J&J Cuts R&D at Netherlands Infectious Disease, Vaccine Unit

Pictured: J&J business center in Switzerland/iStock, yuelan

Johnson & Johnson appears to be winding down research at its infectious disease and vaccine unit, save for a few select programs, according to Fierce Biotech on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

A Janssen spokesperson said J&J is “planning to exit other R&D programs in ID&V,” though the unit will continue to supply its HIV vaccine and work on a preventive vaccine for E. coli, reported Fierce, adding that the company’s other infectious disease assets—such as those for dengue and tuberculosis—will be moved under Janssen’s global health portfolio.

Earlier on Wednesday, Dutch news outlet De Telegraaf also reported that J&J was planning to end its vaccine R&D work at the company’s facility in Leiden. Though the company has yet to confirm how many jobs will be affected, the Netherlands-based campus employs some 2,500 people, a quarter of whom belong to the section focused on vaccines and infectious diseases, according to Reuters.

J&J was part of the COVID-19 boom with its single-shot vaccine winning the FDA’s emergency authorization in February 2021. However, in May 2022, citing the associated risk of the potentially life-threatening thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, the regulator limited the vaccine to adults who are ineligible to receive other COVID-19 shots, or to those who specifically prefer J&J’s vaccine and would otherwise not get immunized.

A year later, in May 2023, the CDC announced that J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine was no longer available in the U.S.

Beyond COVID-19, J&J has also been steadily shifting away from its infectious disease programs in recent months. In March 2023, the company indicated that it was dropping out of the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine race and was discontinuing its Phase III EVERGREEN trial.

According to a J&J spokesperson at the time, this decision came after a review of the competitive landscape and is part of a sweeping review of Janssen’s pipeline and research focus.

During its second-quarter earnings report in July 2023, J&J confirmed that it was slimming down its infectious disease business and was eliminating seven programs, most of which were in hepatitis B. Assets in HIV, influenza and hepatitis D were also axed. Instead, the company will narrow its focus to only a couple of its most promising assets in HIV, Ebola, COVID-19 and E. coli leading to urinary tract infections and neonatal meningitis.

Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].