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Tonix Pharmaceuticals Announces Publication of Paper in Viruses Highlighting the Company’s Development of a Vaccine to Protect Against Monkeypox and Smallpox (TNX-801)
Preclinical data demonstrate the efficacy of TNX‐801 vaccination against monkeypox virus challenge in an animal model Phase 1 trial with TNX-801 for the
About this update from Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp.
[{"type":"text","content":"Preclinical data demonstrate the efficacy of TNX‐801 vaccination against monkeypox virus challenge in an animal model Phase 1 trial with TNX-801 for the prevention of monkeypox and smallpox is expected to start in the second half of 2023 CHATHAM, N.J, Feb. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: TNXP) (Tonix or the Company), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced the publication of a paper entitled, “Single Dose of Recombinant Chimeric Horsepox Virus (TNX‐801) Vaccination Protects Macaques from Lethal Monkeypox Challenge,” in the journal Viruses. The publication demonstrates that a single dose vaccination with TNX‐801 was effective at protecting non-human primates from infection with monkeypox virus. The article can be accessed online at https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/2/356. “The global monkeypox outbreak that started in the spring of 2022 reinforced the importance of protecting the population using live virus vaccines,” said Seth Lederman, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Tonix Pharmaceuticals. “Consequently, there is a need for an effective and safer, single dose, live replicating vaccine against monkeypox virus. Given the encouraging preclinical data to date, one potential approach is to use a live virus vaccine based on horsepox, such as TNX-801.” David Evans, Ph.D., FCAHS, Professor and former Vice-Dean (Research) Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta and an investigator in the study and author of the publication, said, \"It is often forgotten that vaccines don’t always produce sterilizing immunity and so it’s very exciting to be able to report that a horsepox-based vaccine works so well in such a challenging infection model.” The publication describes data from animals in which eight out of eight vaccinated with TNX-801 were fully protected with sterilizing immunity from a challenge with intra-tracheal monkeypox (central African, or Congo Basin, clade). The vaccinations with TNX-801 were well tolerated as indicated by the lack of any overt clinical disease. These data show that the immunity generated by TNX‐801 was able to provide protection against a lethal challenge with monkeypox virus and is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of TNX‐801 vaccination against monkeypox virus challenge in a non‐human primate model. Synthetic horsepo...