On Feb. 26, 2020, Tonix Pharmaceuticals announced a strategic collaboration with Southern Research to support the development of a vaccine, TNX-1800 (live modified horsepox virus vaccine for percutaneous administration) to protect against the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, based on Tonix’s proprietary horsepox vaccine platform.

Tonix was developing TNX-801 (live horsepox virus vaccine for percutaneous administration) as a potential smallpox preventing vaccine for the U.S. strategic national stockpile and as a monkeypox preventing vaccine. The research collaboration planned to develop and test a potential horsepox vaccine that expresses protein from the virus that causes COVID to protect against the disease.