Country for PR: United States
Contributor: PR Newswire New York
Friday, March 22 2019 - 01:12
AsiaNet
Inovio's Ebola Vaccine Delivered Intradermally Demonstrates 100% Immunogenicity in a Clinical Study Published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases
PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., March 21, 2019 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: INO) announced today that its Ebola 
vaccine, INO-4201, was safe, tolerable, and generated strong T cell and 
antibody responses. This Phase 1 data was published in The Journal of 
Infectious Diseases ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2409747-1&h=3108008505&u=https%3A%2F%2Facademic.oup.com%2Fjid%2Fadvance-article-abstract%2Fdoi%2F10.1093%2Finfdis%2Fjiz132%2F5395966&a=The+Journal+of+Infectious+Diseases 
) and further supports the advancement of the intradermal delivery platform for 
emerging infectious diseases.  Significantly, the study demonstrated that 
intradermal (skin) administration with Inovio's CELLECTRA(R) delivery device 
resulted in 100% of evaluable subjects generating antigen-specific antibody 
responses that persisted for more than one year in most subjects and generated 
T cell responses equivalent to or better than the group that received 
intramuscular delivery. The published data further validates the safety, 
potency, and product stability advantages of Inovio's vaccine and immunotherapy 
platform.

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Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's President and CEO, said, "INO-4201 has already 
demonstrated protection in 100% of non-human primates following a challenge 
with a lethal dose of the Ebola virus. With strong preclinical and human data, 
Inovio is executing on our overall development strategy in advancing INO-4201 
as a viable stockpile vaccine. Because Inovio's Ebola vaccine can be used to 
protect against Ebola infection and can be boosted multiple times without any 
anti-vector response, it could be employed to boost viral vector vaccines that 
cannot be effectively re-administered. We now look to secure partner funding to 
further advance our Ebola vaccine as a stand-alone vaccine as well as a boost 
for those previously immunized with viral vector vaccines."

Unlike viral vector vaccines which must be kept frozen, INO-4201 is stable at 
room temperature for more than one year. Non-live vaccine approaches that are 
simple to deliver and stable at room temperature are desirable in controlling 
Ebola virus outbreaks.

Inovio's Ebola vaccine was evaluated in five groups of healthy subjects. Of 70 
evaluated subjects, 67 (96%) seroconverted and mounted a strong antibody 
response to the Ebola glycoprotein antigen following the three dose 
immunization regimen; 52 subjects (76%) seroconverted after only two doses.

Significantly, in the study arm using intradermal (skin) administration, 13 of 
13 evaluable subjects (100%) generated antigen-specific antibody responses 
after only two doses and all remained seropositive after three immunizations.

To date INO-4201 has been well-tolerated and has not demonstrated systemic 
serious adverse effects, such as fever, joint pain, and low white blood cell 
counts, reported in association with some viral vector-based Ebola vaccines 
currently in development.

More information on this study, fully funded by U.S. Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency (DARPA), can be found in the most recent edition of The Journal 
of Infectious Diseases in the article entitled, "Intradermal SynCon(R) Ebola GP 
DNA Vaccine is Temperature Stable and Safely Demonstrates Cellular and Humoral 
Immunogenicity Advantages in Healthy Volunteers," authored by Inovio and its 
collaborators.

About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
 
Inovio is a late-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, 
development, and commercialization of DNA-based immunotherapies and vaccines 
that transform the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious disease. 
Inovio's proprietary technology platform applies 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'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, The Wistar Institute, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the 
University of Pennsylvania, Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, CEPI, 
DARPA, GeneOne Life Science, Plumbline Life Sciences, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial 
Network, National Cancer Institute, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 
Drexel University, 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(R) 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 
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.com
Media:	        Jeff Richardson, 267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com

SOURCE Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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