Zentek Ltd. announced the development of a significant upgrade to its aptamer platform improving the binding affinity of the universal Covid-19 aptamer from 300 to over 500 times, compared to the base aptamer. The improved platform has also solved key challenges for manufacturing and these High-Binding Affinity (HBA) aptamers are now produced with approximately a 95% yield. A key roadblock of translating a promising lead candidate (lab-scale therapeutic) into a commercial product is cost- effective and high-purity manufacturing.

Solving production at this early stage of the development program is essential for successful clinical trials and the lower manufacturing costs and high yields should translate into a competitive advantage over many existing therapies. The Company has filed a new provisional patent to protect this latest innovation. As Zentek has been engaged with industry experts regarding the platform innovation, there has been consistent feedback that the greatest potential for the aptamer platform is towards precision therapy which is currently dominated by monoclonal antibodies.

Zentek and their partners at McMaster University will be exploring oncology and immunology research. A pharmaceutical industry study by Dr. Wouters from the London School of Economics and Political Science calculated that between 2009-2018, the cost for a new potential therapeutic to complete pre-clinical trials was USD 237 million without factoring any costs resulting from drug failure.1 The Zentek HBA aptamer for SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated strong therapeutic potential through four different animal tests and is at the current stage of development for a total cost of less than $2,000,000. Zentek estimates that an additional $1.0 million will be required to complete the pre-clinical program for the SARS- CoV-2 therapeutic and enter clinical trials.

Zentek believes these significant cost and timeline advantages are inherent to the Aptamer Platform technology and will be transferable to other aptamer-based medicines. In addition, increased binding affinity, greater bioavailability without the need for polyethylene glycol (PEG) and high-yield manufacturing of HBA aptamers may lead to therapeutics with performances that are comparable to or outperforming their monoclonal antibody counterparts. There are already many aptamer-based therapies in development globally and Zentek's platform technology could potentially be a plug and play addition to these that could improve their performance.