Preclinical Data Shows Noxopharm’s Sofra Technology Can Enhance Current Cancer Treatments

Noxopharm (ASX: NOX) has generated new preclinical data demonstrating that its Sofra technology can help activate immune cells in response to dying cancer cells, providing further support for the technology’s potential in immuno-oncology.

The technology relies upon short nucleic acid sequences — the building blocks of DNA or RNA known as oligonucleotides — to provide a novel treatment approach by acting on specific cells within the body’s own immune system to modulate inflammation at its source.

They work to significantly amplify the activity of the body’s toll-like receptor 8 (TLR8) protein compared to current cancer drugs in clinical development, and can enhance the cancer-fighting activity of standard-of-care therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

This combination approach opens up a new opportunity for more potent, controllable, and targeted activation of the immune system against cancer by exploiting a novel mechanism uncovered through in-depth industry studies of TLR8 biology.

Significant Immune Activation

The latest data from a study conducted with Hudson Institute of Medical Research showed that significant levels of immune activation were observed when the TLR8-amplifying oligonucleotide was combined with dying cancer cells, but were not observed when the oligonucleotide was absent.

Dying cancer cells alone did not trigger immune activation; however, when combined with TLR8-amplifying oligonucleotides, the treatment elicited a significant immune response.

The findings build on earlier Noxopharm research showing that Sofra technology can help expose otherwise ‘hidden’ RNA to the immune system and extend that work to whole cancer cell debris, more closely reflecting what occurs when cancer cells die following treatment.

This involves the release of cellular material including RNA that could potentially alert the immune system while keeping cancer-derived RNA ‘immune-silent’, limiting the body’s ability to recognise and respond to a tumour.

Oncology Program Advancing

Chief executive officer Dr Olivier Laczka said the new data provided an important additional step in validating the Sofra approach for oncology.

“These results provide an important step forward for our oncology program as for the first time, we have shown that our technology can help immune cells respond directly to dying cancer cells,” she said.

“This supports the potential for our approach to complement cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while providing further validation of the broader Sofra platform as we progress towards in vivo proof-of-concept studies.”

Noxopharm is currently scaling up to test its novel compounds in humanised TLR8 mice and various cancer models.

Revolutionary Drug Design Approach

The Sofra technology platform represents a revolutionary approach to drug design by translating a new understanding of innate biology into targeted therapeutics that enable precision control of disease-relevant signalling.

Based on the use of oligonucleotides to mimic natural regulators of the body’s defence system, it can enable selective and modular tuning of immune sensors, reducing or stimulating their associated biological responses to mitigate disease and enhance RNA-based therapies.

Sofra is primarily focused on inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and diabetes, as well as immuno-oncology for cancer treatment.

The global autoimmune disease therapeutics market was worth US$163.2 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach US$219.6b by 2035, while the worldwide immuno-oncology market was US$43b in 2023 and is projected to hit US$284b by 2033.