Anand Kumar, managing director, Indian Immunologicals Limited, at the company’s facility in Hyderabad
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Hyderabad-headquartered vaccine manufacturer Indian Immunologicals Ltd (IIL), in partnership with Griffith University, Australia has developed a needle-free intra-nasal booster vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, a press release from the company stated.

The company said the live-attenuated booster has been developed using ‘codon de- optimisation’ technology. Its work on this vaccine has been published in the science journal, Nature Communications.

According to the press release, codon de-optimisation involves decreasing the frequency of underrepresented codon pairs (genetic determinants for amino acids) without changing the amino acid sequences. This method, the release said, is an efficient virus attenuation strategy, where the degree of attenuation can be regulated as required. It is extremely safe and takes less time than the conventional way of attenuating viruses, which usually takes several years, the release said.

K. Anand Kumar, managing director, Indian Immunologicals Limited said as per the release, “This accomplishment signifies a major step forward in our battle against COVID-19. We are enthusiastic about the codon de-optimisation technology, and its use in targeted attenuation of microorganisms to be used as vaccine candidates”.

It may be recalled that Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda told the Lok Sabha earlier this month that two strains, namely KP.1 and KP.2, were responsible for the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in India. He said these strains evolved from the JN1 Omicron variant and were highly transmissible, and while there has been no associated increase in hospitalisations or severe cases reported thus far, both strains are being monitored.

As of December 2023, a total of 220.67 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered across the country. However, only 22.88 crore precautionary or booster doses have been administered across the country among the eligible adult population.