Johnson & Johnson aims to produce vaccines for 100 million Americans by April

With the clinical trial for its COVID-19 vaccine rapidly approaching the end, Johnson & Johnson has revealed its goal of producing enough doses to vaccinate 100 million Americans by April.

Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, announced Thursday that the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company will likely have enough data to begin an analysis in the next week or two. It could become the third coronavirus vaccine authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and the first requiring only one shot.

Both the Moderna vaccine and the one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech require that patients receive two shots to be considered protected against COVID-19. What’s more, the jab created by Johnson & Johnson can be stored at room temperature, unlike the others, which need to be refrigerated to remain effective.

At least 12 states, including New York, have reported vaccine shortages in recent days — a problem Johnson & Johnson hopes to help solve “if the clinical trial works out.”

“I do know that J&J is making a very large supply, going all out with its production, both here in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, with the goal of having perhaps enough vaccines for 100 million Americans by spring, by this April or so,” J&J board member Dr. Mark McClellan told CNBC.

He added that while he believes Johnson & Johnson will be able to significantly increase America’s COVID vaccine availability, the supply will likely not be “enough to keep up with the large number of Americans who really want to get vaccinated now.”

Since the rollout of the biggest vaccination campaign in history, more than 56.7 million doses have been administered across 52 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. In the United States, 18.4 million shots have been given.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 939,973 doses per day were administered over the course of last week.