SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anixa Biosciences, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the treatment and prevention of cancer, today announced that its collaborator, Cleveland Clinic, has received a “Decision to Grant” notice from the Japan Patent Office (JPO) for the patent application titled “Ovarian Cancer Vaccines.”
Anixa Chairman and CEO Dr. Amit Kumar commented, “This new Japanese patent extends the expanded claims for this novel ovarian cancer vaccine technology to another geographic region, joining the European and U.S. patents awarded last year. As the exclusive worldwide licensee of the technology, we highly value the broad protection this patent provides as our research and development continues. If our vaccine is approved, one of the most aggressive gynecological cancers could be prevented from ever developing in women globally.”
The Ovarian Cancer Vaccines patent was invented by the late Dr. Vincent Tuohy, Dr. Suparna Mazumder, and Dr. Justin Johnson of Cleveland Clinic. The researchers demonstrated in pre-clinical studies that vaccination against the extracellular domain of anti-Müllerian hormone receptor II (AMHR2-ED) significantly inhibits tumor growth and enhances overall survival. The results indicate that vaccinating women against AMHR2-ED could provide safe and effective preemptive immunity against epithelial ovarian carcinoma, the most common form of ovarian cancer.
Anixa is the exclusive worldwide licensee for the vaccine technology from Cleveland Clinic, a nonprofit, multispecialty academic medical center. Preclinical work on the vaccine is supported by the National Cancer Institute’s PREVENT Program, a peer-reviewed program designed to support development of the best ideas in cancer prevention.
About Anixa Bioscience’s Ovarian Cancer Vaccine
Anixa’s ovarian cancer vaccine takes advantage of endogenously produced proteins that have a function at certain times in life, but then become “retired” and disappear from the body. One such protein is the extracellular domain of anti-Müllerian hormone receptor II (AMHR2-ED) which regulates growth and development of egg-containing follicles in the ovaries and is expressed throughout much of a woman’s life, with expression naturally and markedly declining during menopause, but which is present in the majority of endothelian ovarian carcinomas. Activating the immune system against this “retired” protein provides preemptive immune protection against emerging ovarian tumors that express AMHR2-ED. The vaccine also contains an adjuvant that activates an innate immune response, which allows the immune system to mount a response against emerging tumors to prevent them from growing. This vaccine technology was invented by the late Dr. Vincent Tuohy, who was the Mort and Iris November Distinguished Chair in Innovative Breast Cancer Research in the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute. Dr. Tuohy was inventor of the technology, which Cleveland Clinic exclusively licensed to Anixa Biosciences. He was entitled to a portion of the commercialization revenues received by Cleveland Clinic and also held equity in Anixa.
About Anixa Biosciences, Inc.
Anixa is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the treatment and prevention of cancer. Anixa’s therapeutic portfolio consists of an ovarian cancer immunotherapy program being developed in collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center, which uses a novel type of CAR-T, known as chimeric endocrine receptor T cell (CER-T) technology. The Company’s vaccine portfolio includes a novel vaccine being developed in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic to prevent breast cancer – specifically triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most lethal form of the disease – as well as a vaccine to prevent ovarian cancer. These vaccine technologies focus on immunizing against “retired” proteins that have been found to be expressed in certain forms of cancer.
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