Tonix Pharmaceuticals announces results of pre-IND meeting with FDA for TNX-801

Tonix Pharmaceuticals announced that it received the official written response from a Type B pre-Investigational New Drug Application meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to develop TNX-8011 as a potential vaccine to protect against mpox disease and smallpox. Tonix believes the FDA feedback provides a path to agreement on the design of a Phase 1/2 study and the overall clinical development plan. The Phase 1/2 clinical trial will assess the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of TNX-801, following the submission and clearance of an IND. “The FDA’s response to the pre-IND meeting marks an important milestone in the development of TNX-801 since we have FDA concurrence on the proposed manufacturing, toxicology studies, and the Phase 1/2 clinical design,” said Seth Lederman, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Tonix. “TNX-801 is believed to be closely related to Edward Jenner’s original smallpox vaccine.2-10 Jenner’s live virus smallpox vaccine – the first vaccine – remains one of the most effective vaccines in history, since it typically provided lifetime immunity with a single dose, prevented forward transmission of the smallpox virus, and ultimately eradicated the disease. TNX-801 has an attenuated phenotype relative to modern vaccinia viruses, which comprise a group of vaccine viruses that evolved from Jenner’s vaccine during passage in man and animals for over 100 years. When live virus vaccinia vaccination was routinely practiced in Africa, mpox was kept out of the human population.” TNX-801 is a live replicating attenuated vaccine based on horsepox that is believed to protect against smallpox and mpox, primarily by eliciting a T-cell response evidenced by the “take”. The “take” is a functional measure of protective T-cell immunity validated by the eradication of smallpox. TNX-801 is administered with a single dose, can be readily scaled up for manufacturing using proven technology and can be distributed and stored without requiring a costly and cumbersome ultra-cold supply chain. Live replicating vaccines have the potential to induce durable T-cell immunity, prevent serious illness after infection and block forward transmission. Tonix reported positive preclinical efficacy data, demonstrating that TNX-801 vaccination protected non-human primates against lethal challenge with mpox.