Bharat Biotech’s Nasal Vaccine iNCOVACC To Cost Rs 800: Sources

New Delhi: A single dose of Bharat Biotech’s intranasal vaccine iNCOVACC, which was approved for inclusion into India’s Covid-19 immunisation programme by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on Friday last, will cost Rs 800 each, apart from 5 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) in private hospitals.

“iNCOVACC will be used as a heterologous booster and will be available first in private hospitals. It will be included in the Covid vaccination programme,” sources said.

In November, the DCGI approved the nasal vaccine for restricted use in an emergency situation for those above 18 years as a heterologous booster dose.

“The intranasal vaccine is now approved and recommended as one of the options for precaution dose,” the chairman of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) Dr NK Arora told reporters on Tuesday.

iNCOVACC is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilised spike protein. This vaccine candidate was evaluated in phase I, II and III clinical trials with successful results, Bharat Biotech said in a statement.

Clinical trials were conducted to evaluate iNCOVACC as a primary dose schedule as well as a heterologous booster dose for subjects who have previously received two doses of either Covishield or Covaxin.

The vaccine was developed in partnership with Washington University, St Louis, which had designed and developed the recombinant adenoviral vector construct and evaluated it in preclinical studies for efficacy.

Product development related to preclinical safety evaluation, large-scale manufacturing scale-up, formulation and delivery device development, including human clinical trials, were conducted by Bharat Biotech.

Product development and clinical trials were funded in part by the Government of India through the Department of Biotechnology’s Covid Suraksha programme.

The government has advised those eligible to take the precautionary dose and follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, including wearing masks and social distancing.