Tonix Pharmaceuticals Breaks Ground in New Bedford

New Jersey based Tonix Pharmaceuticals has announced the start of construction for its planned 45,000 square foot clinical scale manufacturing facility in the New Bedford Business Park. The new facility is expected to house Tonix’s Advanced Development Center (ADC) for accelerated research, development, and analytical capabilities, as well as the production of clinical trial quality vaccines for infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Tonix expects the facility to be operational in the first half of 2022.

Plans for the ADC include single-use bioreactors and purification suites with equipment for GMP production of vaccines for clinical trials, including the capability of producing sterile vaccines in glass bottles. The ADC is inteded to be Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2). At full capacity, the facility can employ up to 70 researchers, scientists, manufacturing and technical support staff.

Tonix’s portfolio is primarily composed of central nervous system (CNS) and immunology product candidates. The company’s CNS portfolio includes both small molecules and biologics to treat pain, neurologic, psychiatric, and addiction conditions. Tonix’s lead CNS candidate is in mid-Phase 3 development for the management of fibromyalgia. Tonix’s immunology portfolio includes vaccines to prevent infectious diseases and biologics to address immunosuppression, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Tonix’s lead vaccine candidate is a live replicating vaccine based on the horsepox viral vector platform to protect against COVID-19, primarily by eliciting a T cell response. (Source: Tonix Pharmaceuticals Website, 03 August, 2021)