BLUE BELL, Pa., May 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovio
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: INO) announced today it acquired
worldwide rights (excluding China)
for early preclinical therapies addressing Alzheimer's disease and
multiple sclerosis based on the academic research of Dr. Bin Wang,
a professor at Fudan University's Shanghai Medical College. Dr.
Wang is a pioneer in the field of DNA therapies, having worked
closely with Dr. David Weiner at the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Wang
was the primary author on some of the earliest DNA vaccine papers
and patents. In consideration for these rights, Inovio will make
clinical and regulatory milestone payments to the University.
These newly licensed technologies are based on patent-protected
and published discoveries from Dr. Wang and his collaborator, who
found a novel way to generate inducible regulatory T cells, or
iTreg. iTreg cells are involved in shutting down immune responses
after they have successfully eliminated invading organisms, and
also in preventing autoimmunity or inflammatory diseases. In
multiple published preclinical studies, this approach generated
CD25-iTreg in an antigen-specific manner. These novel approaches
could be used to develop therapies targeting major inflammatory
diseases like multiple sclerosis and may be used to treat
Alzheimer's disease.
Inovio gains global rights to preclinical synthetic products to
prevent and/or treat:
- Alzheimer's disease – An estimated 5.2 million Americans have
Alzheimer's disease, including approximately 200,000 individuals
younger than age 65. More than 500,000 seniors die each year from
Alzheimer's, the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S.
Because of the increasing number of people age 65 and older in
the United States, the annual
number of new cases of Alzheimer's is projected to double by
2050.
- Multiple Sclerosis - MS is a chronic inflammatory disorder of
the central nervous system. It usually affects people beginning in
their 20s or 30s and is one of the most common causes of
non-traumatic disability among young and middle-aged people. MS
affects more than 350,000 people in the
United States and 2.5 million worldwide. MS-related
healthcare costs are estimated to be more than $10 billion annually in the United States.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's
President and CEO, said, "Acquiring these early-stage technologies
is just another step in our ultimate goal of controlling the immune
system to fight diseases in a more safe and effective manner using
Inovio's immune engineering platform. Our therapeutic cancer
vaccines in the clinic are designed to properly activate and direct
T cells to kill cancer cells. These new candidates are designed to
do the opposite by shutting down unwanted and aberrant T cell
responses that cause autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. These
new technologies give us the potential to go after these important
disease targets."
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Inovio is revolutionizing vaccines to prevent and treat today's
cancers and challenging infectious diseases. Its SynCon®
vaccines, in combination with its proprietary electroporation
delivery, are generating best-in-class immune responses, with
therapeutic T-cell responses exceeding other technologies in terms
of magnitude, breadth, and response rate. Human data to date have
shown a favorable safety profile. Inovio's lead vaccine, a
therapeutic against HPV-caused pre-cancers and cancers, is in phase
II. Other phase I and preclinical programs target prostate, breast,
and lung cancers as well as HIV, influenza, malaria and hepatitis.
Partners and collaborators include Roche, the University of Pennsylvania, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial
Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military HIV Research
Program, University of Southampton, US Dept. of Homeland Security,
University of Manitoba and PATH Malaria
Vaccine Initiative. More information is available at
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 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
(including, but not limited to, the fact that pre-clinical and
clinical results referenced in this release may not be indicative
of results achievable in other trials or for other indications,
that the studies or trials may not be successful or achieve the
results desired, that pre-clinical studies and clinical trials may
not commence or be completed in the time periods anticipated, that
results from one study may not necessarily be reflected or
supported by the results of other similar studies and that results
from an animal study may not be indicative of results achievable in
human studies), 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, 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, 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, 2013, our Form 10-Q for the quarter
ended March 31, 2014, 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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SOURCE Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.