On Apr. 6, 2020, VGXI, announced it had completed manufacturing and release of a DNA vaccine to combat the  COVID-19 pandemic. VGXI was selected by Inovio Pharmaceuticals in late January to produce the vaccine under a $9 million grant to Inovio from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

Rapid mobilization of efforts across both companies enabled a record-setting timeline to release and initiation of clinical testing for the novel DNA vaccine within just 2 months from the start of production and only 3 months from public release of the virus genetic sequence. The large scale manufacturing campaign has supplied thousands of vaccine doses up to 4 times faster than traditional plasmid DNA production would support.