What happened
Shares of Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO 4.39%) were up 20% early Thursday afternoon after the biotech company announced that it will present its abstract for INO-4201 as an Ebola booster for rVSV-ZEBOV (Ervebo) at the 33rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) on Sunday. The stock is down more than 43% year to date and more than 72% over the past year.
So what
Inovio has been trading below $1 a share since March 22, so it doesn't take much news to sway the stock's price one way or another. It's important to note that the abstract is for a booster that is still early in the process, having just completed a phase 1b trial. Inovio mainly focuses on DNA medicines to treat people with human papillomavirus (HPV) diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases.
Now what
A booster shot for Ebola would be important as nearly 50% of the people who get the disease die. The main concern with Inovio is the company lost $279.8 million last year and says it has only enough cash -- $253 million -- to last into the first quarter of 2025. The company has only a few late-stage drugs in its pipeline after it shelved VGX-3100 when it didn't meet the primary endpoint in its trial to treat cervical high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. INO-4800 is in a phase 3 trial as a COVID-19 vaccine. It also had INO-5401, which it is partnering on with Regeneron, in a phase 2 trial to treat glioblastoma, a cancer that starts as a growth of cells in the brain or spinal cord.
Its $71 million contract with the U.S. government for its Cellectra 3PSP smart devices and Cellectra 2000 devices, used to deliver the company's experimental COVID-19 vaccine, ended last year.
There's also the worry the stock could be delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market if it continues to trade below $1, which would make it more difficult for the company to raise funds.
