Inovio Receives NIH Grant To Evaluate HIV Immunotherapy Ability To End Lifetime Of Drug Therapy

A $6.95 million grant to develop a therapy using Inovio’s PENNVAX-GP with the aim of attaining long-term HIV remission in the absence of antiviral drugs received by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and its academic and industry collaborators.

This multi-year grant from the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will endorse a proof-of-concept clinical program. The program will test either intensifying anti-HIV specific CD8 killer T-cell immune responses alone or in combination with other products can affect the size of the viral reservoir pool, potentially resulting in diminishing or eradicating the virus, including latent cellular reservoirs.

Advancement of Inovio’s PENNVAX-GP immunotherapy has been funded through a $25 million NIAID contract awarded to Inovio and its collaborators. Also, Inovio and its collaborators were awarded a five-year $16 million Integrated Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development (IPCAVD) grant in 2015 from NIAID.