Full Press Release Details
Avtar Dhillon, M.D.,
President and Chief Executive Officer of Inovio
J. Joseph Kim, Ph.D.,
Co-Founder, President, and CEO of VGX Pharmaceuticals
Bernie Hertel, Director of
Corporate Communications
Thank you for standing by. Welcome to today s conference call. During this presentation, all participants
will be on a listen-only mode.
Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please
press *1. As a reminder, this conference
is being recorded and will be available on Inovio s website. I would now like to turn the conference over
to Mr. Bernie Hertel, Inovio s Director of Corporate Communications.
Bernie Hertel Inovio Biomedical
Corporation Director of Corporate Communications
Thank you and hello,
everyone. With me today are Dr. Avtar
Dhillon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Inovio and Dr. Joseph
Kim, Co-Founder, President, and CEO of VGX Pharmaceuticals.
Before we begin, I want to
make you all aware that during the course of this conference call, statements
may be made that outline the intentions, hopes, believes, expectations of the
management of Inovio and/or VGX or predictions of the future which are all
considered to be forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements may contain the words believe, anticipate,
expect, estimate, intend, plan, project, think, will be, will continue, will
result, would, could, should, may, might, or any variations of such words with
similar meaning. Forward-looking
statements are based on management s current expectations and estimates based
on available information at this time and involve risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those
contemplated by the forward-looking statements.
These risks include but are not limited to uncertainties inherent and
complex commercial transactions like the proposed merger which could result in
the proposed transaction being delayed or failing to close, uncertainties
inherent in clinical trials and product development programs including but not
limited to the fact that pre-clinical and clinical results referenced in this
release may not be indicative of results achievable in other trials or for
other indications and that results from one study may not necessarily be
reflective or supported by the results of other similar studies, issues
involving the parties patents and whether they are licenses to them will
provide the parties with meaningful protection from others using the covered
technologies whether
such proprietary rights are
enforceable or defensible or infringed or allegedly infringed on rights of
others or can withstand claims of invalidity and whether the combined company
can finance or devote other significant resources that may be necessary to
prosecute, protect, or defend them, fluctuations in the level of corporate
expenditures, capital market conditions; and evaluation of the transaction by
the American Stock Exchange which may impact the current and/or additional
listing of Inovio s security. Additional
information concerning the numerous factors that could cause such differences
in actual results or outcomes for Inovio including with regard to its
technologies, financial condition, operations, personnel, and strategic
transactions are contained in Inovio s SEC filings which are available for
review on the SEC s website or from the company s website free of charge and
may be contained in the future filings by Inovio in relation to the transaction
being discussed today. Investors are
encouraged to carefully review Inovio s SEC filings for an understanding of the
risks Inovio faces and the factors which influence its result and to review
Inovio s future SEC filings related to the transaction to be discussed today
when filed for an understanding of the risks the parties face with respect to
the merger and the factors which will influence its consummation and result.
Now, here is Dr. Dhillon.
Avtar Dhillon, M.D. Inovio
Biomedical Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Bernie and thank
you all for joining Dr. Kim and me on this important day. Important because we have announced that
Inovio and VGX Pharmaceuticals have signed a definitive agreement to merge our
companies. We expect to complete our
all-stock merger if approved by stockholders in the fourth quarter of this year
resulting in a new clinical stage DNA vaccine company to be called VGX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. We believe the post merger company will be
well positioned to advance the powerful combination of Inovio s proprietary DNA
delivery technology and a strong DNA vaccine pipeline of VGX.
The focus and driving force
of our merger is a simple concept to accelerate the development of DNA
vaccines. And while DNA vaccines are
developing and delivering them to the core focus of both companies, Dr. Kim
and I envision that by combining people and operations, we could move faster
through R&D and clinical development than either entity could on its own.
Let me describe for you what
we anticipate would be the core strength of the new VGX. Following our merger, the company should
possess four critically important factors for success in this field. First, we anticipate that the combined company
will have an expanded team of DNA vaccine experts. The company s scientific advisory board will
be chaired by one of the pioneers of DNA vaccines, Dr. David Weiner of the
University of Pennsylvania. Second, we
expect the combined company will have a broad pipeline of proprietary DNA
vaccines for HIV, hepatitis C virus, human papilloma virus, and influenza. One owned agent and one co-owned agent are
already in Phase I trials and INDs have been submitted for two others which may
result in these vaccine candidates entering into Phase I trials before year
end. Third, the combined company would
own a proprietary DNA delivery platform using electroporation validated by
numerous clinical studies and protected by an established
intellectual property
portfolio. And fourth, the combined
company is expected to have multiple clinical studies of cancer and infectious
disease DNA vaccines being conducted under royalty bearing licenses to which electroporation
delivery technology with companies such as Merck and Wyeth and research
collaborations with internationally respected organizations such as the
National Cancer Institute and International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
We do not believe that any