Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) and the Parker Institute
for Cancer Immunotherapy have entered into a clinical collaboration
agreement that provides for Inovio and the Parker Institute to
undertake clinical evaluation of novel combination regimens within
the field of immuno-oncology. The goal of the partnership is to
design innovative studies that have the potential to address
cancers with high unmet need. The initial trial under consideration
between Inovio and the Parker Institute would address muscle
invasive bladder cancer with INO-5401 in combination with
checkpoint inhibitors and immune modulators.
Under the agreement, the Parker Institute will
have responsibility for clinical study execution, working in
collaboration with its established network of the most pre-eminent
clinical academic and industry cancer centers. Based on Parker's
novel approach to accelerating studies of cancer immunotherapies,
Inovio will provide financial contributions if Inovio's product(s)
studied under the collaboration reaches the initiation of a Phase 3
study.
The collaboration with Inovio represents the
Parker Institute’s first agreement within the field of DNA-based
Immunotherapeutics. Inovio will benefit from the Parker Institute’s
innovative research model which brings together top academic cancer
institutions and companies to share resources, data, and
technology, accelerate research through unifying and managing
clinical trial design, and conduct multi-center clinical
trials.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's President and CEO,
said, "We thank the Parker Institute for their confidence in our
technology. This partnership aligns with our goal to address cancer
with our ASPIRE™ immunotherapies. Through the Parker Institute’s
unique business model, Inovio will be able to work with university
research pioneers and combination oncology therapy partners while
leveraging the Institute’s unique capabilities and expertise.”
“This collaboration between the Parker Institute
and Inovio exemplifies the mission of the Parker Institute for
Cancer Immunotherapy to unlock the promise of immunotherapy by
rapidly progressing next generation treatments into clinical
trials,” said Fred Ramsdell, PhD, Vice President, Research, Parker
Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. “If this collaboration leads to
better cancer patient responses to immunotherapy, this would mark
an important milestone for the field.”
In addition to the work with the Parker
Institute, Inovio also is collaborating to advance two
immuno-oncology products through late-stage development for
treatment of HPV-related cancers, advanced bladder cancer, and GBM.
The products are being studied in combination with checkpoint
inhibitors, in collaboration with Medimmune, Genentech, and
Regeneron respectively.
About Inovio’s
ASPIRE™ Immunotherapy Technology
Platform
Inovio is advancing the medical potential of a
unique class of immunotherapy technology. Its ASPIRE™ (Antigen
SPecific Immune REsponses) immunotherapies platform, which is the
foundation for all of Inovio’s products is unique in its ability to
leverage the body’s naturally existing mechanisms to generate
robust, highly targeted immune responses to prevent and treat
disease – and to do so in the body without harmful side effects.
Its SynCon® immunotherapy design and CELLECTRA® delivery transform
novel genetic blueprints into functional antibody and killer T cell
responses. Inovio was the first to report the activation – in the
body – of significant, antigen-specific functional T cells
correlated to statistically significant efficacy in a
placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind phase 2b clinical
trial (HPV-related pre-cancer), with a very favorable safety
profile. These data were published in The Lancet and independently
described as a “major breakthrough” in the field by U.S. National
Cancer Institute scientists. Inovio has achieved significant
antigen-specific immune responses against multiple diseases and is
advancing a growing pipeline of cancer and infectious disease
immunotherapies and vaccines.
About Parker Institute for Cancer
Immunotherapy
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
brings together the best scientists, clinicians and industry
partners to build a smarter and more coordinated cancer
immunotherapy research effort.
The Parker Institute is an unprecedented
collaboration between the country’s leading immunologists and
cancer centers. The program started by providing institutional
support to six academic centers, including Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford Medicine, the University of
California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San
Francisco, the University of Pennsylvania and The University of
Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Recently, the institute also
initiated programmatic support for top immunotherapy investigators,
including a group of researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute, Robert Schreiber, Ph.D., of Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Nina Bhardwaj,
M.D., Ph.D., of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount
Sinai and Phil Greenberg, M.D., of the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
The Parker Institute network also includes more
than 40 industry collaborations, more than 60 labs and more
than 300 of the nation’s top researchers focused on treating the
deadliest cancers.
The goal is to accelerate the development of
breakthrough immune therapies capable of turning most cancers into
curable diseases. The institute was created through a $250 million
grant from The Parker Foundation.
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals,
Inc.
Inovio is taking immunotherapy to the next level
in the fight against cancer and infectious diseases. We are the
only immunotherapy company that has reported generating T cells in
vivo in high quantity that are fully functional and whose killing
capacity correlates with relevant clinical outcomes with a
favorable safety profile. With an expanding portfolio of immune
therapies, the company is advancing a growing preclinical and
clinical stage product pipeline. Partners and collaborators include
MedImmune, Regeneron, Genentech, The Wistar Institute, University
of Pennsylvania, DARPA, GeneOne Life Science, Plumbline Life
Sciences, ApolloBio Corporation, Drexel University, NIH, HIV
Vaccines Trial Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military
HIV Research Program, 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, and the sufficiency of 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, 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® 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 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, 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, 2016, our Form 10-Q for the period
ended September 30, 2017, and other regulatory filings we make from
time to time. There can be no assurance that any product candidate
in Inovio's 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 Inovio undertakes 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.comMedia: Jeff Richardson, Inovio, 267-440-4211,
jrichardson@inovio.com
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