AI Cracks Mitochondrial Code in Push for New Cancer Therapies

NESS ZIONA, ISRAEL – May 18, 2026

Nexentis Technologies has announced a significant breakthrough from its subsidiary, MitoCareX Bio, potentially paving the way for a new class of drugs targeting hard-to-treat cancers and inflammatory diseases. The company successfully generated an optimized "hit molecule," a crucial step in early-stage drug discovery, bringing a novel therapy candidate meaningfully closer to pre-clinical trials.

The achievement marks the first major research and development milestone for MitoCareX since its acquisition by Nexentis in late 2025. It serves as a powerful validation for the company's proprietary AI-driven platform, MITOLINE®, which was used to overcome one of modern pharmacology's most difficult challenges.

Cracking the "Undruggable" with AI

At the heart of this breakthrough is the MITOLINE® algorithm. This proprietary technology addresses a long-standing bottleneck in medicine: targeting the family of mitochondrial carrier proteins known as SLC25. These proteins are vital for cellular energy and metabolism, and their dysfunction is implicated in numerous diseases. However, their complex structure, embedded within the mitochondrial membrane, has made them notoriously difficult to study and, therefore, "undruggable" by conventional methods.

The primary obstacle has been a near-total absence of experimentally solved 3D structures for these proteins. Without a clear map of the target, designing a drug that can bind to it effectively is like trying to design a key for a lock you've never seen.

MITOLINE® circumvents this problem. The U.S. trademark-registered algorithm uses advanced sequence analysis to generate reliable 3D comparative models of SLC25 proteins. This virtual blueprint allows researchers to perform computer-aided drug design, screening millions of potential compounds to find ones that could theoretically bind to the protein and alter its function. It was through this process that MitoCareX identified its initial hit compound, which has now been systematically refined by medicinal chemists into the optimized molecule announced today.

"Achieving our first drug discovery milestone since the acquisition of MitoCareX, is a testament to the power of the MITOLINE® platform and the quality of MitoCareX's drug discovery team," said David Palach, Chief Executive Officer of Nexentis Technologies, in a statement. "MITOLINE® gave us the structural insight to identify a differentiated starting point for our medicinal chemistry program. The team has now built on that foundation by generating optimized molecules with demonstrated improvements in metabolic stability and drug-like properties."

Targeting Multi-Billion Dollar Markets

The potential applications for a successful drug targeting the SLC25 family are vast and address significant unmet medical needs. MitoCareX's program is focused on two of the largest and most challenging areas in medicine: oncology and inflammatory metabolic diseases.

Cancer cells often rewire their metabolism to fuel rapid growth, a process in which mitochondrial SLC25 proteins play a key role. By inhibiting specific carriers, researchers believe they can starve cancer cells, prevent their growth, and even overcome resistance to existing therapies. The global cancer therapy market is a colossal and growing field, projected to expand from roughly $270 billion in 2026 to nearly $447 billion by 2031.

Similarly, mitochondrial dysfunction is a core component of chronic inflammatory diseases. The company's small molecule approach could offer a new way to treat conditions like nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a severe form of fatty liver disease for which there are currently no approved treatments. The broader anti-inflammatory drug market is also massive, expected to grow to $185 billion by 2031. MitoCareX aims to develop an orally available small molecule, a highly sought-after modality that offers convenience and broader patient access compared to injectable biologic drugs.

A Hybrid Strategy: Balancing Biotech and Energy

Nexentis Technologies (NASDAQ: NXTS) presents an unusual profile for a biotech firm. While its subsidiary MitoCareX pursues high-risk, high-reward drug discovery, the parent company also maintains a diversified portfolio that includes investments in European solar energy projects. This dual strategy of pairing volatile biotech R&D with more stable, asset-based investments in renewable energy is a deliberate attempt to mitigate risk.

The company's energy investments follow a "Ready to Build" (RTB) model, focusing on solar projects that have already cleared most development hurdles, thus carrying lower execution risk. The rationale is that predictable, long-term revenue from these energy assets could provide a financial cushion and a potential source of non-dilutive funding for the capital-intensive drug development pipeline at MitoCareX.

This hybrid model follows the acquisition of MitoCareX in October 2025, a move designed to pivot the former N2OFF Inc. into the lucrative but challenging therapeutics space. The integration appears to be bearing fruit with this first milestone, but the strategy is not without its complexities. The company's stock has faced volatility, and some market analysts remain cautious, reflecting the inherent uncertainty of balancing two disparate industries. This milestone, however, provides a tangible data point suggesting the high-risk portion of its portfolio is making concrete progress.

The Long Road from Molecule to Medicine

While the generation of an optimized hit molecule is a critical inflection point, it marks the beginning, not the end, of a long and arduous journey. MitoCareX is now advancing its candidate toward pre-clinical development, the next major stage in the pharmaceutical pipeline.

This phase involves extensive laboratory and animal testing to assess the drug's safety, dosage, and effectiveness before it can even be considered for human trials. This pre-clinical stage is a crucial filter where many promising compounds fail due to unforeseen toxicity or a lack of desired effect.

Should the molecule prove successful in pre-clinical studies, MitoCareX would file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with regulatory bodies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Only then could it proceed to a multi-year, three-phase clinical trial process in humans. Historically, the odds are steep: data suggests that only about 10-12% of small molecule drugs that enter clinical trials ultimately receive marketing approval. The journey from a pre-clinical compound to an approved drug is one of the most expensive and high-failure endeavors in any industry.

For Nexentis and its investors, this milestone is a significant validation of its AI platform and acquisition strategy. It demonstrates that the MITOLINE® algorithm can generate tangible results, moving a potential first-in-class therapy from a theoretical concept to a physical molecule with improved drug-like properties, a crucial step on the long path to the pharmacy shelf.