BLUE BELL, PA – Jan. 24, 2011 -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex: INO), a leader in the development of therapeutic and preventive vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, announced today that it has agreed to sell to a single institutional investor 21,130,400 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase up to 10,565,200 additional shares of its common stock. The shares of common stock and warrants are being offered in units consisting of one share of common stock and 0.5 of a warrant to purchase one share of common stock at a price of $1.15 per unit. The warrants have a term of five years and an exercise price of $1.40 per share. Inovio may call these warrants if the closing bid price of the common stock has been at least $2.80 over 20 trading days and certain other conditions are met. The gross proceeds of the offering are expected to be $24.3 million and net proceeds, after deducting the placement agent’s fee and estimated offering expenses payable by Inovio, are expected to be approximately $23.0 million. Roth Capital Partners, LLC acted as the sole placement agent in the offering. Brean Murray, Carret & Co. and Rodman & Renshaw, LLC served as financial advisors to the Company in the offering.
Inovio intends to use proceeds from the offering for further development of its DNA vaccine against cervical dysplasias and cancers, other preclinical and clinical studies, and general corporate purposes. The offering is expected to close on or about January 27, 2011, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
“This financing will fully fund our planned Phase II clinical study for our DNA vaccine against cervical dysplasias and cancers, as well as other clinical studies that Inovio intends to directly fund and launch in 2011. The additional capital will also allow us to more rapidly advance other promising preclinical DNA vaccine programs toward the clinic, and we believe we now have sufficient cash to cover our operations into 2014,” noted Dr. J. Joseph Kim, President and CEO.
The securities described above are being offered by Inovio pursuant to a registration statement previously filed and declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. A prospectus supplement related to the offering will be filed with the SEC. Copies of the prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus relating to this offering may be obtained at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or from Roth Capital Partners, LLC by e-mail to rothecm@roth.com or by mail to 1787 Sentry Parkway West, Building 18, Suite 400, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania 19422. This announcement is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any of our common stock. No offer, solicitation or sale will be made in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful.
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Inovio is developing a new generation of vaccines, called DNA vaccines, to treat and prevent cancers and infectious diseases. These SynCon™ vaccines are designed to provide broad cross-strain protection against known as well as newly emergent strains of pathogens such as influenza. These vaccines, in combination with Inovio’s proprietary electroporation delivery devices, have been shown to be safe and generate significant immune responses. Inovio’s clinical programs include HPV/cervical dysplasia and cancer (therapeutic), avian flu (preventive), and HIV vaccines (both preventive and therapeutic). Inovio is developing universal influenza and other vaccines in collaboration with scientists from the University of Pennsylvania. Other partners and collaborators include Merck, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military HIV Research Program, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, National Microbiology Laboratory of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative. More information is available at www.inovio.com
