India’s first intranasal Covid vaccine inCOVACC launched; booster to costs Rs 800 per dose

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• Jan 26, 2023 | Dhupali Das

iNCOVACC, developed by India's Bharat Biotech, will be available to the government for Rs 325 per dose, while it will cost Rs 800...

Digital Desk: Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya and Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh today launched the world's first COVID-19 intranasal vaccine, iNCOVACC. The vaccine, developed by India's Bharat Biotech, will be available to the government for Rs 325 per dose, while it will cost Rs 800 at private hospitals.

The company received permission in December 2022 for the primary 2-dose schedule as well as a heterologous booster dosage. Prior to that, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) had authorized the intranasal vaccine's limited usage in emergency cases for people 18 years of age and older.

The vaccination will be administered in two doses, 28 days apart.

The nasal vaccine cannot be administered to anyone who has already had a precautionary or booster dose, the director of the country's vaccine task force said last month, a week after the vaccine was made available on the CoWin platform.

According to Bharat Biotech, one can make an appointment for the intranasal vaccine dose by visiting the CoWin website.

iNCOVACC was developed in collaboration with Washington University in St. Louis, which designed and developed the recombinant adenoviral vectored construct and tested its efficiency in preclinical trials.

Bharat Biotech conducted product development relating to preclinical safety review, large-scale manufacturing scale-up, formulation and delivery device development, and human clinical trials.

The product development and clinical trials were partly financed by the Government of India's Department of Biotechnology's Covid Suraksha program.