Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc (INO)

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MedImmune Ltd., the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN), is terminating a cancer therapy partnership it has with Inovio Pharmaceuticals. 11/2

The partnership, formed in 2015, gave MedImmune of Gaithersburg, Maryland, exclusive rights to Inovio's experimental DNA-based cancer vaccine, known as INO-3112, for cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18.

MedImmune renamed the new drug candidate as MED10457 after acquiring its exclusive rights. The company has been studying the effectiveness of MED10457 as a combination therapy with AstraZeneca’s checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, an immunotherapy for cancer.

Inovio disclosed MedImmune's decision to terminate the agreement in a document the Plymouth Meeting-based company filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Since that notice was filed on Oct. 29, the company's stock is up about 2% at $7.29 per share.

Inovio (NASDAQ: INO) will reacquire the rights to INO-3112 and will no longer be entitled to receive potential future milestone payments or royalties from MedImmune. Inovio said it will also cease any development activities for which it would be entitled to seek reimbursement from MedImmune. The two companies will continue to have rights to jointly publish work relating to the product candidate.

MedImmune, according to Inovio's SEC filing, is conducting a phase 2 clinical trial of MED10457 in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. MedImmune has completed the final data cutoff for the trial and plans to complete the clinical study report by the end of 2022. Inovio expects that MedImmune will continue to sponsor this study until study termination. MedImmune will also continue providing financial support for an externally sponsored research study of MED10457 with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center until study completion.

Inovio stated it is "no longer substantially dependent" on the collaboration agreement. The company stated during the six months ended June 30, 2021, and the years of 2020 and 2019, it recognized a total of $33,000, $171,000 and $2 million, respectively, in revenue from MedImmune under the collaboration agreement.

"We remain focused on the development of our HPV vaccines, including our lead therapeutic asset VGX-3100," said Jeff Richardson, Inovio's vice president for communications. "Inovio will receive INO-3112 back, and we plan to develop it further on our own or with another partner."

The original partnership carried a potential value of up to $700 million for Inovio, contingent upon the partnership yielding approved cancer therapies.

In 2019, AstraZeneca and MedImmune announced they were discontinuing a significant portion of what was then their four-year-old research partnership with Inovio covering multiple product candidates.

At the time, MedImmune decided to move forward only with the development of MED10457.

Inovio also continues to work on a variety of vaccines include a potential Covid-19 vaccine and another targeting Lassa fever
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2021/11/02/inovio-plymouth-meeting-astrazeneca-medimmune.html