,
Speaker 1: we're getting at three point nine literally within the next
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. And what's really important in this riley
Speaker 1: is that those three point nine million doses are regiments also,
Speaker 1: and so that means three point nine million more people
Speaker 1: during the United States will be vaccinated. We're also simultaneously
Speaker 1: going through the regulatory approval process for our other manufacturing facilities.
Speaker 1: Over the course of March, you'll see a ramp up
Speaker 1: to twenty million doses and then it will continue to
Speaker 1: wrap up the way that we just talked about by
Speaker 1: June to a hundred billion doses. And and we are
Speaker 1: doing everything we can, partnering um with the United States
Speaker 1: government and other external manufacturers to see what we can
Speaker 1: do to accelerate an increase that number as well, so
Speaker 1: that uh in our goal consystem from the very beginning
Speaker 1: is to achieve almost a billion doses by the end.
Speaker 1: We actually also heard from a Biden administration official today
Speaker 1: suggesting that distribution and delivery are going to be a
Speaker 1: bit uneven across these early first weeks of March, but
Speaker 1: we'll see more supply in the back half of the month,
Speaker 1: and it ramp up even further as we make it
Speaker 1: past March. You know, at this point, Riley, there are
Speaker 1: several COVID nineteen vaccines authorized for use in the US,
Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson's, of course, alongside now what's available from
Speaker 1: Finzer and Maderna. What do you think it's important for
Speaker 1: Americans to know as more people confront whether to get
Speaker 1: the vaccine and indeed which vaccine to it. A lot
Speaker 1: of our readers are listeners, and the generally the public
Speaker 1: are looking at the data and trying to compare results
Speaker 1: out of clinical trials, and I think it's important for
Speaker 1: them to know that you can't have a apples to
Speaker 1: apples comparison here. These clinical trials were conducted at different
Speaker 1: parts of the course of the pandemic, and J and
Speaker 1: J IS notably was really at peak infections around the world.
Speaker 1: It's actually the largest COVID nineteen vaccine trial to date,
Speaker 1: and they had plenty of sites here in the US,
Speaker 1: of course, but also in places like Brazil and in
Speaker 1: South Africa where more transmissible virus variants have really dominated.
Speaker 1: I think what we've been particularly pleased with is that
Speaker 1: when you consider that our trial was done really at
Speaker 1: likely the most one of the most challenging times of
Speaker 1: this pandemic, so are are faced a clinical trial started
Speaker 1: in September October that did not finish until it's still
Speaker 1: not finished, we're ongoing, but was measured through January, and
Speaker 1: if you look at the incidents rates around the world,
Speaker 1: they were at some of their highest levels. Number two,
Speaker 1: our our trial is conducted on a global basis, so
Speaker 1: approximately our patients were in Latin America, I believe around
Speaker 1: for we're in the United States, were in South Africa,
Speaker 1: and in South Africa. Over the patients that were infected
Speaker 1: had the South African the one one variant, and we
Speaker 1: saw a significant number with the P two variant in
Speaker 1: northern Brazil. And so at a time when the infection
Speaker 1: rates were at among the highest, when we were seeing
Speaker 1: these new strains at a very significant level, we were
Speaker 1: still able to demonstrate very strong overall efficacy rates, but
Speaker 1: particularly in the severe cases where we saw efficacy rates
Speaker 1: higher than and we saw a pent of the time
Speaker 1: we were effective in keeping patients out of the hospital
Speaker 1: and keep them from dying, which we think are two
Speaker 1: of the more and most important data points for patients,
Speaker 1: for consumers, for health care systems to understand. The most
Speaker 1: important point to note again is as a public health tool,
Speaker 1: Jane Jay's vaccine serves its purpose. It keeps people from
Speaker 1: getting very sick and was ad effective in keeping people
Speaker 1: out of the hospital and from dying. That is critical
Speaker 1: because that reduces the strain on the health system. I
Speaker 1: spoke actually with Michelle Williams and epidemiologists and the dean
Speaker 1: of the Harvard Hands School of Public Health, and she said, quote,
Speaker 1: this is not the time to be quibbling over decimal
Speaker 1: places where the levels of efficacy that we're seeing, and
Speaker 1: her message was really clear. Vaccines as a public health
Speaker 1: tool are meant to keep people from getting sick, becoming hospitalized,
Speaker 1: and overwhelming the healthcare system. And that's precisely what Jane
Speaker 1: Jay's vaccine does. That was Riley Griffin, and that's it
Speaker 1: for our show today for coverage of the outbreak from
Speaker 1: one and twenty bureaus around the world. Visit bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: slash Coronavirus, and if you like the show, please leave
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Speaker 1: global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Tophor
Speaker 1: foreheads Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story
Speaker 1: was reported by Riley Griffin. Original music by Leo Sidrin.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levi
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.