Inovio’s Zika vaccine induces immune responses in preclinical trial

Inovio is developing its Zika vaccine with GeneOne Life Sciences and academic collaborators.

In the pre-clinical study, Inovio’s SynCon vaccine technology was used to synthetically generate DNA vaccine constructs targeting several Zika virus antigens.

The company’s Cellectra electroporation delivery technology was utilized to administer the SynCon constructs.

Inovio said its vaccine resulted in seroconversion, or the development of detectable specific antibodies in the blood, in all vaccinated mice.

Vaccination was observed to generate vast T cell responses as analyzed by the standardized T cell Elispot assay, the company added.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals president and CEO Joseph Kim said: "Using our SynCon technology we rapidly generated a synthetic vaccine candidate that shows promise as a preventive and treatment.

"With robust antibody and killer T cell responses generated by our vaccine in mice, we will next test the vaccine in non-human primates and initiate clinical product manufacturing.

The company intends to start phase I human testing of Zika vaccine before the end of this year.

Earlier this month, Indian firm Bharat Biotech unveiled two vaccine candidates to protect humans against the Zika virus, which is spread by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus.

Sanofi has also launched a project to develop a vaccine against the virus, which is generally mild and self-limiting, lasting two to seven days.

The symptoms of the virus include fever, rash, joint pain, itching, conjunctivitis or red eyes, headache, muscle pain, and eye pain.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus to be an international public health emergency.

The WHO is seeking $56m investment to combat the virus. The funds will be used to accelerate vaccines development, undertake diagnostics and research on how the virus spreads.

Image: Aedes aegypti – a mosquito vector of Zika virus. Photo: courtesy of Rafaelgilo.