Inovio Says Preclinical Studies Show INO-4802 Effective Against COVID-19 Variants - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Biotechnology company Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (INO) announced Wednesday that its next-generation Pan-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, INO-4802, induced potent neutralizing antibodies and T cell responses in preclinical models against the original Wuhan strain as well as against B.1.1.7 (UK variant), B.1.351 (South African variant) and P.1. (Brazilian variant).

These results demonstrate the potential of Inovio's Pan-COVID-19 vaccine to induce cross-reactive immune responses against current and emerging viral variants as either a first-line vaccine, or potentially as a booster for individuals previously immunized with various Wuhan-matched vaccines.

Inovio's Pan-COVID-19 vaccine approach is designed to provide cross-strain protection, immune coverage, reduced susceptibility to escape mutants, and non-restricted geographical use against both known and potentially unknown variants.

Preclinical data with INO-4802 in multiple models revealed both broader and increased levels of neutralizing antibodies against a panel of variants than strain-matched vaccines. Building on this initial work, Inovio plans to conduct Phase 1/2 clinical trials this year with INO-4802.

The next-generation Pan-COVID-19 variant vaccine candidate is expected to enter a global Phase 3 trial this summer.

To create Inovio's Pan-COVID-19 vaccine candidate, variant sequences were identified over a four-month period starting in October 2020 from multiple geographic regions - Brazil, Canada, India, Italy, Japan, Nigeria, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States.

The mutations in the spike sequences were aggregated for each region. The sequence results from these regions were then further engineered to determine a common set of overlapping mutations from emerging variations in the COVID spike protein sequences to generate INO-4802.