Updated: September 24, 2020 7:42:20 am
Construction workers are screened for Covid 19 in the capital New Delhi. (Express Photography by Tashi Tobgyal)
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech announced Wednesday that it would manufacture up to 1 billion doses of a single-dose intranasal Covid-19 vaccine in collaboration with the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri. The agreement is expected to help overcome potential difficulties with vaccine distribution, such as the high cost of vaccination or a possible shortage of personnel to administer the doses to the required population.
The company, which has entered into a licensing agreement with the university for the new chimpanzee adenovirus candidate, has the rights to distribute it “in all markets” except the United States, Japan and Europe.
While phase I human trials will be conducted at the Saint Louis University (SLU) Treatment Evaluation Unit, also in St Louis, Missouri, Bharat Biotech is expected to undertake new stages of clinical trials in India “after obtaining the required regulatory approval,” the company said in a statement.
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Bharat Biotech will also carry out large-scale manufacturing of the vaccine at its facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.
Adenovirus vaccines are basically vaccines that use a genetically modified virus to carry a code for cells in the human body to produce the pointed outer shell (spike protein) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is expected to help the body recognize this spike protein as a foreign substance and develop an immune response against it so that it can fight the actual virus when it tries to infect.
Other adenovirus vaccine candidates being tested in India include Covishield, which has been developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with AstraZeneca and is known internationally as AZD1222 (the so-called “Oxford vaccine”), and Sputnik V, developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow (the so-called “Russian vaccine”). Unlike the candidate from the University of Washington, both candidates are injectable vaccines.
“We anticipate that we will scale this vaccine to 1 billion doses, which translates to 1 billion vaccinated people receiving a single dose regimen,” said Dr. Krishna Ella, President and CEO of Bharat Biotech. “An intranasal vaccine will not only be easy to administer but will reduce the use of medical consumables such as needles, syringes, etc., which will significantly affect the overall cost of a vaccination campaign,” he added.
“The ability to achieve effective immunization with a single nasal dose is a great advantage, as it offers a wider range and easier administration,” said Dr. David T Curiel, Director of the Center for Biological Therapeutics and Professor of Oncology Radiation therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis.
“An effective nasal dose not only protects against COVID-19, it also prevents the spread of the disease by offering another type of immunity that occurs mainly in the cells that line the nose and throat. Most of the other vaccine candidates currently in development cannot do that, ”he added.
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