BLUE BELL, Pa., April 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovio
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: INO) today announced the
appointment of E.J. Brandreth as
Vice President of Quality. He will be responsible for all quality
and compliance functions for a company that is moving forward with
numerous late and early stage clinical trials and scaling up
manufacturing and other operational areas to support its broad
pipeline of immunotherapies and DNA vaccines. He will report to
Inovio's Chief Operating Officer Dr. Niranjan Sardesai.
Prior to joining Inovio, Mr. Brandreth had a successful career
transitioning start-up clinical biotech operations into successful
commercial entities; he supported the growth of several
pharmaceutical companies in the quality and compliance areas. He
was most recently Senior Vice President, Quality and Regulatory
Affairs at Ajinomoto Althea, and previously held similar positions
with IDEC, BioMarin and Favrille, Inc. He holds an MBA from the
University of Phoenix and a BA in
Biology from UC San Diego.
Inovio also promoted three executives:
- Thomas S. Kim, J.D., to General
Counsel. He has been with Inovio since 2007 and most recently
served as VP of Legal. Previously he held legal positions at DuPont
and a number of law firms. He holds a JD from Washington University in St. Louis, an MS in Biochemistry from the
University of Illinois, and a BS in
Chemistry from Georgia Tech. He
continues to serve as Corporate Secretary.
- Jessica Lee, MS, MPH, to Vice
President of Clinical Operations. She has been with Inovio since
2006 and most recently served as Sr. Director of Clinical
Operations. Previously she was with clinical development groups at
Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck and Co. She holds an MPH from
the School of Public Health at Drexel
University, an MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory
Affairs from Temple University, and a
BS in Biology from Drexel
University.
- Bernie Hertel to Vice President
of Investor Relations and Communications. He has served Inovio
since 2004, most recently as Sr. Director of the same functions.
Prior to Inovio he was involved with entrepreneurial and
development stage ventures in different sectors in marketing,
communications, and investor relations. He holds a Bachelor of
Commerce from the University of British
Columbia.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's
President and CEO, said, "Overall, these new hires and promotions
over the past months are a key part of our strategic
blueprint. Upgrades in our executive leadership along with
steps we've taken to improve our balance sheet, capitalization
structure and enhanced product pipeline are all systematically
geared to position Inovio to become a major immunotherapy and
vaccine company. Coupled with expected phase II efficacy data to be
reported this summer, we are working to best prepare Inovio for our
anticipated growth.
"Specifically, we will rely on E.J.
Brandreth's track record of moving pipeline candidates such
as Rituxan® and Zevalin® to commercialization as we ramp up our
immunotherapies and DNA vaccines into later stage clinical trials.
We are also pleased to promote from within our executives who have
demonstrated outstanding results."
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, 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.