As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in the U.S., Johnson & Johnson's chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels told Cheddar the company has an accelerated plan to create a vaccine.
"At the moment, we predict that we can get north of one billion vaccine dosages in the course of 2021 and even much more afterward," he said.
The company is currently running clinical trials on animals and expects to move to human testing in late July. Stoffels describes the project as a "massive amount of parallel work" that was jumpstarted by a federal investment of $456 million.
Typically, developing a vaccine calls for one to three years of successful testing, but Johnson & Johnson expects to have an approved vaccine by early 2021. One challenge the company will face is locating a pocket of study subjects — between 30,000 and 100,000 people — that have potentially been exposed. The large study size is key for the pharmaceutical giant to meet its self-imposed timeline.
"The higher the transmission rate, the faster we can see the endpoint and we can prove efficacy," Stoffels told Cheddar.
The pharmaceutical giant's confidence in distributing the vaccine by early next year also lies in cell line technology, which has the capacity to create a massive number of doses.
"In a thousand-liter vessel, we can produce more than 150 million vaccines a year," he said.
Stoffels also keyed in on the need for urgency and additional preventative steps the world should take in light of the disease still sweeping the globe.
"Nobody expected such a pandemic happening," he said. "We have learned that we have to have much more public health measures in the world."
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
