Bharat Biotech, Washington varsity join hands for intranasal COVID vaccine

Hyderabad: Leading vaccine maker Bharat Biotech on Wednesday announced a licensing agreement with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis for a novel chimp-adenovirus, single dose intranasal vaccine for Covid-19.

The Hyderabad-based company owns the rights to distribute the vaccine in all markets except USA, Japan and Europe.

While the Phase I trials will take place in Saint Louis University's Vaccine & Treatment Evaluation Unit, Bharat Biotech, upon obtaining the required regulatory approval, will pursue further stages of clinical trials in India and undertake large scale manufacture of the vaccine at its GMP facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.

According to Bharat Biotech, this intranasal vaccine candidate has shown unprecedented levels of protection in mice studies; the technology and data having been recently published in the prestigious scientific journal 'Cell' and in an editorial in 'Nature'.

"We are proud to collaborate on this innovative vaccine. We envision that we will scale this vaccine to 1 billion doses, translating to 1 billion individuals vaccinated receiving a single-dose regimen. An intranasal vaccine will not only be simple to administer but reduce the use of medical consumables such as needles, syringes, etc., significantly impacting the overall cost of a vaccination drive," said Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech.