DNA vaccine hunters aim to cure cancer

In 2007, VGX acquired Advisys for a combination of cash and equity. Luckily, Dr. Kim had been on a fundraising tear for the previous seven years, raising more than $40 million from a wide array of investors, including Japan's Softbank, Korea Development Bank, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. "We learned how to be very creative in utilizing our financial resources, saving cash and so on," he said. "So the Advisys acquisition was straightforward."

Two years later, VGX acquired Inovio, which allowed it to effectively corner the market on electroporation patents. "What Inovio had was the breadth and depth of patent portfolio of the delivery system," Dr. Kim said. Upon completion of the merger in 2011, VGX changed its name to Inovio Pharmaceuticals.

Today, Inovio vaccines for treating breast, lung, pancreatic cancer and Hepatitis C are in Phase I clinical testing, and next year its cervical cancer vaccine will begin phase III testing, the final step to FDA approval. And those are just the lead products. Inovio has a vaccine in the works for nearly every disease that hasn't been eradicated by traditional vaccines.

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Not all of those will come to fruition, of course. But as a man who got two degrees when one would have sufficed, and who acquired two electroporation companies when most would have stopped at one, Dr. Kim knows the value of covering his bases. "We always wanted to have multiples shots on goal," he said. "Not every product is going to work, so we want to make sure our shareholders' risks and benefits are well managed and that we ultimately bring the best therapies to patients."

By Douglas Quenqua, special to CNBC.com

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DNA vaccine hunters aim to cure cancer