What happened Shares of Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: INO) are skyrocketing today, up by 20% as of 12:59 p.m. EST, after Fox Business reported that the biotech has discovered a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that has sickened more than 45,000 people around the globe and killed more than 1,100. The company hopes to start a phase 1 clinical trial as early as this summer. So what Inovio was reportedly able to develop the vaccine in about three hours after it obtained the DNA sequence of the virus. Rather than giving the patient attenuated virus like most vaccines, Inovio's technology uses DNA to express viral proteins in the patients' cells, which causes the immune system to develop antibodies to the virus. All the biotech really needed was the sequence of the COVID-19 virus and a good guess as to which viral protein was likely to create an immune response. The latter was probably helped by the fact that Inovio had already developed a vaccine for a different coronavirus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), so researchers likely knew which protein would be immunogenic. Last month, Inovio received a $9 million grant from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to develop the vaccine against the COVID-19 virus. Image source: Getty Images. Now what The quick speed at which Inovio is working is good news considering all the companies that have said they're developing treatments and vaccines for the COVID-19 virus. Some of the potential competition, like Gilead Sciences and Johnson & Johnson, have substantially more resources than Inovio. The bigger issue that investors need to worry about is whether the novel coronavirus will result in a large global pandemic, or whether it will largely remain in China and peter out like SARS did. Every day the outbreak goes on makes it more likely that the virus could spread worldwide. China reported over 15,000 new cases of the infection in one day after a new methodology on how to categorize the infections was adopted. 10 stocks we like better than Inovio PharmaceuticalsWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Inovio Pharmaceuticals wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of December 1, 2019 Brian Orelli has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Gilead Sciences. The Motley Fool recommends Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source