US to pay Johnson & Johnson over $1 bn for 100 mn doses of its potential coronavirus vaccine

The United States government will pay Johnson and Johnson over $1 billion for 100 million doses of its potential coronavirus vaccine -- amid the global race to produce an antidote for COVID-19.

The drugmaker said on Wednesday it would deliver the vaccine to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) on a not-for-profit basis to be used after approval or emergency use authorisation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The contract is priced at roughly $10 per vaccine dose produced by J&J, or around $14.50 per dose, including a previous $456 million the US government promised to J&J for vaccine development in March. That compares with the $19.50 per dose that the US is paying for the vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc and German biotech BioNTech SE.

J&J is studying both one and two-dose regimens of its vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech`s candidate would require two doses per person treated. 

The US government may also purchase an additional 200 million doses under a subsequent agreement.

As the race for vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 intensifies, the US government has been signing deals to buy them through its Operation Warp Speed programme. Other drugmakers who have signed deals include Sanofi SA and Regeneron Inc.

This is J&J's first deal to supply its investigational vaccine to a country. The investigational vaccine is currently being tested on healthy volunteers in the United States and Belgium in an early-stage study.

There are currently no approved vaccines for COVID-19. More than 20 are in clinical trials.