(Reuters) – Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Thursday its coronavirus vaccine candidate was effective in protecting rhesus macaques from the virus 13 weeks after the last vaccination, sending its shares up 20% before the bell.
The results, submitted to a peer-reviewed journal and also published on the non-peer reviewed preprint site, bioRxiv, demonstrate that INO-4800 reduced viral load in both the lower lungs and nasal passages in monkeys who received two doses of the vaccine four weeks apart.
The company in June said the experimental coronavirus vaccine showed promise and was found to be safe in an early-stage human trial.
(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
