Listen • 4:41 The Bitterroot Valley is welcoming a third biotech company: vaccine-developer Tonix Pharmaceuticals announced its plans to build a facility near Hamilton late last year. But to local officials, it's more than a new company. Tonix is the latest development in a decade-long effort to turn this southwest Montana valley into a biotech corridor. "The reason it happened quickly is because of all of this tedious work and suffering that has gone on for the past 12 years," Julia Foster said over traffic. Foster, director of the Ravalli County Economic Development Authority, was standing on a 44-acre field that looks onto the Sapphire Mountains. The property is the proposed build site of Tonix Pharmaceuticals' vaccine development facility, and the New Jersey-based company could open the facility as early as 2022.