Inovio Biomedical unveils new clinical-grade, miniaturized electroporation device

Inovio Biomedical Corporation (NYSE Amex: INO), a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, today unveiled its new clinical-grade, miniaturized electroporation device designed to be an easy-to-use, portable delivery product for DNA vaccines. Inovio believes the device may be used to inoculate large populations against infectious diseases such as influenza, dengue and malaria. This new skin electroporation technology has been used to deliver DNA vaccines in several preclinical animal models and generated strong, protective antibody responses, which are required to provide immunity against targeted diseases. Dr. Niranjan Sardesai, SVP, Research and Development, introduced this new technology and device in a presentation at Phacilitate Vaccine Forum Washington 2010 on Tuesday, January 26th, in Washington, DC.

Inovio has established that electroporation delivery of its SynCon™ DNA vaccines into skin tissue, an extension of its electroporation technology for delivering DNA vaccines into muscle, is able to facilitate potent neutralizing antibody responses that have protected ferrets in influenza challenge models and protected monkeys in a smallpox challenge model. Inovio’s clinical studies of electroporation-based delivery of DNA vaccines into muscle of prostate and cervical cancer patients have been among the first to demonstrate generation of potent antigen-specific antibody responses in humans.

The patented design introduces a miniaturized array size and further optimization of electroporation conditions. A recent controlled study conducted in human volunteers showed that tolerability of the new skin vaccine delivery device was similar to conventional syringe-delivered flu vaccines. Inovio believes these important design outcomes could make such devices suitable for widely applied preventive vaccine regimens.

Dr. J. Joseph Kim, president and CEO, stated, “Our development team has been working diligently to bring about a 'pinky'-sized clinic-ready device. Coupled with our universal SynCon™ DNA vaccine technology, our new skin vaccine delivery device expands our powerful arsenal for targeting a broad array of infectious diseases caused by viruses and bacteria. Having already filed the device master file with the FDA, we expect to soon start IND-enabling toxicity studies using the new skin delivery device and are applying our unique platform to rapidly develop new vaccine programs.”

The development of the skin clinical device was funded in part by a $1.9M US DOD contract and $23.5M US NIH contact, received by us in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Source: Inovio Biomedical Corporation