Inovio Pharmaceuticals Kicks Off Phase 1 Clinical Trial for Experimental COVID-19 Vaccine

Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO) has been moving fast in the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The company claimed it had created a potential vaccine for the rapidly spreading coronavirus on Jan. 10, just three hours after Chinese researchers publicly released the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes the illness. Now, it's starting human clinical trials for that potential vaccine, INO-4800.  The trial will involve up to 40 healthy adult volunteers, each of whom will receive two doses of INO-4800 four weeks apart. The goals of the phase 1 trial are to test the vaccine's safety and its immunogenicity --i.e., its ability to trigger an immune response in the body. Inovio expects initial data from this trial by late summer, and plans to move on to phase 2 clinical trials -- which will test INO-4800's efficacy -- as soon as possible. Other companies are also making headway in their efforts to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. For instance, pharma giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) recently announced that it would initiate human clinical trials for its investigational COVID-19 vaccine by September.