Plymouth Meeting Pharma Company Preparing Coronavirus Vaccine

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA — A Montgomery County biopharmaceutical company is at the forefront of the world effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and they hope to have a million doses ready for distribution by year's end.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, headquartered on 660 Germantown Pike in Plymouth Meeting, announced Tuesday "accelerated timeline" for what they call their DNA vaccine. The preliminary design of the vaccine was completed almost immediately after Inovio received the genetic sequence of coronavirus from Chinese researchers in January.

"Using our modern DNA medicines platform, we designed our DNA vaccine INO-4800 in three hours after the publication of the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19," Joseph Kim, president and CEO of Inovio, said in a statement.

>>Pennsylvania Begins Testing For Coronavirus At Chester County Lab

Human clinical trials are expected to begin on 30 healthy volunteers in the United States in April, and 3,000 trial doses have already been prepared. Trials will continue shortly thereafter in China and South Korea, where the virus is most widespread.

Trial results are now scheduled to be presented by the fall, with the one million doses hopefully ready by December.

There have been roughly 90,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus globally, and more than 3,000 deaths worldwide. There have not yet been any cases in Pennsylvania.

In their statement Tuesday, Inovio added that they would need additional resources to create more than the one million doses.

The company received a $9 million grant in January from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to help them develop the vaccine.

What is coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that include the common cold as well as much more serious diseases. The strain that emerged in China in late 2019, now called COVID-19, is related to others that have caused serious outbreaks in recent years, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was on Jan. 21.

The disease, which apparently originated in animals, is now transferring from person to person, although the mechanism is not yet fully understood. Its symptoms include fever, coughing and shortness of breath, and many patients develop pneumonia. There is as yet no vaccine against COVID-19 it and no antiviral treatment.

According to the CDC, the best way of preventing the disease is to avoid close contact with people who are sick, to avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands, to wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, and to use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol if soap and water are not available.

To avoid spreading any respiratory illness, the CDC recommends staying at home when you are sick, covering your cough or sneeze with a tissue and throwing the tissue in the trash, cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched objects and surfaces.