On Jul. 7, 2020, Tonix Pharmaceuticals announced its intent to purchase an approximately 40,000 square foot facility in Massachusetts to use as laboratories to enable R&D functions associated with its expanding portfolio of immunology candidates, including vaccines for COVID-19 and biological products for other disorders.

Tonix’s Advanced Development Center was expected to expand and strengthen the Company’s capabilities in process and analytical development. Tonix continued working collaboratively in certain cases with outside partners, such as its collaborations with Southern Research for preclinical testing and with FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies for the manufacturing of the TNX-801 and TNX-1800 vaccines for smallpox and COVID-19, respectively.

Both vaccines utilize Tonix’s proprietary live replicating virus platform, which is designed to potentially elicit a predominately T cell response, believed to be essential in conferring long-term vs. temporary immunity. Preclinical results from the TNX-1800 COVID-19 study in small animals and non-human primates are expected in the fourth quarter of this year. The R&D facility was expected to be operational in 2022.