Doctor: JNJ’s single-dose vaccine ‘has the potential to be a game changer’

Dr. Jesse Pelletier, President of Halodine, joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers to discuss the latest coronavirus developments and the FDA considering Johnson and Johnson’s single-shot-dose vaccine.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. I want to turn now to the coronavirus pandemic. Cases are declining, but the CDC says that that trend might be stalling. We're joined now by Dr. Jesse Pelletier, president of Halodine. So doctor, let's start with what the CDC has been saying. We've kept hearing that cases are declining, which of course is good news, but now they say that those cases are stalling. Is there a concern here that we could see those case count numbers do an about-face and go back up?

JESSE PELLETIER: There is a bit of a concern. We hit a very difficult number in 500,000 deaths. And that toll and expanse is-- just really continues to confound experts. And so we don't really know what to expect from this pandemic. What we do know is that we have a steep negative slope. We're seeing cases decline and stall. But the virus has really changed.

Early on in the pandemic, it was really infecting a group of people who were naive to this pandemic or to this strain of virus. And now, the virus is having to adapt. And it's now adapting to these variants that are present. And the concern is that these variants are, in fact, hypertransmissible, in some cases, which we're seeing from B117 from the United Kingdom, we're seeing this in the California variant, and perhaps even the New York variant, as well, and perhaps other uncharacterized variants that are in the country at this time. So we need to remain vigilant, and continue to watch these cases and see what happens.

Our hope is that we're through the worst of the pandemic at this point, and that these numbers will continue to dwindle. And probably, they'll increase again in the fall. But we, again, need to remain vigilant, and our public health strategy needs to reflect that.

KRISTIN MYERS: So then what do you see right now as really the biggest threat to our ability to come out of this pandemic? Is it some of those variants, those strains that you were just chatting about, or is it, frankly, just us and our negligence in terms of staying strict with some of the protocols that doctors like yourself have been telling us for a year now?

JESSE PELLETIER: Yeah, we really need to do a couple of things as far as public health policy. We need to continue to decrease community spread, we need to double down on our measures of infection control, masks, social distancing, hand washing. We need to talk more about ventilation. We don't really do that. We need to consider pharmaceutical interventions, as well, like Halodine to kill the virus in the nose and the mouth. But we need to do more genetic testing and genetic sequencing also.

We need to better understand the variants that are out there, understand their epidemiology, and also, we need to test them against patients' serum, patients who have been already vaccinated, and test them to make sure that there's no abrogation of immunity or immune escape. And then finally, we need to continue really capitalizing on the demand that's there for these incredible vaccines, and vaccinate as many people as we can. And as that demand dwindles, we can talk about sending some of that vaccine abroad to countries that are less well resourced. So with this in mind, this multipronged approach, I think we'll do quite well.

KRISTIN MYERS: OK, so you brought up two things that I do want to hit with you. Let's start first with that point on ventilation. We just had a map up of some of those stay at home orders. And as everyone was seeing, as you can see all around the country, for the most part, there are no restrictions. And a lot of places, a lot of states are opening up indoor dining again, which of course brings me to this next point of ventilation. What are we not doing there when it comes to ventilation, or at least when it comes to some of these restrictions, that has you concerned?

JESSE PELLETIER: Well, and this is something I'm working on personally, is that when the CDC finally understood the idea of droplets and aerosols, you know, that changes our infection control protocols. It means that the distancing may not be appropriate. It means that we might need to consider, you know, different types of masks, or more protection with masks.

It means that we should also really consider our-- using other antiseptics to kill the virus in the nose and the mouth, because that means that the virus initially infects, it replicates, and it spreads, in every single case, from the nose and the mouth. So we really need to target that. With respect to doing-- to opening and closing the various non-pharmaceutical interventions in restaurants, we really need to look at our community spread in order to inform ourselves and better be able to make good, informed decisions in those cases.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, so on the vaccine front, then, you know, the FDA considering the single-shot dose of Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine, how much could that be a game-changer if you only need folks taking one shot, instead of two?

JESSE PELLETIER: Yeah, this is, like you said, it really has the potential to be a game-changer. This is more of a biologic construct than a chemical or synthetic construct, like our mRNA vaccines. And because of the single dose, because of the fact that we don't need the same storage requirements, it's pretty stable in refrigerators for months at a time, it's less expensive, as well, this is something we can really engender immunity on a very large scale very quickly.

Johnson & Johnson, who already has proved themselves in production and manufacturing across their portfolio, has promised 20 million doses in the first month, and up to 100 million by the summer. So again, this really has the chance, when you talk about a single jab, to make a big improvement in those who are desirable of vaccines. So I'm very excited about the--

KRISTIN MYERS: OK--

JESSE PELLETIER: Go ahead.

KRISTIN MYERS: Right, no, I was going to ask, because as you were speaking, I thought, well, the one downside here is its efficacy. It does not have the same efficacy as we see in the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. I was checking just earlier today to double check some of the figures. It says it's 72% effective in the United States. The efficacy drops a little bit when it talks about overall efficacy rate.

So considering that Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines have over a 90% efficacy rate, I mean, is this-- I think folks are going to start hearing that and go, oh, I don't want, you know, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it's not as effective. So I'm hoping you can weigh in on that. Is this one still good for folks to take?

JESSE PELLETIER: What a great question. If you were to look back at the beginning of this pandemic, we were really excited about 50% efficacy. We're seeing an overall efficacy of 66% with this vaccination. But most importantly here is that it's 85% efficacious against severe disease and-- write this down-- 100% efficacious against hospitalizations and death. I mean, that is truly incredible. And really, that's all that matters. If we're going to be infected by this virus and have to suffer some mild symptoms, then most of us will be more than happy to suffer something like that.

And I would say it's very difficult also to compare clinical trials between these vaccine constructs because we're living in a completely different time. It's quite possible that, if Moderna and Pfizer had performed their phase III trials in a time similar to ours now against these variants, that maybe those numbers would be different, as well, as well as some of the inclusion criteria in how one would judge mild, moderate, severe disease. There are many differences between the clinical trials, and we just can't compare. This is like comparing apples to oranges. So I think this is a wonderful vaccine for our population, and we should be very excited to have it.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, I'm really glad you answered that last question because that was my biggest concern, whether I should still take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or not, or if I should push my doctor for the two-dose shots that we see from some of these other companies. Dr. Jesse Pelletier, president of Halodine, as always, it's a pleasure to have you join us.