Pre-order would secure 200 million doses of shot for an undisclosed sum
The European Commission has agreed the terms of a deal for 200 million doses of a potential vaccine from Belgium’s Janssen against Covid-19, in the latest gamble on early promising signs from research against the coronavirus.
The EU is racing to secure potential vaccines, as other international players such as the United States ink their own deals for doses in a competition setting global cooperation against national self-interest.
The cost of the provisional agreement with Janssen, a subsidiary of the US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, has not been disclosed. It will guarantee the EU 200 million doses of Janssen’s shot, which produced a strong immune response when tested on 52 rhesus macaques according to a paper in Nature.
The advance purchase agreement—announced on 13 August—follows another agreed between the Commission and Sanofi-GSK for 300m doses of its candidate vaccine. The Commission and the companies have yet to sign the deals, but their agreed terms are now unlikely to change.