Janssen commits $200 million to speeding up Ebola vaccine development and increasing production

US health care giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is to commit up to $200 million to accelerate and expand the production of an Ebola vaccine program in development at its Europe-based subsidiary Janssen.

It is closely working with the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and other key stakeholders, governments and public health authorities on testing, development, production and distribution. The program has received direct funding from, and is also using, preclinical services from the NIAID.

The vaccine regiment, discovered in a collaborative research program with the National Institutes of Health, is a combination of J&J's Janssen subsidiary's preventative vaccine and a vaccine from Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic. The combination has shown promising results in preclinical studies and is now planned for testing in safety and immunogenicity in healthy volunteers in Europe, the USA and Africa in early January.