Benzinga | May 26, 2021 08:32AM EDT

Anixa Biosciences Announces Its Ovarian Cancer Vaccine Technology Is Part Of An Award From National Cancer Institute Through NCI-PREVENT Program

Anixa Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:ANIX), a biotechnology company focused on the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases, announced today that its ovarian cancer vaccine technology is part of an award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Anixa Biosciences holds an exclusive worldwide license from Cleveland Clinic for this vaccine technology.

The award from the NCI, part of the National Institutes of Health, was made to Cleveland Clinic through the NCI-PREVENT program.

The PREVENT program is a peer-reviewed agent development program designed to support preclinical 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 allocated to four general milestones as follows:

* Milestone 1: Immunogenicity and efficacy testing of the vaccine in mouse model

* Milestone 2: Development of the expression vector for optimal vaccine production

* Milestone 3: cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practice) manufacturing of vaccine and pre-IND (Investigational New Drug) meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration

* Milestone 4: IND enabling cGLP (current Good Laboratory Practice) studies and IND filing

All of this work will be performed at NCI facilities, by NCI scientific staff with NCI financial resources. Milestone 1 will begin shortly after execution of contracts and design of experiments. Milestones 2-4 will be performed successively as progress is achieved.

The technology subject to the application titled, Immunoprevention of Human Epithelial Ovarian Carcinoma (EOC), was invented by a research team led by Dr. Vincent Tuohy of Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute. Dr. Tuohy stated, "This peer-reviewed collaboration will provide us the vast laboratory and financial resources of the NCI to aid in the development of our vaccine. Our vision with this technology is to eliminate ovarian cancer worldwide, especially since women who suffer from ovarian cancer tend to have poor outcomes."

Dr. Amit Kumar, President and CEO of Anixa Biosciences, stated, "This technology along with Dr. Tuohy's breast cancer vaccine have the potential to eliminate two of the most common malignancies in women. We continue to be pleased to be collaborating on these programs."