Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Monday that he sees promising signs suggesting that Covid vaccines are effective in reducing the spread of the virus from person to person, in addition to their well-documented ability to protect against severe disease.
In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner warned that while the early data seemed positive, some uncertainty remained. “I think there is a reduction in transmission. The question is: How big is it?” said Gottlieb, a member of Pfizer’s board of directors.
The company’s vaccine, developed with German drug maker BioNTech, is one of three to receive emergency use authorization from the FDA. The other two are made by Moderna and, most recently, by Johnson & Johnson, which received a limited authorization from the US regulator on Saturday.
The FDA has issued emergency use clearance for the trio of vaccines after individually establishing that they are safe and effective in preventing beneficiaries from developing symptomatic Covid disease, especially severe cases and deaths. What has been less clear since the US began administering Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in December are specific data on limiting the spread of the virus; it is one of the reasons why doctors have asked even those who have been vaccinated to continue to take precautions.
For example, in its press release announcing the J&J vaccine received an emergency use authorization, the FDA said there was “no evidence that the vaccine has SARS-CoV-2 transmission from person to person.”
However, Gottlieb said there was reason to be optimistic that vaccines do just that, even if the “definitive study” shows that it has not yet appeared. “The accumulated evidence is very convincing that there is a reduction in transmission,” said Gottlieb, who led the FDA in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019.
He highlighted two studies conducted in Israel, one of the top countries in the world in vaccinating its population, which suggests that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will reduce the transmission of the virus. Gottlieb also said that J&J found in his study a 74% reduction in participants who develop asymptomatic infection. This finding from J&J, Gottlieb said, “is a pretty good indication that there is a reduction in transmission.”
“I think most people agree … people who are vaccinated are less likely to get the infection if they get infected on their own,” Gottlieb said, adding that he expects a more definitive response “in the next month or two.”
Earlier Monday in Squawk Box, J&J President and CEO Alex Gorsky said the company’s initial findings on the prevention of asymptomatic infection were encouraging and signaled the possibility of a “major depth” in the Covid pandemic. . “But we need to gather more. We would expect to collect that literally in the coming months as we continue to follow these patients through the process,” he said.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and a board member of Pfizer, a genetic testing start-up Tempus, the technical health care company Aetion and the biotechnology company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.