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By Alistair Smout and Josephine Mason
LONDON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Britain will buy potential
COVID-19 vaccines from U.S. drugmakers Johnson & Johnson
and Novavax Inc, the companies said on Friday, bringing
the total number of deals by the UK government to six as the
race for shots heats up.
Johnson & Johnson said its Janssen Pharmaceutica unit will
supply the UK government with its candidate known as Ad26.COV2.S
with an initial sale of 30 million doses on a not-for-profit
basis for emergency pandemic use.
The advance purchase agreement will also provide an option
for an additional purchase of up to a 22 million doses, it said.
In a separate statement, Novavax said the UK would buy 60
million doses of its coronavirus vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373,
for a phase 3 clinical trial.
With six deals each so far, Britain and the United States
are leading the global race to strike deals with drugmakers for
vaccines as the pandemic continues to rage.
The latest agreements bring the UK's total number of doses
secured to 362 million for the population of 66 million.
J&J said it has also agreed to collaborate with the UK
government on a global Phase 3 trial to explore the two-dose
regimen of its vaccine candidate.
It will run parallel to the Phase 3 trial investigating the
single-dose programme.
No vaccine has yet proven to work, but more than 20
candidates are in clinical trials.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and Josephine Mason; editing by
Jan Harvey and Jason Neely)
