Shares of Inovio Pharmaceuticals soared last week after the Plymouth Meeting biotech announced promising results from preliminary patient testing of its HIV vaccine, writes Linda Loyd for Philly.com.

Inovio reported that its Pennvax-GP vaccine produced close to a 100 percent immune response, one of the highest ever seen in an HIV vaccine. It is being developed in collaboration with David Weiner, director of the vaccine center at the Wistar Institute in University City, using his innovative DNA vaccine technology.

The results of the study, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, were presented at a meeting of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network in Washington last week.

“Everybody was very excited to see antibodies in close to 100 percent of people in the study and T cells, as well, from a single platform,” said Weiner. “The No. 1 thing this means: There will be more testing in people.”

Currently there is no approved HIV vaccine on the market, but Sanofi and Janssen are both getting close. Inovio’s study is still ongoing and will measure the volunteers’ long-term immune responses in a year.

“We’re optimistic we’ll see persistent immune responses, but that’s data we don’t have yet,” said Inovios’s chief operating officer, Niranjan Sardesai.

Read more about the results at Philly.com by clicking here.

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