The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has granted Inovio Pharmaceuticals $3.5 million to work with the U.S. Army to advance development of its next generation DNA vaccine delivery device, capable of simultaneously administering multiple synthetic vaccines through skin surface electroporation.

Inovio is collaborating with Connie Schmaljohn, chief scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, in a public/private partnership to develop a device that would facilitate rapid vaccination of U.S. troops stationed around the world against multiple infectious diseases and protect civilian populations from pandemic threats.

“This new device would provide a means to rapidly and painlessly deliver multiple vaccines simultaneously to large groups of people,” says J. Joseph Kim, president and CEO of Inovio. The device could also significantly increase the dose of vaccine delivered at one time which is a current limitation in vaccine delivery to the skin, the company says.

Inovia, based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, is developing synthetic vaccines designed to provide universal protection against known, as well as new unmatched strains of pathogens such as influenza. These synthetic vaccines are delivered using the company’s proprietary electroporation delivery platform that uses millisecond electrical pulses to improve cellular uptake of the vaccine and resulting immune responses. The research effort covered by the grant will investigate the simultaneous delivery of multiple DNA vaccines at distinct spatial sites while avoiding immune interference between vaccines.

The mission of the Army’s Institute of Infectious Diseases is to protect troops from biological threats and to be prepared to investigate disease outbreaks or threats to public health. Inovio researchers were already collaborating with the institute’s scientists to advance a DNA vaccine for the Lassa virus, which the Department of Defense has designated as a “Category A” high priority pathogen due to its potential risk to national security. While an optimized DNA vaccine for the Lassa virus delivered by surface electroporation demonstrated complete protection against a virus challenge in both guinea pig and non-human primate disease models, improvements are still needed to make the technology more suitable for multiple vaccine administrations and mass vaccinations.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant builds on a 2011 Small Business Innovation Research Grant in which Inovio demonstrated a delivery device that was designed to deliver two separate DNA vaccines simultaneously. In this new program, Inovio will develop the multi-vaccine electroporation delivery device to address biodefense vaccine targets—notably to advance the Lassa virus vaccine through to clinical studies.