The search for an effective intranasal covid vaccine is striding! The Inrae and the Tours University have announced this Thursday September 9, 2021 they have registered a patent for a candidate vaccine using the intranasal technology and according to a pre-clinical study carried out on mice and golden hamster, results are encouraging, with a 100% effectiveness. But where is the research on this vaccine at? According to our peers from LCI, human trials are to begin this year.
What is this vaccine about? As the national institute for research in agriculture, food, and environment (Inrae), this is a vaccine based on viral proteins relying on a vaccine developed against toxoplasmosis and “encapsulated in nanoparticles based on starch and lipids” our peers from BFMTV explain. Still according to the Inrae, the advantage of this vaccine is its ability to “stop transmission between individuals” by acting in the nasal mucous membranes. They specify that “technically, the vaccine can be administrated through a small adapter placed at the tip of a syringe without a needle, enabling to spray it within the nasal cavity”.
“Unlike intramuscular vaccines, only intranasal vaccines are said to be able to prevent the presence of the virus in the nose, namely the initial stage of infection”, searchers explain in a release. They go on: “as a matter of fact, they cause immunity in the nasal mucous membranes which is the opening door for the virus to multiplicate itself”. As for results, they have not been released yet.
“Experiments showed the vaccine stops transmission very early on. I work on animals infected: two days later, I notice the viral load in lungs is explosive” Tours University BioMAP research team manager entrusted with the study Isabelle Dimier-Poisson explains. She continues: “If I look at the same thing on animals who have been vaccinated and infected, I can find not trace of the virus in the lungs”. The vaccine is free of adjuvant and aims at “preventing transmitting the disease”.
The vaccine seems to work on all existing and upcoming variants since it does not target the Spike protein but other parts of the virus, some of them being common to all variants. "Unlike the current vaccines, all only based on the Spike protein, our vaccine relies on a cocktail of proteins, some of them being not subject to change", INRAE scientist Mathieu Epardaud told LCI. He went on: "Then, we can home it could maintain its effectiveness against different variants".
In what conditions could this vaccine be used? There again, Isabelle Dimier-Poisson answers: "Our vaccine will give two possibilities: whether it will be used as a booster to keep protecting against severe disease and stop contagiousness, or used as a prime-intention in low or not vaccination populations", she told our peers from LCI.
As for market issuance, you will have to wait until at least 2023, since in-human clinical trials have to be completed to be approved by regulators around the world. Trials are to start in the second half of 2022, after a production phase likely to start this Fall.
