Inovio Awarded up to $56 Million from Epidemic Prevention Coalition to Advance DNA Vaccines Against Lassa Fever and MERS

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) and CEPI – the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations – today announced a partnership under which Inovio will develop vaccine candidates against Lassa fever and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

CEPI will fund up to $56,000,000 to support Inovio’s pre-clinical and clinical advancement through Phase 2 of INO-4500, its Lassa fever vaccine, and INO-4700, its MERS vaccine. The shared goal of Inovio and CEPI is for the Lassa and MERS vaccines to be available as soon as possible for emergency use.

Lassa fever is a disease endemic to West Africa associated with annual outbreaks. An ongoing outbreak in Nigeria has, according to figures from the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, resulted in over 400 confirmed cases and over 100 deaths from January 1, 2018 through April 8, 20181. MERS, first identified in 2012, causes a severe respiratory illness and has been associated with a number of outbreaks in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries.

Individuals acquiring these diseases in the regions of origin occasionally travel to other locations, becoming ill in areas outside the endemic regions. In 2015 an individual with MERS returned to South Korea from the Middle East. This resulted in an outbreak that resulted in 186 confirmed cases and 38 deaths. The outbreak affected 24 hospitals, led to the temporary closure of more than 2,000 schools, and had a significant impact on the South Korean economy.

CEPI is a partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil organizations meant to foster the development of vaccines to prevent epidemics. CEPI was founded in Davos in 2017.

To date, CEPI has received multi-year funding from Norway, Germany, Japan, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome. CEPI has also received single-year investments from the governments of Australia, Belgium, and Canada.  It has reached $630 million of its target $1 billion funding target. The European Commission has announced a contribution in kind of €250 million that will support relevant projects through EC mechanisms.