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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 30, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. (the “Company”) (TSXV:RKV) today announced the engagement of Red Cloud Securities (“Red Cloud”) and Proactive Investors North America Inc. (“Proactive”) as part of the Company’s evolving strategy to improve trading liquidity and increase general market awareness of the Company and its next-generation cancer therapy development pipeline.

Red Cloud Securities Inc. is an IIROC investment dealer focused on providing unique comprehensive capital market services to small-cap public and private companies. “We are pleased to be engaged by Rakovina Therapeutics and look forward to building a long-term relationship with the Company as they continue the important work of developing new treatments for cancer patients. Our clients rely on our dedicated traders to provide effective liquidity services”, stated Adam Smith, Head of Trading for Red Cloud Securities.

Proactive is a leading multimedia news organization, investor portal and events management company with offices in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, London and Sydney. It operates financial websites providing breaking news, commentary and analysis on hundreds of listed companies, and syndicates content across a broad range of financial and general news portals. The Proactive video interview network, which spans seven broadcast studios and three continents, recently featured an interview with Rakovina Therapeutics president & chief scientific officer, Prof. Mads Daugaard.

“Since inception just over two years ago, the Rakovina Therapeutics scientific team has made significant progress toward advancing promising new cancer treatments into human clinical trials,” stated Jeffrey Bacha executive chairman of Rakovina Therapeutics. “We are pleased to launch this enhanced corporate awareness strategy to leverage our scientific accomplishments in new and dynamic ways. We look forward to working with the teams at Red Cloud and Proactive to tell the world about the promising new cancer treatments being created by the dedicated scientists at Rakovina Therapeutics.”

Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. was established in March 2021 and began trading on the TSX-venture exchange on April 1, 2021 following completion of a qualifying transaction with Vincero Capital Corp. The Company was founded around three distinct series of small-molecule drug candidates positioned as next-generation therapies in the rapidly evolving DNA-damage response field.

First generation FDA-approved DNA-damage response inhibitors, called PARP-inhibitors, collectively generated more $3 billion in global sales during 2022 and have become important treatments for certain types of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer. During 2020 and 2021, Big Pharma committed more than $7 billion to pre-clinical biotechnology research collaborations related to next-generation DNA-damage response inhibitors.

“At inception, we were fortunate to acquire rights to three promising DNA-damage response programs, each already having early scientific proof-of-concept,” stated Prof. Daugaard. “Our focus has been to optimize and choose lead compounds for advancement to human clinical trials. To do this, we established a robust screening infrastructure in collaboration with the University of British Columbia and a separate medicinal chemistry capability to build upon that initial data to meet this goal. I have been extremely pleased with our progress despite the challenges of building a new company during the global covid-19 pandemic as we have advanced the most promising candidates from in vitro proof-of-concept into in vivo safety and efficacy studies.”

Rakovina Therapeutics has regularly reported results of its research at major peer-reviewed cancer meetings and scientific publications.

• In September 2021, at a joint meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) and the Japanese Cancer Association (JCA), the Company presented data demonstrating that select kt-3000 series dual-action drug candidates exhibited inhibition of target receptors in vitro with activity at each comparable to FDA-approved cancer therapies.
• In April 2022, at the AACR Annual Meeting, the Company presented data demonstrating that select kt-4000 series drug candidates provide, in a single molecule, potent DNA-damage and inhibition of DNA repair in cancer cells.
• In May 2022, at the AACR Special Conference on Sarcomas, the Company announced that select kt-3000 candidates had been advanced to in vivo (animal) studies to evaluate pharmacokinetics, safety and anti-tumor activity.
• In October 2022, at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, the Company presented data from an animal model demonstrating that a lead candidate from the kt-3000 series prevented metastatic growth in the lungs of mice inoculated with an aggressive Ewing sarcoma cell line. In these studies, kt-3283 demonstrated higher efficacy than single-agent PARP or HDAC inhibitors.

Further details were published on the pre-print server bioRxiv in November 2022.

Since inception, Rakovina Therapeutics has also announced new patents and funding support from the National Research Council of Canada and the St. Baldricks Foundation.

“We are confident that the value being created by the progress in our research will resonate with new stakeholders as Rakovina Therapeutics broadens investor communications outreach initially through our new collaboration with Red Cloud Securities and Proactive Investors”, added Mr. Bacha. “We also very much appreciate the continued support of our long-term shareholders and were pleased to announce a 12-month extension of our $0.40 investor warrants. The new expiry date is March 24, 2024, with all other terms of the warrants remaining unchanged.”   

Red Cloud Agreement

Subject to all required regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the “Exchange”), Red Cloud has been engaged to provide liquidity services to the Company in compliance with the policies and guidelines of the Exchange and other applicable legislation (the “Red Cloud Agreement”). Red Cloud is not promoting the specific purchase or sale of securities. Red Cloud will trade shares of Rakovina on the Exchange for the purposes of maintaining a reasonable market and improving the liquidity of Rakovina’s common shares.

Pursuant to terms of the Red Cloud Agreement, the Company will pay Red Cloud $5,000 per month during the term, payable quarterly in advance. The term of engagement is ongoing and may be terminated by either party with 30-day prior written notice. The Company and Red Cloud have an arm’s length relationship, but Red Cloud and/or its clients may have an interest, directly or indirectly, in the securities of Rakovina. The Red Cloud Agreement is principally for the purposes of maintaining market stability and liquidity for the Company's common shares and is not a formal market-making agreement. There are no performance factors contained in the Red Cloud Agreement and Red Cloud will not receive any shares or options from the Company as compensation for the services it will render.

Proactive Agreement

Proactive will provide a range of investor relations services to the Company, including editorial coverage of Rakovina news releases, publishing feature articles based on interviews with company executives, and the production of video interviews, strategic communications, and outreach to the investment community (the “Proactive Agreement”). The objective of the Proactive Agreement is to help Rakovina maintain an ongoing dialogue with investors, provide transparency, and increase the company's visibility in the marketplace.

The Proactive Agreement has an initial term of twelve (12) months, during which the Company will pay Proactive a fee of $28,000.

About Rakovina Therapeutics Inc.

Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. is focused on the development of new cancer treatments based on novel DNA-damage response technologies. The Company has established a pipeline of DNA-damage response inhibitors with the goal of advancing one or more drug candidates into human clinical trials and obtaining marketing approval for new cancer therapeutics from Health Canada, the United States Food and Drug Administration and similar international regulatory agencies. Further information may be found at www.rakovinatherapeutics.com.

Additional Information

The TSXV has neither approved nor disapproved the content of this press release. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Notice regarding forward-looking statements:

This release includes forward-looking statements regarding the Company and its respective business, which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the proposed business plan of the Company and other statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “plans”, “is expected”, “expects”, “scheduled”, “intends”, “contemplates”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “proposes” or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events, or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved. Such statements are based on the current expectations of the management of the Company. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur by certain specified dates or at all and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting the Company, including risks regarding the medical device industry, economic factors, regulatory factors, the equity markets generally and risks associated with growth and competition. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events, or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events, or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The reader is referred to the Company’s most recent filings on SEDAR for a more complete discussion of all applicable risk factors and their potential effects, copies of which may be accessed through the Company’s profile page at www.sedar.com.

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