NovAccess Global Announces New License to Advance its Immunotherapy Platform

CLEVELAND, OH / ACCESSWIRE / April 30, 2024 / NovAccess Global Inc. (OTCQB:XSNX), a biomedical company developing a novel immunotherapy for patients suffering from cancers of the central nervous system, today announced the procurement of a new intellectual property license from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to further advance the Company's immunotherapy platform. The license pertains to the use of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1), a protein previously known to impact cell metabolism. The Company intends to leverage this license to predict a patient's likely response to vaccine immunotherapy during treatment for highly malignant brain tumors, such as glioblastoma.

IDH1 is commonly mutated in brain and other tumors. Groundbreaking research published by Dr. Chris Wheeler, President and lead scientist of NovAccess Global's subsidiary StemVax, LLC, has shown that IDH1 predicts antitumor responses after vaccine therapy through a novel molecular mechanism. The Company assesses that IDH1 expression is likely to discern long-duration from short-duration survivors after vaccine therapy in patients with brain tumors such as glioblastoma. Information derived from the use of IDH1 as a biomarker will help to better inform therapeutic strategy as physicians assess the use of single agent or combination therapies in their treatment of patients facing these life-threatening diagnoses.

NovAccess Global intends to support the development of IDH1 as a biomarker for TRL-AD1, its candidate drug for the treatment of cancers of the central nervous system that in 2022 received Orphan Drug designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Company will assess IDH1 as a companion diagnostic to TRL-AD1 while exploring IDH1's potential to serve as a prognostic indicator of patient response to currently marketed therapies and those in clinical development.

"Dr. Wheeler's research continues to lead the industry and is incredibly important to the advancement of our immunotherapy platform for brain tumor treatment and potentially for other cancer therapies," said NovAccess Global's Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dwain K. Irvin. "In particular, we anticipate his findings from work with IDH1 will complement NovAccess' TLR-AD1 vaccine approach by allowing selection of the most suitable patients for treatment and thereby maximizing the treatment's benefits to them. This combination represents a potentially significant breakthrough toward achieving improved outcomes and enhanced life expectancy for those suffering from brain cancer, which may bring relief to many of the approximately 10,000 people per year in America alone dying from this condition."