Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: INO) made strategic
leadership appointments in preparation for the commercialization of
its lead asset and further development of its pipeline of
immunotherapies and vaccines for cancer and challenging infectious
diseases.
Inovio appointed to its Scientific Advisory
Board leading-edge cancer and viral immunologist, Professor Rafi
Ahmed, Director of the Emory Vaccine Center at Emory University
School of Medicine; Dr. Laurent Humeau, Inovio’s Senior Vice
President R&D, expands his role as Chief Scientific Officer;
and, Inovio appointed Mark Twyman Vice President, Commercial.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, President and CEO, said,
“These appointments will support Inovio as we develop and
commercialize our novel DNA-based immunotherapies. The
counsel from Dr. Ahmed a highly-respected, highly-connected opinion
and research leader, will be invaluable to Inovio. As the
chief scientist at Inovio, Dr. Humeau’s scientific expertise and
track record of executing our strategic plan make him
well-deserving of this expanded role. And, Mark Twyman’s
industry experience and contributions to date at Inovio position
him well for success in his new role. His leadership will be
vital as we ready the organization to fully leverage the commercial
opportunities ahead.”
Dr. Rafi Ahmed’s work has advanced the field of
immunological memory -- the ability of the immune system to
"remember" a particular antigen and quickly respond and mount an
immune response when this antigen is again encountered. He
and his colleagues have made significant discoveries about how
immune memory cells are created and how long they survive since
understanding these mechanisms is crucial to the development of
vaccines for HIV and other infectious agents. Dr. Ahmed's
findings are also applied to research into therapies for the
treatment of cancer and the prevention of organ rejection. He
is also an internationally recognized expert on viral persistence
and the immune response to viruses. Dr. Ahmed will provide
his insights into viral persistence and “memory cells” which will
bolster Inovio’s industry-leading DNA vaccine development and the
company’s cancer immunotherapy pipeline. His advice will
fortify Inovio’s strong applied DNA-based science.
Dr. Humeau, Chief Scientific Officer, who joined
Inovio in 2014, serves an integral role in advancing Inovio's
portfolio of immunotherapies and vaccines covering multiple
therapeutic cancers and infections, supporting clinical study
opportunities, and fostering collaborations with academic partners.
He provides the technical and strategic leadership for
Inovio’s highly productive R&D group whose activities include:
preclinical development of immunotherapy and vaccine candidates,
immunology and immune monitoring approaches, method development,
product characterization, and analytical development. Under
Dr. Humeau’s leadership, Inovio’s R&D group along with its
collaborators published more than 100 peer-reviewed preclinical and
clinical publications and dozens of new patent filings as well as
receiving over $150 million in non-dilutive grants and contracts
from CEPI, DARPA, NIH, and the Gates Foundation in support of
Inovio’s platform and vaccine development.
Mark Twyman joined Inovio in 2017 and brings
more than 20 years’ experience commercializing healthcare products
including key leadership roles at Merck, as VP Marketing--Pediatric
Vaccine; at MedImmune, as VP and GM Vaccines; and Genzyme as SVP
and GM, Biosurgery. Mr. Twyman will have responsibility for
leading Inovio’s strategic and tactical commercial effort across
the HPV, Infectious Disease and Oncology portfolios and will assume
an expanded leadership role in the organization. Mr. Twyman
earned an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dickinson
College.
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals,
Inc.
Inovio is a late-stage biotechnology company
focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of DNA
immunotherapies that transform the treatment of cancer and
infectious diseases. Inovio’s proprietary platform technology
applies next-generation antigen sequencing and DNA delivery to
activate potent immune responses to targeted diseases. The
technology functions exclusively in vivo, and has been demonstrated
to consistently activate robust and fully functional T cell and
antibody responses against targeted cancers and pathogens.
Inovio is the only immunotherapy company that has reported
generating T cells whose killing capacity correlates with relevant
clinical outcomes. Inovio’s most advanced clinical program,
VGX-3100, is in Phase 3 for the treatment of HPV-related cervical
pre-cancer. Also in development are Phase 2 immuno-oncology
programs targeting head and neck cancer, bladder cancer, and
glioblastoma, as well as platform development programs in hepatitis
B, Zika, Ebola, MERS, and HIV. Partners and collaborators
include MedImmune, Regeneron, Roche/Genentech, ApolloBio
Corporation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Wistar
Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Parker Institute for Cancer
Immunotherapy, CEPI, 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, including the planned initiation
and conduct of clinical trials and the availability and timing of
data from those trials. 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 pipeline of SynCon® active immunotherapy and vaccine
products, 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 us or our collaborators, including
alternatives that may be more efficacious or cost effective than
any therapy or treatment that we and our collaborators hope to
develop, issues involving product liability, issues involving
patents and whether they or licenses to them will provide us 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 we can finance or devote other
significant resources that may be necessary to prosecute, protect
or defend them, the level of corporate expenditures, assessments of
our 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, 2017, our
Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30,
2018 and other regulatory filings we make from time to time.
There can be no assurance that any product candidate in our
pipeline will be successfully developed, manufactured or
commercialized, that final results of clinical trials 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. Forward-looking statements
speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no
obligation to update or revise these statements, except as may be
required by law.
CONTACTS: Investors:
Ben Matone, 484-362-0076,
ben.matone@inovio.comMedia:
Jeff Richardson, 267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com
Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024
Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024