Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh launched Bharat Biotech's nasal Covid vaccine, iNCOVACC, on the occasion of Republic Day on Thursday.

The world's first made-in-India intranasal vaccine was launched at Mandaviya's residence here, reports PTI.

The nasal vaccine -- BBV154 -- had received the Drugs Controller General of India's (DCGI) approval in November for restricted emergency use among adults as a heterologous booster dose.

According to a statement issued by Bharat Biotech earlier, 'iNCOVACC' is priced at Rs 800 for private markets and at Rs 325 for supplies to the government of India and state governments 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, the Hyderabad-based vaccine maker had said.

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 either Covishield or Covaxin.

As per the vaccine maker Bharat Biotech, one can book an appointment for the intranasal vaccine dose by visiting the CoWin website, according to media reports.

iNCOVACC was developed in partnership with the Washington University, St. Louis, which had designed and developed the recombinant adenoviral vectored construct and evaluated 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.

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