Feb. 11 Product Development Quick Takes: J&J gets BARDA funding for COVID-19 vaccine; plus Novartis-Incyte, LogicBio and Elicio-Natera

BARDA to support Janssen COVID-19 vaccine R&D

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced a collaboration with HHS that will speed development of a clinical COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) vaccine by its Janssen Pharmaceutical unit. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and Janssen will share R&D costs to bring the program -- which will use the AdVac and PER.C6 technologies Janssen applied to its Ebola vaccine program -- into Phase I testing, and Janssen will scale up associated production and manufacturing capacities in parallel. The agency has the option to provide additional funding for a “promising candidate.” ...