BIG: Johnson & Johnson plans Coronavirus vaccine human test; gives emergency use timeline

Johnson & Johnson has said it had selected a lead candidate vaccine for new coronavirus that would move to human trials by September and could be ready for emergency use by early next year.

pharmaceutical company has signed an agreement with US government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to invest USD 1 billion in effort, it said in a statement on Monday.

J&J began working on vaccine under investigation - Ad26 SARS-CoV-2 - in January using same techlogy it used to develop a candidate vaccine for Ebola.

Paul Stoffels, company's chief scientific officer, told AFP his team had combined a common cold virus incapable of replicating with parts of coronavirus, and hoped it would trigger a human immune response.

"We had several vaccine candidates which we tested in animals in order to choose best one, that took 12 weeks, from January 15 to today," he said.

y also had to evaluate which candidate vaccine could be upscaled, "to make sure on one hand it works, and on or hand, we can make a lot of it," he added.

Though re has never before been a successful human vaccine for any virus belonging to coronavirus family, Stoffels said he was confident of achieving this milestone because J&J was working with same team that had developed a candidate vaccine for SARS, which killed almost 800 people between 2002-2003.

team's work was discontinued once SARS outbreak was brought under control and interest was lost in bringing vaccine to market.

" question is, can you protect for infection or can you protect for severe disease? In many diseases, like in influenza, when you vaccinate on an annual basis, you protect for severe disease, you don't always protect for infection," said Stoffels.

J&J would also need to determine that vaccine doesn't backfire and give people a higher chance of getting disease. company said it was expanding its global manufacturing capacity both in US and in or countries, to help it supply more than a billion doses of its vaccine around world.

J&J is also working on antiviral treatments against coronavirus.

Separately, US pharmaceutical Moderna has already moved into human trials for its vaccine candidate, as has China's CanSiBIO.

re are currently approved vaccines or treatments for disease.

Several treatments are being investigated, including antiviral remdesivir and antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, but it is t yet clear wher y add anything to standard care.