Inovio is focused on the discovery, development and delivery of an important new generation of vaccines, called DNA vaccines. The ability of DNA vaccines to induce not only a strong antibody response but also a strong T-cell response creates the potential to prevent and treat cancers and chronic infectious diseases. Furthermore, the capabilities of genomic engineering enables the design of optimized vaccines that may protect against a broad spectrum of evolving strains of a pathogen, such as influenza, that is not specifically matched to the genetic make-up of the vaccine.

More technically speaking, SynCon™ DNA vaccine antigens are designed by aligning numerous primary sequences and choosing DNA-based triplets for the most common amino acid at each site. These antigens are further optimized for codon usage, improved mRNA stability, and enhanced leader sequences for ribosome loading. The DNA inserts are therefore optimized at the genetic level to give them high expression capability in human cells.