Plymouth Meeting’s Inovio Pharmaceuticals is collaborating with the University of California to test its new DNA based vaccine for the HIV virus, writes Linda Loyd for Philly.com.

Following a $6.95 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to test the vaccine, Inovio’s immunotherapy Pennvax GP will be administered to HIV positive patients to discover if it can successfully generate T cells in the immune system to eliminate the virus.

While there are already drugs that can successfully combat the disease, they require high doses that need to be taken on a very specific schedule. This can be difficult to maintain in some parts of the world where the disease is most prevalent.

“We’re trying to find a way to enable the immune system to do what antiretroviral drugs do, which is to prevent the virus from replicating and spreading in the person,” said Steven Deeks, the grant’s principal investigator and professor of medicine at the University of California.

Invvio’s new drug will be tested on its own and with other products in patient trials at the University’s San Francisco and Los Angeles locations.

Read more about Inovio’s new HIV vaccine at Philly.com by clicking here and check out previous MONTCO Today coverage of Inovio by clicking here.