Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has revealed positive results demonstrating that its COVID-19 vaccine generated ‘strong, persistent’ activity against the highly transmissible Delta variant.
A pre-print paper, submitted to bioRxiv yesterday, includes analysis from blood samples taken from a group of participants in J&J’s phase 3 ENSEMBLE COVID-19 vaccine study.
According to the new data, J&J’s single-dose vaccine produced neutralising antibody activity against the Delta variant at a higher level than it had previously been shown to elicit against the Beta variant.
Data submitted to bioRxiv from a sub-study J&J’s phase 1/2a COVID-19 vaccine study showed that humoral and cellular immune responses generated by the jab lasted for at least eight months.
The pharma company added that a single dose of its COVID-19 vaccine generated neutralising antibodies against a range of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concerns, with these levels increasing over time.
“Current data for the eight months studied so far shows that the single-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine generates a strong neutralising antibody response that does not wane; rather, we observe an improvement over time. In addition, we observe a persistent and particularly robust, durable cellular immune response,” said Mathai Mammen, global head, Janssen Research & Development, Johnson & Johnson.
“With each new data set, we build on our solid foundation of evidence that our single-shot COVID-19 vaccine plays a critical role in ending the pandemic, which continues to evolve and pose new challenges to global health,” he added.
Earlier this week, Moderna announced that its COVID-19 vaccine showed promising activity against COVID-19 variants in lab studies, including the Delta variant.
According to Moderna, its mRNA-based vaccine showed activity against all variants tested, including the Beta variant first discovered in South Africa and the Delta variant.
A UK study previously found that two doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are ‘highly effective’ against the Delta variant.
The vaccine produced neutralising titers against more recently identified variants, including the Eta variant which was first discovered in Nigeria and the A.23.1 and A.VOI.V2 variants first identified in Uganda and Angola, respectively.
According to the study led by Public Health England, after two doses either vaccine offer similar protection against the B.1.617.2 variant compared with the B.1.1.7 or Kent variant.