Bangladesh’s Incepta partners with British firm ViraCorp to produce nasal COVID vaccine

Bangladesh’s Incepta Vaccine Limited has struck a deal with British biomedical company ViraCorp to produce a nasal COVID-19 vaccine.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 18 Dec 2021, 06:15 PM
Updated : 18 Dec 2021, 06:15 PM

“We’ll develop the material through research. Then clinical trials will take place. This is the only update,” Abdul Muktadir, chairman and managing director of Incepta Vaccine, said on Saturday.

Dr Muhammad Munir, ViraCorp’s chief scientific officer and a virologist at Lancaster University, is leading the research to develop the vaccine.

Lancaster University and ViraCorp launched a partnership to develop the “unique” nasal COVID-19 vaccine which attacks the coronavirus at its entry point into the body.

It will provide a cost-effective and easily administered alternative to solutions currently on the market, according to a statement published on the university website.

“With the emergence of new variants and increasing challenges to equitably vaccinating the world, there’s a need to develop novel and improved COVID-19 vaccines.

“Our next-generation dual-antigen carry vaccine offers solutions to several weakness of currently applied vaccines and I am delighted this partnership between ViraCorp and Lancaster University will bring this novel vaccine to market, which I believe will have significant impact in some of the world’s hardest-to-reach communities,” Dr Munir said.

A health worker holds up a dose of the Chinese-made Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Saturday, June 19, 2021, the first day of the second round of Bangladesh’s nationwide coronavirus vaccination campaign. Photo: Mahmud Zaman Ovi

“ViraCorp has put together a team of global partners who will bring world-leading expertise to help bring this vaccine to market. Once we have the relevant permissions, we will look to bring the vaccine to parts of the world which currently have low vaccination rates and will benefit from the stability and low cost of this vaccine and a nasal delivery system.”

Muktadir said Incepta was working to achieve and develop new technologies besides developing new vaccines.

The collaboration with ViraCorp will enable Incepta to produce vaccine that can be easily transported to remote areas, he said.  

The government and Incepta Vaccine Limited had in August entered into a tripartite agreement to package and supply in Bangladesh the Chinese coronavirus vaccine produced by Sinopharm.

Under the contract, Incepta will bring over bulk vaccines from China, put them in vials and label them.

Incepta said it has the capacity to produce 180 million single-dose, or 1 billion multi-dose vaccine shots annually.

Another Bangladeshi firm, Globe Biotech, has developed a coronavirus vaccine that needs to be administered through injection. The human trials of the vaccine, Bangavax, are currently ongoing.