Johnson & Johnson Is Working on a COVID-19 Vaccine That Requires a Single Dose

Yahoo! Lifestyle reports that other COVID-19 vaccine candidates besides Pfizer-BioNTech's and Moderna's are under development, including a single-dose option from Johnson & Johnson. The company has about 45,000 people enrolled in ongoing phase 3 clinical trials, and early data suggests the vaccine has significant potential. Interim phase 1/2a data published in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates Johnson & Johnson's vaccine candidate triggered an immune response in patients for at least 71 days. The company added that the vaccine also was "generally well-tolerated" in study participants. Johnson & Johnson's andenovector vaccine uses double-stranded DNA to promote an immune response, while Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's mRNA vaccines both use single-stranded RNA. Johnson & Johnson scientists researchers inserted a piece of genetic material from the novel coronavirus' spike protein into another virus, Adenovirus 26, which was modified so it can penetrate cells without reproducing inside of them. Company trials have so far determined that administering both one or two doses of the vaccine induced an effective immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in study participants, but nothing is concrete until phase 3 clinical trials are concluded and Johnson & Johnson has enough data to support its single dose.