Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO) reported first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company's first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation.
Access the full call at https://app.webinar.net/LJpjgyEg2Oa
Summary
Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc reported a net loss of $19.7 million for Q1 2026, with operating expenses dropping by 13% compared to the previous year.
The company's lead candidate, INO 3107, is under active FDA review with an anticipated PDUFA date of October 30, 2026, and is being considered for accelerated approval.
Inovio is advancing its commercial readiness plans for INO 3107, leveraging insights from the RRP community and preparing for a potential U.S. launch.
The company is collaborating with Akizo Inc. to evaluate INO 5412 for glioblastoma treatment, and is advancing its next-gen DNA medicine platform, including DProt technology for rare diseases.
Inovio strengthened its balance sheet with a $16 million public equity offering, projecting cash runway into Q1 2027, with a net cash burn of approximately $18 million for Q2 2026.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jenny Wilson. Please go ahead.
Jenny Wilson (Moderator)
Good afternoon and thank you for joining the INOVIO First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me today on Today's call are Dr. Jackie Shea, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Mike Sumner, Chief Medical Officer Steve Egy, Chief Commercial Officer and Peter Keys, Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will review our corporate and for the quarter ended March 31, 2026 as well as provide a general business update. Following prepared remarks we will conduct question and answer segment. During the call we will be making forward looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of the company. These statements relate to our business plans to develop Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc's DNA Medicines platform, including the FDA's ongoing review of our BLA for INO 3107 including the October 30, 2026 PDUFA target date and our yet scheduled meeting with the FDA to discuss eligibility for the Accelerated Approval program. Our belief that INO 3107 fulfills the criteria for accelerated approval the potential benefits of INO3107, including our belief that it has a positively differentiated product profile and the potential to become the preferred product by patients and their physicians if approved the anticipated commercial launch of INO3107 if approved and our engagement of commercial partners in preparation for a potential launch our collaboration with Akizo Inc. To evaluate INO 5412 in combination with a novel dual checkpoint inhibitor for the potential treatment of gbm the advancement of our DPROT technology platform, capital resources, including our estimated operational net cash burn of approximately 18 million for the second quarter of 2026 and the expected sufficiency of our cash resources into first quarter of 2027 and our expectations regarding competition, market size and acceptance of INO 3107 if approved. All of these statements are based on the beliefs and expectations of management as of today. Actual events or results could differ materially. We refer you to the documents we file from time to time with the SEC which under the heading Risk Factors, identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed by the Company. Verbally as well as statements made within this afternoon's press release. This call is being webcast live and a link can be found on our website ir.inovio.com and a replay will be made available shortly after this call is concluded. I will now turn the call over to Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc's President and CEO, Dr. Jackie Shea.
Dr. Jackie Shea
Good afternoon and thank you to everyone for joining today's call. These are very busy times at Inovio as we remain focused on achieving our top priority advancing our lead candidate, INO3107 through the regulatory process and toward its October 30th target PDUFA date. Our goal is to ensure that every patient with recurrent respiratory papillomatosis or RRP, has access to a therapeutic option that can work for them to reduce the need for surgery if approved. We believe that our innovative therapy has the potential to become the preferred product
Dr. Jackie Shea
for patients suffering from rrp, a rare and debilitating disease of the respiratory tract with a critically high unmet need for effective non surgical treatment options. The BLA for 3107 has been in active review since December when the FDA accepted the file for review under the Accelerated Approval Program. While Mike will provide a more in depth regulatory update, I'd like to comment on a couple of key highlights. The FDA recently completed their standard mid cycle review with no new significant issues being raised and scheduled the late cycle
Dr. Jackie Shea
review for the third quarter. As you will recall from our last quarterly update, the FDA had previously agreed to an informal meeting to discuss the potential review issue they noted in their file acceptance letter regarding eligibility for review under the Accelerated Approval Program. As a part of communications about the mid cycle review, they reiterated their intent to schedule that meeting and we look forward to the discussion. While we make progress with 3107 on the regulatory front, we've been advancing our commercial readiness plans, including continuing to gather key strategic insights from the RRP community, and while the majority of our resources are focused on 3107, we're continuing to leverage the power of partnerships to advance other promising candidates in our pipeline, including an exciting opportunity to work with Akizo and the Dana Fabra Cancer Institute to build on our previous Immuno Oncology work in glioblastoma or gbm. We're also advancing our innovative next generation candidates and are pleased to have recently presented promising preclinical data on our DNA encoded protein or DProt technology work targeting factor 8 production in hemophilia A and announced two new rare disease targets in fabri disease and hypophosphatasia for the platform.
Dr. Jackie Shea
We are laser focused on these strategic priorities and excited about what's ahead for Inovio as we work to deliver on the promise of DNA medicine for patients. I'll now turn it over to Mike for some additional details on our regulatory progress with 3107.
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
Mike thanks Jackie. As Jackie noted, since our BLA for INO 3107 was accepted for review under the Accelerated Approval Program In December of 2025, the FDA has been actively reviewing our submission. We have been responding to routine requests for information and meeting regular milestones in the review process, including the FDA completing its mid cycle review of our bla where no new significant issues were raised at the time of the mid cycle review.
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
The FDA indicated that it is continuing to review the assessment aid we submitted in February which outlined our rationale for accelerated Approval program eligibility. They also reiterated their intent to schedule the previously agreed to informal meeting to discuss this potential review issue, which they noted in their file acceptance letter. In addition, we reported last quarter that we had submitted an updated protocol for our confirmatory trial to the ind, which is required under the Accelerated Approval Program. We are waiting for feedback from the agency on both the informal meeting and the confirmatory trial protocol so we can finalize the study design. We look forward to having the opportunity to discuss these issues further with the FDA and to emphasize why we believe that 3107 fulfills the criteria for accelerated approval by meeting a significant unmet need and providing a meaningful therapeutic benefit over existing treatments. I'd like to take a moment now to elaborate on that rationale. Based on published FDA guidance, our eligibility depends on the ability of 3107 to provide a meaningful therapeutic benefit over existing treatments and the ability to meet a remaining critical unmet need among patients. We believe that 3107 meets both of these criteria based on three factors. First, effectiveness as demonstrated in our phase 12 trial where the vast majority of patients experienced a 50 to 100% reduction in surgery in year one and with continued clinical improvement in year two. Second, an improved safety profile that does not include required surgery to maintain minimal residual disease during the dosing window and third, a differentiated mechanism of action that does not come with the risk of reduced clinical effectiveness due to known immune factors that impact the efficacy of the approved product, including pre existing neutralizing antibodies or an immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment, thus providing an important opportunity to treat patients who are not served by existing therapy. It is important to emphasize again that at the heart of our belief in 3107's eligibility for accelerated approval are the patients, patients who face the risk of permanent damage to the vocal cords and significant social, emotional and financial costs every time they require surgery to manage their disease. Every surgery matters to patients and we believe that every patient should have access to a treatment option that works for them to reduce the need for surgery. A compelling example of the remaining unmet need for therapeutic options for RRP patients is the fact that the recently approved Gorilla adenoviral based immunotherapy does not work for a number of patients, according to that product's published data. Further, the treatment regimen for this product requires surgery prior to the third and fourth doses if visible papilloma are present to maintain a state of minimal residual disease. This means that non responders or the patients for whom this product didn't work had two surgeries during the treatment window and then saw no clinical benefit or improvement in the following year, according to the published clinical trial data. That's why additional treatment options are so critical for the RRP community. There will continue to be patients not served by existing therapy. This need was highlighted in a recently published RRP foundation sponsored position statement where 16 leading RRP physicians outlined a contemporary evidence based approach to the management of RRP in adults. They highlighted the benefits of HPV specific immunotherapy to address the underlying disease that causes RRP and recommended HPV specific immunotherapy as the preferred first line therapy for adults, including the recently Approved immunotherapy and 3107 should it be approved. These are some of the key discussion points we've provided to the FDA and we look forward to having the opportunity to discuss them further. In the meantime, we will continue working collaboratively with the agency to advance our BLA through the regulatory process. I'll now turn it over to Steve for a commercial update. Steve thanks Mike.
Steve Egy (Chief Commercial Officer)
On the commercial front, we are continuing to advance our commercial readiness plans in anticipation of of a potential US approval in 2026 and we're planning to manage commercialization ourselves. With the support of a contract sales organization, we've completed targeting segmentation and product positioning work that supports a positively differentiated product profile. We've also engaged or identified key commercial partners including a third party logistics provider, specialty distributor, specialty pharmacy, patient hub and agency of record. In recent months we've also been watching and incorporating key learnings from the launch of our competitors recently approved product, noting where they seem to be having success or challenges in optimizing our own commercial plans accordingly. Importantly, there are key differences between the Gorilla adenoviral based product and 3107 and some of the challenges our competitor faced will not impact our launch, including the fact that we don't require an ultra cold chain and we don't require surgery to maintain minimum residual disease during the dosing window. We've also continued to gather important insights from the RRP community and recently attended the Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meeting, or cosm, a key conference for laryngologists. In conversations at that conference with physicians specializing in the treatment of rrp, we heard repeatedly that there continues to be a high unmet need for effective immunotherapy options that work for each patient. Both patients and doctors are highly motivated and very receptive to new treatments, which indicates that this market has significant unmet need and commercial opportunity, particularly for a potential product like 3107 that has a positively differentiated product profile across efficacy, tolerability and simplicity of the treatment regimen. I'll now turn it back to Jackie for a pipeline update.
Dr. Jackie Shea
Jackie thanks Steve. With our resources focused primarily on 3107, partnerships will continue to be a key part of our strategy to advance other promising candidates in our pipeline. In March this year, we announced an innovative collaboration with Akizo to evaluate INO 5412 in combination with their novel dual checkpoint inhibitor as a potential treatment for glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer. The study, which builds on our previous promising research in gbm, will be part of a Phase two adaptive platform trial sponsored by the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. We've also continued to advance our exciting next generation DNA medicine platform and shared research on our DNA encoded protein or DProt technology targeting factor 8 at several key conferences including the World Federation of Haemophilia Global Conference and the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Meeting. Building on the promising DNA encoded monoclonal antibody research published in Nature Medicine last year, DProt Technology aims to enable long term protein expression within the body and address the shortcomings of conventional therapeutic protein or enzyme replacement therapies based on positive preclinical data on factor VIII production for haemophilia A. Inovio is developing additional DPROD indications in the rare disease space, including Fabry Disease and hypophosphatasia, and is in discussions with potential partners to accelerate development of this promising platform. Now I'll turn it over to our CFO Peter Keyes for a financial update. Peter?
Peter Keyes (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks, Jackie. Today I'd like to provide an overview of Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc's financial results for the first quarter of 2026. As Jackie noted, our primary goal is to advance INO 3107 towards approval and we remain focused on optimizing resources to support that program. I am pleased to report that the company strengthened its balance sheet with an underwritten public equity offering in April 2026. Net proceeds from the offering, after deducting underwriter discounts, commissions and offering expenses, were approximately 16 million. We finished the first quarter of 2026 with 37.7 million in cash, cash equivalents and short term investments compared to 58.5 million as of December 31, 2025. With the addition of the April public offering, we have extended our estimated cash runway into the first quarter of 2027 beyond the target PDUFA date of INO 3107. This projection includes an operational net cash burn estimate of approximately 18 million for the second quarter of 2026. These. These cash runway projections cash Runway projections do not include any further capital raise activities that we may undertake and are based on current projections and assumptions. Turning our results to the first quarter, operating expenses dropped from 25.1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 21.9 million in the first quarter of 2026, a 13% decrease. Inovio's net loss for the first quarter of 2026 was 19.7 million, or $0.28 per share, basic and dilutive, compared to a net loss of 19.7 million, or $0.51 per share, basic dilutive for the first quarter of 2025. As a reminder, you can find our full financial statements in this afternoon's press release as well as in our quarterly report on Form 10Q filed with the SEC. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Jackie.
Dr. Jackie Shea
Thanks, Peter. I'd now like to pause to open up the call to answer any questions you might have. Operator.
OPERATOR
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one. On your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Ted with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.
Ted
Great. Thank you very much for taking the question. I really appreciate it and it sounds like things are going well with the review. I saw the Pepcinios numbers of 22, 21.6, which looks pretty good. Any comments? Can you expand a little more about how you expect to launch and differentiate versus the currently marketed product?
Steve Egy (Chief Commercial Officer)
Nice to hear from you Steve. Do you want to take that one? Sure. He TED yeah, so we saw the prestige performance as well and kind of how we're thinking about the market and how we'll compete is, you know, we have, we think a positively differentiated product profile when we look across efficacy, tolerability and the simplicity of the treatment regimen. So we think we can be well differentiated in the market. And then, you know, the overall market opportunity itself, you know, there's a very significant number of patients. 14,000 RRP patients is the most kind of recently published number, although that's quite dated. And our own estimate of claims data, you know, demonstrates that that's probably a significant underestimate. I think Precigen has noted 27,000 RRP patients. So by the time we get to market, we expect, you know, Precigen or Papzimius would have had single digit penetration into the market in the first year or so. The vast majority of the opportunity will remain by the time we get to market and we do expect to be a fast following second entrant and there's many examples of second entrants, you know, fast following that do very, very well in the market and in some cases take, take market leadership.
Dr. Jackie Shea
And if I can just add here, Steve, I think, you know, the Papsimius launch also gives us the opportunity to learn from their successes and challenges and we'll certainly be baking those learnings into our go market plans as well. So I think, you know, the progress that we see Precigen making in the marketplace is really an indication of the high met need for these patients for therapeutic alternatives to surgery. And we're really excited by the opportunity for 3107.
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
Very great. And then if I may, just a quick follow up when it comes to this informal meeting with fda, what are the primary issues that you intend to discuss there? Mike yeah, active. So I mean, I mean this is really about confirming our accelerated approval eligibility. I think it's, I don't think we'll have much discussion around the clinical unmet need. That's very, it's very obvious, I think to everybody concerned. So it's really around the discussion of meaningful therapeutic benefit. And as we've stated, we firmly believe we have a significant safety advantage without the requirement for those Minimal residual disease surgeries and a differentiated mechanism of action will enable us to treat patients that the existing product won't be able to. Great, that's really helpful and I appreciate how you laid it out in the call earlier. Thanks very much.
Jay
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jay with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Oh, hey, thanks for providing this update and taking the questions. Can you just maybe talk about some of the key discussion points with the FDA when you meet on 3107 and remind us any additional data or evidence that, that you have submitted or will submit. And then I had a follow up, if I could, please.
Dr. Jackie Shea
Yeah, sure. So nice to hear from you, Jay. So I'll start off and then I'll ask Mike to chip in here. So if you remember, we submitted our assessment aid to FDA back in February ahead of the informal meeting and that was in direct response to a request from the agency. And that assessment aid doesn't include any new clinical data, but it did include additional analysis of the data that we performed. So at the upcoming meeting, as Mike indicated, what we principally expect to be discussing with the agency are the arguments that we've laid out in the BLA and also in the assessment aid as to why we believe 3107 is eligible for review under the accelerated approval pathway. And that's really around providing meaningful therapeutic benefit over the existing product and that 3107 has the potential to meet this unmet need. Mike, do you want to go into some more specifics?
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
I mean, I certainly can. I mean in terms of the differentiated mechanism of action which should enable us to treat different patient population than Papzimius. We've talked previously about the presence of neutralizing antibodies to the gorilla adenoviral platform that will decrease the immune response that those patients will see with with Papzimius. And we've also talked about their the requirement that they have for performing those minimal residual disease surgeries is based on the immunosuppressive papilloma microenvironment that they utilize those surger overcome. We have shown with our data that was published in Nature Communications that the elements that Presagen identified did not impact the efficacy of INO 3107. So we believe there's a meaningful therapeutic difference of the two products. And I think also when you look at the two different platforms, we've talked about DNA medicines having the capability of redosing and continuing, continuing to generate that T cell response. RRP is a chronic viral illness and we believe redosing is going to be an important part of the treatment regimen to ensure these patients can hopefully become surgery free long term.
Jay
Great, that's super helpful, thank you. And if I could just ask one follow up, could you please talk about when you expect to receive feedback from the FDA on the confirmatory study design and what sort of feedback you expect to receive from the fda?
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
Yeah, great question, Jay. I mean we expect as the confirmatory trial design is really linked to the review pathway and the requirement to conduct that confirmatory trial, we would expect that feedback to be linked to the informal meeting. So I think as part of the informal meeting and discussion of the review pathway, we would hope to learn when we'll get feedback on that confirmatory trial design.
Jay
Okay, great. We'll look forward to that. Thanks for taking the questions.
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
My pleasure.
Sudan
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sudan with Stevens. Please go ahead. Thanks. Hi everyone, thank you for the updates and great to hear all the progress to piggyback off the confirmed free trial question that was just asked. You know, since there's still a high unmet medical need for rrp, you know, despite the Pap symbios being on the market, can you let us know to what capacity you're still treating old or new patients with 3107? And secondly, will you get any longer term durability of Response data from 3,107 this year since if I remember correctly, 3,107 shined on the previous long term analysis readout?
Mike Sumner (Chief Medical Officer)
Yeah, thanks Sudan for the question. Our original Phase 12 trial incorporated the initial four dose regimen and then the follow up data was actually just a retrospective look back on the same patient population with no additional dosing. So we at present we do not have any planned readout of data on 3107 with continued dosing. We have previously talked about data that we have for INO 3100, which has shown the ability to continue generate a T cell response six to nine months after the completion of the initial treatment. So we are excited to discuss with the agency what a redosing strategy will look like following approval of 3,107 if it gets approved.
Sudan
Great. And secondly, just wanted to ask also, how have your interactions with the RRP foundation been recently as you near your PDUFA data admits? Also the papcemios launch currently happening, do you feel like you have an opportunity here to further utilize this patient advocacy group as a resource to specifically reach the community setting that Papademios I think currently has only penetrated about 25% to date?
Dr. Jackie Shea
Yeah, that's a great question. Sudan. And I'm very pleased to say that the RRPF foundation and the RRP community have been incredibly supportive and we've, you know, we're very much aligned with them. We recognize that the current approved therapy doesn't work for all RRP patients and every RRP patient deserves a therapy that works for them. Every surgery matters to RRP patients. And so our goals are very much aligned with the foundations. We continue to work very closely with them and we're very grateful for their support and we'll obviously continue to work with them going forward. But yes, understanding the patient perspective and the remaining unmet need is absolutely critical to what we're trying to do with 3,107.
Sudan
Saddam. Any follow ups? All good. Thank you so much. I appreciate the details.
Ying
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ying with H.C. wainwright. Please go ahead.
Yanzi
Thank you for taking my question. This is Yanzi sitting in for Yi Chen. I have two questions. The first is, with respect to the fda, do you expect the resignation of the current FDA commissioner to introduce any sort of uncertainty in the review timeline of ino3107?
Dr. Jackie Shea
Yep. I don't think we can really comment on the inner workings of the FDA at the moment, but what I can say is, you know, we continue to engage with our review team and respond to information requests and the review seems to be proceeding. As we commented around the mid cycle review, they did reiterate that they're still reviewing the assessment aid and that they plan to schedule the informal meeting and we encourage them to, we continue to encourage them to schedule that meeting. We're keen to discuss it with them. So I think, you know, where we are at the moment is really just continuing to progress the review and we're very keen to have that discussion.
Yanzi
Thank you. And my second question is about when INO 3107 gets approval. So once that happens, what would be your marketing strategy or approach to seize market shares from Bev Zumios?
Dr. Jackie Shea
Yeah, so we believe, as Steve I think has outlined, we believe that 3107 has a positively differentiated product profile and could become the product of choice for patients and RRP physicians. And this is really based on our clinical effectiveness, our tolerability and a simple patient centric approach to treatment with 3107. So clearly we've been learning from the Papcemius launch. We'll be incorporating key learnings from their launch into our go to market plan and we're planning to be a part follower as Steve also outlined, we're expecting the vast majority of the prevalent pool or the available market to still be available when we come to market if approved. And there are also new patients being diagnosed every year. So we think we're in a good position to be able to compete with the approved product. Steve, anything you want to add? No, I think that's good.
Yi Chen
Yi Chen, any follow up? Oh, thank you. Your last question comes from Liang Chen with Jeffries. Please go ahead.
Liang Cheng
Hey, this is Liang Cheng for Rajaston. Thank you for taking our questions, I guess, from us. How. How should we think about the potential label at approval, particularly the eligible patient population and anticipated restrictions versus the Phase 12 population?
Dr. Jackie Shea
Nice to hear from you, and it's a great question. So we would expect to have a very similar label to the approved products, and that's based on the fact that we recruited patients who had had between two to eight surgeries in the prior year. In our patient population, we had a good balance of patients who were infected with HPV 6 and 11, and even a combination of them both. And we have no evidence from our mechanism of action that efficacy would depend on severity of disease or number of surgeries in the prior year. So we would expect a very similar label with. With no restrictions. Okay, got it.
Liang Cheng
And at a higher level, how are you thinking about pricing relative to precision?
Dr. Jackie Shea
Yeah, so we're thinking of rare disease pricing. Clearly, in our peer research that we've conducted, pears recognize that rare disease pricing is appropriate for this indication. We'll be conducting some price optimization research. And. And we'll be commenting on pricing a bit closer to launch. Got it. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Jackie Shea.
Dr. Jackie Shea
Thank you. As we've outlined here today, Anovio is intent on meeting the milestones ahead for INO 3107 and the other promising candidates in our pipeline. We're motivated by the potential opportunity to deliver on the promise of DNA medicine for RRP patients and grateful for the support from the RRP foundation and larger RRP community. They have waited so long for relief from the devastating impact of their disease. We believe every patient deserves access to a treatment option that works for them. Because every patient matters and every surgery matters. We're working every day to help make that vision a reality. Thank you for your attention and good evening, everyone.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
Login to comment