Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a leader in the development of therapeutic and preventive vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced that its partner, ChronTech Pharma AB (formerly Tripep AB), has initiated a phase II b 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 delivered with Inovio's electroporation device; the 12-patient comparison group will receive standard-of-care treatment alone. The study has received approval from the Swedish Medical Products Agency and local ethical committee.

“If we can repeat the phase I results in this phase II b study there is certainly a possibility that vaccination with ChronVac-C before drug therapy could become a part of the standard of care therapy for patients with chronic hepatitis C-virus infection. In particular, we hope that vaccination with this novel therapy will result in a considerable shortening of the duration of interferon and ribavirin treatment,” said Anders Vahlne, CEO of ChronTech Pharma AB.

Dr J Joseph Kim, Inovio's president and CEO, said: “We are encouraged by the phase I results showing the improved cure rate in patients who received the HCV vaccine followed by a SOC drug therapy. Any improvement to the HCV standard of care response rates would be well-received by HCV patients and practitioners. We are pleased to collaborate in this advancement of ChronVac-C, using Inovio's innovative delivery technology, into phase II.”

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the most common chronic blood borne infection in the United States, where approximately 3.5 million persons have been chronically infected.

Inovio's electroporation-based DNA delivery systems can increase the cellular uptake of an agent by 1,000 times or more. When used to deliver DNA vaccines, Inovio's systems can increase levels of gene expression (i.e. production of the coded protein) and immune responses by 100 times or more compared to plasmid DNA delivered without other delivery enhancements.

Inovio is developing a new generation of vaccines, called DNA vaccines, to treat and prevent cancers and infectious diseases. These SynCon vaccines are designed to provide broad cross-strain protection against known as well as newly emergent strains of pathogens such as influenza.