Mr. David Regan reports

SONA NANOTECH'S THT CANCER THERAPY DEMONSTRATES STRONG EFFICACY AND DURABILITY IN COMBINATION WITH IMMUNOTHERAPY IN PEER-REVIEWED PRECLINICAL STUDY

Sona Nanotech Inc. has published a preclinical study using its targeted hyperthermia therapy (THT) to treat cancer, in the Journal of Nanobiotechnology, which demonstrated treatment durability to the end of the 45-day study period when it was given in combination with immunotherapy. Building on its prior body of preclinical research treating melanoma and breast cancer (as published in Frontiers in Immunology), this study was conducted in an immunologically "cold" colorectal cancer (CT26) tumour model. In this combination protocol, CT26 tumour-bearing animals were treated with two consecutive treatments of THT plus standard PD-1 inhibitor immunotherapy followed by three additional PD-1 treatments. Animals were followed for 45 days following initiation of treatment as per study protocol. At completion of the study 38 per cent of animals given the combined therapy were alive and disease free.

Sona Nanotech chief executive officer David Regan commented: "We've all recently heard the shocking news that colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for adults under 50. This timely preclinical evidence of strong immune activation in colon cancer using our THT/immunotherapy combination protocol reaffirms our confidence in pursuing Sona's THT to spark immunity in typically immunotherapy resistant cancers. We are certainly proud of the quality of this peer-reviewed research and its acceptance in the highly respected Journal of Nanobiotechnology. This study, together with the safety and tolerability data from our recently completed, first-in-human study of THT as a monotherapy in melanoma, lays the foundation for our next trial that will combine our THT with immunotherapy."

Study principal investigator, lead author and Sona chief medical officer, Dr. Carman Giacomantonio, commented: "We have focused our preclinical research on immunogenically cold cancers i.e. cancers that do not respond to today's standard-of-care immunotherapy, to prove our hypothesis that Sona's THT activates immunity. This is the third preclinical cancer type in which we have confirmed our hypothesis, and our first publication delving deeply into the biology of our treatments. In this study, where no animals responded to a standard immunotherapy alone, 100 per cent of animals in the THT treatment group responded to that same immunotherapy. This relates incredibly favourably to the less than approximately 15-per-cent success rate of immunotherapy when used to treat colorectal cancer in most humans due to low immunogenicity, giving us tremendous hope for its ability to change lives if translated successfully into a human therapy. Importantly, 38 per cent (eight of 21) of those tumours completely cleared by day 24 following initiation of treatment and remained cancer-free to the end of the study. This is remarkably fast by any standard of measure, and these important findings will inform the protocol for our next clinical study."

About Sona Nanotech Inc.

Sona Nanotech, a nanotechnology life sciences company, is developing targeted hyperthermia, a photothermal cancer therapy, which uses therapeutic heat to treat solid cancer tumours. The heat is delivered to tumours by infrared light that is absorbed by Sona's gold nanorods in the tumour and re-emitted as heat. Therapeutic heat (42 to 48 degrees Celsius) stimulates the immune system, shrinks tumours, inactivates cancer stem cells and increases tumour perfusion -- thus enabling drugs to reach all tumour compartments more effectively. The size, shape and surface chemistry of the nanorods target the leaky vasculature of solid tumours, and the selective thermal sensitivity of tumour tissue enables the therapy to deliver clean margins. Targeted hyperthermia promises to be safe, effective, minimally invasive, competitive in cost, and a valuable adjunct to drug therapy and other cancer treatments.

Sona has developed multiple proprietary methods for the manufacture of gold nanoparticles which it uses for the development of both cancer therapies and diagnostic testing platforms. Sona Nanotech's gold nanorod particles are cetyltrimethylammonium-(CTAB)-free, eliminating the toxicity risks associated with the use of other gold nanorod technologies in medical applications. It is expected that Sona's gold nanotechnologies may be adapted for use in applications, as a safe and effective delivery system for multiple medical treatments, subject to the approval of various regulatory boards, including Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration.

We seek Safe Harbor.