Anixa Biosciences Inc 10-K

Item 1. Business. Overview Anixa Biosciences, Inc. is a biotechnology company developing vaccines and therapies that are focused on critical unmet needs in oncology and infectious disease. Our vaccine programs include (i) the development of a preventative vaccine against triple negative breast cancer (“TNBC”), the most lethal form of breast cancer, as well other forms of breast cancer and (ii) the development of a preventative vaccine against ovarian cancer. Our therapeutics programs include (i) the development of a chimeric endocrine receptor T-cell therapy, a novel form of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (“CAR-T”) technology, initially focused on treating ovarian cancer, which is being developed at our subsidiary, Certainty Therapeutics, Inc. (“Certainty”), and (ii) the development of anti-viral drug candidates for the treatment of COVID-19 focused on inhibiting certain protein functions of the virus. We hold an exclusive worldwide, royalty-bearing license to use certain intellectual property owned or controlled by The Cleveland Clinic Foundation (“Cleveland Clinic”) relating to certain breast cancer vaccine technology developed at Cleveland Clinic. Utilizing this technology, we are working in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic to develop a method to vaccinate women against contracting breast cancer, focused specifically on TNBC. The focus of this vaccine is a specific protein, α-lactalbumin, that is only expressed during lactation in a healthy mother’s mammary tissue. This protein disappears when the mother is no longer lactating, but reappears in many forms of breast cancer, especially TNBC. Studies have shown that vaccinating against this protein prevents breast cancer in mice. Following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (“FDA”) authorization to proceed with clinical trials in December 2020, in October 2021, we commenced dosing patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial of our breast cancer vaccine. This study, which is being funded by a U.S. Department of Defense grant, is a multiple-ascending dose Phase 1 trial to determine the maximum tolerated dose (“MTD”) of the vaccine in patients with early-stage, triple-negative breast cancer as well as monitor immune response. The study is being conducted at Cleveland Clinic and will consist of 18 to 24 patients who have completed treatment for early-stage, triple-negative breast cancer within the past three years and are currently tumor-free but at high risk for recurrence. During the course of the study, participants will receive three vaccinations, each two weeks apart, and will be closely monitored for side effects and immune response. Initial indications from preliminary analyses suggest that an immune response is being observed. In December 2022, we announced that we had reached the MTD. We are now expanding the MTD cohort and are vaccinating additional participants at that dose level. Upon completion of vaccination and follow-up tests of the expanded cohort, we will compile and analyze the data, and we anticipate presenting the complete immunological data from the trial at a scientific conference or similar setting in the second calendar quarter of 2023. In November 2020, we executed a license agreement with Cleveland Clinic pursuant to which the Company was granted an exclusive worldwide, royalty-bearing license to use certain intellectual property owned or controlled by Cleveland Clinic relating to certain ovarian cancer vaccine technology. This technology pertains to among other things, the use of vaccines for the treatment or prevention of ovarian cancers which express the anti-Mullerian hormone receptor 2 protein containing an extracellular domain (“AMHR2-ED”). In healthy tissue, this protein regulates growth and development of egg-containing follicles in the ovary. While expression of AMHR2-ED naturally and markedly declines after menopause, this protein is expressed at high levels in the ovaries of postmenopausal women with ovarian cancer. Researchers at Cleveland Clinic believe that a vaccine targeting AMHR2-ED could prevent the occurrence of ovarian cancer. We entered into a joint development agreement with Cleveland Clinic to advance this vaccine toward human clinical testing. In May 2021, Cleveland Clinic was granted an award for our ovarian cancer vaccine technology by the National Cancer Institute’s (“NCI”) PREVENT program. The NCI is a part of the National Institutes of Health. The PREVENT program is a peer-reviewed agent development program designed to support pre-clinical development of innovative interventions and biomarkers for cancer prevention and interception towards clinical trials. The scientific and financial resources of the PREVENT program will be used for our ovarian cancer vaccine technology to perform virtually all pre-clinical research and development, manufacturing and IND-enabling studies. This work is being performed at NCI facilities, by NCI scientific staff and with NCI financial resources and will require no material financial expenditures by the Company, nor the transfer of any rights to the Company’s assets. Our subsidiary, Certainty, is developing immuno-therapy drugs against cancer. Certainty holds an exclusive worldwide, royalty-bearing license to use certain intellectual property owned or controlled by The Wistar Institute (“Wistar”), the nation’s first independent biomedical research institute and a leading National Cancer Institute designated cancer research center, relating to Wistar’s chimeric endocrine receptor targeted therapy technology. We have initially focused on the development of a treatment for ovarian cancer, but we also may pursue applications of the technology for the development of treatments for additional solid tumors. The license agreement requires Certainty to make certain cash and equity payments to Wistar upon achievement of specific development milestones. With respect to Certainty’s equity obligations to Wistar, Certainty issued to Wistar shares of its common stock equal to five percent (5%) of the common stock of Certainty. 2 Certainty, in collaboration with the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Inc. (“Moffitt”), is advancing toward human clinical testing of the CAR-T technology licensed by Certainty from Wistar aimed initially at treating ovarian cancer. We received authorization from the FDA in August 2021, to commence enrollment and treatment of patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial. We began patient recruitment for the trial in March 2022, and in August 2022, we treated the first patient in the trial. The treatment appears to have been well-tolerated by the patient, and we continue to monitor her condition. The process of recruiting additional patients is ongoing. This study is a dose-escalation trial with two arms based on injection method—intraperitoneal or intravenous—to determine the maximum tolerated dose in patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer and to assess persistence, expansion and efficacy of the modified T-cells. The study is being conducted at Moffitt and will consist of 24 to 48 patients who have received at least two prior lines of chemotherapy. The study is estimated to be completed in two to four years depending on multiple factors including when maximum tolerated dose is reached, the rate of patient recruitment, and how long we maintain the two different injection methods. In April 2020, we entered into a collaboration with OntoChem GmbH (“OntoChem”) to discover and ultimately develop anti-viral drug candidates against COVID-19. Through this collaboration, we utilized advanced computational methods, machine learning, and molecular modeling techniques to perform in silico screening of over 1.2 billion compounds in chemical libraries (including publicly available compounds and OntoChem’s proprietary libraries) to evaluate if any of these compounds could disrupt one of two key enzymes of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19. The screening process resulted in the identification of multiple compounds that could potentially disrupt critical enzymes of the virus, including the virus’ main protease, M pro . Several of these compounds were synthesized and tested in in vitro biological assays. Upon completion of these biological assays, we identified two of the most promising compounds and tested them in animal models. In these animal studies, the two compounds were compared to Remdesivir, which at the time the assays were performed was the only anti-viral drug authorized by the FDA for COVID-19. The data showed that administration of the drugs to infected hamsters did not cause any noticeable adverse effects, and monitoring of weight and general animal behavior demonstrated comparable efficacy between each of our compounds and Remdesivir. Based on this promising data in the animal study, we directed our team to proceed to the next stage of drug development and we selected one of the compounds around which our team is performing combinatorial synthetic medicinal chemistry to evaluate whether potency can be increased and pharmacokinetics optimized. This work is ongoing. In May 2021, after completion of the aforementioned animal studies, OntoChem assigned its rights and obligations related to this collaboration to MolGenie GmbH (“MolGenie”), a company spun-out from OntoChem focused on drug discovery and development. As a result of the MolGenie spin-out, there was no change in the personnel working on our project, and the assignment caused no interruptions to the program’s development. While use of preventative vaccines is widespread throughout much of the developed world, we believe that there is and will continue to be a need for effective treatments for COVID-19. We believe that there are a number of factors that have limited the effectiveness, both in the near and long term, of the vaccines currently in use, including, but not limited to, vaccine persistence, viral escape and perceptions of long-term safety resulting in vaccine resistance. Furthermore, there are currently new anti-viral treatments, such as Pfizer’s Paxlovid, which is a combination therapy consisting of the protease-inhibitor nirmatrelvir and the antiretroviral ritonavir, that have been authorized for use in the U.S. As the main component of Pfizer’s treatment is a protease-inhibitor targeting M pro , it is most similar to our compounds, and we therefore conducted a head-to-head analysis via a Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) assay that tested the ability of the compounds to inhibit the function of M pro . The results of this head-to-head in vitro analysis suggested that our compounds may be five times more effective at inhibiting M pro than Pfizer’s nirmatrelvir. 3 Over the next several quarters, we expect the development of our breast and ovarian cancer vaccines, our COVID-19 therapeutic discovery program and Certainty’s CAR-T technology to be the primary focus of the Company. As part of our legacy operations, the Company remains engaged in limited patent licensing activities regarding its liquid biopsy platform and in the area of encrypted audio/video conference calling. We do not expect these activities to be a significant part of the Company’s ongoing operations nor do we expect these activities to require material financial resources or attention of senior management. Over the past several years, our revenue was derived from technology licensing and the sale of patented technologies, including revenue from the settlement of litigation. We have not generated any revenue to date from our therapeutics or vaccine programs. In addition, while we pursue our therapeutics and vaccine programs, we may also make investments in and form new companies to develop additional emerging technologies. We do not expect to begin generating revenue with respect to any of our current therapy or vaccine programs in the near term. Our strategy is to achieve a profitable outcome by eventually licensing our technologies to large pharmaceutical companies that have the resources and infrastructure in place to manufacture, market and sell our technologies as therapeutics or vaccines. The eventual licensing of any of our technologies may take several years, if it is to occur at all, and may depend on positive results from human clinical trials. Breast and Ovarian Cancer vaccines We licensed certain technology from Cleveland Clinic to develop vaccines for the treatment or prevention of TNBC and other breast cancers which express the α-lactalbumin protein. This protein is only expressed during lactation in healthy women, but may also be expressed in individuals with certain breast cancers, most notably TNBC, the most lethal form of breast cancer. Further, we have licensed certain technology from Cleveland Clinic to develop vaccines for the treatment or prevention of ovarian cancers which express AMHR2-ED. This protein regulates growth and development of egg-containing follicles in the ovary and its expression naturally and markedly declines after menopause. However, AMHR2-ED is expressed at high levels in the ovaries of postmenopausal women with ovarian cancer. Typically, vaccines harness the immune system to protect people from infectious diseases. Broad-based vaccination programs have essentially eliminated some of the most deadly and debilitating diseases in history, small pox and polio among them. However, there has been little success developing a preventative (prophylactic) vaccine against cancer. Vaccines work by exposing a benign form of a disease agent to an individual’s immune system. The immune system identifies the agent and learns to attack and destroy it, retaining a memory of the agent so the immune system knows to react quickly if an individual is exposed to the disease agent months or years later. Most vaccines attack pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria. The immune system is better able to assail these agents because they come from outside the body. Cancer, however, is caused by aberrant cells that arise out of our resident cells, which can make it difficult for our immune system to find the diseased cells, especially as advancing age weakens our immune system. Once these aberrant cells gain critical mass, they become cancer. Despite the lack of success with cancer vaccines, recently gained knowledge about the human immune system has led to the development, approval and commercialization of revolutionary immuno-therapy drugs. These drugs do not attack cancer directly, but rather modulate the immune system in ways that enable it to destroy or dramatically impair cancer cells. 4 The breast cancer vaccine technology licensed from Cleveland Clinic has identified a protein, alpha-lactalbumin, that is present in healthy breast tissue only when a woman is lactating and disappears when she stops nursing her child. Alpha-lactalbumin is never present on any other cell in the body. However, it does show up in many types of breast cancer, including TNBC, an aggressive and deadly form of the disease. By developing a vaccine that targets alpha-lactalbumin, we feel the immune system can destroy these breast cancer cells as they arise and ultimately prevent breast tumors from forming. Cleveland Clinic researchers have demonstrated in animal studies that vaccination against alpha-lactalbumin completely prevented breast cancer in mice that were specifically bred to develop breast cancer. Data on this technology, including the animal studies showing efficacy, was published in March 2016 in the journal, Cancers. The ovarian cancer vaccine technology licensed from Cleveland Clinic has identified the AMHR2-ED protein, the expression of which is involved in egg production in the ovaries and is no longer expressed after menopause. AMHR2-ED is not meaningfully present on any other cell in the body. However, it does appear in many cases of epithelial ovarian cancers, the most common type of ovarian cancer. By developing a vaccine that targets AMHR2-ED, we feel the immune system can destroy these ovarian cancer cells as they arise and ultimately prevent tumors from forming. Data on this technology, including animal studies showing efficacy, was published in November 2017 in the journal, Cancer Prevention Research. While the data thus far for both of our cancer vaccines has been positive, there are many uncertainties in drug development, and most drugs fail to reach commercialization. In October 2021, Cleveland Clinic began treating patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial of our breast cancer vaccine. In addition, we and our partners at Cleveland Clinic continue working with the NCI who are or will be performing pre-clinical research and development, manufacturing and IND-enabling studies to advance our ovarian cancer vaccine technology toward human clinical testing. The Breast Cancer Market According to American Cancer Society statistics, breast cancer accounts for over 30% of all female cancer cases, and 15% of cancer deaths in women. It is estimated that in 2022, 288,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. and 43,000 women will die from this disease. Despite continuous advances made in the field of cancer research every year, invasive female breast cancer incidence rates have been increasing by approximately 0.5% per year over the past 15 years. The market for prophylactic cancer vaccines is sizable—bigger in fact than the market for any type of cancer therapeutic. After all, doctors administer cancer drugs only after a patient has been diagnosed, while a prophylactic vaccine may be administered to all people who have a possibility of developing the disease. While in the U.S., 288,000 women are estimated to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, there are approximately 82 million women age 40 and over—the time in life when women face an increased risk of developing breast cancer. Worldwide, the number is dramatically larger. The Ovarian Cancer Market According to American Cancer Society statistics, ovarian cancer accounts for just 2% of all female cancer cases, but nearly 5% of cancer deaths in women due to the disease’s low survival rate. It is estimated that in 2022, 20,000 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed and 13,000 American women will die from this disease. Despite continuous advances made in the field of cancer research every year, we believe there remains a significant unmet medical need, as the overall five-year relative survival rate for ovarian cancer patients is 49%. However, ovarian cancer survival varies substantially by age, with the overall five-year survival rate for women 65 and older of only 33%. 5 The market for prophylactic cancer vaccines is sizable—bigger in fact than the market for any type of cancer therapeutic. While in the U.S., 20,000 women are estimated to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year, there are approximately 41 million women age 60 and over—the time in life when women face an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. Worldwide, the number is dramatically larger. Competition The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by intense and dynamic competition to develop new technologies and proprietary therapies. Any product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize will have to compete with existing therapies and new therapies that may become available in the future. While we believe that our proprietary breast and ovarian cancer vaccine technologies and scientific expertise in the field of cell therapy provide us with competitive advantages, we face potential competition from various sources, including larger and better-funded pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as from academic institutions, governmental agencies and public and private research institutions. Many of our competitors, either alone or with their strategic partners, have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do and significantly greater experience in the discovery and development of product candidates, obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of vaccines and commercializing those vaccines. Accordingly, our competitors may be more successful than us in obtaining approval for vaccines and achieving widespread market acceptance. Our competitors’ vaccines may be more effective, or more effectively marketed and sold, than any vaccine we may commercialize and may render our vaccines obsolete or non-competitive before we can recover the expenses of developing and commercializing any of our vaccines. Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical study sites and subject registration for clinical studies, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. We anticipate that we will face intense and increasing competition as new drugs and vaccines enter the market and advanced technologies become available. We expect any vaccines that we develop and commercialize to compete on the basis of, among other things, efficacy, safety, convenience of administration and delivery, price and the availability of reimbursement from government and other third-party payers. Our commercial opportunities could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other regulatory approvals for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approvals for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. 6 CAR-T therapeutics Certainty was formed to develop immuno-therapy drugs against cancer, and in November 2017, we entered into a license with Wistar whereby we obtained rights to certain intellectual property surrounding Wistar’s chimeric endocrine receptor targeted therapy technology. CAR-T therapeutics have demonstrated positive results in B-cell cancers, but very little progress has been made on solid tumors. Our CAR-T technology is initially focused on ovarian cancer and is based on engineering killer T-cells with the Follicle Stimulating Hormone (“FSH”) to target ovarian cells that express the FSH-Receptor. Data on this technology, including the animal studies showing efficacy, was published in January 2017 in the journal, Clinical Cancer Research. The FSH-Receptor has been shown to be a very exclusive protein found on a large percentage of ovarian cancer cells, but not on a significant number of non-ovarian healthy tissues in adult females. Studies have shown that the FSH-Receptor is also expressed in endothelial cells of the vasculature of neoplasias. We anticipate performing further studies to evaluate the ability of our CAR-T to disrupt the vasculature of other cancers, after we have analyzed data from clinical trials of this technology against ovarian cancer. We have been working with researchers at Moffitt to develop our CAR-T therapy. Moffitt is one of the top cancer centers in the country with pre-clinical and clinical expertise with CAR-T technology. Moffitt has conducted many of the highest profile CAR-T trials in the world. We performed numerous studies in preparation for human clinical studies. In those studies, several groups of tumor free, female mice were intra-peritoneally infused with increasing concentrations of the murine CAR-T construct and their health status was monitored for up to five months. The following summarizes the results of these studies: ● No treated mice showed any signs of pain/stress, difficulty breathing or increased respiratory rate, reduced movement, reduced grooming or feeding, dehydration, anorexia or any other sign of distress. Control mice also did not show any distress. ● The treated mice did not show any weight loss. Control mice also did not show any weight loss. ● One cohort of treated mice also had blood drawn periodically for measurement of markers for liver function (AST-Aspartate transaminase/ALT-Alanine transaminase), kidney function (creatinine), and metabolic function (glucose). No abnormal values were observed, as was the case for control mice. ● Serum IL-6 (interleukin-6) increased in the treated mice, as well as mice treated with control T-cells. This indicated that the T-cells were inducing the expected inflammatory response. ● Histological analysis of the ovaries showed that 60% of the treated mice had significant reduction in ovarian mass, while the control mice exhibited no reduction. This observation confirms that the CAR-T was successfully attacking the ovaries, as we hoped and expected. While these results are positive, there are many uncertainties in drug development, and most drugs fail to reach commercialization. In the future, we hope to achieve a profitable outcome by eventually licensing our technology to a large pharmaceutical company that has the resources and infrastructure in place to manufacture, market and sell our technology as a cancer treatment. 7 In August 2022, we treated the first patient in the trial. The treatment appears to have been well-tolerated by the patient, and we continue to monitor her condition. The process of recruiting additional patients is ongoing. This study is a dose-escalation trial with two arms based on injection method—intraperitoneal or intravenous—to determine the maximum tolerated dose in patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer and to assess persistence, expansion and efficacy of the modified T-cells. The study is being conducted at Moffitt and will consist of 24 to 48 patients who have received at least two prior lines of chemotherapy. The study is estimated to be completed in two to four years depending on multiple factors including when maximum tolerated dose is reached, the rate of patient recruitment, and how long we maintain the two different injection methods. The Market We believe that our CAR-T technology may be used as an effective treatment against multiple solid tumor types, however, we have initially focused on ovarian cancer. According to American Cancer Society statistics, ovarian cancer accounts for just 2% of all female cancer cases, but nearly 5% of cancer deaths in women due to the disease’s low survival rate. It is estimated that in 2022, approximately 20,000 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed and 13,000 American women will die from this disease. Despite continuous advances made in the field of cancer research every year, there remains a significant unmet medical need, as the overall five-year relative survival rate for ovarian cancer patients is 49%. However, ovarian cancer survival varies substantially by age, with the overall five-year survival rate for women 65 and older of only 33%. Competition The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by intense and dynamic competition to develop new technologies and proprietary therapies. Any product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize will have to compete with existing therapies and new therapies that may become available in the future. While we believe that our proprietary FSH-Receptor targeted immuno-therapy platform for treating solid tumors and scientific expertise in the field of cell therapy provide us with competitive advantages, we face potential competition from various sources, including larger and better-funded pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as from academic institutions, governmental agencies and public and private research institutions. Many of our competitors, either alone or with their strategic partners, have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do and significantly greater experience in the discovery and development of product candidates, obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of treatments and commercializing those treatments. Accordingly, our competitors may be more successful than us in obtaining approval for treatments and achieving widespread market acceptance. Our competitors’ treatments may be more effective, or more effectively marketed and sold, than any treatment we may commercialize and may render our treatments obsolete or non-competitive before we can recover the expenses of developing and commercializing any of our treatments. Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical study sites and subject registration for clinical studies, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our program. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. We anticipate that we will face intense and increasing competition as new drugs enter the market and advanced technologies become available. We expect any treatments that we develop and commercialize to compete on the basis of, among other things, efficacy, safety, convenience of administration and delivery, price and the availability of reimbursement from government and other third-party payers. 8 Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. COVID-19 therapeutics Coronavirus disease 2019 (“COVID-19”) is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (“SARS-CoV-2”). The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, and has since spread globally, resulting in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 is highly infectious, and while in the majority of cases results in mild symptoms, in many cases the symptoms progress to viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure. There are currently few broadly effective treatment options. Further, nearly all treatments currently in use or in clinical trials were originally developed for other indications, and were not designed specifically against SARS-CoV-2, and therefore may have limited effectiveness. We believe that newly designed drugs that are purposefully developed to specifically target SARS-CoV-2, enabled by recent studies of the molecular biology of the virus, will have the potential to be far more effective than repurposing existing drugs. In April 2020, we entered into a collaboration agreement with OntoChem, who subsequently assigned its rights and obligations under the collaboration agreement to MolGenie, for the purpose of discovering and ultimately developing anti-viral drug candidates for COVID-19. Our collaboration has primarily focused on the virus’ main protease (“M pro ”), which is an enzyme of the virus that severs a large poly-peptide into functional proteins that enable the virus to replicate in a human host. Our program has focused on identifying molecules that inhibit the function of this enzyme, and potentially stop or slow the virus’ ability to replicate and cause disease. Since this protease does not have human analogs, potential inhibitors may not affect any human proteins and therefore toxic side effects may be minimized. Through our collaboration, we utilized advanced computational methods, machine learning and molecular modeling techniques to perform in silico screening of over 1.2 billion compounds in OntoChem’s chemistry and gene ontology database (including publicly available compounds and OntoChem’s proprietary libraries) to evaluate if any of these compounds could disrupt M pro and to evaluate the molecules’ potential side effects, as well as their drug-like characteristics. This screening process resulted in identifying a large number of compounds that could potentially be safe and effective against COVID-19. The screening process resulted in the identification of multiple compounds that could potentially disrupt critical enzymes of the virus. Several of these compounds were synthesized and tested in in vitro biological assays. Upon completion of these biological assays, we identified two of the most promising compounds and tested them in animal models. In these animal studies, the two compounds were compared to Remdesivir, which at the time the assays were performed was the only anti-viral drug authorized by the FDA for COVID-19. The data showed that administration of the drugs to infected hamsters did not cause any noticeable adverse effects, and monitoring of weight and general animal behavior demonstrated comparable efficacy between each of our compounds and Remdesivir. Based on this promising data in the animal study, we directed our collaboration partners to proceed to the next stage of drug development and we selected one of the compounds around which our partners and other third-party service providers are performing combinatorial synthetic medicinal chemistry to evaluate whether potency can be increased and pharmacokinetics optimized. This work is ongoing. 9 As SARS-CoV-2 has continued to mutate over the course of the pandemic, we have performed genomic variant analysis to determine whether our compounds may be effective against multiple variants. To date, the results of such analyses have shown that either no significant mutations have been found in or near the active site of the M pro enzyme or any known mutations do not change the function of the enzyme, and therefore we believe that our compounds should be effective against multiple variants, including the Omicron variant and its subvariants, though there is no assurance that this will be the case. The Market According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) data, as of the date of this Report, in the U.S., there have been over 100 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 1.1 million deaths. According to World Health Organization (“WHO”) data, globally, there have been 650 million cases and over 6.6 million people have died. While the infection and death rates have reduced significantly since the peak of the pandemic, according to the most recent CDC data, in the U.S. the current 7-day average of weekly new cases is approximately 65,000, the 7-day average daily hospitalizations is approximately 5,000 and the 7-day average daily deaths is over 400. Currently, there are few broadly effective treatment options for COVID-19. Further, the most common treatments that are currently being employed, were originally developed for other indications, and were not designed specifically against SARS-CoV-2, and therefore may have limited effectiveness. In addition, the orally-available anti-viral treatment developed by Pfizer has limitations as it requires a combination therapy with an antiretroviral drug commonly used to treat HIV and is known to have challenging side effects. The market for orally delivered COVID-19 treatments that are effective against multiple variants of the virus, with limited side effects would be significant. Competition Competition in the COVID-19 treatment and prevention market is fierce, with hundreds of therapies and vaccines currently in development. There are currently a number of preventative vaccines that have received regulatory approvals globally. While these vaccines have been effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19, there remain challenges regarding persistence and viral escape as well as the resistance to vaccination by a significant portion of the population and also the difficulty in vaccinating and boosting the world population. Further, the current leading treatment is the orally-available combination protease-inhibitor-antiretroviral Paxlovid, developed by Pfizer. Any product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize will have to compete with existing therapies and vaccines and new therapies and vaccines that may become available in the future. While we believe that our proprietary compounds for treating COVID-19 and scientific expertise in the field of synthetic chemistry provide us with competitive advantages, we face potential competition from various sources, including larger and better-funded pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as from academic institutions, governmental agencies and public and private research institutions. Many of our competitors, either alone or with their strategic partners, have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do and significantly greater experience in the discovery and development of product candidates, obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of treatments and commercializing those treatments. Accordingly, our competitors may be more successful than us in obtaining approval for treatments and achieving widespread market acceptance. Our competitors’ treatments may be more effective, or more effectively marketed and sold, than any treatment we may commercialize and may render our treatments obsolete or non-competitive before we can recover the expenses of developing and commercializing any of our treatments. 10 Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical study sites and subject registration for clinical studies, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our program. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. We anticipate that we will face intense and increasing competition as new drugs enter the market and advanced technologies become available. We expect any treatments that we develop and commercialize to compete on the basis of, among other things, efficacy, safety, convenience of administration and delivery, price and the availability of reimbursement from government and other third-party payers. Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. Employees As of October 31, 2022, we had five employees, four full-time and one part time, working for our Company and subsidiaries. In addition, we work with research teams at Moffitt, Cleveland Clinic, and MolGenie, as well as their subcontractors, to develop each of our projects. Summary Risk Factors The risk factors described below are a summary of the principal risk factors associated with an investment in us. These are not the only risks we face. You should carefully consider these risk factors, together with the risk factors set forth in Item 1A. of this Report and the other reports and documents filed by us with the SEC. Risks Relating to Our Financial Condition and Operations ● We have a history of losses and may incur additional losses in the future. ● We will need additional funding in the future which may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all, and, if available, may result in dilution to our stockholders. ● We may have difficulty in raising capital and may consume resources faster than expected. Risks Related to our Research & Development, Clinical and Commercialization Activities ● Our therapeutic and vaccine programs are pre-revenue, and subject to the risks of an early stage biotechnology company. ● Our current business model relies on strategic collaborations with commercial partners to provide the resources and infrastructure to manufacture and ultimately market and/or sell our technologies. We may have difficulty in timing the establishment of these partnerships to achieve the greatest economic benefit for the Company, or in establishing these partnerships at all. 11 ● If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our product candidates. ● We have never generated any revenue from biotechnology and pharmaceutical product sales and our biotechnology and pharmaceutical products may never be profitable. ● The therapeutics and vaccines that we are developing are novel and present significant challenges to successfully reaching market. ● While pre-clinical testing of our product candidates has been positive, we may experience unfavorable results and unforeseen delays once we commence human clinical trials. ● We are dependent on third parties to conduct our pre-clinical and clinical trials. ● If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected. ● We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and our operating results will suffer if we fail to compete effectively. Risks Related to our Intellectual Property ● We rely on licenses from Wistar for our CAR-T technology and Cleveland Clinic for our breast and ovarian cancer vaccine technologies, and if we lose any of these licenses it may remove or limit our ability to develop and commercialize products and technology covered by these license agreements and we may be subjected to future litigation. Risks Related to our Common Stock ● The issuance or sale of shares in the future, including in connection with our current “at the market offering” program, to raise money or for strategic purposes could reduce the market price of our common stock. ● We have issued a significant number of securities pursuant to our incentive plans and may continue to do so in the future. The vesting and, if applicable, exercise of these securities and the sale of the shares of common stock issuable thereunder may dilute your percentage ownership interest and may also result in downward pressure on the price of our common stock. Risks Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic ● Our business activities, including our clinical trials, may be delayed or otherwise adversely affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Other We were incorporated on November 5, 1982 under the laws of the State of Delaware. Our principal executive offices are located at 3150 Almaden Expressway, San Jose, California 95118, our telephone number is (408) 708-9808 and our Internet website address is www.anixa.com. We make available free of charge on or through our Internet website our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements on Schedule 14A, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such materials with, or furnish them to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). Alternatively, you may also access our reports at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. 12