Inovio as an investment.

As I outlined it in a previous post, Inovio's tech offers us a way to fight viral diseases and cancer by the immune response. Specifically, the technology provokes a response of killer t cells which then destroy the cells that are infected by a virus or have become cancerous. The treatment works by taking an antigen (a protein from a virus coat or a protein expressed on a cancer cell), but instead of injecting the protein, what is injected is the DNA sequence that codes the protein. The patient's body then manufactures the protein, which is expressed on the surface of the cells making it. Such proteins are then recognized by the immune system, killer t cells are manufactured and the viruses or cancer cells are removed. To make the tech even more effective, the company will use activators that increase the t cell response against infections, or induce a response against proteins that cancer cells use to hide themselves from the killer t cells.


So, how is the Company doing?  Pretty well, I think. The Company has several studies under way that have progressed to the P1 stage: influenza, AIDS, Ebola, hepatitis B and MERS. A P2 study was conducted to remove pre-cancerous lesions caused by the HPV virus and is in a follow up stage. There is a slew of cancer studies under way(P1): head, neck and anal cancer, cervical cancer and a general cancer study that targets human reverse transcriptase (a protein that is expressed in 85% of all cancers). There are a number of other studies in the planning stage such as the bird flu study and prostate cancer.


The tech is applicable to most viruses and a lot of cancers.


So, how is the Company's stock doing as an investment? Not so well. The Company executed a one for four reverse split to entice institutions then when the stock started rallying past $10, the Company sold 11M shares at $8/share, which dropped the shares back to $8. There was a rumor of an $18/share buyout and the Company did a shelf registration of a possible sale of shares for $250M. That killed that rally.


Because of the newness of the tech, there were 11M shorts last month. And a coterie of Bashers at the INO discussion site. I anticipate that when the stock finally shakes off the shorts and the Company's fundraisers, it will hit $20 - chump change considering what the Company has to offer. We will see.