On July 8, 2025 Xenetic Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:XBIO) ("Xenetic" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on advancing innovative immuno-oncology technologies addressing difficult to treat cancers, reported that its collaboration partner, PeriNess Ltd. (PeriNess), has informed the Company that Bnei Zion Medical Center has commenced patient dosing in an exploratory clinical study of systemic DNase I in combination with FOLFIRINOX for the first line treatment of unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer (Press release, Xenetic Biosciences, JUL 8, 2025, View Source [SID1234654285]).

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Dr. Abed Agbabrya, head of Oncology at the Bnei Zion Hospital, will act as the principal investigator and all work will be conducted at The Fund for Medical Research, Development of Infrastructure and Health services – Bnei Zion Medical Center in Israel.

Dr. Dmitry Genkin, Xenetic Chairman stated, "We are very pleased with the update provided by PeriNess and for the start of patient dosing in this exploratory study. We remain committed to advancing our systemic recombinant human DNase I technology into the clinical stage. The ability of DNase I to degrade neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in the pancreatic cancer tumor microenvironment holds promise to improve clinical responses in a critically underserved patient population. We look forward to further exploring the full potential of DNase I."

PeriNess has informed the Company that the exploratory study is evaluating the safety, biomarker response, pharmacokinetics (PK) and clinical activity of DNase I in combination with first line regimen of FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. All patients will receive intravenous infusions of DNase I on Days 1 and 8 of consecutive 14-day cycles. Safety will be continuously evaluated until the end of the study. DNase I pharmacokinetics will be evaluated on Days 1 and 2 of the first FOLFIRINOX cycle and Days 1 and 2 of the third FOLFIRINOX cycle. Neutrophil extracellular traps biomarkers will be evaluated on Day 1 of the first FOLFIRINOX cycle and every 4 weeks thereafter. Clinical activity will be evaluated by the Objective Response Rate (ORR) using Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST 1.1) and Progression-Free Survival (PFS).

As previously announced, in December 2024, Xenetic entered into a Clinical Trial Services Agreement with PeriNess, under which PeriNess will lead in the regulatory approval, operational execution and management of potential exploratory, investigator initiated studies of recombinant DNase as an adjunctive treatment in patients with pancreatic carcinoma and other locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors receiving chemotherapy and immunotherapy in Israeli medical centers.