Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) will roll out its intranasal Covid-19 vaccine iNcovacc in the fourth week of January 2023. The vaccine is now available on CoWin platform.
The vaccine has been priced at ₹800 per dose for private healthcare providers and ₹325 per dose for governments, excluding 5 per cent GST, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
On a comparative note, Corbevax of Biological E costs ₹250 per dose at the private vaccination centres while Covishield of Serum Institute and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech are priced at ₹225 per dose at private health facilities.
Krishna Ella, Executive Chairman of BBIL, said; “We have achieved the goals we set for ourselves during this pandemic. We have developed Covaxin and iNcovacc, two Covid vaccines from two different platforms, with two different delivery systems.”
The vectored intranasal delivery platform gives us the capability for rapid product development, scale-up, easy and painless immunisation during public health emergencies and pandemics, he added.
As a needle-less vaccination, iNcovacc will be India’s first such booster dose. India will now have more options when it comes to third dose or precautionary doses.
Bharat Biotech has established large manufacturing capabilities at multiple sites across India, including in States such as Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana.
Earlier this month, Bharat Biotech received approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) for the use of heterologous booster doses of iNcovacc. It is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion-stabilised SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.