Johnson & Johnson Starts Two-dose Trial of Its Covid-19 Vaccine Candidate

Johnson & Johnson launched a new large-scale late-stage trial on Monday to test a two-dose regimen of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine and evaluate potential incremental benefits for the duration of protection with a second dose.

The US drugmaker plans to enrol up to 30,000 participants for the study and run it in parallel with a one-dose trial with as many as 60,000 volunteers that began in September.

The UK arm of the study is aiming to recruit 6,000 participants and the rest will join from other countries with a high incidence of COVID-19 cases such as the United States, Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, the Philippines, South Africa and Spain, it said.