On February 27, 2023 Anixa Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANIX) ("Anixa"), a biotechnology company focused on the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases, reported that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a Notice of Allowance broadening protection of Anixa’s novel breast cancer vaccine technology (Press release, Anixa Biosciences, FEB 27, 2023, View Source [SID1234627713]). This technology was invented and developed at Cleveland Clinic and Anixa is the exclusive worldwide licensee.
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The patent is titled, "Vaccine Adjuvants and Formulations," and the lead inventor is the late Dr. Vincent Tuohy, of Cleveland Clinic. This patent covers additional intellectual property related to the formulation of Anixa’s breast cancer vaccine.
"We are pleased to receive this notice of allowance from the USPTO, confirming additional protection of our breast cancer vaccine technology," stated Dr. Amit Kumar, Chairman and CEO of Anixa. "This breast cancer vaccine has the potential to prevent Triple Negative Breast Cancer ("TNBC"), the deadliest form of breast cancer, and perhaps other forms of breast cancer that express alpha-lactalbumin. With our partners at Cleveland Clinic, we are currently performing clinical trials of this vaccine, and plan to present data from the trial at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) in April."
About Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
One in eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer at some point in their lives. Approximately 10-15% of those diagnoses are TNBC, however TNBC accounts for a disproportionately higher percentage of breast cancer deaths and has a higher rate of recurrence. This form of breast cancer is twice as likely to occur in African-American women, and approximately 70% to 80% of the breast tumors that occur in women with mutations in the BRCA1 genes are triple-negative breast cancer.
About Anixa Bioscience’s Breast Cancer Vaccine
Anixa’s breast cancer vaccine, currently in Phase 1 trials, 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 a breast-specific lactation protein, α-lactalbumin, which is no longer found post-lactation in normal, aging tissues, but is present in the majority of triple-negative breast cancers. Activating the immune system against this "retired" protein provides preemptive immune protection against emerging breast tumors that express α-lactalbumin. 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 is named as inventor on the technology, which Cleveland Clinic exclusively licensed to Anixa Biosciences.