Inovio SynConTM DNA Vaccine Results
Published in Vaccine
Inovio Biomedical Corporation (NYSE Amex: INO), a leader in DNA vaccine
design, development and delivery, announced today that the company's
first SynCon™ dengue virus DNA vaccine induced neutralizing antibody
responses against all four distinct serotypes of dengue viruses that are
transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. Currently there is no commercially
available vaccine or antiviral drug against dengue virus infections. The
results were published in Vaccine, July 3, 2009, in a paper
entitled, “Development of a novel DNA SynCon tetravalent dengue vaccine
that elicits immune responses against four serotypes” (Ramanathan
MP, Kuo
YC, Selling
BH, Li
Q, Sardesai
NY, Kim
JJ, Weiner
DB).
Dengue fever is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease
affecting humans. Its global distribution is comparable to that of
malaria and an estimated 2.5 billion people (WHO) live in areas at risk
for epidemic transmission, with 50 million cases of dengue infection
worldwide every year. The disease is now epidemic in more than 100
countries and has become a focus of vaccine development as an
underserved disease. Previous vaccine studies have demonstrated that
partial or incomplete protection against only one or more of the four
subtypes contributes to increased severity of disease if infected with
the other subtypes. Therefore, a major challenge in dengue vaccine
development is to protect against all four dengue subtypes
simultaneously.
Inovio scientists used the SynCon™ approach to develop a universal
dengue vaccine. The candidate vaccine is delivered as a single DNA
plasmid construct containing sequences of a key surface antigen (domain
III) from the E protein of all four subtypes of the dengue virus. In
mice studies, the scientists found that this universal vaccine was able
to induce cross-protective neutralizing antibody responses against all
four dengue subtypes.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio’s CEO, said, "Dengue fever represents a clear
unmet need because it is endemic in many regions of the world and has
pandemic potential. Yet it has been a difficult target for vaccine
development because the conventional sub-type-specific vaccine approach
only exasperates the problem. We are pleased to see the promising
results of our experimental universal vaccine candidate against all four
subtypes.
