The United States took approximately three weeks to approve use of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. Now Johnson & Johnson has requested US clearance within a similar timeline. This would allow it to begin shipping the promised 100 million doses by end June 2021, if approved.
But Is Johnson & Johnson Efficacy Up to Scratch?
Clinical trials ranked Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine efficacy comfortably above 90%, according to Stat News. Johnson & Johnson, by comparison only demonstrated 85% ability to prevent serious disease in United States, Latin America, and South Africa during trials. None of the trial participants required hospitalization after 28 days.
However, Johnson & Johnson has the disadvantage of assessment after new strains started appearing. Its efficacy rate was 72% during US trials. But later in South Africa where a deadly new strain raged the best it could do was 57%. However, in its defense Moderna and BioNTech trialed against the original strain and might not score so high nowadays.
Is Johnson & Johnson at a Disadvantage Requesting US Clearance Now
Stat News says direct comparisons are not straightforward, because the designs of the Phase 3 trials varied.
1… Pfizer results incorporated responses from seven days after the second dose.
2… While Moderna waited a further seven days before including them in its report.
Any symptomatic response counted in both instances. However, Johnson & Johnson’s approach was different. It wanted to know whether one shot was sufficient protection against moderate to severe COVID illness. And it defined this as the presence of at least one symptom.
We don’t know how Moderna and BioNTech would respond if tested under Johnson & Johnson conditions, according to Stat News. Nor do we know how Food and Drug Administration will allow for this, when assessing the Johnson & Johnson request for US clearance under the new scenario.
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Preview Image: Life-Cycle of SARS-CoV-2
