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Market: NYSE AMEX
Sector: Pharmaceuticals
EPIC: INO
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Inovio Pharmaceuticals
www.inovio.com

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is focused on the discovery, development, and delivery of a new generation of vaccines, called DNA vaccines, to prevent or treat cancers and chronic infectious diseases. This next generation of immunotherapies could potentially protect millions of people from debilitation or death from diseases without adequate treatments.

DNA vaccines have great potential, but two broad challenges must be overcome to achieve development success. First, scientists must further refine immune system targets in order to design DNA vaccines able to induce clinically relevant immune responses. Second, they must improve DNA delivery capabilities to overcome safety and efficacy limitations common to most existing delivery technologies. Inovio's intellectual property, comprised of the knowledge and expertise of its people, its vaccine design and development processes as well as DNA delivery devices, and its patents, positions the company to potentially overcome these challenges and achieve new clinical breakthroughs.

Full Inovio Pharmaceuticals profile here
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Inovio Pharmaceuticals' preclinical study on prostate cancer vaccine published in medical journal

2nd Feb 2011, 4:15 pm
Inovio Pharmaceuticals' preclinical study on prostate cancer vaccine published in medical journal

Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NYSE Amex: INO) said Wednesday that a scientific paper comprising the positive results of a preclinical study on the company's DNA vaccine for prostate cancer was published in a journal titled Human Vaccines.

DNA vaccination is a technique for protecting the body against disease by injecting it with genetically engineered DNA to produce an immune response, which then fights against potentially harmful invading cells, or antigens. DNA vaccines are considered to have many advantages over traditional vaccines, including the ability to induce a wider range of immune response types.

The company's SynCon DNA vaccine for prostate cancer targets two antigens, while current therapies for the disease target only single antigens. The study published in the journal tested the hypothesis that a broader collection of antigens, administered through Inovio's electroportation technology, would improve the effectiveness of the therapy in mice.

Indeed, the preclinical trial showed that just one week after a second vaccination, the mice demonstrated potent immune responses.

Currently, therapies for prostate cancer, which include radiation, hormone deprivation and surgery, have many side effects and often do not provide for a long term cure. Across the US alone, there were 218,000 new cases of prostate cancer and more than 32,000 deaths in 2010.

"This is an important study in which the first SynCon DNA vaccine against a cancer target was successfully tested," said president and CEO Dr. J. Joseph Kim.

"This immunotherapy targeting more than a single antigen as a treatment for prostate cancer generated strong antibody and T-cell immune responses, which are considered vital to addressing prostate cancer.

"Taken together with the previous preclinical and clinical data, the current published results support the advancement of this product into a Phase I clinical study."

Aside from the company's vaccine for prostate cancer, it is also working on such therapies for cervical cancer, HIV and avian flu.

Inovio rallied more than 4.6% on Wednesday morning to trade at $1.35 as of 10:56am EST.

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