July 4, 2011

Inovio Pharmaceuticals FMD vaccine shows positive results
 

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. formally declared that it has attained convincing immune outcome in a research of its multi-subtype DNA vaccine for foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease administered by its proprietary vaccine delivery technology in sheep, the second largest animal in which this vaccine was analysed.

Strong protective neutralising antibodies were also observed in pigs vaccinated with the same vaccine.

These results were presented by Dr Niranjan Y. Sardesai, Inovio Sr. VP of Research and Development, at the Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XVII Conference in Seattle in a talk titled "Engineering Effective Consensus DNA Vaccines."

He said, "Today's FMD vaccines based on killed/inactivated viruses can actually cause FMD infection, so they are only used regionally after an outbreak rather than for broad preemptive vaccination. Inovio's synthetic DNA vaccine cannot cause the disease, providing a safe approach to potentially protect against FMD and reduce its serious impact on global food supply and commerce."

The FMD virus is one of the most infectious agents causing significant disease in farm animals including cattle, swine, sheep and goats. Once an area is exposed to FMD, livestock and dairy exports are ceased and herds are culled. For example, in a major FMD outbreak in the UK in 2001, more than four million animals were slaughtered, resulting in more than US$10 billion in economic losses. In a current FMD epidemic in South Korea, more than 3.3 million animals, mostly swine, have been culled in an attempt to keep the disease from spreading.