PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa.,
June 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/
-- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) announced today
that the medical arm of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency
(DTRA) will fund the further development of Inovio's new commercial
intradermal delivery device. DTRA's Medical CBRN Defense Consortium
will provide $8.14 million to support
Inovio in developing a small, portable, battery-powered intradermal
device branded as CELLECTRA® 3PSP to be used in the
administration of Inovio's vaccines and therapies which include
DTRA developed products. In addition to the development of
CELLECTRA 3PSP, the new award will fund the investigation of DNA
vaccines developed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) using the new device.
Dr. Kate Broderick, Inovio's
Senior Vice President of R&D and the Principal Investigator of
the program, said, "We are honored that the U.S. Government
considered highly of Inovio's track record of innovation and is
providing this funding to support the further development of our
commercial intradermal vaccine delivery device. Our CELLECTRA 3PSP
is a small, portable user-friendly device which will allow broader
access to Inovio's vaccines and immunotherapies, whether the
vaccine is administered to our troops ready to be deployed around
the world, at a local pharmacy or in challenging settings such as
rural Africa."
In recent Inovio sponsored clinical studies, intradermal
delivery of Inovio's HIV, Ebola, and Zika vaccines resulted in
consistently high and robust levels of immune responses. In an HIV
vaccine study using intradermal delivery of PENNVAX®
vaccine, Inovio demonstrated nearly 100% of participants displayed
anti-HIV antibody and CD4+ T cell responses.
The project was sponsored by the U.S. Government through Other
Transaction Agreement (OTA) number W15QKN-16-9-1002 between the Medical CBRN Defense
Consortium (MCDC), and the Government. The MCDC that is
funding Inovio's device development, was formed in response to the
U.S. government's interest in leveraging cutting edge R&D from
commercial sources. This gives MCDC an agile and flexible way
to develop medical countermeasures using new and innovative
technology. Specifically, this program supports the U.S. Department
of Defense's future medical pharmaceutical and diagnostic
requirements as related to enhancing the mission effectiveness of
military personnel.
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, 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 immunotherapies, 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, Inovio, 484-362-0076,
ben.matone@inovio.com
Media:
Jeff Richardson,
Inovio, 267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com
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SOURCE Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.