J&J said July 30 that it has begun its first human trials of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine.
The company launched human trials in Belgium and the U.S. after an early trial showed its vaccine helped protect a group of primates from COVID-19 infection after a single dose.
In the primate study, all the animals given the vaccine and exposed to COVID-19 six weeks later were immune except for one, which had only low levels of the virus.
J&J's ability to produce an immune response in a single dose may give it an advantage over other drugmakers rolling out vaccines that took two doses to elicit an immune response.
J&J said it's looking to begin the last phase of testing in September in a trial of over 1,000 people. It's ramping up production to try to provide over 1 billion doses to people around the world, the drugmaker said, but did not say how much it will charge for the vaccine.
Read the full news release here.