World’s first intra-nasal vaccine for COVID

World’s first intra-nasal vaccine for COVID

Subject :Science and Technology

Context: World’s first intra-nasal vaccine for COVID developed by India has got approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for restricted use in emergency situations in the age group of 18 and above.

Concept:

• iNCOVACC is the world’s first Intranasal vaccine for COVID developed by India to receive approval for the primary 2-dose schedule and the heterologous booster dose.
• iNCOVACC is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. This 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.
• iNCOVACC was developed in partnership with Washington University, St. Louis, which had earlier designed and developed the recombinant adenoviral vector construct and evaluated it in preclinical studies for efficacy.
• Clinical trials were conducted to evaluate iNCOVACC as a primary dose schedule and as a heterologous booster dose for subjects who have previously received two doses of the two commonly administered COVID vaccines in India.
• Washington University licensed the vaccine technology to Bharat Biotech in 2020 for further development.
• iNCOVACC has the double benefit of enabling faster development of variant-specific vaccines and easy nasal delivery that enables mass immunization to protect from emerging variants of concern.
• The nasal delivery system has been designed and developed to be cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries.