NEW YORK, May 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. (Nasdaq: TNXP) (Tonix or the Company), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced the appointment of Herbert Harris, M.D., Ph.D., as its new Executive Vice President, Translational Medicine, effective May 15, 2020. In this role, Dr. Harris will focus on advancing Tonix’s pre-clinical pipeline, including the potential COVID-19 vaccine into the clinic, as well as participate in Tonix’s ongoing clinical programs.
Dr. Gregory Sullivan, Chief Medical Officer of Tonix said, “The recruitment of Dr. Harris to our management team is opportune, arriving at a time Tonix has launched its COVID-19 program and expanded its pipeline of clinical candidates including those in addiction, mood disorders, and geriatric psychiatry. Dr. Harris’ career has exemplified the translational tradition of bringing bench to bedside, with extensive training and research in our Nation’s premier academic and National Institutes of Health (NIH) intramural programs. Moreover, he has applied that expertise to pharmaceutical drug development in industry for many years, and thus brings to Tonix a wealth of experience advancing therapeutics in critical underserved areas that align well with our mission. He will be an asset to both our management team and to the development of our pipeline as Tonix advances its therapeutics, with the goal of ultimately delivering much needed therapeutics for the benefit of patients.”
“It’s exciting to join a company with such an experienced management team and sense of purpose towards finding treatments for underserved populations,” said Dr. Harris. “Developing the COVID-19 vaccine is particularly exciting because T cell immunity has been a great interest since my doctoral work. I believe T cell immunity, and particularly TH1 type immunity, will be important in protecting against serious COVID-19 disease and in clearing the virus. Clearing the virus, which I believe requires CD8 T cell immunity in similar viral illnesses, will be important to decreasing forward transmission. I look forward to offering my capabilities and strategic mindset to the Tonix team as the company continues to grow and progress its pipeline.”
Dr. Harris earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Harris’ Ph.D. work in immunology involved the regulation of cell surface expression and turnover of Class I MHC antigens, which are the targets of CD8 T cells. Class I MHC proteins play a crucial role in directing T cell-mediated immune responses in transplantation and antiviral immunity. The regulation of these proteins by cytokines was a central focus of this work. Dr. Harris completed residency training in psychiatry at Yale University. He performed postdoctoral research on the neurobiology of addiction in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Nestler, M.D., Ph.D. After the completion of clinical training, Dr. Harris served as Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institute on Aging, a division of the NIH, where his research focused on the mechanisms of programmed cell death in neurons. He subsequently served as Chief of the Geriatric Psychopharmacology Program and Chief of the Adult Psychopathology Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health. He also served as scientific liaison to the Neuropharmacology Division of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Harris subsequently joined industry and has devoted more than two decades to drug discovery and development at companies that include Merck, Cephalon, GlaxoSmithKline, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals. In addition, he has served as Tonix’s Chief Medical Officer from 2009 to 2011 and for other early-stage companies that include Vela Pharmaceuticals, Validus Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Harris served on the Scientific Advisory Board of Tonix for approximately 10 years until his appointment as Tonix’s Executive Vice President, Translational Medicine.