Dr. Fahar Merchant reports

MEDICENNA ANNOUNCES NASDAQ DELISTING AND CUTBACK OF MANAGEMENT TEAM

Medicenna Therapeutics Corp. has received a staff delisting determination from the listing qualifications department of the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC, which notified the company of the delisting of its securities from the Nasdaq Capital Market as a result of the company's failure to comply with the $1 (U.S.) per share minimum bid price requirement.

The company informed Nasdaq that it would not appeal the delisting decision or try to regain compliance by executing a reverse stock split. The company's common shares will continue to trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"To better position Medicenna for the benefit of all our shareholders, we undertook a thorough and thoughtful review of our cost structure, including costs associated with being a Nasdaq-listed company," said Fahar Merchant, PhD, president and chief executive officer at Medicenna. "Our board of directors concluded that, within the context of the current biotech markets, the company and its stockholders do not benefit from a Nasdaq listing considering the associated significant costs and resources required. We remain in good standing with our TSX listing, have no debt, and have sufficient cash to potentially fund the company well beyond key value inflection milestones from the MDNA11 phase 2 monotherapy and combination trial. We look forward to sharing additional new data at major conferences next month for the MDNA11, Biskits and bizaxofusp programs."

After careful consideration, the board of directors of Medicenna determined that it is in the overall best interests of the company not to appeal Nasdaq's delisting decision and to delist its common shares from Nasdaq. The board's decision was based on several factors, including the continuing volatility of the financial markets in the life science sector and, accordingly, in the company's current share price and market value as well as an analysis of the benefits of continued listing on Nasdaq weighed against the regulatory burdens and costs associated with maintaining such listing. The company anticipates significant financial savings as a result of this decision. With the common shares concurrently trading on the TSX, the company believes that the significant costs associated with a continued Nasdaq listing as well as the administrative burdens and extensive amount of management's time, attention and resources expended on regulatory compliance to maintain a Nasdaq listing are not justified at this time. Following the delisting of the company's common shares on Nasdaq, the company will also seek to have its common shares traded on the OTC Markets as soon as possible thereafter.

Nasdaq has notified the company that trading of its common shares will be suspended as of the opening of business on Nov. 2, 2023, and a Form 25-NSE will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which will remove the company's securities from listing and registration on Nasdaq.

As previously announced, on Oct. 25, 2022, the Nasdaq listing qualifications department notified the company that the bid price of its listed securities had closed at less than $1 (U.S.) per share over the previous 30 consecutive business days and, as a result, did not comply with Nasdaq listing rules. Therefore, the company was provided 180 calendar days, or until April 25, 2023, to regain compliance. Subsequently, the company was provided an additional 180 calendar days, or until Oct. 23, 2023, to demonstrate compliance.

Cutback to management team

In connection with the Nasdaq delisting and in effort to further preserve capital, the board decided to reduce the size of its management team as well as its presence in the United States. Consequently, the company also today announced the departure of Jeff Caravella as chief financial officer and Brent Meadows as chief business officer, effective Oct. 26, 2023. The company has started a search for a chief financial officer familiar with the TSX.

About Medicenna Therapeutics Corp.

Medicenna is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on developing novel, highly selective versions of IL-2, IL-4 and IL-13 superkines and first-in-class class-empowered superkines. Medicenna's long-acting IL-2 superkine, MDNA11, is a next-generation IL-2 with superior CD122 (IL-2 receptor beta) binding without CD25 (IL-2 receptor alpha) affinity, thereby preferentially stimulating cancer-killing effector T cells and NK cells. Medicenna's IL-4 empowered superkine, bizaxofusp (formerly MDNA55), has been studied in five clinical trials, including a phase 2b trial for recurrent GBM (glioblastoma), the most common and uniformly fatal form of brain cancer. Bizaxofusp has obtained fast-track and orphan drug status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the FDA/EMA (European Medicines Agency), respectively. Medicenna's early-stage Biskits (bifunctional superkine immunotherapies) program is designed to enhance the ability of superkines to treat immunologically cold tumours.

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