Inovio announces new additions to senior management team

US drug developer Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NYSE MKT: INO) has expanded its senior management team with two appointments to help advance the company's growing pipeline of preclinical and clinical DNA vaccines.

Inovio has appointed Laurent Humeau as vice president of R&D and Jan Marie-Albert Van Tornout as vice president of clinical development. Prior to Inovio, Dr Humeau was Senior Director of Translational Research, Human Therapeutics Division for Intrexon and previously chief scientific officer at VIRxSYS Corporation. At Inovio, Dr Humeau will provide the technical and strategic leadership for its R&D group including preclinical development of immunotherapy and vaccine candidates, immunology and immune monitoring approaches, method development, product characterization, and analytical development.

Dr Van Tornout will bring his broad experience as a lead oncology pharmaceutical executive to Inovio's cancer programs, overseeing its oncology pipeline strategy, planning clinical development, and steering early and late-stage clinical programs. Before joining Inovio, Dr Van Tornout was Executive Director and Global Oncology Medical Lead for Astellas Pharma. Previously he was Group Director and Lead, Oncology Development at Bristol Myers Squibb and Medical Director/ Global Safety for Amgen.