Gary Disbrow, Ph.D., BARDA Director at HHS/ASPR, explains the public-private collaboration and platform technologies brought to bear for COVID-19 vaccines.
Highlighted comments from the transcript:
The FDA’s emergency use authorization of Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine – part of Johnson & Johnson – is exciting news on many fronts.
A single dose vaccine stored at refrigerated temperatures, that prevents hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, has the potential to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the U.S. and globally.
BARDA has partnered with Janssen since 2015, working together on influenza and an Ebola vaccine.
In February of 2020, BARDA and Janssen partnered again to develop a COVID-19 vaccine utilizing the same technology behind their Ebola vaccine that was licensed in the European Union.
Janssen has leveraged BARDA’s Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing and our fill-finish manufacturing network – resources we created after the 2009 influenza pandemic – to manufacture this vaccine in the United States.
Through the development of this vaccine, we are seeing the results of years of work on platform technologies and public-private partnerships coming to fruition.
