A million doses

Inovio Pharmaceuticals began the year inauspiciously enough. The company, which has spent more than three decades working toward its first approved vaccine, had a market cap of about $320 million. Press releases came and went, but in general, as was the case for all of 2019, a share of Inovio went for about $3.

Then came the novel coronavirus, which Inovio leapt into action to address. The company fast-tracked development of a DNA vaccine candidate and watched its share price more than double in a few weeks. CEO Joseph Kim got invited to President Trump’s biopharma roundtable on Monday, using the occasion to describe Inovio as “the leader in coronavirus vaccine development in the world.”

Now Kim has promised to deliver no fewer than 1 million doses of that coronavirus vaccine — which is still in preclinical development — by the end of the year. The very last line of that press release, attributed to Kim, makes an important point: “We will need additional resources to scale up to make enough doses to help protect Americans from COVID-19 as well as to lead global efforts to curtail this virus.” Considering Inovio had just under $16 million in cash as of Sept. 30, the company’s next press release might be about selling shares to raise money.