What Does Roche Holding Ltd. (ADR) (RHHBY)’s Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc (INO) Deal Mean for Investors?

It’s not difficult to see the reason behind Roche Holding Ltd. (ADR) (OTCMKTS:RHHBY)’s interest. This is the first study that has shown that a vaccine administered through an intramuscular injection can produce killer T-cells that can migrate to the liver and kill cancer cells without causing liver damage.

Market potential
Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in men. In 2008, it accounted for 14% of all cancers in men worldwide. According to the American Cancer Society, about one in six men is diagnosed with prostate cancer, and after lung cancer, accounts for the most cancer deaths in men. As per an ACS estimate, more than 230,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2013. BCC Research estimated the global market for prostate cancer treatments, excluding surgical and radiation therapies, to grow at a compounded annual rate of 18% and reach 18.6 billion by 2017.

Hepatitis B, according to the World Health Organization, has a greater global importance than any other virus. More than 2 billion have been infected with HBV, and 350 million out of them are still chronically infected. Nearly 4 million are infected every year. The global hepatitis-B vaccine market is estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate, or CAGR, of 4.1% to roughly $1.4 million by 2018.

Conclusion
While the Roche Holding Ltd. (ADR) (OTCMKTS:RHHBY) partnership provides Inovio with much needed cash for taking its immunotherapy products to clinical stage, according to President and CEO J. Joseph Kim, it also allows the company to move ahead on VGX-3100, its experimental therapeutic vaccine for treating cancers caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Inovio’s INO-5150 is unique in the sense that it is immunotherapeutic and focuses on eliciting an immune response to boost the body’s inherent capacity to fight disease. This approach, unlike traditional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, does not carry the risk of killing healthy tissue along with cancer-causing cells. This is the purely health care perspective that lies at the core of every investment grade health care stock.

The article What Does Roche’s Inovio Deal Mean for Investors? originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Kanak Kanti De.

Kanak Kanti De has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 

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