ONE-SHOT VACCINE SHOWS PROMISE

Johnson & Johnson’s experimental one-shot COVID-19 vaccine generated a long-lasting immune response in an early safety study, providing a glimpse at how it will perform in the real world as the company inches closer to approaching U.S. regulators for clearance.

More than 90% of participants made immune proteins, called neutralizing antibodies, within 29 days after receiving the shot, according to the report, and participants formed the antibodies within 57 days. The immune response lasted for the full 71 days of the trial.

The one-shot vaccine generates more neutralizing antibodies than a single dose of other front-runner COVID-19 vaccines, all of which are two-shot regimens.

Interim results from the trial of participants ages 18 and older were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The data expanded on more limited findings J&J first published in September.

J&J’s progress is being closely watched by top infectious disease experts because its vaccine has the potential to become the first that can protect people after just one shot and can be stored at regular refrigerator temperatures, making mass-vaccination campaigns much easier. The company expects to get definitive efficacy data from a final-stage study by early next month, potentially leading to regulatory authorization by March.

The two vaccines already approved, one developed by Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE, and the other by Moderna Inc., employ a technology called messenger RNA that has never before been used in an approved product.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine uses older technology in the form of an adenovirus vector. People skeptical of the other vaccines due to mRNA may be more willing to take this vaccine.