Inovio
Settlement of McDermid v. Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., et al.
No. 2:20-cv-01402-GJP
On February 1, 2023, Judge Gerald J. Pappert approved a settlement of this action. The settlement provides for the payment of $30 million in cash and approximately $14,000,000 worth of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Inovio”) common stock. Lead Plaintiff Manuel S. Williams and Representative Plaintiff Andrew Zenoff alleged Defendants violated §§10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the period from February 14, 2020 through August 10, 2020, inclusive (the “Class Period”), and made materially false and misleading statements about Inovio’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. More specifically, Plaintiffs alleged that during the Class Period, Defendants misled investors through a series of public statements regarding how quickly Inovio had designed and/or constructed the vaccine candidate, Inovio’s capacity to manufacture large quantities of the vaccine candidate, the effectiveness of the vaccine candidate, and the expected timeline for regulatory approval of the vaccine candidate, and that these statements allegedly inflated or maintained inflation in Inovio’s stock price.
The Class consists of all persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired common stock of Inovio from February 14, 2020 to August 10, 2020, inclusive. Excluded from the Class are: (a) Inovio, J. Joseph Kim, Peter D. Kies, and Robert J. Juba, Jr. (each an “Individual Defendant” and collectively, “Defendants”); (b) members of the immediate family of any Defendant who is an individual; (c) any person who was an officer or director of Inovio during the Class Period; (d) any firm, trust, corporation, or other entity in which any Defendant has or had a controlling interest; (e) Inovio’s employee retirement and benefit plan(s) and their participants or beneficiaries, to the extent they made purchases through such plan(s); (f) all persons and entities who timely and validly requested exclusion from the Class in accordance with the requirements set by the Court in connection with the Notice of Proposed Settlement; and (g) the legal representatives, affiliates, heirs, successors-in-interest, or assigns of any such excluded person.
The deadline to submit a claim form in the litigation was December 19, 2022.
If you have any questions about the settlement or the litigation, please contact the Shareholder Relations Department at 1-800-449-4900.
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