Sona Nanotech (CSE:SONA,OTCQB:SNANF) announced results from biomarker analysis of a recent pre-clinical melanoma study, reporting that its Targeted Hyperthermia Therapy (THT) can not only shrink existing tumors, but under specific circumstances can also trigger an immune system to prevent new tumors from forming.
The pre-clinical study, which was conducted at Dalhousie University, revealed that Sona's THT stimulates the immune system to target and eliminate distant tumors when combined with the immunotherapeutic drug IL-2.
In a Wednesday (June 26) press release, Dr. Carman Giacomantonio, Sona's chief medical officer and head of the pre-clinical study, said the company now believes it is clear that THT causes cancer-specific proteins to become visible to the immune system. This generates novel immune responses and ultimately fosters cancer-specific immunity.
"This is essentially the goal of all current immunotherapy research and treatment strategies," Giacomantonio explained. He added, "When combined with a standard of care immunotherapeutic drug (IL-2), the resultant immunity in our models was strong enough to generate an immune response in remote (contralateral) tumors."
THT uses gold nanorods to deliver heat to tumors, which triggers an immune response and helps to shrink the tumors.
The results of the pre-clinical study demonstrate that the immune response induced by THT and IL-2 was strong enough to prevent the establishment of new tumors in mice that had previously responded to the treatment. This "vaccine effect" suggests that the therapy could provide lasting immunity against cancer recurrence.
“Seeing the gene expression data which supports the longevity of the new immunity achieved together with the observation that new cancer tumors did not take in the treated mice in this preclinical study, gives hope that Sona’s therapy could be used with immunotherapeutic drugs to treat cancer effectively and reduce the likelihood of recurrences,” commented CEO David Regan in Sona's press release.
"Given our success in demonstrating this concept in two different murine cancer models, we are now moving forward aggressively with the study program required by regulators that would allow us to progress this novel therapy into the clinic for a first-in-human trial,” he added. The second cancer model tested was triple negative breast cancer.
The company plans to target late-stage, unresectable melanoma in its initial human trials. This approach aims to offer a new treatment option for patients who have not responded to other therapies.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Editorial Disclosure: Sona Nanotech is a client of the Investing News Network. This article is not paid-for content.
