Two global pharmaceutical companies are working on a COVID-19 vaccine that they expect to be tried on humans in September, with the first batch of vaccines available for emergency authorisation in early 2021.

This is a substantially accelerated timeframe in comparison to the typical vaccine development process, health experts say.

On Monday, Johnson & Johnson announced that it was working with the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) whereby they had committed more than US$1 billion of investment to vaccine research, development, and clinical testing.

The target is to provide more than one billion safe, effective doses of a vaccine globally, which health experts say would give hope to African countries because of the global commitment, the massive number of doses to be made available and the fast-tracked production time table.

Alex Gorsky, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson, said: “The world is facing an urgent public health crisis and we are committed to doing our part to make a COVID-19 vaccine available and affordable globally as quickly as possible.

“Johnson & Johnson is well positioned through our combination of scientific expertise, operational scale and financial strength to bring our resources in collaboration with others to accelerate the fight against this pandemic.” Johnson & Johnson said it was allocating resources, including personnel and infrastructure globally, to focus on these efforts.

The company said it would also expand its global manufacturing capacity to speed up supply to bring “an affordable vaccine to the public on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use”.

Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson, said: “We greatly value the US government’s confidence and support for our R&D [research and development] efforts. “Johnson & Johnson’s global team of experts has ramped up our research and development processes to unprecedented levels, and our teams are working tirelessly alongside BARDA, scientific partners, and global health authorities.

“We are moving on an accelerated timeline toward Phase 1 human clinical trials at the latest by September 2020 and, supported by the global production capability that we are scaling up in parallel to this testing, we expect a vaccine could be ready for emergency use in early 2021.”

Johnson & Johnson began work in January on a potential COVID-19 vaccine after research teams collaborated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, part of Harvard Medical School, to construct and test multiple vaccine candidates. Through collaborations with scientists at a number of academic institutions, the vaccine constructs were then tested to identify those with the most promise in producing an immune response in pre-clinical testing, Johnson & Johnson said.

The company said that for more than 20 years it had invested billions of dollars in antivirals and vaccine capabilities.

There is currently no approved vaccine, treatment or cure for COVID-19.

But the fact that a vaccine is to be tested in September, would be a landmark achievement given that the typical vaccine development process involves a number of different research stages, spanning five to seven years before a candidate is even considered for approval, according to Johnson & Johnson.

COVID-19 belongs to a group of viruses called coronaviruses that attack the respiratory system.