During the quarter, Inovio and its collaborators from Drexel University, Cheyney University, and the University of Pennsylvania received a $2.8 million grant to develop a DNA vaccine to treat hepatitis C virus (HCV). The grant will fund pre-clinical studies to test the safety and effect on the immune system of Inovio's novel vaccines designed to treat persons who are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus and have not responded to currently available therapies. People with chronic HCV infection face an increased risk of developing hepatocellular cancer, a difficult-to-treat cancer with a poor prognosis.
The company was awarded "Best Early Stage Biotech" Vaccine Industry Excellence Award at the World Vaccine Congress.
The company changed its name from Inovio Biomedical to Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to better reflect its business focus.
Preclinical Development
During the quarter, the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Therapy published a paper highlighting that in a head-to-head comparison with a Merck adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vaccine, considered to be the most immunogenic among viral vectors, an Inovio optimized SynConTM DNA vaccine delivered using its proprietary electroporation technology demonstrated numerous advantages in both magnitude and breadth of immune responses produced in non-human primates.
Clinical Development
During the quarter, Inovio announced it had completed enrollment of all subjects for its phase I trial of its therapeutic cervical cancer vaccine (VGX-3100) targeting the E6 and E7 proteins of human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18. In the first two dose cohorts, six of 12 vaccinated subjects (50%) developed significant antigen-specific CTL (killer T-cell) responses, with average CTL responses increasing in a dose-related fashion. Ten of the 12 patients (83%) developed strong antibody responses. The vaccine has been well tolerated with an acceptable safety profile in all subjects tested. Interim immunology and safety results from the third and final dose group are expected to be reported in September.
Inovio immunized the first subject in its U.S. Phase I clinical trial to evaluate its SynCon?„? H5N1 (avian) influenza DNA vaccine, VGX-3400X. This study represents the first step in demonstrating Inovio's novel universal influenza vaccine approach, which aims to overcome the constraints of current annual strain and subtype-specific influenza vaccines by developing a single vaccine to potentially protect against existing and newly emergent strains within multiple targeted subtypes, such as H5N1 and H1N1, posing risk to humans.
Source : Inovio Pharmaceuticals