In response to the growing tragedy in Western Africa and to the further spread of the Ebola virus, Janssen and its parent company Johnson & Johnson announced a major commitment to combat Ebola by speeding vaccine development and significantly expand production.
The company is closely collaborating with the World Health Organization as well as other key stakeholders, governments, and public health authorities on the clinical testing, development, production and distribution of an Ebola vaccine regimen. The vaccine regimen was discovered in a collaborative research program with the National Institutes of Health in the United States, and builds on Ebola-focused research started in the company more than 10 years ago. Studies to evaluate efficacy and safety are undertaken.
As part of our overall commitment to bring innovation to unmet medical needs worldwide, the company has made a commitment of up to $200 million to accelerate and significantly expand the production of an Ebola vaccine program in development at our Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies. A team of dedicated experts has been assigned to focus on bringing this preventative vaccine to the people in need. The company also made an equity investment in the Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic and we are targeting production of more than one million doses of the vaccine regimen in 2015 – 250,000 of which are expected to be released for broad application in clinical trials by May 2015.