Ocugen has secured exclusive regional rights to an intranasally delivered COVID-19 vaccine, positioning it to advance an intervention that already has emergency authorization in India toward the market in other parts of the world.
Pennsylvania-based Ocugen is paying an initial license issuance fee of $1 million to secure the rights to the recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine in the U.S., Europe and Japan from The Washington University. The biotech is also in line to pay an annual license maintenance fee and regulatory and commercial milestones of up to $37 million.
The sums involved suggest the shot is unlikely to make a major dent in the multibillion-dollar COVID-19 vaccine market. But there are reasons to think an intranasally delivered vaccine could be a useful tool, as Michael Diamond, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at Washington University School of Medicine, explained.
“In recent months we have seen COVID-19 continue to spread—despite high levels of vaccination the U.S., Europe, and Japan have achieved,” Diamond, co-inventor of the nasal vaccine technology, said in a statement. “Because the vaccine can be delivered directly into the nose, it is specifically designed to block infection at the portal of virus entry, and we believe it may help prevent transmission as well as provide protection against new COVID-19 variants.”
Bharat Biotech received emergency use authorization for the vaccine in India in September. The decision was underpinned by evidence from a phase 3 trial that evaluated two doses in unvaccinated people and by an 875-subject booster study.
Having secured the license, Ocugen plans to work with regulatory agencies in the U.S., Europe and Japan to bring the vaccine to those markets as a booster. The biotech, which ended June with $115 million to its name, will “pursue funding and investment options” to support the work.