The Drug Controller General of India authorized the country’s first nasal spray vaccine “under Restricted Use in Emergency Situations for ages 18 and above,” marking a big step toward increasing the availability of needle-free vaccines around the world.
Washington University St. Louis, which had created and developed the recombinant adenoviral vectored constructs and assessed their effectiveness in preclinical research, collaborated with Hyderabad, India-based Bharat Biotech to produce iNCOVACC.
The Indian government provided funding for product development and clinical testing via the COVID Suraksha (safety) program of India’s Department of Biotechnology.
In order to assess iNCOVACC as a primary dosage schedule, and as a heterologous booster dose – different from the first dose – for participants who had already received two doses of the two regularly used covid vaccines in India, clinical trials were done.
According to Bharat Biotech, iNCOVACC has the dual advantages of facilitating quicker development of variant-specific vaccines and easy nasal delivery that facilitates mass immunization to guard against worrying emerging variants
Dr Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director, Bharat Biotech, said, “Despite the lack of demand for COVID-19 vaccines, we continued product development of intra-nasal vaccines to ensure that we are well prepared with platform technologies for future infectious diseases.
We thank: The Ministry of Health, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, the Department of Biotechnology Govt of India, and Washington University St. Louis for their support and guidance.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
