Inovio Pharmaceuticals is a company that focuses on developing a new generation of vaccines called DNA vaccines. These are to prevent and treat cancers, influenza and other challenging diseases caused by, for example, HIV and HPV.
Inovio, announced today that the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Therapy has published a paper entitled “IL-28B/IFN-lambda3 Drives Granzyme B Loading and Significantly Increases CTL Killing Activity in Macaques.”
With this study, they have shown that they are able, with their innovative DNA vaccine technology-platform, to increase immune responses to diseases in non-human primates.
The paper, co-authored by researchers from Inovio and collaborators from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, notes that co-delivery of Inovio’s immunoadjuvant, a DNA plasmid encoding interleukin (IL)-28B, with an Inovio optimized SynCon(TM) DNA vaccine using its proprietary electroporation (EP) technology significantly enhanced antigen-specific killer T cell responses in rhesus monkeys.
A gene immunoadjuvant is a DNA plasmid encoded with the genetic blueprint of an important, naturally occurring immune molecule such as IL-28B. When this DNA plasmid is co-delivered with a DNA vaccine, both the vaccine and, in this case, IL-28B proteins are produced by the same cell. The presence of an immunoadjuvant such as IL-28B may enhance the attraction of particularly important immune cells such as dendritic cells or killer T cells. Generation of CD8+ killer T cells are considered instrumental in clearing cancerous or infected cells from the body and imperative to achieving sufficient potency of new vaccines against cancers and chronic infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.
The study results, recently published in Molecular Therapy, compared Inovio’s platform with Merck’s adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vaccine, considered to be the most immunogenic among viral vectors. Inovio has also reported from its phase I clinical study of a SynCon(TM) DNA vaccine against HPV/cervical cancer the achievement of T cell response levels thought sufficient to provide therapeutic benefit.
Let’s hope they are right and that their technological applications also show therapeutic benefits in phase II and phase III trials. This might bring us a step closer towards preventing and treating cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
Sources: Inovio Pharmaceutical, Inc.; Yahoo Finance