Here's Why Inovio Pharmaceuticals Jumped Higher Today
Shares of Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO) are up 14.8% at 12:29 p.m. EST after the company was awarded a grant of up to $9 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop a vaccine against the 2019-nCoV coronavirus that's spreading across the globe.
The grant will support preclinical work and a phase 1 clinical trial for the vaccine Inovio is calling INO-4800. The company didn't say how much additional preclinical work it still needs to do, so it's unclear how quickly the vaccine might move into the clinic.
The biotech has some experience working on coronavirus vaccines, having developed INO-4700, a vaccine for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that's caused by a different coronavirus. The company was previously awarded a grant of up to $56 million from CEPI to fund the development of INO-4700 and a vaccine against Lassa fever.
Source Fool.com
