PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 21, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO), today announced that its President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. J. Joseph Kim, has been selected as a 2016 Healthcare Innovator by a panel of scientific and medical experts convened by the Philadelphia Business Journal. The annual award honors the people and companies who are disrupting the healthcare and biotechnology industries and solidifying Greater Philadelphia’s reputation as a center for innovation.

Dr. Kim is a pioneer of DNA-based immunotherapies and vaccines which are designed to attack and prevent cancers and challenging infectious diseases. Inovio has an extensive pipeline of clinical-stage cancer immunotherapies highlighted by VGX-3100, which is entering phase III this year for a cervical precancer; and DNA vaccines in development infectious diseases for Zika, MERS and HIV, among others.

Dr. Kim said, “This award recognizes the committed scientists and engineers moving DNA-based medicine towards commercialization. While we accept this award, the real beneficiaries of our technology are the cancer patients that DNA immunotherapies will heal and the millions of people that DNA vaccines will keep from devastating infections.”

About Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Inovio is taking immunotherapy to the next level in the fight against cancer and infectious diseases. We are the only immunotherapy company that has reported generating T cells in vivo in high quantity that are fully functional and whose killing capacity correlates with relevant clinical outcomes with a favorable safety profile. With an expanding portfolio of immune therapies, the company is advancing a growing preclinical and clinical stage product pipeline. Partners and collaborators include MedImmune, The Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, DARPA, GeneOne Life Science, Plumbline Life Sciences, Drexel University, NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S. Military HIV Research Program, and Laval University. For more information, visit www.inovio.com.