BLUE BELL, Pa., March 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Inovio
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex:
INO), a leader in the development of therapeutic and preventive
vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced today
that its partner, ChronTech Pharma AB (formerly Tripep AB), has
initiated a Phase IIb clinical study of its ChronVac-C® DNA
vaccine for hepatitis C virus (HCV), delivered by Inovio’s
proprietary electroporation DNA vaccine delivery technology, in
combination with standard of care.
In a Phase I clinical trial of ChronVac-C using Inovio’s
MedPulser® electroporation device the therapy resulted in a
robust increase in T-cell immune responses against HCV and was safe
and well-tolerated. Post-study observation of subjects who
completed the protocol and then entered into standard of care (SOC)
treatment using interferon and ribavirin showed a complete and
rapid viral response (four weeks) in 70% of those participants (5
of 7 patients). More significantly, 83% of the participants
(5 of 6 patients) who were monitored for an extended period of
time, continued to be free of the virus six months after they
completed SOC. SOC treatment alone usually results in about 40-50%
of patients reaching undetectable virus levels after six months of
treatment.
This Phase II follow-on trial is an open-label, single-dose,
randomized trial of 32 patients to further explore the effect of
the ChronVac-C® DNA vaccine administered by Inovio’s
MedPulser® electroporation delivery device. The therapy will be
given two times, with four weeks in between, followed by SOC
treatment after the final vaccine dose in treatment-naïve
chronic HCV infected genotype-1 subjects. This trial will assess
the level of immune responses, levels of HCV viral load, and
further assess the response to the delivery technology. Twenty
patients will receive ChronVac-C® vaccine
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