BioterrorismInovio Pharmaceuticals gets DoD continuation grant for synthetic DNA vaccine delivery device

The U.S. Department of Defense has given a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Inovio Pharmaceuticals to continue developing a  low-cost, non-invasive surface electroporation (EP) delivery device. This second-phase  grant includes the testing of the device in conjunction with Inovio’s innovative synthetic DNA vaccines against viruses with bioterrorism potential, including hanta, puumala, arenavirus and pandemic influenza.

In the first phase of this project, Inovio focused on optimization of its current minimally-invasive intradermal EP device. This intradermal device penetrates no further than three millimeters compared to intramuscular devices which penetrate much deeper, and has proven effective in vaccine delivery.

Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio’s president and CEO, said  “Our human studies have already demonstrated that our existing intradermal delivery device is very tolerable and able to facilitate strong immune responses from our synthetic vaccines.”

DNA vaccination is a technique of protection against disease by injecting it with genetically-engineered DNA to produce an immunological response. DNA vaccines have a number of advantages over conventional vaccines, including the ability to induce a wider range of immune response types. They have been applied to a number of viral, bacterial, and parasitic models of disease, as well as to several tumor types.

These third-generation vaccines are injected into the cells of the body, where the “inner machinery” of the host cells “reads” the DNA and uses it to synthesize the pathogen’s proteins. Because these proteins are recognised as foreign, when they are processed by the host cells and displayed on their surface, the immune system is alerted, which then triggers a range of immune responses.

Inovio’s synthetic DNA vaccines are designed to provide universal cross-strain protection against known as well as newly emergent unmatched strains of pathogens such as influenza.

The second phase, financed by this grant, is to further develop the delivery device to a surface EP device, and test its efficacy in delivering the vaccines. The goal is a device which sits on the surface of the skin, and uses a virtually undetectable scratch to deliver the vaccines.

In addition to advancing the delivery system, this second phase includes validation of the immunological response. Dr. Kim explained “The second phase of this project will take the important step of assessing this further optimized surface EP device with challenge studies in animals of synthetic vaccines targeting challenging bioterrorism targets.” 

A low-cost, easy to use, tolerable device for the delivery of synthetic DNA vaccines would have direct applications by the military and healthcare sectors for mass vaccination. The ability to distribute patches that could be self-applied by the user would vastly speed vaccination of large numbers of people in the event of a bioterror attack or pandemic. Rather than wait for an injection, the patches could be distributed, possibly in advance in the case of military personnel in the field, for use at any time required.