Alex Gorsky, president and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, celebrates 75 years since listing his company on the floor on the New York Stock Exchange on September 17, 2019.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
People may need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 annually, as well as seasonal flu vaccines over the next few years, Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, as [the virus] spreads can also move, “he told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell during a Healthy Returns Spotlight event.” Every time he moves, it’s almost like another click of the dial, so to speak, where we can see another variant, another mutation that can have an impact on his ability to fight antibodies or to have a different type. response not only to therapeutic treatment, but also to a vaccine. “
Public health officials and infectious disease experts say there is a high chance that Covid-19 will become an endemic disease, meaning it will become present in communities at any time, though probably at lower levels than it is now. Health officials will have to keep an eye on new variants of the virus so scientists can produce vaccines to fight them, say medical experts.
Gorsky’s comment came after J&J said he had applied for an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for his coronavirus vaccine. Unlike Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which require two doses given in about three to four weeks, J & J’s require only a single dose, facilitating logistics for healthcare providers.
U.S. officials and Wall Street analysts are looking forward to the release of the J&J vaccine, which could take place as early as this month. President Joe Biden is trying to pick up vaccinations in the United States, and experts say his administration will need a series of drugs and vaccines to defeat the virus, which has killed more than 450,000 Americans in the past year, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in August that it had reached an agreement with Janssen, J & J’s pharmaceutical subsidiary, worth about $ 1 billion for 100 million doses of vaccine. The agreement gives the federal government the option to order another 200 million doses, according to the announcement.
Gorsky told CNBC that the company’s first priority is to work with the FDA for U.S. authorization. He said J&J was working “at full speed” to make the vaccines, adding that the company was “extremely confident” that it would meet its goal of delivering 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine to the United States by the end of June.
“We will meet our commitments and, at the same time, do everything we can to accelerate production safely and efficiently,” he said, adding that people are “very much anticipating” that they can get a single shot against the virus.
J&J is also continuing to work on a two-dose coronavirus vaccine, he said. The company expects two-shot vaccine data from clinical trials in the second half of 2021, he said.