BLUE BELL, Pa., Feb. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovio
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: INO) today announced it has
expanded its senior management team with two appointments to help
advance the company's growing pipeline of preclinical and clinical
DNA vaccines. Inovio has appointed Dr. Laurent Humeau as Vice President of R&D and
Dr. Jan Marie-Albert Van Tornout as Vice President of Clinical
Development.
Prior to Inovio, Dr. Humeau was Senior Director of Translational
Research, Human Therapeutics Division for Intrexon and previously
Chief Scientific Officer at VIRxSYS Corporation. At Inovio, Dr.
Humeau will provide the technical and strategic leadership for its
R&D group including: preclinical development of immunotherapy
and vaccine candidates, immunology and immune monitoring
approaches, method development, product characterization, and
analytical development.
Dr. Van Tornout will bring his
broad experience as a lead oncology pharmaceutical executive to
Inovio's cancer programs, overseeing its oncology pipeline
strategy, planning clinical development, and steering early and
late-stage clinical programs. Before joining Inovio, Dr.
Van Tornout was Executive Director
and Global Oncology Medical Lead for Astellas Pharma. Previously he
was Group Director and Lead, Oncology Development at Bristol Myers
Squibb and Medical Director/ Global Safety for Amgen.
Building on the best-in-class immune response data already
reported by Inovio, Drs. Humeau and Van Tornout will play an
integral role in advancing Inovio's portfolio of immunotherapy
technologies with their multi-disease potential and rapidly
expanding list of experimental candidates, new therapeutic cancer
products, clinical study opportunities, and partnering prospects.
Inovio's lead DNA immunotherapy product, VGX-3100, designed to
treat HPV-related cancers and pre-cancers, will generate efficacy
and immunogenicity data from a phase II trial for high grade
cervical dysplasia mid-year 2014. Inovio also plans to expand
testing of this product to treat HPV-related cervical and head
& neck cancers, the latter the most rapidly growing cancer in
men. Last year, Inovio signed a $400-plus million collaboration with Roche to
co-develop its therapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer, INO-5150,
which is expected to enter clinical trials this year.
Inovio's pipeline includes its therapeutic DNA vaccine targeting
hTERT, known as INO-1400, which is found in 85% of human cancers.
Inovio intends to evaluate INO-1400 in breast, lung, and pancreatic
cancers later this year. Also included in Inovio's broad
immunotherapy pipeline are its DNA-based immune
activators/modulators as well as its research-stage DNA-based
monoclonal antibodies.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's
President and CEO, said: "We want to continue to show leadership in
advancing active immunotherapies. As we expose the full breadth of
Inovio's technology base and build our company for growth and an
expanding pipeline, Inovio will greatly benefit from the scientific
expertise and commercial mindset that these two talented executives
bring to our biotech company. Drs. Humeau and Van Tornout have held
global research and clinical development positions and have a
demonstrated track record for achieving regulatory milestones. They
will play a major role as Inovio addresses unmet medical needs and
delivers the next generation of medicines based on our DNA
therapies."
Dr. Humeau received his BS and MS in biology from the University
Pierre & Marie Curie,
Paris and a PhD in blood cell
biology from the University Denis Diderot, Paris. Dr. Humeau will report to Dr.
Niranjan Sardesai, Inovio's Chief
Operating Officer. Dr. Van Tornout
earned his MD from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and holds MS degrees in classical
philosophy from the Katholieke Universiteit and applied biometry
from the University of Southern
California, in addition to a BS in Science from Faculte
Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur,
Belgium. Dr. Van Tornout will report to Dr. Mark Bagarazzi, Inovio's Chief Medical
Officer.
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, Merck, 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, 2012, our Form
10-Q for the quarter ended September 30,
2013, 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.