Bharat Biotech on Tuesday announced that its intranasal covid heterologous booster iNCOVACC (BBV154) is scheduled to be introduced in the country in the fourth week of January and will cost Rs 800 privately and Rs 325 for large central and state government procurements.
Earlier this month, Bharat Biotech received approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for the use of heterologous booster doses of iNCOVACC. “iNCOVACC is now available on CoWin, and priced at INR 800 for private markets and priced at INR 325 for supplies to Govt of India and state governments,” the company said.
iNCOVACC is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus-vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion-stabilised SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The vaccine candidate was evaluated in Phases I, II and III clinical trials with successful results. iNCOVACC has been specifically formulated to allow intranasal delivery through nasal drops.
The nasal delivery system has been designed and developed to be cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries.
Dr Krishna Ella, Executive Chairman, said, “We have achieved the goals we set for ourselves during this pandemic. We have developed COVAXIN and iNCOVACC, two covid vaccines from two different platforms, with two different delivery systems”.
“The vectored intranasal delivery platform gives us the capability for rapid product development, scale-up, easy and painless immunisation during public health emergencies and pandemics. We thank the Ministry of Health, CDSCO, Department of Biotechnology, Technology Development Board, and Washington University, St Louis, for their support and guidance,” he added.
As a needle-less vaccination, Bharat Biotech’s iNCOVACC will be India’s first such booster dose. India will now have more options when it comes to third doses or precautionary doses. iNCOVACC’s manufacturing platform has the double benefit of enabling faster development of variant-specific vaccines and easy nasal delivery that enables mass immunisation to protect from emerging variants of concern.
