Today Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO) has announced that it had received a research grant from the U.S. Army. More specifically the company is receiving a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Army’s Small Business Innovation Research — SBIR — program. The reason for Inovio receiving this money is to develop a new device that delivers vaccines to troops or other people without the use of needles, based upon Innovio’s Cellectra device for delivering cancer therapies. 

This new needle-free device could be used to deliver multiple vaccines against various diseases such as: RSV, influenza, HIV, Ebola, and MERS. Troops that are deployed need to have access to quick vaccine technology that can be deployed immediately. In addition, this new device can help vaccinate patients at a rapid rate during pandemic events. 

The reason why Inovio was chosen for this grant was because its prototype, in early stages of development, has already shown positive developments. It has shown positive antigen expression and immunogenicity results in early trials. Antigen expession is how well the vaccine reacts against the disease, and immunogenicity tests the body’s ability generate an immune response against the disease. 

Inovio now uses its intradermal electroporation device which does use needles to get vaccines into the body, but this new device can be utilized later in other clinical trials. This new device would also use electroporation, like the Cellectra device, but do so without needles. Inovio is definitely revolutionizing how vaccines are given.