Conference Transcript - INO 2026-06-04

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Welcome, everyone, to Jeffrey's 2026 Global Healthcare Conference. My name is Roger Song, covering Simica Biotech. It is my pleasure to introduce our next company, Inovio, CEO Jackie Hsieh, and then she will do a company overview, and then we will have a Q&A toward the end. Thank you. Jackie.

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Thanks, Roger. Yeah, and thanks for the opportunity to present today. It's great to be at the conference. So moving on, for those of you who are not familiar with the Inovio story, I'd like to provide a quick overview of the company and our lead asset, IONO3107, which is in development for treatment of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, or RRP. This is just our standard forward-looking statements. Disclaimer slide that during this presentation I'll be making forward-looking statements, And I refer you to our most recently filed 10K for further details. So to give you a quick overview of the company, Inovio is a clinical stage biotech company. We're really focused on developing... Sorry, I can't really see the slides on the monitor. Can someone switch the monitor into a bigger view? Because I can't really see them. No? Okay, I'll just work off the main screen then. So we're focused on developing and commercializing DNA medicines to treat... That's better, thank you. ...to treat and protect people from HPV-related diseases, cancer and infectious diseases. Our lead program for treatment of RRP 3107. Our BLA is currently under review with FDA with a PDUFA target date of October 30th, 2026. rrp is a rare hpv related disease and even though there is an improved product on the market there remains a high unmet need and a significant market opportunity 3107 has been granted orphan drug and breakthrough therapy designations in the in the u.s has orphan drug designation within the eu And during our file acceptance letter, FDA noted a preliminary comment in the letter regarding eligibility of 3107 for review under the accelerated approval program that we're looking to resolve with them and that they promised us an informal meeting to discuss. us. We have established our commercial scale manufacturing for our DNA component of our combination product, our plasmids, at external contract manufacturers, and we manufacture our devices in-house. Following on behind 3107, we have a deep clinical pipeline with multiple potential near and midterm catalysts. So how do DNA medicines work? So to tell you a bit about the mechanism of action. We start by identifying the protein that we either want to generate an immune response against or that we want to use to replace a missing or defective protein or to produce a monoclonal antibody. We then use our proprietary algorithms to optimize that gene sequence. We insert that sequence into a circular molecule of DNA called a plasmid, and then we administer the plasmid into either the skin or muscle cells using our proprietary delivery devices called Selectra that use a process called in vivo electroporation, which are very short transient pulses of electrical energy that allow the plasmids to enter the cells. Once within the cells, the plasmids drive protein production, and then that protein can either drive an immune response, either T-cells or antibody, or the proteins that are produced and secreted themselves can be the therapeutic agent. So DNA medicines are particularly good at driving T-cell responses, which is very good for targeting treatment of cancers or viral infections. As part of the proteins that we produce, we've shown that we're able to produce DNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies, which are assembled within the cells and then are secreted into the circulation. And we can achieve therapeutic levels of these transgene-encoded proteins. So moving on to 3107, our lead candidate. As I mentioned, our BLA has been accepted by FDA for review under the Accelerated Approval Program, and we have a PDUFA date coming up in October 30th of this year. rrp is a rare disease causes these small wart-like growths or papilloma throughout the respiratory tract but primarily on the vocal cords where it really impacts the patient's ability to speak or talk can inhibit the ability to breathe the papilloma can also grow down into the lungs and can also become ligament in which case the prognosis is very poor it's caused by HPV 6 and 11 serotypes primarily. It's a rare disease, but not that rare, about 14,000 cases in the U.S., about 1.8 per 100,000 new cases each year. And repeated surgery is still a standard of care. And every surgery comes with a significant cost and risk to the patient. The risk is permanent damage to the vocal cords or scarring of the airway. And there's the potential for irreversible damage with every surgery. The cost is obviously the impact of quality on life, financial, constant recovery from surgery. Some of these patients have had hundreds of surgeries over their lifetime. And 3107 was really designed with this need to reduce surgery in mind. It's designed to generate an antigen-specific T-cell response against HPV6 and HPV11 and eradicate HPV-infected cells and thus target the underlying cause of RRP. So what really matters to patients with their disease is this constant process of surgery. And the cumulative risk of surgery for injury increases after every single surgery. And ultimately, it only takes one surgery to cause permanent damage. By the time patients have had five or ten surgeries, almost all of them have permanent damage to their airway or to their vocal cords. So when we started to develop our 3107, we really took the patient needs in mind. So our treatment regimen requires four doses given over a period of nine weeks, and we counted every surgery after day zero because every surgery matters to patients. and our efficacy end point was reduction in surgery. The competitor product, Papsimius, which was approved last year, in contrast, is really a drug-surgery combination. They also give four doses, but over a longer time period, and they conduct clean-out surgeries at doses three and four. So any visible papilloma that they see, they remove at the time period of doses 3 and 4. And they only start counting surgeries after the treatment regimen has completed. So they start counting surgeries at week 12. So these are very different treatment approaches. Our approach is really focused on minimizing surgery for all patients. So as I mentioned in our file acceptance letter, FDA commented on a potential review issue that we may not be eligible for review under the accelerated approval pathway. FDA have agreed to have an informal meeting to discuss this, and we have submitted an assessment aid to support that, and we're waiting for FDA to schedule that meeting. We very strongly believe that 3107 does meet the FDA criteria for review under the accelerated approval pathway because it provides a meaningful therapeutic benefit over existing treatments, and it has a potential to meet the remaining critical unmet need for patients. And this is what the FDA guidance specify. So on the efficacy side, we were very pleased with the efficacy we saw. we saw 72% of patients had a 50% to 100% reduction in the number of surgeries compared to the prior year at year one. This increased to 86% in year two, and 28% of patients in year one and 50% of patients in year two required no surgeries at all to control their disease. We also have an enhanced safety profile compared to the improved product because we don't require these additional surgeries during the dosing window. And in the approved product, over 80% of their patients required these surgeries during the dosing window, including over 70% of their complete responders, so their patients who required no surgery after treatment. So it's really a very different profile. so moving on to also how we're different to the papillomus program and our ability to treat patients that are not served by existing therapy we don't see any impact because we're we're a dna medicine that's delivered via electroporation we don't use any viral vectors and we see no impact from neutralizing antibody therefore against viral vectors We also have shown that we see no impact from an immunosuppressive papilloma microenvironment on 3107 efficacy. So as you can see, we're very different to the approved product. And market research that we've conducted continues to support that we believe that we have the preferred product profile in this area. This is based on efficacy, tolerability, and a simple patient-focused treatment regimen. As I mentioned, our efficacy approves over time. We're very well tolerated. Most of our IAEs are associated with injection site pain, which then very rapidly resolves. We don't need an ultra-cold chain. 3107 is able to be given in the doctor's office. And very importantly, there's no requirement for these scoping or surgeries during the dosing window. And we've worked throughout this program. we've worked very closely with the RRPF, so the Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis Foundation, which is the patient advocacy organization for RRP patients. And they also continue to be very supportive of our efforts. They continue to see an unmet need, even with an existing product on the market, because there really are patients for whom the approved product just isn't meeting their needs. So moving on now to our development pipeline, We have a number of other candidates in development with multiple near- and midterm catalysts. To give you a quick overview of our pipeline, as you can see, we have VGX3100 in Phase 3, and our partner in China, Apollo Bio, just reported positive top-line data for that Phase 3 trial, and that that trial met its primary endpoint. We also have some other HPV-related candidates, as well as some cancer-related candidates in Phase 2, which I'll talk about in a bit more detail in a moment. And then, as I mentioned, our very promising DPROC candidates currently in the preclinical space. So to turn to 5412 briefly, 5412 is our candidate for glioblastoma, one of the most deadly and aggressive forms of brain cancer, one of the most common forms as well, very poor prognosis. We had conducted a previous study in glioblastoma where we had shown some promising data in terms of the ability to extend median overall survival in both methylated and unmethylated patient groups. And what we are planning to do now in this trial that is sponsored by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is to combine 5412, which is driving T-cell responses against tumor-associated antigens, which are increased in glioblastoma tissue is combine that with a dual checkpoint inhibitor from a KISO and look to see if we can see an extension in median overall survival. And we're looking to start that trial after we have had our PDUFA date on 3107. Then turning to our DMAP and our DPROP programs, Last year, we published some really groundbreaking data in Nature Medicine showing that we were able to produce two different monoclonal antibodies driven off DNA plasmids within the same patients. These monoclonal antibodies were produced at therapeutic levels, were functional, and were produced at stable levels out to 96 weeks. And this is really the first time any group has been able to show production of monoclonal antibodies like this. Now, monoclonal antibodies are, of course, just a form of complex protein. And we can apply this technology to other candidates in our pipeline, such as our D-PROC candidates, for missing or defective proteins. So our initial program was in hemophilia A, where we were looking to reduce factor VIII. In our preclinical data, we were able to demonstrate that factor VIII can be effectively produced, assembled within the muscle cells, and then secreted into the circulation. And treated mice, very importantly, showed reduced bleeding time and blood loss in a hemophilia model. We also have preclinical programs in Fabry disease and hyperphosphatasia, are also working up some other rare disease targets and are currently seeking partnerships to advance these programs more rapidly. So to summarize, in the near term, our focus is really on our upcoming PDUFA date and 3107 and working to deliver 3107 to patients. Midterm, really focusing on advancing our diversified clinical pipeline. And then we're also very excited by our next generation DNA candidates, particularly our DPROC candidates and they're looking to generate some partnerships to move these along more rapidly. Thank you very much for your

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

time. Thank you Jackie and then we're also joined by Michael our chief medical officer here. Maybe Jackie honestly that the real most pertinent pertinent question is how's the regulatory kind of review process looking like, honestly, we were quite surprised and then, you know, how confusing the language is when you got the acceptance letter. So it is accelerated approval pass, but they also say you're not eligible for this. So you are still, maybe just walk us through right now what's the state of art in terms of the review process looking like, and then I know you say you are requesting an informal meeting to confirm your eligibility for the accelerated approval, and then what's the key topics you want to bring up to that meeting, and then what's the potential outcome from that?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, all great questions. So as you mentioned, we submitted our BLA after a rolling submission under the accelerated approval program, and FDA has accepted our BLA. In the file acceptance letter, they noted a preliminary conclusion, which could be a potential review issue, that we had not provided sufficient data to justify eligibility for review under the Accelerated Approval Program. Now, we strongly disagree with that. We have requested a meeting with FDA to discuss eligibility for review under the Accelerated Approval Program, and FDA has agreed to an informal meeting. We've also completed an assessment aid, which we've submitted to them, and we're waiting for that meeting to discuss it with them. In the meanwhile, the review is proceeding as normal, and we're really very comfortable with how the review is proceeding. We've had our mid-cycle review, had no new issues raised. We're looking forward to our late-cycle review meeting, which will be in the third quarter. And we expect to have had all of the various inspections that are required as part of the BLA process also completed ahead of that late-cycle review meeting. So, you know, generally we're very happy with how that review's going. We are continuing to encourage FTA, of course, to schedule the informal meeting to discuss the review pathway. And really for eligibility under the accelerated approval pathway, there needs to be a continued unmet need, which there very clearly is. The approved product doesn't work for all patients and also can't work in some patients, so patients who have neutralizing antibodies against the vector or who have an immunosuppressive papilloma microenvironment. So we're going to be really talking about why we believe that there continues to exist an unmet need and why we think 3107 provides a meaningful therapeutic benefit over the approved product. And that's really across the efficacy, the tolerability. We're not requiring these additional surgeries during the dosing window, so we have a very differentiated safety profile. And also we have a differentiated mechanism of action. We don't use a viral vector for delivery. We're encoding different transgenes. We're not impacted by the papilloma microenvironment. So very clearly, very different products.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

yeah i think i agree a lot of the uh the point you brought up is um you know pretty uh compelling to uh to uh qualify the accelerator approval but you know we'll see how the fda agree with that okay and then uh we we are uh uh you know kind of experiencing or observing the all the changes happening within fda so what have you been uh experiencing in terms of the review team and leadership? And then do you think this accelerated approval eligibility will be impacted by any of

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

those changes on the top? Yeah, so as I mentioned, we've been very happy, generally, with how our review has been progressing. Clearly, we still need to get this informal meeting to discuss the review pathway in place. And we really can't comment at this time on changes in leadership. There have clearly been a lot of changes over the past few months, and we're encouraged by the signs that we're seeing from the new leadership, and we look forward to collaboratively working with them on the review of 3107.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay, got it. And then another component of the review is you are filed under accelerated approval, which means you will need to do a confirmatory study to get a full approval. So how's that part going, and then how this world fits into the whole process right now?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, great questions. So we have submitted an amendment to our IND for our confirmatory trial. We have about 20 clinical sites up and ready to start that confirmatory trial once FDA gets back to us on the protocol. But until FDA gets back to us on the protocol, I don't think I can really comment on the design of the trial.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay. And then do you expect any surprise there or, you know, any incremental comments so far from the FDA or it's still kind of an ongoing discussion?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, it's still an ongoing discussion and we're waiting for their feedback on the protocol.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. And then in terms of the timing of the STAR and the enrollment of the confirmative study versus your PDUFA day, so how you should think about it, you know, substantial in the way or at the time you enroll one patient or something like that?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Well, you know, FDA are clearly looking for a commitment to get your confirmatory trial moving in an appropriate way, and I think we'll be able to demonstrate that we've taken all of the steps necessary to do that. FDA ultimately have discretion as to what stage your confirmatory trial needs to be at at the time of approval.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. Okay, good. And then move forward, you know, you get accepted approval. happy result and then moving to the commercial stage one is how you think of the pricing strategy over there you do have another approved drug you know similar population but not entirely the same

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

yeah so obviously we're thinking rare disease pricing is appropriate we've conducted market research which has validated that assumption we'll be talking about our pricing a bit closer to approval

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

got it and then do you think you want to launch the drug it's often often drug and then launch by yourself or uh you want to see um you know a partner yeah so we're planning to launch the drug

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

ourselves in in the u.s uh we'll probably use a contract sales organization we have the other elements of that we're going to require to commercialize such as a 3pl our patient hub our speciality distributors, speciality pharmacies. So we have all of our partners lined up and we're really waiting for our Purdue for date. Ex-US, we're really looking to partnerships to commercialize.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it, okay, makes sense. And then to the extent you can comment and how the first approved RRP drug on the market and how they perform and what you can learn from them in terms of the commercial dynamic

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

make and then the ramp up look like? Yeah, so we're obviously very closely watching the Papsimus launch and seeing what we can take away from that launch and how we can, how that can benefit our launch. I think what we're seeing is encouraging uptake. I think that's because there's a very high unmet need amongst our RP patients and we continue to believe that we have the preferred product profile and I think there are plenty of examples, particularly in the rare disease space, of a fast follower coming on to market with a better product profile that can rapidly capture market share. So we're excited by the market opportunity for 3107. Based on your feedback from your

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

advisor and then the clinician, you've been interacted, you think they are ready to adopt your drug versus others? And then how they think about in terms of the patient readiness and then and how the ramp-up is going to look like. It's a rare disease, but I think with an even better drug, do you think they will be more ready to use the drug?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, so when we've conducted market research, what both physicians and patients really like is the fact that 8 out of 10 patients really see a marked improvement in terms of reduction in surgery compared to their pretreatment period. So for a patient taking 3107, they have a very good chance of seeing a significant reduction. So that's very appealing to them. The fact that they don't require additional surgeries or scoping during the dosing window is very appealing to them. And then the fact that 3107 can be given in the doctor's office and the physician doesn't have to worry about, you know, could my patient have neutralizing antibody against the vector? Could the papilloma microenvironment be inhibiting efficacy as for the approved product? That really doesn't apply to 3107. So it's a much more straightforward decision. Patients can expect to see a good reduction in surgery. They're not going to have to undergo these scoping and surgeries, and they're not going to have to worry about factors that may mean that they're not a good candidate for 3107.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

And how do you think about the durability going to play into the decision here and then also the potential label? I understand it's pretty long-lasting for a lot of patients. And then will this become, at some point, they need to read those. If that's the case, how the label is going to be looking like and how the payer is going to decide to reimburse that?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, I'll ask Mike.

Michael Sumner, Other

Happy to. So, I mean, as you saw Jackie present, We saw 72% of patients see a 50% or greater reduction. That actually increased to 86% in the second year. When you look at the eight complete responders, i.e. zero surgeries after the first dose, we saw seven of those continue that into the second year. So the vast majority of patients are seeing a significant reduction that is durable. And as you mentioned, one of the benefits of our DNA medicine platform is the fact that we can redose. So following approval, we do plan to do a continued treatment protocol. And obviously, we hope to certainly be able to maintain that excellent response we saw with the initial treatment, but obviously also hope for further improvement with continued

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, and with regard to your comment about payers and how they would view continued treatment, I mean, clearly the current approved product, you know, is quite an expensive drug. It's marketed at about 115K per dose. And I think really what payers are looking for is they're looking for long-term durable control of disease. And if that requires additional doses to do that, then that's in the patient's best interest. So I think from our discussions with payers, they've been open to continued treatment if it's really delivering results.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Got it. And then in terms of the durability, those patients, if they are durable, and then it will become an interesting dynamic if they continue to responding and then you're waiting for them to do potential relapse and then you can do the redose? And then how the time certainty or uncertainty will play into the decision for payer to cover this?

Michael Sumner, Other

I mean, we're dealing with a chronic viral infection here. So, I mean, we're not eradicating the virus in most of these patients. So it actually, I think, makes much more sense to have a well-laid-out treatment protocol for these patients so we're not necessarily waiting for them to relapse, and we have a treatment protocol that hopefully eventually can eradicate the underlying viral infection.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay, so you're not waiting for them to relapse to do the redose. Maybe ask another question is how are you going to test this redose regimen? It's in your confirmatory study, or you can just follow those patients you already treated and then they see any signal, you can start to retreat them. That's maybe a more fair question.

Michael Sumner, Other

Yeah, so, I mean, we, as you heard Jackie mention, we haven't aligned on yet what our confirmatory protocol will look like. We'll obviously use all opportunities we can to show the evidence of 3107's ability to redose, but we have also seen that ability with previous plasmid in HPV targeting 1618. So we're very confident of what 3107 will be able to deliver.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Okay, got it. And then the interesting, we just saw the news, the current drug that they filed for or get accepted for the orphan drug designation. How did that impact your regulatory approval and then also commercial?

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Yeah, great question, Rogers. So the approved product just received orphan drug exclusivity. And what that means is that you can't basically bring the same drug for the same indication to market. 3107 is very clearly different to Papsimius. We're not delivered via a viral vector. We encode different transgenes. We're a different product. So 3107 isn't impacted by the orphan drug exclusivity, and it doesn't impact our regulatory pathway.

Roger Song, Analyst — Jefferies

Excellent. All right. Time's up. And thank you so much, Jackie and Michael. And thank you, everyone, for watching and listening.

Jacqueline Shea, CEO

Thank you.