On Jun. 4, 2020, INOVIO and Seoul National University Hospital announced a partnership to start a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of INOVIO’s COVID-19 vaccine INO-4800 in South Korea. The 2-stage trial of INO-4800, the first clinical study of COVID-19 vaccine in Korea, assessed the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the candidate vaccine in 40 healthy adults aged 19-50 years, and was further expanded to enroll an additional 120 people aged 19-64 years.

The trial, which aims to start later in June, is funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) through INOVIO and is supported by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention/Korea National Institute of Health. In normal circumstances, it would generally take several years to start clinical trials of a new vaccine. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the trial in Korea will be conducted just two months after a similar clinical study began in the United States in early April 2020.

The speedy regulatory approval was made possible with support from the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety following its adoption in April of a fast-track approval process for clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics that are developed with a proven safety platform. Such vaccines, including DNA vaccines, can be exempt from toxicology tests leveraging the available preclinical data using the DNA platform, and expediting clinical trial review process. The DNA vaccine of US-based INOVIO to be tested was one of the first technologies to receive support from CEPI, greatly accelerating the development process of the COVID-19 vaccine.

IVI and SNU Hospitals have collaborated in the past to conduct Phase 1/2a trials for a MERS coronavirus vaccine. The MERS vaccine (INO-4700/GLS-5300) developed by INOVIO and South Korea’s GeneOne Life Science and, in trials conducted so far, has achieved promising results.

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a nonprofit inter-governmental organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, IVI was the first international organization hosted by Korea. IVI has 35 signatory countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) on its treaty, including Republic of Korea, Sweden and India as state funders.