Johnson & Johnson goes to trial its experimental Covid-19 vaccine

Ross J Burland FXStreet

Johnson & Johnson is reported to trial its experimental Covid-19 vaccine with 6,000 UK volunteers on a two-dose basis in a phase 3 trial

If successful, the next step would be to approach regulators for approval.

This is good news for markets in anticipation of a return to normality when the vaccines are distributed to the populations.

it follows last week's game-changer with the press release from Pfizer and BioNTech that said they had identified 94 cases of COVID-19 among 43,538 trial participants.

The threshold that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says is required for a coronavirus vaccine to be approved for emergency use is just 50% and so far, the trial is proving a 90% success rate.

Meanwhile, there are still uncertainties as to the details about the nature of the infections the vaccine can protect against.

Market implications

Nevertheless, markets are pricing in a best-case scenario.

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