BLUE BELL, Pa., April 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: INO) today announced the appointment of E.J. Brandreth as Vice President of Quality. He will be responsible for all quality and compliance functions for a company that is moving forward with numerous late and early stage clinical trials and scaling up manufacturing and other operational areas to support its broad pipeline of immunotherapies and DNA vaccines. He will report to Inovio's Chief Operating Officer Dr. Niranjan Sardesai.

Prior to joining Inovio, Mr. Brandreth had a successful career transitioning start-up clinical biotech operations into successful commercial entities; he supported the growth of several pharmaceutical companies in the quality and compliance areas. He was most recently Senior Vice President, Quality and Regulatory Affairs at Ajinomoto Althea, and previously held similar positions with IDEC, BioMarin and Favrille, Inc. He holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a BA in Biology from UC San Diego.

Inovio also promoted three executives:

• Thomas S. Kim, J.D., to General Counsel. He has been with Inovio since 2007 and most recently served as VP of Legal. Previously he held legal positions at DuPont and a number of law firms. He holds a JD from Washington University in St. Louis, an MS in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois, and a BS in Chemistry from Georgia Tech. He continues to serve as Corporate Secretary.
• Jessica Lee, MS, MPH, to Vice President of Clinical Operations. She has been with Inovio since 2006 and most recently served as Sr. Director of Clinical Operations. Previously she was with clinical development groups at Bristol Myers Squibb and Merck and Co.  She holds an MPH from the School of Public Health at Drexel University, an MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs from Temple University, and a BS in Biology from Drexel University.
• Bernie Hertel to Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications. He has served Inovio since 2004, most recently as Sr. Director of the same functions. Prior to Inovio he was involved with entrepreneurial and development stage ventures in different sectors in marketing, communications, and investor relations. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio's President and CEO, said, "Overall, these new hires and promotions over the past months are a key part of our strategic blueprint.  Upgrades in our executive leadership along with steps we've taken to improve our balance sheet, capitalization structure and enhanced product pipeline are all systematically geared to position Inovio to become a major immunotherapy and vaccine company. Coupled with expected phase II efficacy data to be reported this summer, we are working to best prepare Inovio for our anticipated growth. 

"Specifically, we will rely on E.J. Brandreth's track record of moving pipeline candidates such as Rituxan® and Zevalin® to commercialization as we ramp up our immunotherapies and DNA vaccines into later stage clinical trials. We are also pleased to promote from within our executives who have demonstrated outstanding results."

About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Inovio is revolutionizing vaccines to prevent and treat today's cancers and challenging infectious diseases. Its SynCon^® vaccines, in combination with its proprietary electroporation delivery, are generating best-in-class immune responses, with therapeutic T-cell responses exceeding other technologies in terms of magnitude, breadth, and response rate. Human data to date have shown a favorable safety profile. Inovio's lead vaccine, a therapeutic against HPV-caused pre-cancers and cancers, is in phase II. Other phase I and preclinical programs target prostate, breast, and lung cancers as well as HIV, influenza, malaria and hepatitis. Partners and collaborators include Roche, the University of Pennsylvania, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military HIV Research Program, University of Southampton, US Dept. of Homeland Security, University of Manitoba and PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative. More information is available at www.inovio.com.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to our business, including our plans to develop electroporation-based drug and gene delivery technologies and DNA vaccines and our capital resources. Actual events or results may differ from the expectations set forth herein as a result of a number of factors, including uncertainties inherent in pre-clinical studies, 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, that the studies or trials may not be successful or achieve the results desired, that pre-clinical studies and clinical trials may not commence or be completed in the time periods anticipated, that results from one study may not necessarily be reflected or supported by the results of other similar studies and that results from an animal study may not be indicative of results achievable in human studies), the availability of funding to support continuing research and studies in an effort to prove safety and efficacy of electroporation technology as a delivery mechanism or develop viable DNA vaccines, the adequacy of our capital resources, the availability or potential availability of alternative therapies or treatments for the conditions targeted by the company or its collaborators, including alternatives that may be more efficacious or cost-effective than any therapy or treatment that the company and its collaborators hope to develop, evaluation of potential opportunities, issues involving product liability, issues involving patents and whether they or licenses to them will provide the company with meaningful protection from others using the covered technologies, whether such proprietary rights are enforceable or defensible or infringe or allegedly infringe on rights of others or can withstand claims of invalidity and whether the company can finance or devote other significant resources that may be necessary to prosecute, protect or defend them, the level of corporate expenditures, assessments of the company's technology by potential corporate or other partners or collaborators, capital market conditions, the impact of government healthcare proposals and other factors set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2013, and other regulatory filings from time to time. There can be no assurance that any product in Inovio's pipeline will be successfully developed or manufactured, that final results of clinical studies will be supportive of regulatory approvals required to market licensed products, or that any of the forward-looking information provided herein will be proven accurate.

CONTACTS:
Investors: Bernie Hertel, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, 858-410-3101, bhertel@inovio.com
Media: Jeff Richardson, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, 267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com

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SOURCE Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.