Inovio to receive funds from International Vaccine Institute to develop MERS vaccine

• Inovio, GeneOne and its academic collaborators have evaluated GLS-5300 in mice, rhesus macaques and camels. As published in Science Translational Medicine, the vaccine induced robust immune responses in all three species. GLS-5300 has been specifically able to induce 100% protection from a live virus challenge in a rhesus macaque non-human primate study. The results of the non-human primate study supported the conduct of the first phase I clinical trial of 75 healthy volunteers in collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
• Dr. J Joseph Kim, Inovio’s president & CEO and a member of the Board of Trustees of IVI, said, “This collaborative funding is part of a 41 billion Won (USD $34 million) grant publicly pledged in 2015 from the Samsung Foundation to IVI to support the development of a MERS vaccine for emergency use in Korea and internationally. The goal of this funding is to expand clinical testing of GLS-5300 toward emergency use authorization by the Korean government as well as authorities of other countries.”
• “Inovio’s GLS-5300 remains the only vaccine for MERS in clinical testing. With this support from IVI, Inovio, GeneOne, and our other collaborators can expand GLS-5300 vaccine development in Korea and the US. Our phase I MERS trial in the U.S. is fully enrolled with 75 subjects dosed. We intend to report interim data in early 2017 and publish the full data set in peer reviewed journals. We already published positive non-human primate protection results. After obtaining human safety and immunogenicity data, we may be in position to secure additional external funding as well as approach regulators next year to discuss the path to approval via the “Animal Rule,” Dr. Kim said.
• Despite the continuing threat of MERS outbreaks, there are no licensed vaccines or treatments for MERS. Since the virus was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012, the World Health Organization reports almost 1,900 MERS infections and nearly 700 deaths worldwide. Twenty seven countries have reported cases, including Korea where an outbreak in the summer of 2015 resulted in 186 cases and 38 deaths. While a SARS epidemic in 2003 killed 10% of those infected, MERS has killed about 36% of people who contracted this communicable virus.
• The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is the world’s only international organization devoted exclusively to developing and introducing new and improved vaccines to protect the world’s poorest people, especially children in developing countries.
• GeneOne is an international company focused on finding gene-based solutions to clinical disease. GeneOne is at the forefront of DNA vaccine and DNA-based therapeutic development. 
• Inovio is taking immunotherapy to the next level in the fight against cancer and infectious diseases. 

Inovio to receive funds, international vaccine institute, develop mers vaccine