Document 38
(SANTE)
Sent:
Tuesday 21 April 2020 19:49
To:
(SANTE)
Cc:
[JPPBE;
[JPPBE;
[JPPBE;
[JJCBE
Subject:
J&J Announces a Lead Vaccine Candidate for COVID-19
From:
[JPPBE] <
@its.jnj.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2020 5:09 PM
To:
(SANTE) <
@ec.europa.eu>
Cc:
[JPPBE]
@ITS.JNJ.com>;
[JPPBE]
@its.jnj.com>;
[JPPBE] <
@ITS.JNJ.com>;
[JJCBE]
@its.jnj.com>
Subject: J&J Announces a Lead Vaccine Candidate for COVID‐19
Dear
,
I hope you and your family are staying healthy in these troubling times.
I wanted to share with you the below good news that J&J has identified a
lead vaccine candidate for
COVID‐19 and will be
moving swiftly towards human clinical trials by September 2020.
Like everyone at the Commission, J&J is working hard to bring solutions to society under these
unprecedented circumstances. Now, more than ever, we want to reiterate our commitment to
partnering with DG SANTE to contribute to our common goal to build a healthier Europe.
In addition, we continue to highly value our collaborations with you and your team. Particularly as you
have been such a staunch supporter of the
European Health Parliament, we wanted to also provide you
with an update on EHP.
With respect to the health and wellbeing of EHP members, speakers and stakeholders ‐ many of whom
are healthcare workers facing difficult personal and professional times themselves ‐ we have taken the
tough decision to
postpone the closing plenary that was scheduled to take place on the 10 June and
which you and Ms. Bucher had very kindly agreed to attend. In light of the current circumstances, the
closing plenary of this edition will be
rescheduled for early September. We would like to re‐extend a
warm invitation to you both to attend this rescheduled session and hope that you can provisionally
indicate your interest.
We continue to see a role for young Europeans to play – leading with open and informed minds to help
develop short, medium and longer‐term solutions to help make health systems more sustainable, better
able to prevent, react, and recover from times of strain.
If you have any questions about the vaccine development or other initiatives that J&J is involved in,
please do not hesitate to come back to me.
For questions regarding the EHP, please reach out to the team here in copy who you already know well.
With very best wishes,
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
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Begin forwarded message:
From:
[JPPBE]
To: "BUCHER Anne (SANTE)" <xxxx.xxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx>
Cc:
[JPPBE]
@its.jnj.com>;
[JPPBE]
<
@ITS.JNJ.com>;
[JPPBE] <
@its.jnj.com>;
,
[JPPBE] <
@its.jnj.com>
Subject: J&J Announces a Lead Vaccine Candidate for COVID‐19
J&J Announces a Lead Vaccine Candidate for COVID‐19
Dear Director General,
I sincerely hope you and your loved ones are doing well during these difficult times.
As I believe we share a common goal to contribute to a healthy Europe and given your crucial work in
advancing the well‐being of European citizens, I would like to share information with you regarding
Johnson & Johnson’s efforts to collaborate in the fight against COVID‐19.
This 30th of March, Johnson & Johnson announced the selection of a
lead COVID‐19 vaccine candidate.
We are moving swiftly toward
human clinical trials of the lead vaccine candidate
by September 2020 and
we anticipate the first batches of a COVID‐19 vaccine could be available for
emergency use authorization
in early 2021, a substantially accelerated timeframe. For comparison: the typical vaccine development
process involves a number of different stages, ranging from 5 to 7
years before a candidate even qualifies
for approval.
To upscale this effort, we have expanded our landmark partnership between the Janssen Pharmaceutical
Companies of Johnson & Johnson and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority
(BARDA). Together, we have committed over $1 billion dollars of investment to co‐fund vaccine
research,
development and clinical testing.
J&J will expand its manufacturing capacity to ensure
global supply of more than one billion doses of a
safe and effective vaccines worldwide. The Company plans to begin production at risk imminently and is
committed to bringing an affordable
vaccine to the public on a
not‐for‐profit basis for emergency
pandemic use. The world is facing an urgent public health crisis and we are committed to doing our part
to make a COVID‐19 vaccine
available and affordable globally as quickly as possible.
We will also upscale Janssen’s ongoing efforts to
identify new or existing treatments. We are working
with global partners to screen a library of existing antiviral molecules, with the aim of identifying
compounds with promising antiviral activity against the novel coronavirus, SARS‐CoV‐2 (also known as
2019‐nCoV) that could contribute to providing immediate relief to the current outbreak. This work is
being conducted in partnership with the Rega Institute for Medical Research (
KU Leuven/University of
Leuven), in
Belgium.
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This incredibly swift progress would not be possible without intense
public‐private collaboration. We still
have a long way to go, but we are confident that this step marks a major milestone in ending COVID‐19
for patients everywhere.
Our press release is available here.
I also want to let you know how J&J is
supporting frontline health workers, the backbone of our health
systems and vital resources for global health security.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic and with the rapidly evolving strain on
health systems, we have
mobilized to provide equipment, products, financial donations, and even our own human resources to
support organizations and healthcare workers on the front lines. Our commitments include:
A new global
volunteer leave policy for medically trained J&J employees who are either called
to serve or who volunteer to provide medical service support for the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Collaboration with the Belgium government to increase the capacity of
COVID‐19 testing in
Belgium by offering testing capacity of our
J&J laboratories in Beerse. We are also
producing
disinfectant hand liquid in our industrial site in Geel
to supply hospitals.
$50M to the Johnson & Johnson Center for Health Worker Innovation to aid in the immediate
COVID‐19 response, primarily focused on supporting frontline health workers in the most
affected‐countries. Press release here.
$1M for The COVID‐19 Solidarity Response Fund, which will enable individuals, and organizations
around the world to directly support the
World Health Organization’s work to prevent, detect
and respond to the COVID‐19 pandemic (WHO).
$500K financial donation to the Swiss Red Cross.
Our team remains committed to these response efforts and available to answer any questions you may
have, as we continue trying to live up to Our Promise to change the trajectory of health for humanity.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to us directly.
Sincerely,
Europe, Middle East & Africa and
Global Supply Chain, Johnson & Johnson
3
,
GA&P EMEA,
GA&P EMEA,
GA&P EMEA,
GA&P EMEA,
Pharmaceuticals
Consumer
Medical Devices
EU External Affairs &
Alliance Development
Square de Meeûs 23, 5th floor
BE-1000 Brussels, Belgium
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