Candidates: TNX-1810, TNX-1820, and TNX-1830
Types: Live recombinant modified horsepox virus vaccines from cell culture, designed to express different SARS-CoV-2 antigens than TNX-1800, and to elicit almost pure T cell responses.
Status: Tonix said July 7 it intends to purchase an approximately 40,000-square-foot facility in Massachusetts—the locality was not disclosed–to use as lab space for R&D activities that include developing its COVID-19 vaccines and biologics for other disorders. Tonix expects its Advanced Development Center to expand and strengthen its capabilities in process and analytical development when it becomes operational, which is expected in 2022.
Tonix will buy the facility for $4 million, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing.
“We view having our own in-house facilities for R&D as a strategic capability and we foresee a potential scarcity of available domestic capacity,” Tonix CEO Seth Lederman, MD, said in a statement. “The Federal Government’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ for COVID-19, while critically important, has commandeered a large portion of America’s biologics contract research and manufacturing facilities. As a country, the U.S. needs more domestic onshore capacity, and as a company Tonix needs more control over the speed with which we can make vaccines and biologics products suitable for clinical studies.”
In May, Tonix signed a research collaboration and exclusive licensing agreement with the University of Alberta to develop the three vaccines. All three are based on the same horsepox vector platform used by the company to develop TNX-1800, but express different SARS-CoV-2 antigens.
The University has granted Tonix an exclusive license for technology and patents related to TNX-1810, TNX-1820, and TNX-1830. Tonix agreed to conduct further studies to test the safety and efficacy of all three candidates, which are in preclinical development. Principal investigator for the programs is David Evans, PhD, FCAHS, Professor and former Vice-Dean (Research) Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta. Evans synthesized horsepox along with a research associate in his lab, Ryan Noyce, PhD.
COVID-19: 200 Candidates and Counting
To navigate through the >200 potential therapeutic and vaccine options for COVID-19, GEN has grouped the candidates into four broad categories based on their developmental and (where applicable) clinical progress:
● FRONT RUNNER – the most promising therapeutics/vaccines based on clinical progress, favorable data or both.
● DEFINITELY MAYBE – earlier phases with promising partners, or more advanced candidates in development that have generated uneven data.
● KEEPING AN EYE ON… – interesting technology, attracting notable partners, or both, but preliminary data.
● TOO SOON TO TELL – longshots pending additional experimental and/or clinical data.
GEN has also tagged the most common treatment types:
● ANTIVIRAL
● VAX
● ANTIBODY
● RNA
