Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. entered into clinical development collaboration with AgonOx Inc. to develop novel T cell-based cancer immunotherapies using Phio's lead INTASYL based product candidate PH-762 and AgonOx's double positive tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte technology. The companies have shown that the combination of their respective technologies can result in enhanced TIL therapeutics, and based on these data, the collaboration will focus on conducting a clinical study for PH-762 treated DP TILs. The study is expected to start enrolling patients later this year. AgonOx in collaboration with the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, a division of the Providence Cancer Institute, developed a method for the identification, isolation and expansion of tumor-specific CD8 T cells from cancer patients. AgonOx has also shown that double positive CD8 T cells isolated from human solid tumors have increased tumor killing activity when compared to CD8 TIL that were not enriched prior to expansion. Preclinical data presented at SITC 2020 by AgonOx in collaboration with Phio show that treating the DP CD8 TIL with Phio's PH-762, increases the tumor killing activity of the CD8 DP TIL even further. As a result, the use of PH-762 treated DP CD8 TIL is expected to enhance therapeutic responses in cancer patients. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, AgonOx will receive financial support for the clinical trial from Phio and Phio is entitled to certain future development milestones and sales related royalty payments from AgonOx's DP TIL technology.