March 8, 2011
Inovio highlights advantages of FMD DNA vaccine
Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. declared that it had acquired convincing results in a research of its DNA vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) administered by Inovio's proprietary vaccine delivery technology.
As FMD can spread quickly and beyond regional boundaries, there is a need to develop vaccines that can target different regional serotypes of FMD at the same time in a single vaccine. Inovio's SynCon technology allows fast development of vaccines that can cover multiple serotypes at the same time with a single formulation. Inovio, its subsidiary, VGX Animal Health (VAH), and its academic collaborators produced and tested SynCon DNA vaccine constructs aimed at all seven main FMD virus serotypes, moving from antigen design to large animal testing in just a few months.
In a study conducted in swine, one vaccination with an Inovio FMD vaccine consisting of four of the most common FMD serotypes generated high titer, antigen-specific antibody responses for each serotype in the vaccinated animals. The responses were further strengthened with a second immunisation. High levels of T-cell responses were also measured in the vaccinated animals. All vaccines were administered intramuscularly with Inovio's CELLECTRA electroporation delivery system.
The following are potential advantages of Inovio's FMD DNA vaccine.
Inovio's SynCon DNA vaccine cannot cause disease, which might happen using current killed viral FMD vaccines because of incomplete virus inactivation. This limits current vaccination to herds that may be soon be exposed to FMD. Inovio's vaccine would allow truly preventive vaccination.
Addtionally, Inovio's SynCon universal vaccine is designed to produce broader, cross-protective immune responses across different FMD serotypes, unlike current vaccines that must be matched to the FMD serotype.
As such, healthy vaccinated animals cannot be distinguished from infected animals, which often lead to the slaughter of uninfected herds. Inovio's SynCon vaccine is encoded for a single antigen (VP1 protein) common across FMD serotypes. As it is a synthetic consensus antigen unmatched to natural FMD strains, a blood test can distinguish non-infected vaccinated animals from naturally infected animals. This could hopefully reduce the slaughter of healthy animals in outbreak areas.
Lastly, better heat stability of Inovio's product overcomes the obstacle of costly and/or unavailable cold storage and transport in developing countries at high risk of FMD outbreaks.
Dr J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's President and CEO, said "Foot-and-mouth pandemics are a great threat to global food supply and society. Recent outbreaks in Europe and Asia have wreaked havoc in those areas and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. We at Inovio and VGX Animal Health are extremely pleased with the advancement of our new SynCon DNA vaccine for FMD through large animal pilot testing and we look forward to the further development of this important vaccine."
