Johnson & Johnson will ask the FDA this week to approve a booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine, according to officials familiar with the company’s plans.
The FDA has already scheduled a meeting of its expert advisory committee to meet on October 15 to consider granting emergency use authorization of a booster shot of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.
Johnson & Johnson is planning to ask federal regulators this week to authorize a booster shot of its coronavirus vaccine, according to officials familiar with the company’s plans. https://t.co/7ktaNsvjhF
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 4, 2021
From the New York Times:
Although the federal government has emphasized for months that all three vaccines are highly effective, a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine was only 71 percent effective against hospitalization from Covid-19, compared with 88 percent for Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine and 93 percent for Moderna’s.
Other research found that Johnson & Johnson recipients were more likely to have breakthrough infections or symptomatic Covid-19 than recipients of the other two vaccines.
Last month, the company announced that a second dose, given two months after the first, increased the vaccine’s effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 by about 22 percentage points, to 94 percent.
The FDA has already authorized a booster shot for many recipients of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. And consideration is already in the works for recipients of the Moderna vaccine.
FDA advisers will meet this month to discuss booster doses for Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients, as well as Pfizer shots for kids ages 5 to 11 https://t.co/2f15bZg76L
— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) October 2, 2021