Inovio gets good news against foot-and-mouth disease

As South Korea deals with a massive outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD), Inovio has released promising preclinical results for a DNA vaccine that could prevent multiple strains of the disease in the future.

Inovio gave pigs one or two doses of the vaccine, which uses Syncon technology and has multiple FMD serotypes and cannot cause FMD infection, and found good immune responses, including elevated T-cell responses.

"Foot-and-mouth pandemics are a great threat to global food supply and society," said Inovio President and CEO J. Joseph Kim. "Recent outbreaks in Europe and Asia have wreaked havoc in those areas and caused billions of dollars worth of damage. We at Inovio and VGX Animal Health are extremely pleased with the advancement of our new SynCon DNA vaccine for FMD through large animal pilot testing and we look forward to the further development of this important vaccine."

FMD is one of the most devastating diseases to affect farmers; a 2001 outbreak resulted in $10 billion in economic losses in the UK after 4 million cattle, sheep and other livestock had to be slaughtered. In the current FMD epidemic in South Korea, more than 3.3 million animals, mostly swine, have been culled in an attempt to keep the disease from spreading.

- read the Inovio release
- and check out the Proactive Investors piece