Inovio drops MERS and Lassa fever vaccines after early trials disappoint

18 Nov 2022
endpts.com
VaccinePhase 2Clinical ResultPhase 1
Inovio will stop work on its vaccines for Lassa fever and for MERS after the shots didn’t produce results that were strong enough to take forward in future tests, the company said Thursday afternoon.
It’s disappointing news for a company that announced job cuts in July, a tactic meant to preserve resources for its lead DNA vaccine candidates for HPV and Covid-19. Earlier this month, the company reported that it had $22 million in cash and equivalents on the books, down from $71 million a year prior, meaning that it’s quickly burning through resources.
Inovio had been working on the trials with CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit that helps fund and advance vaccine development, among other public health work.
Inovio said that the vaccines showed a good safety profile in the trials and generated an immune response, but “did not meet CEPI’s selection criteria for further development.” Under a 2018 partnership, CEPI had agreed to provide as much as $56 million to take the vaccines through Phase II.
“We continue to believe in the potential of our DNA medicine candidates based on their characteristics,” Inovio CEO Jacqueline Shea said in a statement.
As the pandemic high wanes, Inovio chops headcount again while chasing Covid win
Inovio’s shares $INO hit a 20-year high in 2020 amid the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when investors poured into the stock as they did many other vaccine companies. But since that peak of around $30 a share, they’ve plunged to $2.34 a share, as of Thursday’s close.
The Lassa fever vaccine was called INO-4500 and was being studied in a Phase Ib trial of 220 patients in Ghana. INO-4700, for MERS, had 192 patients in the first part of a Phase II test. The company said it plans to release the data from the trials at a later date.
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