The Pennsylvania-based biotechnology company said early Thursday that it was awarded a grant of up to $9 million by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop a vaccine for the new strain of coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, which originated in Wuhan, China, and has killed no less than 17 people.
Kim said after the DNA sequence of the new coronavirus strain was made publicly available on Jan. 11, Inovio was able to design and construct a potential vaccine in “a matter of hours,” and the animal-testing process has already begun.
As the coronavirus out of China spreads and gets deadlierof health care companies that announce plans to take part in finding a vaccine, or identifying patients with the new strain, have rallied sharply in very active trading.
On Thursday, among the bigger coronavirus gainers was Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s stock INO +10.42%, which ran up 12% to the highest close since May 9. Trading volume swelled to 12.3 million shares, compared with the full-day average over the past 30 days of about 1.4 million shares, according to FactSet.