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news.US-based Inovio Pharmaceuticals has collaborated with GeneOne Life Science to advance its DNA vaccine into a Phase I clinical trial in healthy volunteers for the treatment of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a respiratory disease.
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MERS is caused by a coronavirus, which is related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus and currently there is no vaccine or effective treatment for this virus.
Inovio holds an equity interest in GeneOne, an international DNA vaccine developer and manufacturer.
Both the firms will jointly carry out a Phase I trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of Inovio’s DNA-based MERS vaccine.
Currently, the companies are conducting pre-IND activities and plan to initiate the Phase I clinical trial by this year end.
Under the deal, GeneOne will conduct and fund the clinical study in return for milestone-based co-ownership of the immunotherapy.
Following successful completion of the trial, the companies plan to jointly seek additional third party support and resources to further develop and commercialize this product.
The company said that in preclinical tests, INO-4500 showed robust and durable immune responses and animals vaccinated with this agent generated strong neutralizing antibodies and robust CD8+ T cells to MERS antigens.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals president and CEO Dr Joseph Kim said: "Inovio has again utilized its SynCon platform to generate a synthetic DNA immunotherapy candidate, INO-4500, that shows promise for providing an effective shield or treatment where there is none.
"What’s most impressive about our candidate vaccine is that it is designed with the goal to universally protect against multiple and newly emergent strains of MERS.
"In light of the rapid spread of the recent Ebola outbreak, we want to be proactive in assessing the immunogenicity and safety of our MERS immunotherapy and be prepared to advance this product against this deadly virus in a timely manner."
Inovio’s MERS vaccine was designed using its SynCon technology to provide broad protective antibody and T-cell responses against multiple strains of MERS virus.
According to the company, the SynCon technology has the ability to activate immune responses against multiple disease-specific antigens and elicit broad protection against diverse unmatched strains of pathogens in humans.