You could also take the coronavirus vaccine as a capsule in the future. New forms of the Covid-19 vaccine are now being developed by several pharma companies across the world. The latest is the oral Covid-19 vaccine in a capsule form that has been developed by Indian pharma company Premas Biotech.
Premas Biotech, an Indian firm has collaborated with American company Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc. and announced on March 19 the development of an oral Covid-19 vaccine candidate that has shown efficacy after a single dose.
A single dose of the Oravax Covid-19 capsule has been found effective and its efficacy has been proven in a pilot study on animals. Oravax’s oral vaccine promoted both systemic immunity by producing Neutralizing Antibodies (IgG) as well as (IgA) immune response, which protects the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts against infection.
Technique
Premas’ protein-based VLP (Virus Like Particle) vaccine provides triple protection against three parts of the SARS CoV-2 virus i.e. Spike S, Membrane M, and Envelope E targets (but not against Nucleocapsid N antigen).
Background
Premas Biotech is an Indian company with Dr Prabuddha Kundu as the co-founder and managing director. The VLPs in vaccine are manufactured using Premas’ proprietary D-Crypt platform while Oramed has world-leading oral protein delivery platform POD.
An oral Covid-19 Oravax is a vaccine candidate that harnesses and combines the true potential of the two unique platforms.
These are preliminary results of animal studies while clinical trials will launch soon in the second quarter of 2021.
Another vaccine of Bharat Biotech is also being made in the nasal form along with the University of Wisconsin, which is already undergoing clinical trials. In India, the human stage trials for nasal vaccines have begun.
