PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. and
SEOUL, South Korea, May 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovio
Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: INO) and Plumbline Life Sciences
(XKRX: 222670) today announced a collaboration to co-develop a
novel animal health vaccine for African swine fever (ASF) virus.
The vaccine will be developed using Inovio's SynCon®
technology and delivered using CELLECTRA®
efficacy-enabling devices. Plumbline, based in South
Korea, will fund all development and commercialization of the
ASF vaccine. Inovio and Plumbline already have a license
partnership in animal health fields and Inovio currently holds an
approximately 15% equity ownership in Plumbline. As part of this
agreement, Inovio will construct and test the ASF vaccine in small
animal models. Plumbline will further test the vaccine in larger
animal models, including in pig challenge models and further
develop to commercialize the vaccine. Financial arrangements were
not disclosed.
African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious haemorrhagic
viral disease of domestic and wild pigs, which is responsible for
serious economic and production losses. There is no approved
vaccine for ASF currently and the current outbreak in Asia is dramatically threatening the
agricultural economies of many Asian countries including
China, Vietnam and Korea. The disease is incurable in
pigs but innocuous to humans.
Dr. Laurent Humeau, Inovio's
Chief Scientific Officer, said "We are extremely pleased to apply
Inovio's Synthetic Nucleics platform to develop a vaccine to combat
this deadly pig virus. Inovio has a track record of developing
novel emerging infectious disease vaccines and we are pleased to
work with Plumbline to further test and commercialize an ASF
vaccine."
Anthony K. Kim, President and CEO
of Plumbline said, "Plumbline is very excited to collaborate with
Inovio to advance a new vaccine for this horrible threat for animal
health and agriculatural food supplies. Plumbline has a proven
track record of commercializing DNA-based therapies for animal
health as we have the distinction of having our product for pigs,
LifeTide®SW5, already approved in Australia, New
Zealand and South Korea. We
will devote our full resources to commercialize a vaccine for ASF
as rapidly as possible."
The current official estimates count 1 million pigs have already
been culled in China but the
slaughter data suggest 100 times more could be removed from
China's 440 million-strong swine
herd in 2019. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast in April
a decline in China of 134 million
head — equivalent to the entire annual output of American pigs —
and the worst slump since the department began counting
China's pigs in the mid 1970s.
ASF virus, indigenous to Africa, infects only domestic and wild pigs
and a species of soft ticks that transmits the disease. The disease
emerged in Africa decades ago and
have been detected among domestic and wild pigs in Europe. In 2007, the viral disease appeared in
the Republic of Georgia and spread
through the Caucasus region, and then it eventually reached
China in August 2018 and then Mongolia in January and Vietnam in February this year. Japan detected their first case of infectious
ASF in late March. The strain of African swine fever spreading in
Asia is highly lethal, killing
virtually every pig it infects by a hemorrhagic illness reminiscent
of Ebola in humans even though it not known to sicken people.
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 an innovative biotechnology company focused on the
discovery, development, and commercialization of its synthetic
nucleic technology targeted against cancers and infectious
diseases. Inovio's proprietary technology platform applies antigen
sequencing and 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'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
HPV-related cancers, bladder cancer, and glioblastoma, as well as
platform development programs in hepatitis B, Zika, Ebola, MERS,
and HIV. Partners and collaborators include AstraZeneca, Regeneron,
Roche/Genentech, ApolloBio Corporation, GeneOne Life Science, The
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Coalition for Epidemic
Preparedness Innovations, Parker Institute for Cancer
Immunotherapy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National
Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, National Cancer Institute, HIV Vaccines Trial Network,
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, The Wistar Institute, and
the University of Pennsylvania. For
more information, visit www.inovio.com.
This press release contains certain forward-looking
statements relating to our business, including our plans to develop
DNA-based immunotherapies, 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, 2018, our Quarterly Report on
Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31,
2019 and other filings we make from time to time
with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 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 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.com
|
Media:
|
Jeff Richardson,
267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com
|
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SOURCE Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.