Sona Nanotech Inc. announced further positive interim results from its study with The Giacomantonio Immuno-Oncology Research Group at Dalhousie University. The Company was provided with data from the Study that indicates the response in a pre-clinical triple negative breast cancer model treated with the combination of Sona's targeted hyperthermia therapy and interleukin-2, a standard immunotherapy, is statistically significantly superior to results observed from treatment with either agent individually or the control group. This second phase of the Study has documented that, in a cohort of six animals, 6/6 of treated triple negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and therapy resistant form, mouse tumors bearing gold nanorods and IL-2 responded to the combination therapy, resulting in a flattening of the tumor growth curves, as shown in the below graph.

The generation of hyperthermia involved exposing tumors previously injected intratumorally with Sona's gold nanorods and IL-2 to a single dose of near infrared light. The Study's next step is to assess the therapy's ability to generate similar results in melanoma and colorectal cancer mouse models and determine the extent to which it serves as an immune modulator for distant, untreated tumors in these cancers. Next, regulatory permission to conduct human trials requires certain satisfactory pre-clinical safety and biocompatibility studies, amongst other potential work.

The Company has received guidance on its pre-clinical study plan from both the Food and Drug Administration and its EXCITE International (see press release dated September 5, 2023) panel of senior physicians and payor organization representatives in the United States. The results discussed in this release are preliminary and have not been subject to peer review. Upon completion, the Company expects that the full Study will be submitted for peer review and scientific journal publication.