Oncotelic Joins Chopra Foundation and Heart Foundation of India to Provide Relief for India's Explosive 2nd Wave of Covid.

AGOURA HILLS, California, May 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Oncotelic Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB:OTLC) ("Oncotelic"), a leading developer of TGF-β therapeutics for oncology and infectious disease and respiratory health will be working with Chopra Foundation and Heart Care Foundation to provide COVID-19 relief for India, including medicines and oxygen concentrators.

Medicines will include PulmoHeal^™, created by Oncotelic and our Indian partner - Windlas Biotech Pvt. Ltd. PulmoHeal^™ is already available over-the-counter (OTC) in India on e-commerce platforms and pharmacies. PulmoHeal^™ has been shown to improve long term respiratory recovery from COVID-19 and possibly from overuse of supplement oxygen- an area of unmet medical needs.

The deployment of PulmoHeal^™ on a large scale will also enable the use of its Post Marketing Survey platform (PMS), which includes the cough artificial intelligence (AI) platform. Put together, PulmoHeal^™ will enable the collection of data on the progression of patients' response to COVID with its use, as well as other COVID medications. India is caught in a ferocious second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, with the Indian authorities reporting in excess of 400,000 new COVID-19 cases per day. Every one of these patients are participating in an uncontrolled clinical experimentation since there is no proven treatment protocol for COVID-19, except for dexamethasone. It is our objective to leverage our crowd source PMS platform to gather performance data across the multitude of experimental therapeutics being deployed on the Indian community such as Ivermectin, Vitamins, and Ayurvedic drugs. The goal is to arrive at definitive answer as to what is working and what is not working.

“Heart Care Foundation of India has been involved in providing free oxygen concentrators to those patients whose oxygen levels are dropping and who are not able to find a bed or resource in hospitals. This humanitarian deployment of PulmoHeal^™, together with oxygen, should be synergistic in both the immediate and long-term recovery of COVID-19 patients in India." Said Saran Saund, Chief Business Officer, Oncotelic.

About the Chopra Foundation

The Chopra Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) organization dedicated to improving health and well-being, cultivating spiritual knowledge, expanding consciousness, and promoting world peace to all members of the human family. The mission of the Chopra Foundation is to advance the cause of mind/body spiritual healing, education, and research through fundraising for selected projects.

Chopra Foundation is using the Go Fund Me platform to raise donations which will be deployed to the non-profit Heart Care Foundation of India (HCFI) to donate supplies like oxygen tanks and concentrators as well as medicine therapies to citizens in need. For more information, please go to:

About Heart Care Foundation:

The Heart Care Foundation of India has been actively involved in literary activities as well as patient care since its inception and our efforts particularly gained pace during the Covid 19 pandemic as the need to educate and help more and more people was felt more than ever.

Dr KK Aggarwal, President Heart Care Foundation of India, undertook a mission to educate more than 1% of the population on digital platforms. More than 30 million viewers have been sensitized on COVID in 2021 alone through various social media channels. The Heart Care Foundation is running a 12hr free OPD on Zoom, with the meeting ID - 84290921517. We have a team of covid educators and doctors offering free consultation to almost 1000 patients daily for free. Over 1000 school principals and teachers have been trained as COVID guides. The Heart Care Foundation also trained 1000 health educators in 2020.

Regular update sessions are conducted on zoom to address the problems faced by patients daily as well by different experts. Heart Care Foundation of India has been involved in providing free oxygen concentrators to those patients whose oxygen levels are dropping and who are not able to find a bed or resource in hospitals. These oxygen concentrators are provided along with the treatment protocol which can be followed under the home management guidelines. The Heart Care Foundation is proud to announce this initiative saves- countless lives last year. This new wave of Covid 19 has been more deadly and dangerous and Heart Care Foundation of India has been on its toes to increase their resources to help the society at large

About ARTIVeda^™/PulmoHeal^™

The product, ARTIVeda^™ / PulmoHeal^™ is a formulated plant extract of the indigenous plant Artemisia, known in Sanskrit texts as Damanaka. ARTIVeda^™ / PulmoHeal^™ is the first Ayurvedic drug against COVID-19 through TGF-β inhibition. ARTIVeda^™ / PulmoHeal^™ is expected to be effective through the entire infection cycle. The active component of ARTIVeda^™ / PulmoHeal™ has been identified as artemisinin. Through proprietary GMP quality extraction and manufacturing processes, the Artemisia extract was rendered active against COVID-19 with robust Safety Index (SI) greater than 100 (ratio of nonspecific cell kill versus viral kill). Other extracts have SI <10. Testing was performed at the US NIAID core viral laboratory. ARTIVeda^™ / PulmoHeal^™ is protected by a patent portfolio of over 15 international patents by Oncotelic's R&D. The mechanism of action against COVID-19 has been confirmed in 5 key peer reviewed international scientific/medical publications. ARTIVeda^™ / PulmoHeal^™ is designed to target multiple viral threats including COVID-19 by suppressing both viral replication and clinical symptoms that arise from viral infection. We have a product to be a cost effective prophylactic suitable for global deployment. For more information please visit .

About Oncotelic

Oncotelic (formerly known as Mateon Therapeutics, Inc.) was created by the 2019 reverse merger with Oncotelic, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Oncotelic, thereby creating an immuno-oncology company dedicated to the development of first in class RNA therapeutics as well as small molecule drugs against cancer and infectious diseases. OT-101, the lead immuno-oncology drug candidate of Oncotelic, is a first-in-class anti-TGF-βRNA therapeutic that exhibited single agent activity in some relapsed/refractory cancer patients in clinical trial settings. OT-101 also has shown activity against SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. Oncotelic is seeking to leverage its deep expertise in oncology drug development to improve treatment outcomes and survival of cancer patients with a special emphasis on rare pediatric cancers. Oncotelic has rare pediatric designation for DIPG (OT-101), melanoma (CA4P), and AML (OXi4503). For more information, please visit and .

Oncotelic's Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this communication regarding strategy, future operations, future financial position, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. Words such as "may", "expect", "anticipate" "hope", "vision", "optimism", "design", "exciting", "promising", "will", "conviction", "estimate," "intend," "believe", "quest for a cure of cancer", "innovation-driven", "paradigm-shift", "high scientific merit", "impact potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements about future plans, the progress, timing, clinical development, scope and success of future clinical trials, the reporting of clinical data for the company's product candidates and the potential use of the company's product candidates to treat various cancer indications. Each of these forward-looking statements involves risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Many factors may cause differences between current expectations and actual results, including unexpected safety or efficacy data observed during preclinical or clinical studies, clinical trial site activation or enrollment rates that are lower than expected, changes in expected or existing competition, changes in the regulatory environment, failure of collaborators to support or advance collaborations or product candidates and unexpected litigation or other disputes. These risks are not exhaustive, the company faces known and unknown risks, including the risk factors described in the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on April 10, 2019 and in the company's other periodic filings. Forward-looking statements are based on expectations and assumptions as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, the company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in expectations, whether as a result of new information future events, or otherwise.

Contact Information:

For Oncotelic Therapeutics, Inc.:

Amit Shah