Inovio Licenses Veterinary Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine to Plumbline Life Sciences
August 16 2016 - 8:00AM
Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) today announced it has
licensed a veterinary vaccine for foot and mouth disease (FMD) to
Plumbline Life Sciences (KONEX: 222670), an animal health company
headquartered in South Korea. Plumbline will fund all development
activities for this FMD vaccine. Inovio will receive milestone
payments as well as royalties on product sales from Plumbline for
commercial rights to this FMD synthetic vaccine in Asia, excluding
Japan. In 2014, Inovio sold other animal health assets to Plumbline
for cash and a significant equity position in the company.
Inovio’s FMD DNA vaccine administered to sheep and
pigs in previous studies showed strong protective neutralizing
antibodies, demonstrating its potential to prevent the virus from
infecting livestock animals.
The FMD virus is one of the most infectious
diseases affecting farm animals including cattle, swine, sheep and
goats, and is a serious threat to global food safety. Once an area
is exposed to FMD, livestock & dairy exports are ceased and
herds are culled. For example, in a major FMD outbreak in the U.K.
in 2001 more than four million animals were slaughtered, resulting
in more than $10 billion (USD) in economic losses. In a 2011 FMD
epidemic in South Korea, more than 3.3 million animals, mostly
swine, were culled in an attempt to keep the disease from
spreading.
Because FMD can spread rapidly and beyond regional
boundaries there is a need to develop vaccines that can
simultaneously target different regional serotypes of FMD in a
single vaccine. Inovio's SynCon® technology enables rapid
development of vaccines that can cover multiple serotypes
simultaneously with a single formulation. Inovio has generated and
tested DNA vaccine constructs targeting all seven main FMD virus
serotypes.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim said, “With Inovio’s focus on
human immunotherapies to fight cancers and infectious diseases, we
want to monetize non-core assets. This is our second license
agreement with Plumbline to enable the development of animal health
products and market opportunities. FMD pandemics are a worldwide
threat to food supply and society for which Inovio's FMD vaccine
could provide a global solution."
About Plumbline Life Sciences,
Inc.
Plumbline Life Sciences, Inc., an animal
biopharmaceutical company, focuses on companion animals. It
develops deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-based vaccines and therapies
for animals using plasmid-based DNA delivery and expression
technology by electroporation to optimize an animal's natural
biological and immunological potential. The company’s solutions
include growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH), a naturally
occurring molecule; and an electroporation technology for
delivering plasmids into skeletal muscle cells and skin. It offers
products for dog cancer/anemia, equine laminitis, cat renal
failure/anemia, dog renal failure/anemia, and swine GHRH. Plumbline
Life Sciences, Inc. is based in Seoul, South Korea.
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals,
Inc.
Inovio is taking immunotherapy to the next level in
the fight against cancer and infectious diseases. We are the only
immunotherapy company that has reported generating T cells in vivo
in high quantity that are fully functional and whose killing
capacity correlates with relevant clinical outcomes with a
favorable safety profile. With an expanding portfolio of immune
therapies, the company is advancing a growing preclinical and
clinical stage product pipeline. Partners and collaborators include
MedImmune, The Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, DARPA,
GeneOne Life Science, Plumbline Life Sciences, Drexel University,
NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S.
Military HIV Research Program, and Laval University. For more
information, visit www.inovio.com.
This press release contains certain forward-looking
statements relating to our business, including our plans to develop
electroporation-based drug and gene delivery technologies and DNA
vaccines, our expectations regarding our research and development
programs and our capital resources. Actual events or results may
differ from the expectations set forth herein as a result of a
number of factors, including uncertainties inherent in pre-clinical
studies, clinical trials and product development programs, the
availability of funding to support continuing research and studies
in an effort to prove safety and efficacy of electroporation
technology as a delivery mechanism or develop viable DNA vaccines,
our ability to support our broad pipeline of SynCon® active
immunotherapy and vaccine products, our ability to advance our
portfolio of immuno-oncology products independently, the ability of
our collaborators to attain development and commercial milestones
for products we license and product sales that will enable us to
receive future payments and royalties, the adequacy of our capital
resources, the availability or potential availability of
alternative therapies or treatments for the conditions targeted by
the company or its collaborators, including alternatives that may
be more efficacious or cost effective than any therapy or treatment
that the company and its collaborators hope to develop, our ability
to enter into partnerships in conjunction with our research and
development programs, evaluation of potential opportunities, issues
involving product liability, issues involving patents and whether
they or licenses to them will provide the company with meaningful
protection from others using the covered technologies, whether such
proprietary rights are enforceable or defensible or infringe or
allegedly infringe on rights of others or can withstand claims of
invalidity and whether the company can finance or devote other
significant resources that may be necessary to prosecute, protect
or defend them, the level of corporate expenditures, assessments of
the company's technology by potential corporate or other partners
or collaborators, capital market conditions, the impact of
government healthcare proposals and other factors set forth in our
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015,
our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2016, and
other regulatory filings from time to time. There can be no
assurance that any product in Inovio's pipeline will be
successfully developed or manufactured, that final results of
clinical studies will be supportive of regulatory approvals
required to market licensed products, or that any of the
forward-looking information provided herein will be proven
accurate.
CONTACTS:
Investors: Bernie Hertel, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, 858-410-3101, bhertel@inovio.com
Media: Jeff Richardson, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, 267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com
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