VGX™ Pharmaceuticals

CELLECTRA^® Adaptive Electroporation Device VGX Pharmaceuticals is developing the CELLECTRA^® electroporation device to deliver a number of DNA vaccine and therapeutic candidates for both intramuscular (IM) and intradermal (ID) routes. The device is portable, water-resistant, shock-proof, battery operated, and software driven, making it particularly suited for usage in the field. This unique technology optimizes DNA uptake and subsequent expression by adapting an applied electric field strength in real-time to sense the tissue micro-environment. This results in uniform expression of the target protein across the injected muscle fiber(s) with minimal or no tissue damage. Clinically effective results in animals have been achieved when plasmids with historically low expression levels are delivered with the CELLECTRA^® electroporation delivery device.
		Safety tested for human use
		This treatment system includes a well-designed applicator and disposable, sterile electrode arrays suitable for numerous applications and a rechargeable battery
		CELLECTRA^® device and components are water and shock proof, software-driven and designed for use in laboratory or field conditions
		LCD with a contrast knob and backlight to easily depict EP parameters to reduce confusion and errors
		Clear audio and visual cues mark progress of the treatment
		Volume of audio cues can be increased for use in noisy environments
		Plasmid or DNA vaccine injection can be delivered in the area delineated by the EP needles
		The sterile EP needle array is locked in place in the handle during the electroporation procedure and it is dispposed of after each individual treatment.
Features and highlights:
	CELLECTRA^® device delivers a constant-current electrical field that maintains a square-wave function through tissue – important for successful electroporation
	The microprocessor-driven device is capable of measuring tissue resistance and adapting output to varying individual conditions, such as fat content in the muscle, skin thickness or changing tissue resistance during the EP process
	CELLECTRA^® device has built-in safety features, including an enabling step – an electric field will not be generated if the individual needles of EP needle- array are not inserted into the target tissue, and furthermore, into the same muscle
	Substantial Reduction of heat-related tissue damage, and consequently pain usually involved with traditional electroporation methods
	System settings can be tailored to match your EP needs: depth of tissue penetration, electric field intensity, lag time between injection and EP, pulse duration, injection volume
	CELLECTRA^® device can instantly detect errors before the electroporation sequence is started, thus preventing waste of test substance
	Machine maintains settings to avoid mistakes between treated subjects – each subject number can be entered and stored in CELLECTRA^®
	Electroporation data for each pulse in each treated subject is recorded, and with the help of built-in software, can be easily downloaded and analyzed
Applications:
	Primates, large and small mammals can be treated - rodents, dogs, cats, pigs, horses and cows
	Plasmid or vaccine formulation can be administered from a syringe or Becton Dickinson's Uniject™ syrette fitted with the appropriate gauge needle
	Research at VGX™ Pharmaceuticals has demonstrated that this technology increases plasmid uptake and, thus, expression by 1000-fold over plasmid injection alone, to levels comparable to those obtained using viral vectors

Caution:
Investigational device. Limited by Federal law to investigational use. These devices are not yet available for sale.