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OncoNano Medicine Presents Positive Final Results from Phase 2 Trial of Pegsitacianine in Podium Presentation at 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting

Study met primary endpoint of detection of residual disease following completion of standard of care surgery

Residual cancer was identified by pegsitacianine-directed fluorescence in 50% of evaluable patients

Results demonstrated acidic pH is a viable marker for use in targeted delivery

SOUTHLAKE, Texas – May 31, 2023 – OncoNano Medicine, Inc. will present positive final results from its Phase 2 study of pegsitacianine, a pH-sensitive fluorescent nanoprobe for enhanced intra-operative visualization of cancer, in a podium presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2023. Results of the study show that acidic pH is a viable marker and can be used for tumor targeting by the company’s ON-BOARD™ micelle platform.

Pegsitacianine has been studied in more than 135 patients across multiple tumor types, including peritoneal metastatic, breast, head and neck, colorectal, esophageal, ovarian and prostate cancers. Results show that pegsitacianine is able to localize different tumor types regardless of their histology or anatomic location. The ON-BOARD platform, therefore, is able to target solid tumors, deploying its payload specifically within the acidic tumor microenvironment (TME).

“We are encouraged by this data as it demonstrates the potential of pegsitacianine to augment the visualization of cancer during an operation, which has the potential to be a significant advance in real-time surgical imaging,” said Kartik Krishnan, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of OncoNano Medicine. “We look forward to taking pegsitacianine to the next levels of development and continue our mission to diagnose and treat cancer with high specificity.”

The results of this Phase 2 study reveal that pegsitacianine was well tolerated and that 20 of 40 evaluable patients (50%) had pathology-confirmed disease resected, that was not resected in the planned standard of care surgery, under pegsitacianine guidance. Approximately 25% of patients experienced a pegsitacianine-related adverse event, which was a transient, selfresolving, non-anaphylactic infusion-related reaction.

“We were highly encouraged with the results observed in this Phase 2 trial and look forward to validating these findings in the upcoming Phase 3 trial,” said Patrick Wagner, M.D., lead author and Director of Complex General Surgical Oncology, Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute. “The results demonstrate that acidic pH is a viable tumor agnostic marker and highlight pegsitacianine’s ability to target different tumor types regardless of their genotype or anatomic location.”

“This Phase 2 data brings new hope to both clinicians and patients,” said Charles M. Balch, M.D., former EVP and Chief Executive Officer of ASCO and present Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at OncoNano Medicine. “Having demonstrated the capacity to identify tumors that were previously not clinically visible to surgeons, pegsitacianine has the potential to improve the accuracy of staging and surgical outcomes, while reducing operating time for several types of abdominal cancers. Newer versions in the pipeline have great potential to expand therapeutic targets and enable new combinations of drugs previously hindered by toxicity.”

Presentation Overview:

TITLE: Detection of peritoneal metastases during cytoreductive surgery using pegsitacianine, a pH sensitive imaging agent: Final results from a phase 2 study
PRESENTER: Patrick Wagner, MD, Director of Complex General Surgical Oncology, Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute
DATE: June 5, 2023

About OncoNano Medicine
OncoNano Medicine is developing a new class of products that utilize principles of molecular cooperativity in their design to exploit pH as a biomarker to diagnose and treat cancer with high specificity. Our product candidates and interventions are designed to help patients across the continuum of cancer care and include solid tumor therapeutics, agents for real-time image guided surgery and a platform of immuno-oncology therapeutics that activate and guide the body’s immune system to target cancer.

OncoNano’s lead development candidate is pegsitacianine, a novel fluorescent nanoprobe using the ON-BOARD platform, that is being studied as a real-time surgical imaging agent for use in multiple cancer surgeries and is advancing towards a pivotal clinical trial to aid in tumor detection of peritoneal carcinomatosis. ONM-501, OncoNano’s second development program, is a next generation STING (STimulator of INterferon Genes) agonist that is advancing towards a first in human trial in the first half of 2023. Pegsitacianine and ONM-501 have been supported by grants received from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas. Learn more at www.OncoNano.com.

Contacts
MacDougall Advisors
Lauren Arnold
(781) 235-3060
larnold@macdougall.bio