Could This Be A Potential New Weapon In The Fight Against COVID-19?

Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash

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The COVID-19 pandemic has left few lives untouched.

In the spring of 2020, the novel coronavirus spread at a lightning pace as governments the world over instituted lockdowns and other safety measures. To date, the virus has infected at least 300 million people globally and taken the lives of almost 5.5 million.

For the first year, masking and social distancing were the primary tools in the fight against COVID. These were the best options in the arsenal as the world waited for the development of a vaccine. And in what is a marvel of modern science, several vaccines were developed in record time.

Two of the most popular vaccines in the U.S. — one produced by Pfizer Inc. PFE and BioNTech SE - ADR BNTX, the other by Moderna Inc. MRNA — were used to inoculate the public beginning in December 2020. To date, roughly 10 billion doses of all vaccines have been administered worldwide.

These vaccines employ mRNA technology. At the cutting edge of science, this technology has been helpful in fighting the virus.

But a major flaw exists: The vaccines must be kept in ultra cold storage until they are administered. This means the cost to deploy these vaccines is exponentially higher, requiring special equipment and much more complicated logistics. It also means communities, especially in impoverished areas around the world, have less access to these life-saving vaccines.

Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. TNXP, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, is working to change this.

Tonix recently announced an exclusive option agreement and research collaboration with Kansas State University to develop TNX-3700, a differentiated mRNA COVID-19 vaccine that does not require ultra cold storage.

The company is using zinc nanoparticle (ZNP) technology, replacing the lipid nanoparticle (LNP) tech used by the current mRNA vaccines. This may potentially allow the vaccine and future mRNA vaccines developed for other applications to be stable at a variety of temperatures, reducing the cost of deployment and the chance of waste.

“The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines that came out of Operation Warp Speed were incredibly effective in providing an initial round of protection and in getting us back to more normal lifestyles,” said Dr. Seth Lederman, CEO of Tonix. “But they are showing limitations in terms of durability, transmissibility, and stability. We believeTNX-3700 has the potential to address the thermostability issue, which has been a major obstacle in getting mRNA vaccines to high-need areas that lack sophisticated cold chain distribution and storage. Unfortunately, a large segment of the world population lives in those areas.

“The other known limitations of mRNA vaccines – durability and preventing transmission – don’t appear readily solvable using current mRNA technology, which is why, in addition, we are developing a COVID-19 vaccine, TNX-1800, which uses live virus vaccine technology known for producing long-term immunity — years, if not decades or longer — and which is also known to block contagion or the transmission of the virus to others. The live virus technology also has the benefit of not requiring ultra cold storage.”

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This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.