Inovio Pharmaceuticals published its positive results from the first-in-human trial of its vaccine against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS) were published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The article highlights clinical results of Inovio’s collaborative vaccine study of INO-4700 (also called GLS-5300) against MERS delivered with the CELLECTRA efficacy-enhancing device, the company said in the press relase.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio President and CEO, said: “This latest publication underscores the potential for rapid deployment of Inovio’s DNA vaccines. Impressively, INO-4700 was advanced into the clinic within nine months of vaccine candidate selection — the first MERS vaccine in humans. Inovio is planning a Phase 2 MERS vaccine trial to be conducted in areas of the world where outbreaks have occurred, funded through our previously established collaboration with CEPI dependent on Phase 1b/2a data.”
Inovio’s MERS DNA vaccine was well-tolerated and demonstrated overall high levels of antibody responses in 94% of subjects, while also generating broad-based T cell responses in 88% of study participants. Furthermore, INO-4700 administration generated antibody responses with similar potency compared to those of patients who were infected with MERS virus and subsequently recovered from the South Korea MERS outbreak, the company said. Even more interestingly, the vaccination generated more robust T cell responses than convalescent patients, suggesting the vaccine’s ability to protect from reinfection from MERS virus, the company added in the press release.
Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of WRAIR’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Branch, the principal investigator of the study and first author on the publication, said in the press release: “The world witnessed the emergence and devastation of SARS in 2002 and then MERS 10 years later. MERS hasn’t gone away. And there’s every indication that the family of viruses to which SARS and MERS belong, coronaviruses, are here to stay. U.S. military personnel are at particular risk for MERS, given the deployments to the Middle East and South Korea where the largest MERS outbreaks have occurred. This study is, therefore, an important advancement for the U.S. Army, the military community as a whole and the global stakeholders in the research and development of both MERS and corona virus countermeasures.”