Brazil’s health regulator on Tuesday approved final stage of clinical trials for Johnson & Johnson’s experimental coronavirus vaccine – the fourth to get the nod for testing in the country.
Health regulator Anvisa said in a statement that the US pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary Janssen will test the vaccine on 7,000 volunteers across seven states in Brazil, part of a group of up to 60,000 worldwide.
According to him, the test would be a randomized, controlled, double-blind Phase 3 trial, or large-scale testing on humans which is the last step before regulatory approval.
Brazil has become a key testing ground in the search for a vaccine against COVID-19, since the virus is still spreading fast in the country being the world’s second biggest case load for COVID-19 and has recorded nearly 110,000 deaths from the disease.
Brazil has also approved three other Phase 3 trials of vaccine candidates, developed by Oxford University in partnership with pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, and US firm Pfizer in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech.
The Brazilian state of Parana also signed a deal last week to test and produce Russia’s “Sputnik V” vaccine, which controversially became the first in the world to receive regulatory approval.
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