Johnson & Johnson misses India’s vaccine launch timeline

The companies are working around the clock to develop and broadly activate their manufacturing capabilities to supply its covid vaccine worldwide, the spokesperson said.

“We believe Biological E will be an important part of our network, where multiple manufacturing sites are involved in the production of our vaccine across different facilities, sometimes in different countries and continents,” the spokesperson said.

J&J’s tie-up with Biological E in July 2020 was one of the earliest collaborations that the US vaccine maker had struck in India for manufacturing the covid vaccine. It was estimated that Biological E could manufacture close to 1 billion doses of the single-shot J&J vaccine.

Paul Stoffels, who was the chief scientific officer of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Beerse, Belgium, and wholly-owned by J&J, had also said the company will be ready to launch the vaccine by the end of this year.

The collaboration between J&J and Biological E also became a part of the diplomatic deal between the Quad, a grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the US.