On Dec. 15, 2020, Inovio Pharma announced the company and a team of scientists from The Wistar Institute, AstraZeneca, the University of Pennsylvania, and Indiana University received a $37.6 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. DoD to use INOVIO’s innovative DNA-encoded monoclonal antibody (dMAb) technology to develop anti-SARS-CoV-2-specific dMAbs which could offer versatile capabilities to function as both a therapeutic and preventive treatment for COVID-19.

As part of DARPA’s two-year grant, INOVIO and Wistar teams will construct COVID-19 dMAb candidates mirroring AstraZeneca’s traditional recombinant monoclonal antibody candidates currently being tested in clinical trials to treat COVID-19. dMAb candidates can be quickly developed and produced in vivo, offering a cost-effective and scalable therapeutic and preventive option for treatment of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. The dMAb candidates will then be advanced into preclinical studies and then into rigorous, first-in-human clinical trials within one year of funding.

Recombinant monoclonal antibodies, which represent the largest segment of pharmaceutical markets today with more than $100 billion in sales, are designed to enhance the immune system’s ability to regulate cell functions. However, the technology has some limitations, including long and costly laboratory development and large-scale production, limited duration of in vivo potency, and a pharmacokinetic profile that can result in toxicity.

INOVIO’s dMAb technology offers a disruptive and differentiated solution to the challenges and limitations associated with conventional recombinant monoclonal antibody-based treatments. The company can encode the DNA sequence for a specific monoclonal antibody in a DNA plasmid and deliver the plasmid directly into cells of the body using the company’s proprietary smart device called CELLECTRA^®. This specific DNA medicine serves as a genetic blueprint that instruct the patient’s body to build its own highly specific antibodies in vivo.

INOVIO and its collaborators pioneered the development of dMAb^® technology as a unique asset to not only combat the COVID-19 pandemic, but also for any pathogen or disease that can be treated by an antibody therapy, including cancer. Empowered by more than $80 million in previous development funding from DARPA, as well as from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, INOVIO’s dMAb^® technology offers a breadth of several unique advantages across disease and pathogen targets, including high specificity for the target, rapid injection in subjects requiring minimal clinical settings, rapid manufacturing, low cost of production, and temperature-stable storage and distribution. In animal studies, dMAbs have also been applied to both prevent infection as well as to treat infection, indicating the potential for bimodal application.