If you have been following me since September 9, 2013 when I first posted an article about the partnership with Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO) and Roche (RHHBY) seen here " Inovio Inks Deal With Roche, The Sky Is The Limit " then you will be very happy today. As with all biotechnology stocks there are many risks where trials fail, but in this case the results are very good with a platform that deals with immunotherapy. Immunotherapy has long become the favored form of treatment for cancers because chemotherapy is toxic. This also follows along with other drugs that have severe side effects that make the patient's quality of life less appealing. Immunotherapy, especially Inovio's CELLECTRA electroporation device, along with synthetic DNA vaccine codes, is a lot safer for patients as it utilizes the patient's own immune system (T -cells) to attack and kill these pre-cancerous and cancerous cells.

Inovio had gone up to a high of $14.20 per share in the morning, and the volume seems to be high after posting positive phase 2 results in patients with Cervical Dysplasia. So how do the results stack up in terms of validation? The patients, who had CIN 2/3 associated with HPV 16 and 18, were either given VGX-3100 or a placebo drug counterpart. The results were good because VGX-3100 was able to achieve the ability to take CIN 2/3 down to CIN or actual clearance of the HPV in the study. The amount of patients that had their CIN 2/3 brought to CIN 1 or less was 53 out of 100 patients which brings the percentage to 49.5 percent. The placebo only came in with a percentage of 30.6, or 11 of 36 patients.

Many bearish articles will come out to make false claims. They will find many items to spin to cause panic, but the bottom line is that they won't mention one thing in their articles -- that Inovio had met its p-value of statistical significance compared to placebo. You will never see these bearish articles post that Inovio met its primary endpoint. Not only did Inovio meets its primary endpoint but it also achieved its secondary endpoint of virological response within the patients' bodies compared to placebo. Around 40.2% or 43 out of 107 patients saw virological disappearance compared to placebo that only saw 5 out of 35 patients or 14% with virological disappearance. There is no disputing the facts and that is that VGX-3100 met both its primary endpoint and secondary endpoint and will now move on to a phase 3 clinical trial.

We can also look to evidence above where Roche made a deal with Inovio. Keep in mind that the deal that was made was by Roche observing only pre-clinical results of Inovio's Syncon DNA vaccine and electroporation technology. For Roche to put so much faith in a small-cap biotechnology stock just by observing only pre-clinical results is amazing in itself. So we have validation that already occurred by a big pharma company -- Roche -- investing, and now we have validation of Inovio's platform in its phase 2 results. Investors are missing the big picture here, because these results don't just validate VGX-3100 but the entire pipeline has now been de-risked greatly. The CEO is currently expected to present the data today, and could allow the share price to rise slightly higher. The bottom line is that long term investors should be happy, because there is plenty of more good news to come regardless of short term trading. We think that Inovio is a strong buy and can create significant upside for investors over the next few years!