Johnson & Johnson aims for 100 million doses of vaccine by spring. The stock market is based on it.

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Johnson & Johnson

A board member said the company aims to have enough doses of the Covid-19 vaccine available by April or so to inoculate 100 million Americans, assuming clinical trials are successful.

Speaking to CNBC on Thursday, Dr. Mark McClellan, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who is on the board of Johnson & Johnson (ticker: JNJ), said the company is working to maximize vaccine production.

“Johnson & Johnson makes a very large supply, producing everything in the United States and other parts of the world, in order to have probably enough vaccines for 100 million Americans by spring, by April, That’s about it, “McClellan said. So, this will make a big difference in the supply available in the coming weeks and months, if the clinical trial works.

Data from a phase 3 study of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine are expected in the coming days. The study tests the vaccine as a single dose, rather than the two-dose regimen required by the two Covid-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use by the FDA.

Shares of Johnson & Johnson rose 0.6% Friday morning in premarket trading. The stock has increased by 2.8% this month and by 9% in the last 12 months.

Last week, CEO Johnson & Johnson said the company aims to have hundreds of millions of vaccine doses available in the first half of the year and nearly a billion by the end of the year. The New York Times later reported that the company hit production issues, but the company did not withdraw from its long-term production goals.

The vaccine is expected to be slightly more effective than the one currently available

Pfizer

(PFE) and

Modern

(MRNA) vaccines. Last week, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, then chief adviser to the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed, said he expected Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine to be 80 to 85 percent effective in its process. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been shown to be approximately 95% effective. But Slaoui said the single-dose regimen has significant benefits.

“What people need to realize is that in real life, a very high percentage of people immunized with the first dose will not receive the second dose, for various reasons,” Slaoui told a health investor conference organized by JP Morgan.

In a note to investors Thursday night, Jefferies analyst Jared Holz of Jefferies wrote that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should show 80% or more effectiveness to be seen as a competitor to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

“One injection of JNJ versus two is a key differentiating factor and a justification as to why efficacy could decrease PFE / MRNA and could still be considered a respectable treatment option,” Holz wrote.

The data on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, when it comes, will have effects throughout the market. Holz noted that phase 3 versions of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have moved

S&P 500

about 1.5% each.

“We do not anticipate that the market will move as high if JNJ reports success, but we believe that another player entering the market would lead to an additional positive momentum,” he wrote.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]