Aclarion, Inc. announced that it has executed a strategic partnership agreement solidifying the previously signed non-binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") with Alphatec Spine, Inc., the wholly owned operating subsidiary of Alphatec Holdings, Inc. Uniting the unique structural information powered by ATEC's AlphaInformatiX platform with the innovative augmented intelligence data that enables Aclarion's Nociscan solution to help identify potentially painful discs will provide surgeons with unprecedented data on one platform. That platform will be designed to improve clinical outcomes, while reducing overall procedural costs for patients with chronic low back pain (cLBP). The agreement memorializes a multi-step strategic partnership in which ATEC and Aclarion have committed to work together to identify key opinion leader (KOL) surgeons to evaluate the Nociscan technology.

Feedback from the surgeons will inform clinical evaluations designed to assess the utility of Nociscan in conjunction with EOS imaging, the foundation of ATEC?s AlphaInformatiX platform. As positive synergies emerge, ATEC and Aclarion intend to co-market Nociscan in targeted markets. In exchange for select access to ATEC?s surgeon network for the evaluation and advancement of Nociscan, Aclarion has agreed to provide ATEC with certain exclusive distribution rights to include Nociscan as part of an integrated procedural solution.

Aclarion?s proprietary decision-support tool, Nociscan, is the first evidence-supported SaaS platform to noninvasively help physicians distinguish between painful and nonpainful discs in the lumbar spine. Nociscan objectively quantifies chemical biomarkers demonstrated to be associated with disc pain. Biomarker data is entered into proprietary algorithms to highlight if a disc may be a source of pain.

When used with other diagnostic tools, Nociscan provides critical insights into the location of a patient?s low back pain, giving physicians clarity to optimize treatment strategies. Aclarion?s published trials confirm the comparative advantage of Nociscan in achieving differentiated surgical outcomes. In April 2023, a peer-reviewed publication demonstrated that the success rate at two years for discogenic low back pain surgeries was 85% for patients whose treatment strategy was consistent with Nociscan-identified discs; a 22 percentage point improvement over patients whose treatment strategy was inconsistent with Nociscan-identified discs (85% vs.

63%; p=0.07). Chronic low back pain is a global healthcare problem that impacts approximately 266 million people worldwide. Conventional imaging and diagnostics provide valuable structural information but are limited in identifying the source of the pathogenic pain.