Anixa Biosciences (ANIX) 10-K2020 FY Annual report

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

Commission file number: 001-37492

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

3150 Almaden Expressway, Suite 250

San Jose, CA 95118

(408) 708-9808

(Address, Including Zip Code, and Telephone Number, Including Area Code, of Registrant’s Principal Executive Offices)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes [  ] No [X]

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes [  ] No [X]

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes [X] No [  ]

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes [X] No [  ]

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. [  ]

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. [  ]

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. [  ]

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes [  ] No [X]

Aggregate market value of the voting stock (which consists solely of shares of common stock) held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of April 30, 2020 (the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter), computed by reference to the closing sale price of the registrant’s common stock on the NASDAQ on such date ($1.89): $35,235,950

On January 7, 2021, the registrant had outstanding 26,076,819 shares of common stock, par value $.01 per share, which is the registrant’s only class of common stock.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:

NONE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING

STATEMENTS

Information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Report”) contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical facts, but rather reflect our current expectations concerning future events and results. We generally use the words “believes,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “likely,” “will” and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, including those concerning our expectations, involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control, which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in this Report under “Item 1A. – Risk Factors” below. Except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. You are cautioned not to unduly rely on such forward-looking statements when evaluating the information presented in this Report.

CERTAIN TERMS USED IN THIS REPORT

References in this Report to “we,” “us,” “our,” the “Company” or “Anixa” means Anixa Biosciences, Inc. unless otherwise indicated.

PART I

Overview

Anixa Biosciences, Inc., incorporated on November 5, 1982 under the laws of the State of Delaware, is a biotechnology company developing therapies and vaccines that are focused on critical unmet needs in oncology and infectious disease. Our therapeutics programs include the development of a chimeric endocrine receptor T-cell technology, a novel form of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (“CAR-T”) technology, initially focused on treating ovarian cancer, and the discovery and ultimately development of anti-viral drug candidates for the treatment of COVID-19 focused on inhibiting certain viral protein functions of the virus. Our vaccine programs include the development of a vaccine against triple negative breast cancer (“TNBC”), the most lethal form of breast cancer, and a vaccine against ovarian cancer.

Our subsidiary, Certainty Therapeutics, Inc. (“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 future 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.

Certainty, in collaboration with the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Inc. (“Moffitt”), is advancing toward human clinical testing the CAR-T technology licensed by Certainty from Wistar aimed initially at treating ovarian cancer. Certainty is working with researchers at Moffitt to complete and submit an Investigational New Drug (“IND”) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and to perform human clinical trials. In collaboration with researchers at Moffitt, Certainty is currently performing tests on the clinical materials and assuming successful and timely completion of those tests, we anticipate an IND application will be submitted with the FDA during the first calendar quarter of 2021.

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 identifiying over 30 potentially effective compounds that could disrupt either the function of a viral enzyme called an endoribonuclease, known as Non-Structural Protein-15 (“NSP-15”), or the main protease (“M^pro”) of the virus. Our in silico molecular modeling indicates that any of the NSP-15 or M^pro inhibitors might disrupt the virus’ ability to replicate in humans. Several of the most promising compounds have been synthesized and in vitro biological assays of the compounds are ongoing. If the biological activity of any of these compounds is verified, they will be tested in animal studies to further evaluate their candidacy as COVID-19 therapeutics.

While a number of preventative vaccines have recently been or will soon be approved for emergency use by the FDA, we believe that there is and will continue to be a need for effective treatments for COVID-19. There are a number of factors that may limit 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 long-term safety. Furthermore, all current treatments require administration in a hospital setting, thus potentially continuing to overburden the healthcare system, while we anticipate our treatment to use an oral formulation and to be available at pharmacies.

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. This technology pertains to the use of vaccines for the treatment or prevention of TNBC and other breast cancers which express the α-lactalbumin protein. The α-lactalbumin protein is only expressed during lactation in healthy women, but may also be expressed in individuals with certain breast cancers, most notably TNBC.

Working with researchers at Cleveland Clinic, in November 2020, we submitted an IND application with the FDA to begin human clinical trials of the vaccine. In December 2020, we received authorization from the FDA to commence enrollment and treatment of patients in a Phase 1a clinical trial. We have commenced activities necessary to prepare for treatment of patients in the Phase 1a trial, and we anticipate being prepared to treat the first enrolled patient in the spring of 2021.

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.

On July 2, 2020, we implemented a strategic realignment of our business and redirected resources to exclusively focus on the development of therapeutics and vaccines. Accordingly, we suspended operations of our subsidiary, Anixa Diagnostics Corporation, and the development of the Cchek™ artificial intelligence driven platform of non-invasive blood tests for the early detection of cancer.

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 the Cchek™ liquid biopsy platform, as well as 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. We hope 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.

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 commence clinical trials of this technology against ovarian cancer.

We are working with researchers at Moffitt to complete studies necessary to submit an IND application with the FDA. We then anticipate taking this therapy into human clinical testing for patients suffering from ovarian cancer. 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 have performed numerous studies in preparation for an IND application. 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:

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.

In October 2018, we attended a pre-IND meeting with the FDA to discuss numerous aspects of the planned clinical trial of our CAR-T therapy for ovarian cancer. The FDA answered a number of questions, providing a good understanding of the design for the clinical trial in our IND application.

We have completed the manufacturing of the clinical grade vector and are in the process of testing the materials and completing the IND application. We anticipate filing the IND in the first calendar quarter of 2021. The IND application, after review and approval by the FDA, will enable us to begin testing our therapy in ovarian cancer patients. Assuming the FDA approves our IND application, we anticipate beginning the human clinical trial as early as mid-2021.

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 2.4% of all female cancer cases, but 5% of cancer deaths in women due to the disease’s low survival rate. It is estimated that in 2020, 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed and 14,000 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 48%. However, ovarian cancer survival varies substantially by age, with the overall five-year survival rate for women 65 and older of only 31%.

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.

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 no proven broadly effective treatments. Further, all treatments that are currently being employed require administration in a hospital setting, thus continuing to overburden the healthcare system. In addition, nearly all treatments currently 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 for the purpose of discovering and ultimately developing anti-viral drug candidates for COVID-19. Our collaboration has focused on two specific proteins of the coronavirus. The first protein is the 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 will attempt to identify 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.

The second target is an endoribonuclease, Non-Structural Protein-15 (“NSP-15”), which plays a role in breaking up the ribonucleic acid, or the genetic content, of the virus. Recent studies have demonstrated that the endoribonuclease of many viruses, including the SARS virus of 2003 and, it is believed the SARS-CoV-2, binds to a human host protein. This protein-protein interaction appears to dramatically increase the infectivity of the virus. Because this interaction between a viral protein and a human protein appears to be common to many viruses, compounds that are able to effectively disrupt this interaction, could function as broad spectrum anti-virals in addition to addressing COVID-19.

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 or NSP-15 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.

We selected the ten most promising compounds for synthesis and biological analysis. Biological testing of these compounds requires use of live virus, which limits the laboratories qualified to perform the necessary assays to Biosafety Level 3 (“BSL-3”) or Biosafety Level 4 labs. While availability of these labs is limited, we successfully established a relationship with a BSL-3 government lab in Europe, where biological assays, including binding assays, cellular assays, and viral activity assays, are currently being performed. Further, this lab has animal facilities and upon completion of the biological testing, will be prepared to test the compounds in animals to determine which compound may be appropriate for clinical evaluation.

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 20 million cases of COVID-19 and over 350,000 deaths. According to World Health Organization (“WHO”) data, globally, there have been over 85 million cases and approximately 1.9 million people have died. Furthermore, over the last three months, infections and deaths have increased.

Currently, there are no broadly effective treatments for COVID-19. Further, the treatments that are currently being employed, such as Remdesivir and various steroid and antibody treatments, are all in-patient therapeutics and require hospitalization, adding to the burden on the healthcare system. A better approach, which we are employing, would be a therapeutic that can be formulated as a pill and taken as soon as there is a positive test for COVID-19.

The market for an orally delivered COVID-19 treatment that would dramatically reduce hospitalization rates would be significant given the current infection rates. The most recent CDC predictions indicate that in the U.S. alone new infections will remain at over 1.3 million cases per week and deaths will be nearly 20,000 per week through January 2021.

Competition

Competition in the COVID-19 treatment and prevention market is fierce, with hundreds of therapies and vaccines currently in development. Recently, a number of preventative vaccines have received regulatory approvals in the U.S. and Europe. There are still many questions about these vaccines, such as persistence and viral escape, and it will take time before it is known how well and for how long they will provide protection from infection. 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.

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.

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.

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 nearly all cases of ovarian epithelial 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.

We have been working with researchers at Cleveland Clinic to advance the breast cancer vaccine technology toward human clinical testing, and recently submitted an IND application to the FDA. In December 2020, we received authorization from the FDA to commence enrollment and treatment of patients in a Phase 1a clinical trial.

The Breast Cancer Market

According to American Cancer Society statistics, breast cancer accounts for 30% of all female cancer cases, and 15% of cancer deaths in women. It is estimated that in 2020, 276,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. and 42,000 women will die from this disease. Despite continuous advances made in the field of cancer research every year, there has been little change in breast cancer incidence rate over the last ten 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., 276,000 women are estimated to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, there are approximately 80 million women over the age of 40—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 2.4% of all female cancer cases, but 5% of cancer deaths in women due to the disease’s low survival rate. It is estimated that in 2020, 22,000 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed and 14,000 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 48%. However, ovarian cancer survival varies substantially by age, with the overall five-year survival rate for women 65 and older of only 31%.

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., 22,000 women are estimated to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year, there are approximately 40 million women over the age of 60—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.

Employees

As of October 31, 2020, we had four employees, three full-time and one part time, working for our Company and subsidiaries.

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

Risks Related to our Research & Development, Clinical and Commercialization Activities

Risks Related to our Intellectual Propery

Risks Related to our Common Stock

Other

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.

Our business involves a high degree of risk and uncertainty, including the following risks and uncertainties:

Risks Related to Our Financial Condition and Operations

We have a history of losses and may incur additional losses in the future.

On a cumulative basis we have sustained substantial losses and negative cash flows from operations since our inception. As of October 31, 2020, our accumulated deficit was approximately $191,836,000. As of October 31, 2020, we had approximately $9,057,000 in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, and working capital of approximately $8,180,000. In fiscal year 2020, we incurred losses of approximately $10,092,000 and we experienced negative cash flows from operations of approximately $6,176,000. We expect to continue incurring material research and development and general and administrative expenses in connection with our operations. As a result, we anticipate that we will incur 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.

Based on currently available information as of January 7, 2021, we believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and expected cash flows will be sufficient to fund our activities for the next 12 months. However, our projections of future cash needs and cash flows may differ from actual results. If current cash on hand, cash equivalents, short term investments and cash that may be generated from our business operations are insufficient to continue to operate our business, or if we elect to invest in or acquire a company or companies that are synergistic with or complementary to our technologies, we may be required to obtain more working capital. We may seek to obtain working capital through sales of our equity securities or through bank credit facilities or public or private debt from various financial institutions where possible. We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available on acceptable terms, or at all. If we do identify sources for additional funding, the sale of additional equity securities or convertible debt could result in dilution to our stockholders. Additionally, the sale of equity securities or issuance of debt securities may be subject to certain security holder approvals or may result in the downward adjustment of the exercise or conversion price of our outstanding securities. We can give no assurance that we will generate sufficient cash flows in the future to satisfy our liquidity requirements or sustain future operations, or that other sources of funding, such as sales of equity or debt, would be available or would be approved by our security holders, if needed, on favorable terms or at all. If we fail to obtain additional working capital as and when needed, such failure could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, such lack of funds may inhibit our ability to respond to competitive pressures or unanticipated capital needs, or may force us to reduce operating expenses, which would significantly harm the business and development of operations.

We may have difficulty in raising capital and may consume resources faster than expected.

We currently do not generate any revenue from our therapeutics or vaccines nor do we generate any other recurring revenues and as of October 31, 2020, the Company only had approximately $9,057,000 in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Therefore, we have a limited source of cash to meet our future capital requirements, which may include the expensive process of obtaining FDA approvals for our CAR-T ovarian cancer therapeutic, our breast and ovarian cancer vaccines and our COVID-19 therapy. We do not expect to generate significant revenues for the foreseeable future, and we may not be able to raise funds in the future, which would leave us without resources to continue our operations and force us to resort to raising additional capital in the form of equity or debt financings, which may not be available to us. We may have difficulty raising needed capital in the near or longer term as a result of, among other factors, the very early stage of our therapeutics and vaccine businesses and our lack of revenues as well as the inherent business risks associated with an early stage, biotechnology company and present and future market conditions. Also, we may consume available resources more rapidly than currently anticipated, resulting in the need for additional funding sooner than anticipated. Our inability to raise funds could lead to decreases in the price of our common stock and the failure of our cancer diagnostic and therapeutics businesses which would have a material adverse effect on the Company.

Failure to effectively manage our potential growth could place strains on our managerial, operational and financial resources and could adversely affect our business and operating results.

Our business strategy and potential growth may place a strain on managerial, operational and financial resources and systems. Although we may not grow as we expect, if we fail to manage our growth effectively or to develop and expand our managerial, operational and financial resources and systems, our business and financial results will be materially harmed.

We may use our financial and human resources to pursue a particular research program or product candidate and fail to capitalize on programs or product candidates that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.

Because we have limited resources, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with certain programs or product candidates or for indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential. Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future research and development programs for product candidates may not yield any commercially viable products. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular product candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that product candidate through strategic collaboration, licensing or other royalty arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights to such product candidate, or we may allocate internal resources to a product candidate which it would have been more advantageous to enter into a partnering arrangement.

Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.

We have incurred net losses since our inception and we may never achieve or sustain profitability. Generally, losses incurred will carry forward until such losses expire (for losses generated prior to January 1, 2018) or are used to offset future taxable income, if any. Under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Internal Revenue Code”), if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage point change (by value) in its equity ownership by certain stockholders over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss, or NOL, carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research tax credits) to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. We have not completed a study to assess whether an ownership change for purposes of Section 382 or 383 has occurred, or whether there have been multiple ownership changes since our inception. We may have experienced ownership changes in the past and may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of shifts in our stock ownership (some of which shifts are outside our control). As a result, if we earn net taxable income, our ability to use our pre-change NOL carryforwards to offset such taxable income will be subject to limitations. Similar provisions of state tax law may also apply to limit our use of accumulated state tax attributes. As a result, even if we attain profitability, we may be unable to use a material portion of our NOL carryforwards and other tax attributes, which could adversely affect our future cash flows.

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.

Since the Company’s primary focus for the foreseeable future will likely be our therapeutics and vaccine businesses, shareholders should understand that we are primarily an early stage biotechnology company with no history of revenue-generating operations, and our only assets consist of our proprietary and licensed technologies and the know-how of our officers and employees. Therefore we are subject to all the risks and uncertainties inherent in a new business, in particular new businesses engaged in CAR-T cancer therapeutics, cancer vaccines and anti-viral therapeutics. Our CAR-T ovarian cancer therapeutic, our breast and ovarian cancer vaccines and our COVID-19 treatment are in their early stages of development, and we still must establish and implement many important functions necessary to commercialize the technologies.

Accordingly, you should consider the Company’s prospects in light of the costs, uncertainties, delays and difficulties frequently encountered by companies in their pre-revenue generating stages, particularly those in the biotechnology field. Shareholders should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties that a business with no operating history will face. In particular, shareholders should consider that there is a significant risk that we will not be able to:

Any of the foregoing risks may adversely affect the Company and result in the failure of our business. In addition, we expect to encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other known and unknown factors. Over the next several quarters, we will need to transition from a company with a research and development focus to a company capable of supporting clinical trials and commercial activities. We may not be able to reach such achievements, which would have a material adverse effect on our 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.

We do not currently have the resources and infrastructure to manufacture, market or sell our products or technologies. While our technologies have generated interest from multiple potential strategic partners, due to the early stage of development of our technologies, we can give no assurance that we will be able to successfully establish any strategic partnerships. Further, even if we elect to engage with a potential strategic partner, development of these partnerships can take an extended period of time in which significant analysis is performed by the potential strategic partner on our technologies and our intellectual property, as well as on the market opportunities and how well our technologies may fit strategically with the partner’s existing business. Accordingly, it will be difficult for us to time the establishment of a strategic partnership to achieve the greatest economic benefit for the Company.

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 will face an inherent risk of product liability as a result of the upcoming human clinical testing and commercialization of our product candidates. For example, we may be sued if our product candidates cause or are perceived to cause injury or are found to be otherwise unsuitable during clinical testing, manufacturing, marketing or sale. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the product, negligence, strict liability or a breach of warranties. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection acts. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability claims, we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit or cease commercialization of our product candidates. Even successful defense would require significant financial and management resources. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

We do not currently carry product liability insurance, but intend to obtain such coverage prior to commencement of our clinical trials. Our inability to obtain sufficient product liability insurance at an acceptable cost to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the commercialization of any products we develop, alone or with corporate collaborators.

If we cannot license rights to use technologies on reasonable terms, we may not be able to commercialize new products in the future.

In the future, we may identify third-party technology we need, including to develop or commercialize new products or services. In return for the use of a third party’s technology, we may agree to pay the licensor royalties based on sales of our products or services. Royalties are a component of cost of products or services and affect the margins on our products or services. We may also need to negotiate licenses to patents or patent applications before or after introducing a commercial product. We may not be able to obtain necessary licenses to patents or patent applications, and our business may suffer if we are unable to enter into the necessary licenses on acceptable terms or at all, if any necessary licenses are subsequently terminated, if the licensors fail to abide by the terms of the licenses or fail to prevent infringement by third parties, or if the licensed patents or other rights are found to be invalid or unenforceable.

Biotechnology and pharmaceutical product development is a highly speculative undertaking and involves a substantial degree of uncertainty. We have never generated any revenue from biotechnology and pharmaceutical product sales and our biotechnology and pharmaceutical products may never be profitable.

We are in the discovery stage of developing our COVID-19 treatment and our ovarian cancer vaccine technology, in the pre-clinical stage of developing our CAR-T therapeutic technology and about to enter the clinical stage with our breast cancer vaccine technology. Our ability to generate revenue depends in large part on our ability, alone or with partners, to successfully complete the development of, obtain the necessary regulatory approvals for, and commercialize, product candidates. We do not anticipate generating revenues from sales of such products for the foreseeable future. Our ability to generate future revenues from product sales of our technologies depends heavily on our success in:

Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with biologic and pharmaceutical product development, we are unable to predict the likelihood or timing for when we may receive regulatory approval of our product candidates or when we will be able to achieve or maintain profitability, if ever. If we are unable to establish a development and or commercialization partnership, or do not receive regulatory approvals, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations will be adversely affected. Even if we or a partner obtain the regulatory approvals to market and sell one or more of our product candidates, we may never generate significant revenues from any commercial sales for several reasons, including because the market for our products may be smaller than we anticipate, or products may not be adopted by physicians and payors or because our products may not be as efficacious or safe as other treatment options. If we fail to successfully commercialize one or more products, by ourselves or through a partner, we may be unable to generate sufficient revenues to sustain and grow our business and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations will be adversely affected.

Cancer vaccines are novel and present significant challenges.

The development of preventive and therapeutic cancer vaccines is difficult, with very few cancer vaccines successfully reaching the market. The only vaccines shown to be effective in preventing cancer have been vaccines against cancer causing agents, not the cancer itself. 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.

CAR-T cell therapies are novel and present significant challenges.

CAR-T product candidates represent a relatively new field of cellular immunotherapy. Advancing this novel and personalized therapy creates significant challenges for us, or a partner, including:

Our inability to successfully develop CAR-T cell therapies or develop processes related to the manufacture, sales and marketing of these therapies would adversely affect our business, results of operations and prospects.

While CAR-T technology has shown positive results in B-cell cancers by others, its safety and efficacy has not been seen in solid tumors and we cannot guarantee our CAR-T technology will be safe or effective in ovarian or other cancers.

CAR-T therapies function through the binding of a genetically engineered killer T-cell to a cancer cell. However, these engineered T-cells destroy the cell they are bound to whether it is a cancer cell or a healthy cell. Therefore, the engineered T-cells must be designed to only bind to either cancer cells or other target cells to minimize toxicity. Our CAR-T technology relies on the natural affinity of FSH to FSH-Receptor. Research by others has shown that in women the FSH-Receptor protein is found on ovary cells and generally in no other healthy tissue, and therefore, we engineer our T-cells with FSH. However, as the research in this field is still new, we cannot guarantee that there is no FSH-Receptor on any other healthy tissue in the human body.

While our CAR-T technology has shown favorable results from in-vitro and in-vivo testing, including in large numbers of animals under the Good Laboratory Practice (“GLP”) conditions necessary for inclusion in an IND application, we cannot guarantee that these results will be sufficient for the FDA to allow us to commence human clinical trials.

While studies on our CAR-T ovarian cancer therapeutic have generated promising results in large numbers of mice under GLP conditions, and toxicity studies have been performed and have had favorable results, there can be no assurance that the FDA will find these results sufficient to allow us to commence testing of our ovarian cancer therapy in human patients. If we are unable to commence human clinical trials for our product candidate, or if commencement of such trial is significantly delayed, we may be required to expend significant additional resources, which may not be available to us, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.

There is no guarantee that our collaboration with OntoChem will produce a successful anti-viral drug for COVID-19.

On April 14, 2020, we entered into a collaboration agreement with OntoChem for the purpose of discovering and ultimately developing anti-viral drug candidates for 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 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 one of two key enzymes of COVID-19. While, to date, we have synthesized several potential COVID-19 compounds and are in the process of performing biological assays, there is no guarantee that any of these compounds (or any other future compounds that we may identify) will demonstrate sufficient potency as predicted by the molecular modeling algorithms. Further, even if these compounds do demonstrate sufficient potency, there is no guarantee that the compounds will be effective in animal or human testing and that they will ultimately be effective anti-viral drugs for COVID-19. In addition, based on the current stage of development, while considering the streamlined regulatory processes for COVID-19 therapies, it may take up to two or more years before we could obtain Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA.

There is significant competition in the search for a treatment for COVID-19.

There is significant competition, including from other companies and governmental organizations, to find treatments for COVID-19. Many of these entities have substantially greater resources (including capital and personnel) than we do and many of these entities are much further ahead in pursuit of a treatment than we are. Even if we are successful in identifying a compound that may act as an effective treatment for COVID-19, there is no guarantee that we will have the only effective treatment for COVID-19 or that we will be able to get our treatment to market prior to our competitors.

A successful preventative vaccine will likely limit the market for a COVID-19 treatment.

A number of preventative vaccines have recently been approved for use in human populations by regulatory agencies in the U.S. and Europe. The anticipated effectiveness of these vaccines will likely limit the spread of COVID-19 and potentially reduce the market size for a COVID-19 treatment.

While pre-clinical testing of our product candidates have been positive, we may experience unfavorable results once we commence human clinical trials.

We have not initiated clinical trials for any of our product candidates and we may not be able to commence clinical trials on the time frames we expect. As these product candidates have only been tested in animals, we face significant uncertainty regarding how effective and safe they will be in human patients and the results from preclinical studies may not be indicative of the results of clinical trials. Preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval for their products.

Even if clinical trials are successfully completed, the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities may not interpret the results as we do, and more clinical trials could be required before we submit our product candidates for approval. To the extent that the results of our clinical trials are not satisfactory to the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities for support of a marketing application, approval of our product candidates may be significantly delayed, or we may be required to expend significant additional resources, which may not be available to us, to conduct additional clinical trials in support of potential approval of our product candidates.

We are dependent on third parties to conduct our pre-clinical and clinical trials.

We depend and will continue to depend upon independent investigators and collaborators, such as universities, medical institutions, and strategic partners such as Moffitt for our CAR-T therapy, Cleveland Clinic for our breast and ovarian cancer vaccines and OntoChem, as well as other European partners, for our COVID-19 therapy to conduct our preclinical and clinical trials under agreements with us. Negotiations of budgets and contracts with study sites may result in delays to our development timelines and increased costs. We will rely heavily on these third parties over the course of our clinical trials, and we control only certain aspects of their activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific standards, and our reliance on third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. We and these third parties are required to comply with current good clinical practices, or cGCPs, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for product candidates in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce these cGCPs through periodic inspections of clinical trial sponsors, principal investigators and clinical trial sites. If we or any of these third parties fail to comply with applicable cGCP regulations, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. It is possible that, upon inspection, such regulatory authorities could determine that any of our clinical trials fail to comply with the cGCP regulations. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with biologic product produced under current good manufacturing practices, or cGMPs, and will require a large number of test patients. Our failure or any failure by these third parties to comply with these regulations or to recruit a sufficient number of patients may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process. Moreover, our business may be implicated if any of these third parties violates federal or state fraud and abuse or false claims laws and regulations or healthcare privacy and security laws.

Any third parties conducting our clinical trials are not and will not be our employees and, except for remedies available to us under our agreements with these third parties, we cannot control whether they devote sufficient time and resources to our ongoing preclinical, clinical and nonclinical programs. These third parties may also have relationships with other commercial entities, including our competitors, for whom they may also be conducting clinical trials or other drug development activities, which could affect their performance on our behalf. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines, if they need to be replaced or if the quality or accuracy of the clinical data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our clinical protocols or regulatory requirements or for other reasons, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated and we may not be able to complete development of, obtain regulatory approval of or successfully commercialize our product candidates. As a result, our financial results and the commercial prospects for our product candidates would be harmed, our costs could increase and our ability to generate revenue could be delayed.

Switching or adding third parties to conduct our clinical trials involves substantial cost and requires extensive management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new third party commences work. As a result, delays occur, which can materially impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines.

If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.

Even if we are permitted to conduct clinical trials for our product candidates, we may experience difficulties in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons. The timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who remain in the study until its conclusion. The enrollment of patients depends on many factors, including:

In particular, our CAR-T ovarian cancer clinical trial will look to enroll patients with late stage ovarian cancer who have failed conventional treatment, and are willing and able to be treated at Moffitt. Our first breast cancer vaccine clinical trial will look to enroll patients who have undergone standard of care treatment for TNBC. Our second breast cancer vaccine clinical trial will look to enroll healthy women who, as a result of testing positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation which is a leading predictor of future incidence of breast cancer, have elected to have prophylactic mastectomies. These potential trial participants have to be willing and able to undergo treatment at the Cleveland Clinic.

Our clinical trials will compete with other companies’ clinical trials for product candidates that are in the same therapeutic areas as our product candidates, and this competition will reduce the number and types of patients available to us, because some patients who might have opted to enroll in our clinical trials may instead opt to enroll in a trial being conducted by one of our competitors. We expect to conduct our clinical trials at the same clinical trial sites that some of our competitors may use, which will reduce the number of patients who are available for our clinical trial in these clinical trial sites. Moreover, because our product candidates represent a departure from more commonly used methods for cancer treatment, potential patients and their doctors may be inclined to use experimental therapies that use conventional technologies, such as chemotherapy and antibody therapy, rather than enroll patients in our future clinical trials. Patients may also be unwilling to participate in our clinical trials because of negative publicity from adverse events in the biotechnology or gene therapy industries.

Additionally, due to the design of our breast cancer vaccine trials it is unlikely that any of the trial participants will experience a positive therapeutic effect which may further reduce the number of patients who may enroll in our trials.

Delays in patient enrollment may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or outcome of our planned clinical trials, which could prevent completion of the clinical trials and adversely affect our ability to advance the development of our ovarian cancer CAR-T therapy and our breast cancer vaccine.

Any adverse developments that occur during any clinical trials conducted by academic investigators, our collaborators or other entities conducting clinical trials under independent INDs may negatively affect the conduct of our clinical trials or our ability to obtain regulatory approvals or commercialize our product candidates.

CAR-T, vaccines and other immuno-therapy technologies are being used by third parties in clinical trials for which we are collaborating or in clinical trials which are completely independent of our development programs. We have little to no control over the conduct of those clinical trials. If serious adverse events occur during these or any other clinical trials using technologies similar to ours, the FDA and other regulatory authorities may delay our clinical trial, or could delay, limit or deny approval of our product candidates or require us to conduct additional clinical trials as a condition to marketing approval, which would increase our costs. If we receive regulatory approval for any product candidate and a new and serious safety issue is identified in connection with clinical trials conducted by third parties, the applicable regulatory authorities may withdraw their approval of our products or otherwise restrict our ability to market and sell our products. In addition, treating physicians may be less willing to administer our products due to concerns over such adverse events, which would limit our ability to commercialize our products.

Adverse side effects or other safety risks associated with our product candidates could cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials or delay or preclude approval.

In third party clinical trials involving CAR-T cell therapies, the most prominent acute toxicities included symptoms thought to be associated with the release of cytokines, such as fever, low blood pressure and kidney dysfunction. Some patients also experienced toxicity of the central nervous system, such as confusion, cranial nerve dysfunction and speech impairment. Adverse side effects attributed to CAR-T therapies were severe and life-threatening in some patients. The life-threatening events were related to kidney dysfunction and toxicities of the central nervous system or other organ failure. Severe and life-threatening toxicities occurred primarily in the first two weeks after cell infusion and generally resolved within three weeks. In the past, several patients have also died in clinical trials by others involving CAR-T cells.

Side effects of our breast cancer vaccine may include mild effects such as injection site pain or irritation, or more severe side effects such as fever, inflammation, organ failure or other adverse effects.

Undesirable side effects observed in our clinical trials, whether or not they are caused by our product candidates, could result in the delay, suspension or termination of clinical trials, by the FDA or other regulatory authorities or us for a number of reasons. In addition, because the patients who will be enrolled in our clinical trials may be suffering from a life-threatening disease and may often be suffering from multiple complicating conditions it may be difficult to accurately assess the relationship between our product candidate and adverse events experienced by very ill patients. If we elect or are required to delay, suspend or terminate any of our clinical trials, the commercial prospects of such therapy will be harmed and our ability to generate product revenues from such therapy will be delayed or eliminated. In addition, serious adverse events observed in clinical trials could hinder or prevent market acceptance of the product candidate at issue. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations significantly.

Clinical trials are expensive, time-consuming and difficult to design and implement.

Human clinical trials are expensive and difficult to design and implement, in part because they are subject to rigorous regulatory requirements. Because our CAR-T ovarian cancer therapy is based on relatively new technology and engineered on a patient-by-patient basis, we expect that it will require extensive research and development and have substantial manufacturing and processing costs. In addition, costs to treat patients with relapsed/refractory cancer and to treat potential side effects that may result from therapies such as our current and future product candidates can be significant. Accordingly, our clinical trial costs are likely to be significantly higher than for more conventional therapeutic technologies or drug products. In addition, our proposed personalized product candidates involve several complex and costly manufacturing and processing steps, the costs of which will be borne by us.

In one of our planned breast cancer vaccine clinical trials, we will treat healthy women who, as a result of testing positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, have elected to have prophylactic mastectomies. Delivering an experimental treatment to a healthy individual is more complex and subject to more rigorous regulatory requirements and is more difficult to design and implement. In addition, in future clinical trials we will need to determine efficacy of the breast cancer vaccine as a cancer prevention which will be a considerably more complex clinical trial and will have significantly greater costs.

The costs of our clinical trials may increase if the FDA does not agree with our clinical development plans or requires us to conduct additional clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our product candidates.

We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and our operating results will suffer if we fail to compete effectively.

The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by intense competition and rapid innovation. Our competitors may be able to develop other compounds or drugs that are able to achieve similar or better results. Our potential competitors include major multinational pharmaceutical companies, established biotechnology companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies and universities and other research institutions. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and other resources, such as larger research and development staff and experienced marketing and manufacturing organizations and well-established sales forces. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large, established companies. Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries may result in even more resources being concentrated in our competitors. Competition may increase further as a result of advances in the commercial applicability of technologies and greater availability of capital for investment in these industries. Our competitors, either alone or with collaborative partners, may succeed in developing, acquiring or licensing on an exclusive basis drug or biologic products that are more effective, safer, more easily commercialized or less costly than our product candidates or may develop proprietary technologies or secure patent protection that we may need for the development of our technologies and products.

Cell-based therapies rely on the availability of specialty raw materials, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all.

Gene-modified cell therapy manufacture requires many specialty raw materials, some of which are manufactured by small companies with limited resources and experience to support a commercial product. Some suppliers typically support biomedical researchers or blood-based hospital businesses and may not have the capacity to support commercial products manufactured under cGMP by biopharmaceutical firms. The suppliers may be ill-equipped to support our needs, especially in non-routine circumstances like a FDA inspection or medical crisis, such as widespread contamination. We also do not have commercial supply arrangements with many of these suppliers, and may not be able to contract with them on acceptable terms or at all. Accordingly, we may experience delays in receiving key raw materials to support clinical or commercial manufacturing.

In addition, some raw materials are currently available from a single supplier, or a small number of suppliers. We cannot be sure that these suppliers will remain in business, or that they will not be purchased by one of our competitors or another company that is not interested in continuing to produce these materials for our intended purpose.

We may form or seek strategic alliances or enter into additional licensing arrangements in the future, and we may not realize the benefits of such alliances or licensing arrangements.

We may form or seek strategic alliances, create joint ventures or collaborations and enter into additional licensing arrangements with third parties that we believe will complement or augment our development and commercialization efforts with respect to our product candidates and any future product candidates that we may develop. Any of these relationships may require us to incur non-recurring and other charges, increase our near and long-term expenditures, issue securities that dilute our existing stockholders or disrupt our management and business. In addition, we face significant competition in seeking appropriate strategic partners and the negotiation process is time-consuming and complex. Moreover, we may not be successful in our efforts to establish a strategic partnership or other alternative arrangements for our product candidates because they may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaborative effort and third parties may not view our product candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy. If we license products or businesses, we may not be able to realize the benefit of such transactions if we are unable to successfully integrate them with our existing operations and company culture. It is possible that, following a strategic transaction or license, we may not achieve the revenue or specific net income that justifies such transaction. Any delays in entering into new strategic partnership agreements related to our product candidates could delay the development and commercialization of our product candidates in certain geographies for certain indications, which would harm our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

The FDA regulatory approval process is lengthy and time-consuming, and we may experience significant delays in the clinical development and regulatory approval of our product candidates.

We have not previously submitted a Biologics License Application (“BLA”) or a New Drug Application (“NDA”) to the FDA, or similar approval filings to other foreign authorities. A BLA or NDA must include extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to establish the product candidate’s safety, purity and potency for each desired indication. It must also include significant information regarding the chemistry, manufacturing and controls for the product. We expect the novel nature of our product candidates to create further challenges in obtaining regulatory approval. For example, the FDA has limited experience with commercial development of T-cell therapies and vaccines for cancer. The regulatory approval pathway for our product candidates may be uncertain, complex, expensive and lengthy, and approval may not be obtained.

We may also experience delays in completing planned clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including delays related to:

Also, before a clinical trial can begin at an NIH-funded institution, that institution’s independent institutional review board, or IRB, and its Institutional Biosafety Committee must review the proposed clinical trial to assess the safety of the trial. In addition, adverse developments in clinical trials of gene therapy products conducted by others may cause the FDA or other regulatory bodies to change the requirements for approval of any of our product candidates.

We could also encounter delays if physicians encounter unresolved ethical issues associated with enrolling patients in clinical trials of our product candidates in lieu of prescribing existing treatments that have established safety and efficacy profiles. Further, a clinical trial may be suspended or terminated by us, the IRBs for the institutions in which such clinical trials are being conducted, the Data Monitoring Committee for such clinical trial, or by the FDA or other regulatory authorities due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or clinical trial site by the FDA or other regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a product candidate, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. If we experience termination of, or delays in the completion of, any clinical trial of our product candidates, the commercial prospects for our product candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenue will be delayed. In addition, any delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our product development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenue.

Many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates.

Even if we obtain regulatory approval of our product candidates, the products may not gain market acceptance among physicians, patients, hospitals, cancer treatment centers, third-party payors and others in the medical community.

The use of engineered T-cells as a potential cancer treatment and the use of therapeutic and prophylactic cancer vaccines are recently developed technologies and may not become broadly accepted by physicians, patients, hospitals, cancer treatment centers, third-party payors and others in the medical community. Many factors will influence whether our product candidates are accepted in the market, including:

If our product candidates are approved but fail to achieve market acceptance among physicians, patients, hospitals, cancer treatment centers or others in the medical community, we will not be able to generate significant revenue. Even if our products achieve market acceptance, we may not be able to maintain that market acceptance over time if new products or technologies are introduced that are more favorably received than our products, are more cost effective or render our products obsolete.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we are unable to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection, our competitive position will be harmed.

Our ability to compete and to achieve sustained profitability will be impacted by our ability to protect our CAR-T cancer therapeutics technologies, our breast cancer vaccine technologies, our ovarian cancer vaccine technologies, our COVID-19 therapeutic technologies and other proprietary discoveries and technologies. We expect to rely on a combination of patent protection, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, know-how, and regulatory approvals to protect our technologies. Our intellectual property strategy is intended to help develop and maintain our competitive position. While we have been granted multiple patents related to our technologies, there is no assurance that we will be able to obtain further patent protection for our technologies or any other technologies, nor can we be certain that the steps we will have taken will prevent the misappropriation and unauthorized use of our technologies. If we are not able to obtain and maintain patent protection our competitive position may be harmed.

Third parties may initiate legal proceedings alleging that we are infringing their intellectual property rights, the outcome of which would be uncertain and could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.

Our commercial success depends upon our ability to develop, manufacture, market and sell our CAR-T therapeutics, our breast cancer vaccine, our ovarian cancer vaccine, our COVID-19 treatment and other proprietary discoveries and technologies without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the proprietary rights or intellectual property of third parties. We may become party to, or be threatened with, future adversarial proceedings or litigation regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our CAR-T therapeutics, our breast cancer vaccine, our ovarian cancer vaccine, our COVID-19 treatment and other proprietary discoveries and technologies. Third parties may assert infringement claims against us based on existing patents or patents that may be granted in the future. If we are found to infringe a third-party’s intellectual property rights, we could be required to obtain a license from such third-party to continue developing our CAR-T therapeutics, our breast cancer vaccine, our ovarian cancer vaccine, our COVID-19 treatment and other proprietary discoveries and technologies. However, we may not be able to obtain any required license on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we were able to obtain a license, it could be non-exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. We could be forced, including by court order, to cease developing the infringing technology or product. In addition, we could be found liable for monetary damages. Claims that we have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties can have a similar negative impact on our business.

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 we may be subjected to future litigation.

We are party to royalty-bearing license agreements that grant us rights to use certain intellectual property, including patents and patent applications. We may need to obtain additional licenses from others to advance our research, development and commercialization activities. Our license agreement imposes, and we expect that future license agreements if necessary will impose, various development, diligence, commercialization and other obligations on us.

In spite of our efforts, our licensors might conclude that we have materially breached our obligations under such license agreements and might therefore terminate the license agreements, thereby removing or limiting our ability to develop and commercialize products and technology covered by these license agreements. If these in-licenses are terminated, or if the underlying patents fail to provide the intended exclusivity, competitors or other third parties might have the freedom to seek regulatory approval of, and to market, products identical to ours and we may be required to cease our development and commercialization activities. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations and prospects.

Moreover, disputes may arise with respect to any one of our licensing agreements, including:

If we do not prevail in such disputes, we may lose any of such license agreements.

In addition, the agreements under which we currently license intellectual property or technology from third parties are complex, and certain provisions in such agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Moreover, if disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on commercially acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial conditions, results of operations and prospects.

Our failure to maintain such licenses could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any of these licenses could be terminated, such as if either party fails to abide by the terms of the license, or if the licensor fails to prevent infringement by third parties or if the licensed patents or other rights are found to be invalid or unenforceable. Absent the license agreements, we may infringe patents subject to those agreements, and if the license agreements are terminated, we may be subject to litigation by the licensor. Litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management. If we do not prevail, we may be required to pay damages, including treble damages, attorneys’ fees, costs and expenses, royalties or, be enjoined from selling our products, which could adversely affect our ability to offer products, our ability to continue operations and our financial condition.

If our efforts to protect the proprietary nature of our technologies are not adequate, we may not be able to compete effectively in our market.

Any disclosure to or misappropriation by third parties of our confidential proprietary information could enable competitors to quickly duplicate or surpass our technological achievements, thus eroding our competitive position in our markets. Certain intellectual property which is covered by our in-license agreements has been developed at academic institutions which have retained non-commercial rights to such intellectual property.

There are several pending U.S. and foreign patent applications in our portfolio, and we anticipate additional patent applications will be filed both in the U.S. and in other countries, as appropriate. However, we cannot predict:

Composition of matter patents for biological and pharmaceutical products are generally considered to be the strongest form of intellectual property. We cannot be certain that the claims in our pending patent applications directed to compositions of matter for our product candidates will be considered patentable by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) or by patent offices in foreign countries, or that the claims in any of our issued patents will be considered valid by courts in the U.S. or foreign countries. Method of use patents have claims directed to the use of a product for the specified method. This type of patent does not prevent a competitor from making and marketing a product that is identical to our product for an indication that is outside the scope of the patented method. Moreover, even if competitors do not actively promote their product for our targeted indications, physicians may prescribe these products “off-label.” Although off-label prescriptions may infringe or contribute to the infringement of method of use patents, the practice is common and such infringement is difficult to prevent or prosecute.

The strength of patents in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field involves complex legal and scientific questions and can be uncertain. The patent applications that we own or in-license may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our product candidates or uses thereof in the U.S. or in other foreign countries. Even if the patents do successfully issue, third parties may challenge the validity, enforceability or scope thereof, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable. Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, patents in our portfolio may not adequately exclude third parties from practicing relevant technology or prevent others from designing around our claims. If the breadth or strength of our intellectual property position with respect to our product candidates is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to develop, and threaten our ability to commercialize, our product candidates. Further, if we encounter delays in our clinical trials, the period of time during which we could market our product candidates under patent protection would be reduced. Since patent applications in the U.S. and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing, it is possible that patent applications in our portfolio may not be the first filed patent applications related to our product candidates. Furthermore, for U.S. applications in which all claims are entitled to a priority date before March 16, 2013, an interference proceeding can be provoked by a third-party or instituted by the USPTO, to determine who was the first to invent any of the subject matter covered by the patent claims of our applications. For U.S. applications containing a claim not entitled to priority before March 16, 2013, there is a greater level of uncertainty in the patent law with the passage of the America Invents Act (2012) which brings into effect significant changes to the U.S. patent laws that are yet untried and untested, and which introduces new procedures for challenging pending patent applications and issued patents. A primary change under this reform is the creation of a “first to file” system in the U.S. This will require us to be cognizant going forward of the time from invention to filing of a patent application.

Obtaining and maintaining our patents depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent position could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.

Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. While an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Noncompliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. Such noncompliance events are outside of our direct control for (1) non-U.S. patents and patent applications owned by us, and (2) patents and patent applications licensed to us by another entity. In such an event, our competitors might be able to enter the market, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.

Issued patents covering our product candidates could be found invalid or unenforceable if challenged in court or the USPTO.

If we or one of our licensing partners initiate legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent covering one of our product candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that the patent covering our product candidate, as applicable, is invalid and/or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the U.S., defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity and/or unenforceability are commonplace, and there are numerous grounds upon which a third party can assert invalidity or unenforceability of a patent. Third parties may also raise similar claims before administrative bodies in the U.S. or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include re-examination, post grant review, and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions, for example, opposition proceedings. Any such proceedings could result in revocation or amendment to our patents in such a way that they no longer cover our product candidates. The outcome following legal assertions of invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable. With respect to the validity question, for example, we cannot be certain that there is no invalidating prior art and that prior art that was cited during prosecution, but not relied on by the patent examiner, will not be revisited. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity and/or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patents directed to our product candidates. A loss of patent rights could have a material adverse impact on our business.

Changes in U.S. patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our products.

As is the case with other biopharmaceutical companies, our success is heavily dependent on intellectual property, particularly patents. Obtaining and enforcing patents in the biopharmaceutical industry involve both technological and legal complexity, and is therefore costly, time-consuming and inherently uncertain. In addition, the U.S. has recently enacted and is currently implementing wide-ranging patent reform legislation. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. In addition to increasing uncertainty with regard to our ability to obtain patents in the future, this combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents, once obtained. Depending on decisions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts, and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce our existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future. For example, in the case, Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain claims to DNA molecules are not patentable. While we do not believe that any of the patents owned or licensed by us will be found invalid based on this decision, we cannot predict how future decisions by the courts, the U.S. Congress or the USPTO may impact the value of our patents.

We have limited foreign intellectual property rights and may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.

We have limited intellectual property rights outside the U.S. Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the U.S. can be less extensive than those in the U.S. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property to the same extent as federal and state laws in the U.S. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the U.S., or from selling or importing products made using our inventions in and into the U.S. or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patents to develop their own products and further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patents, but enforcement is not as strong as that in the U.S. These products may compete with our products and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.

Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly China and certain other developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property, particularly those relating to biopharmaceutical products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. To date, we have not sought to enforce any issued patents in these foreign jurisdictions. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. The requirements for patentability may differ in certain countries, particularly developing countries. Furthermore, generic drug manufacturers or other competitors may challenge the scope, validity or enforceability of our or our licensors’ patents, requiring us or our licensors to engage in complex, lengthy and costly litigation or other proceedings. Certain countries in Europe and developing countries, including China and India, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to third parties. In those countries, we and our licensors may have limited remedies if patents are infringed or if we or our licensors are compelled to grant a license to a third party, which could materially diminish the value of those patents. This could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock

The issuance or sale of shares in the future to raise money or for strategic purposes could reduce the market price of our common stock.

In the future, we may issue securities to raise cash for operations, to pay down then existing indebtedness, as consideration for the acquisition of assets, as consideration for receipt of goods or services, to pay for the development of our CAR-T cancer therapeutics, to pay for the development of our breast cancer vaccine, to pay for the development of our ovarian cancer vaccine, to pay for the development of our COVID-19 therapeutic and for acquisitions of companies. We have an at-the-market equity offering under which, as of January 7, 2021 we may issue up to approximately $35 million of common stock, which is currently effective and under which we commenced selling shares in November 2019, and which may remain available to us in the future. We have and in the future may issue securities convertible into our common stock. Any of these events may dilute stockholders’ ownership interests in our company and have an adverse impact on the price of our common stock.

In addition, sales of a substantial amount of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales may occur, could reduce the market price of our common stock. This could also impair our ability to raise additional capital through the sale of our securities.

Any actual or anticipated sales of shares by our stockholders may cause the trading price of our common stock to decline. The sale of a substantial number of shares of our common stock by our stockholders, or anticipation of such sales, could make it more difficult for us to sell equity or equity-related securities in the future at a time and at a price that we might otherwise wish to effect sales.

We may fail to meet market expectations because of fluctuations in quarterly operating results, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline.

Our reported revenues and operating results have fluctuated in the past and may continue to fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter in the future, specifically as we continue to devote our resources towards our CAR-T cancer therapeutics, our breast and ovarian cancer vaccines and our COVID-19 therapeutic. It is possible that in future periods, we will have no revenue or, in any event, revenues could fall below the expectations of securities analysts or investors, which could cause the market price of our common stock to decline. The following are among the factors that could cause our operating results to fluctuate significantly from period to period:

Biotechnology company stock prices are especially volatile, and this volatility may depress the price of our common stock.

The stock market has experienced significant price and volume fluctuations, and the market prices of biotechnology companies have been highly volatile. We believe that various factors may cause the market price of our common stock to fluctuate, perhaps substantially, including, among others, the following:

In addition, we believe that fluctuations in our stock price during applicable periods can also be impacted by changes in governmental regulations in the drug development industry and/or court rulings and/or other developments in our remaining patent licensing and enforcement actions.

In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been the objects of securities class action litigation. If our common stock was the object of securities class action litigation due to volatility in the market price of our stock, it could result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could materially harm our business and financial results.

Our common stock is currently listed on NASDAQ Capital Market, however if our common stock is delisted for any reason, it will become subject to the SEC’s penny stock rules which may make our shares more difficult to sell.

If our common stock is delisted from NASDAQ Capital Market, our common stock will then fit the definition of a penny stock and therefore would be subject to the rules adopted by the SEC regulating broker-dealer practices in connection with transactions in penny stocks. The SEC rules may have the effect of reducing trading activity in our common stock making it more difficult for investors to sell their shares. The SEC’s rules require a broker or dealer proposing to effect a transaction in a penny stock to deliver the customer a risk disclosure document that provides certain information prescribed by the SEC, including, but not limited to, the nature and level of risks in the penny stock market. The broker or dealer must also disclose the aggregate amount of any compensation received or receivable by him in connection with such transaction prior to consummating the transaction. In addition, the SEC’s rules also require a broker or dealer to make a special written determination that the penny stock is a suitable investment for the purchaser and receive the purchaser’s written agreement to the transaction before completion of the transaction. The existence of the SEC’s rules may result in a lower trading volume of our common stock and lower trading prices.

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.

As of the date of this Report, we have issued and outstanding options to purchase 8,641,254 shares of our common stock with a weighted average exercise price of $3.16 and 1,500,000 restricted stock awards (including options to purchase 1,500,000 shares of our common stock and a restricted stock award of 1,500,000 shares of our common stock that vest based upon achievement of certain stock price based milestones issued to Dr. Kumar in May 2018). Further, as of the date of this Report, our Board of Directors and Compensation Committee have the authority to issue awards totaling an additional 2,000,000 shares of our common stock. Additionally, we have registered for resale all of the shares of common stock issuable under our incentive plans. Because the market for our common stock is thinly traded, the sales and/or the perception that those sales may occur, could adversely affect the market price of our common stock. Furthermore, the mere existence of a significant number of shares of common stock issuable upon vesting and, if applicable, exercise of these securities may be perceived by the market as having a potential dilutive effect, which could lead to a decrease in the price of our common stock.

We are a smaller reporting company and the reduced reporting requirements applicable to smaller reporting companies may make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are a smaller reporting company (“SRC”) and a non-accelerated filer, which allows us to take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not SRCs or non-accelerated filers, including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our Annual Report and our periodic reports and proxy statements and providing only two years of audited financial statements in our Annual Report and our periodic reports. We will remain an SRC until (a) the aggregate market value of our outstanding common stock held by non-affiliates as of the last business day our most recently completed second fiscal quarter exceeds $250 million or (b) (1) we have over $100 million in annual revenues and (2) the aggregate market value of our outstanding common stock held by non-affiliates as of the last business day our most recently completed second fiscal quarter exceeds $700 million. We cannot predict whether investors will find our common stock less attractive if we rely on certain or all of these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile and may decline.

Changes in accounting rules, assumptions and/or judgments could materially and adversely affect us.

Accounting rules and interpretations for certain aspects of our operations are highly complex and involve significant assumptions and judgment. These complexities could lead to a delay in the preparation and dissemination of our financial statements. Furthermore, changes in accounting rules and interpretations or in our accounting assumptions and/or judgments, such as asset impairments, could significantly impact our financial statements. In some cases, we could be required to apply a new or revised standard retroactively, resulting in restating prior period financial statements. Any of these circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, liquidity, financial condition and results of operations.

We do not anticipate declaring any cash dividends on our common stock which may adversely impact the market price of our stock.

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock and do not plan to pay any cash dividends in the near future. Our current policy is to retain all funds and any earnings for use in the operation and expansion of our business. If we do not pay dividends, our stock may be less valuable to you because a return on your investment will only occur if our stock price appreciates.

Risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic

Our business activities are expected to be adversely affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has spread globally and the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a pandemic. While still evolving, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant worldwide economic and financial turmoil, and has fueled concerns that it will lead to a global recession. On March 13, 2020, the United States declared a national emergency with respect to COVID-19 and the majority of states and U.S. territories, including the State of California, have since issued orders requiring the closure of non-essential businesses and/or requiring residents to stay at home. As the pandemic has evolved since March 2020, some restriction have eased, however, with the recent surge of infection and hospitalization rates, more severe restrictions are being implemented by local government agencies. The Company is following the recommendations of local health authorities to minimize exposure risk for its team members and visitors, including requiring its employees to work from home. The continued and prolonged implementation of restrictions by federal, state and local authorities to slow the spread of COVID-19 have disrupted and, we expect, will continue to disrupt, our business and operations.

Specifically, the pandemic has caused periodic shutdowns of the laboratories and other service providers that we rely on to develop our programs, and those laboratories and service providers that have been operating or that have begun operating recently have been doing so with limited capacity due to social distancing requirements. As a result, our progress has been slowed and there is no assurance that we will be able to meet our previously announced timelines regarding the development of our programs.

The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacts our business, operations and financial results will depend on numerous evolving factors that we may not be able to accurately predict, including: the duration and scope of the pandemic; governmental, business and individuals’ actions that have been and continue to be taken in response to the pandemic; the impact of the pandemic on economic activity and actions taken in response; our ability to continue daily operations, including as a result of travel restrictions and people working from home; and any closures of our and our business partners’ offices and facilities.

While the Company is currently implementing solutions designed to reduce the potential impact of COVID-19, there can be no assurance that our efforts will adequately mitigate the risks of business disruptions and interruptions. Further, events such as natural disasters and public health emergencies divert our attention away from normal operations and limited resources. Our inability to timely resume normal operations following the pandemic disruption could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations in a material manner.

Any of these events could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or stock price.

None.

We lease approximately 2,000 square feet of office space at 3150 Almaden Expressway, San Jose, California (our principal executive offices) from an unrelated party pursuant to a lease that expires September 30, 2021. Our base rent is approximately $5,000 per month and the lease provides for annual increases of approximately 3% and an escalation clause for increases in certain operating costs.

Other than lawsuits we bring to enforce our patent rights, we are not a party to any material pending legal proceedings, nor are we aware of any pending litigation or legal proceeding against us that would have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.

Not applicable.

PART II

Market Information

Our common stock trades on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol “ANIX”.

Holders

As of January 6, 2021, the approximate number of record holders of our common stock was 334 and the closing price of our common stock was $3.36 per share.

Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans

See “Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.”

Dividend Policy

No cash dividends have been paid on our common stock since our inception. We have no present intention to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

The Company did not issue any unregistered securities during the three months ended October 31, 2020.

Not required for a smaller reporting company.

General

In reviewing Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, you should refer to our Consolidated Financial Statements and the notes related thereto.

Results of Operations

Fiscal Year ended October 31, 2020 compared with Fiscal Year ended October 31, 2019

Revenue

We did not have any revenue in fiscal year 2020. In fiscal year 2019, we recorded revenue of $250,000 from one license agreement. The license agreement provided for a one-time, non-recurring, lump sum payment in exchange for a non-exclusive retroactive and future license, and covenant not to sue. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, we have no further obligations with respect to the granted intellectual property rights, including no obligation to maintain or upgrade the technology, or provide future support or services. Accordingly, the performance obligations from the license were satisfied and 100% of the revenue was recognized upon execution of the license agreement. As discussed in Note 1 to our Consolidated Financial Statements, as part of our legacy operations, the Company remains engaged in limited patent licensing activities which we do not expect to be a significant part of our ongoing operations or revenue.

Inventor Royalties, Contingent Legal Fees, Litigation and Licensing Expenses Related to Patent Assertion

We did not have any inventor royalties, contingent legal fees, litigation and licensing expenses related to patent assertion activities in fiscal year 2020. In fiscal year 2019 inventor royalties, contingent legal fees, litigation and licensing expenses related to patent assertion activities were approximately $166,000. Inventor royalties and contingent legal fees are expensed in the period that the related revenues are recognized. Litigation and licensing expenses related to patent assertion, other than contingent legal fees, are expensed in the period incurred.

Amortization of Patents

Amortization of patents was $-0- in fiscal year 2020 compared to approximately $419,000 in fiscal year 2019. We capitalize patent and patent rights acquisition costs and amortize the cost over the estimated economic useful life. The carrying value of capitalized patents was reduced to $-0- as of October 31, 2019. During fiscal year 2020, we did not capitalize any patents or patent rights.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses are related to the development of our cancer diagnostics and therapeutics programs and our anti-viral drug program, and decreased by approximately $1,092,000 to approximately $4,381,000 in fiscal year 2020, from approximately $5,473,000 in fiscal year 2019. The decrease in research and development expenses was primarily due to a decrease in employee stock award compensation expense of approximately $1,251,000 and a decrease in Certainty’s outside research and development expenses related to development of CAR-T therapeutics of approximately $547,000, offset by an increase in Anixa Diagnostics Corporation’s outside research and development expense to develop the Cchek™ artificial intelligence driven platform of non-invasive blood tests for the early detection of cancer of approximately $561,000 and an increase in outside research and development to develop anti-viral drug candidates against COVID-19 of approximately $141,000.

Research and development expenses incurred in fiscal year 2020 associated with each of our development programs consisted of approximately $2,455,000 for our suspended as of July 2020 cancer diagnostics program, approximately $1,048,000 for CAR-T therapeutics, approximately $510,000 for anti-viral therapeutics, and approximately $368,000 for cancer vaccines.

General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses decreased by approximately $66,000 to approximately $5,597,000 in fiscal year 2020, from approximately $5,663,000 in fiscal year 2019. The decrease in general and administrative expenses was principally due to a decrease in employee stock award compensation expense of approximately $704,000, a decrease in legal and accounting fees of approximately $423,000 in fiscal year 2020 primarily related to fees incurred in fiscal year 2019 in connection with a putative shareholder derivative complaint which was settled in August 2019, a decrease in expense resulting from the discharge in January 2020 of a disputed liability of approximately $337,000 upon the expiration of the vendor’s statutory right to pursue collection of the disputed liability, a decrease in patent expense of approximately $144,000 primarily related to a patent expense reimbursement to Cleveland Clinic in fiscal year 2019, a decrease in investor and public relations expense of approximately $107,000, offset by an increase in employee compensation and related costs, other than equity-based compensation, of approximately $748,000, an increase in employee and director stock option expense of approximately $460,000, an increase in corporate insurance expense of approximately $230,000 primarily due to an increase in our directors and officers insurance premium, an increase in consultant expense related to our Cchek™ program of approximately $120,000 and an increase in consultant stock option expense of approximately $94,000.

Impairment in Carrying Amount of Patent Assets

The impairment in carrying amount of patent assets related to our legacy patent licensing activities recorded in fiscal year 2020 was $-0- compared to approximately $419,000 in the fiscal year 2019. The impairment recorded in fiscal year 2019 resulted from the write down of the value of our patent assets to the estimated undiscounted future cash flows we anticipated receiving from the patent assets. The estimated undiscounted future cash flows was based on our assessment of the market for potential licensees, as well as the status of ongoing negotiations with potential licensees.

Loss on Disposal of Property and Equipment

Other expense was $148,000 in fiscal year 2020 compared to $-0- in fiscal year 2019. The other expense recorded in fiscal year 2020 represents loss on disposal of property and equipment as a result of suspension of development of our Cchek™ program.

Interest Income

Interest income decreased to approximately $34,000 in fiscal year 2020 compared to approximately $71,000 in fiscal year 2019, due to a decrease in interest rates.

Net Loss Attributable to Noncontrolling Interest

The net loss attributable to noncontrolling interest, representing Wistar’s 5% ownership interest in Certainty’s net loss, decreased by approximately $98,000 to approximately $74,000 in fiscal year 2020, from approximately $172,000 in fiscal year 2019, as Certainty’s net loss decreased. The decrease in Certainty’s net loss was primarily due to a decrease in employee stock option and stock award compensation expense of approximately $1,315,000 and a decrease in research and development expense of approximately $547,000.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our primary sources of liquidity are cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.

Based on currently available information as of January 7, 2021, we believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and expected cash flows will be sufficient to fund our activities for the next twelve months. We have implemented a business model that conserves funds by collaborating with third parties to develop our technologies. However, our projections of future cash needs and cash flows may differ from actual results. If current cash on hand, cash equivalents, short term investments and cash that may be generated from our business operations are insufficient to continue to operate our business, or if we elect to invest in or acquire a company or companies or new technology or technologies that are synergistic with or complementary to our technologies, we may be required to obtain more working capital. During fiscal year 2020, we raised approximately $9,266,000, net of expenses, through at-the-market equity offerings of 3,854,305 shares of common stock. This included approximately $427,000, net of expenses, through the sale of 112,238 shares of common stock in an at-the market equity offering which expired in November 2019 and approximately $8,839,000, net of expenses, through the sale of 3,742,067 shares of common stock in an at-the-market equity offering under which we may issue up to $50 million of common stock. Under our current at-the-market equity program which is currently effective and may remain available for us to use in the future, as of October 31, 2020, we may sell an additional approximately $40,811,000 of common stock. We may seek to obtain working capital during our fiscal year 2021 or thereafter through sales of our equity securities or through bank credit facilities or public or private debt from various financial institutions where possible. We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available on acceptable terms, or at all. If we do identify sources for additional funding, the sale of additional equity securities or convertible debt could result in dilution to our stockholders. We can give no assurance that we will generate sufficient cash flows in the future to satisfy our liquidity requirements or sustain future operations, or that other sources of funding, such as sales of equity or debt, would be available or would be approved by our security holders, if needed, on favorable terms or at all. If we fail to obtain additional working capital as and when needed, such failure could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, such lack of funds may inhibit our ability to respond to competitive pressures or unanticipated capital needs, or may force us to reduce operating expenses, which would significantly harm the business and development of operations.

During the year ended October 31, 2020, cash used in operating activities was approximately $6,176,000. Cash used in investing activities was approximately $306,000, resulting from the purchases of certificates of deposit totaling $5,010,000 and the purchase of property and equipment of approximately $16,000, which was offset by the proceeds on maturities of certificates of deposit totaling $4,720,000. Cash provided by financing activities was approximately $9,407,000, resulting from the sale of 3,854,305 shares of common stock in at-the-market equity offerings of approximately $9,266,000, the proceeds from exercise of stock options of approximately $122,000 and the proceeds from the sale of common stock pursuant to employee stock purchase plan of approximately $18,000. As a result, our cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments at October 31, 2020 increased approximately $3,215,000 to approximately $9,057,000 from approximately $5,842,000 at the end of fiscal year 2019.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

We have no variable interest entities or other significant off-balance sheet obligation arrangements.

Critical Accounting Policies

The Company’s consolidated financial statements are prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. In preparing these financial statements, we make assumptions, judgments and estimates that can have a significant impact on amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements. We base our assumptions, judgments and estimates on historical experience and various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results could differ materially from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. On a regular basis, we evaluate our assumptions, judgments and estimates and make changes accordingly.

We believe that, of the significant accounting policies discussed in Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements, the following accounting policies require our most difficult, subjective or complex judgments:

Revenue Recognition

Our revenue has been derived solely from technology licensing and the sale of patented technologies. Revenue is recognized upon transfer of control of intellectual property rights and satisfaction of other contractual performance obligations to licensees in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive.

On November 1, 2018 we adopted Accounting Standards Update 2014-09 (“ASU 2014-09”), “Revenue from Contracts with Customers” using the modified retrospective method. Upon adoption of ASU 2014-09 we are required to make certain judgments and estimates in connection with the accounting for revenue. Such areas may include determining the existence of a contract and identifying each party’s rights and obligations to transfer goods and services, identifying the performance obligations in the contract, determining the transaction price and allocating the transaction price to separate performance obligations, estimating the timing of satisfaction of performance obligations, determining whether a promise to grant a license is distinct from other promised goods or services and evaluating whether a license transfers to a customer at a point in time or over time.

Our revenue arrangements provide for the payment of contractually determined, one-time, paid-up license fees in settlement of litigation and in consideration for the grant of certain intellectual property rights for patented technologies owned or controlled by the Company. These arrangements typically include some combination of the following: (i) the grant of a non-exclusive, retroactive and future license to manufacture and/or sell products covered by patented technologies owned or controlled by the Company, (ii) a covenant-not-to-sue, (iii) the release of the licensee from certain claims, and (iv) the dismissal of any pending litigation. In such instances, the intellectual property rights granted have been perpetual in nature, extending until the expiration of the related patents. Pursuant to the terms of these agreements, we have no further obligations with respect to the granted intellectual property rights, including no obligation to maintain or upgrade the technology, or provide future support or services. Licensees obtained control of the intellectual property rights they have acquired upon execution of the agreement. Accordingly, the performance obligations from these agreements were satisfied and 100% of the revenue was recognized upon the execution of the agreements.

Stock-Based Compensation

The compensation cost for service-based stock options granted to employees and directors is measured at the grant date, based on the fair value of the award using the Black-Scholes pricing model, and is expensed on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period (the vesting period of the stock option). For employee options vesting if the trading price of the Company’s common stock exceeds certain price targets, we use a Monte Carlo Simulation in estimating the fair value at grant date and recognize compensation cost over the implied service period.

For stock awards granted to employees and directors that vest at date of grant we recognize expense based on the grant date market price of the underlying common stock. For restricted stock awards vesting upon achievement of a price target of our common stock we use a Monte Carlo Simulation in estimating the fair value at grant date and recognize compensation cost over the implied service period (median time to vest).

On November 1, 2018 we adopted Accounting Standards Update 2018-07 (“ASU 2018-027”) for stock-based compensation to non-employees. Upon adoption of ASU 2018-07 we estimated the fair value of unvested awards at the date of adoption, using the Black-Scholes pricing model. Future grants to consultants will be measured at the grant date, based on the fair value of the award using the Black-Scholes pricing model, consistent with our policy for grants to employees and directors.

The Black-Scholes pricing model and the Monte Carlo Simulation we use to estimate fair values requires valuation assumptions of expected term, expected volatility, risk-free interest rates and expected dividend yield. The expected term of stock options represents the weighted average period the stock options are expected to remain outstanding. For employees we use the simplified method, which is a weighted average of the vesting term and contractual term, to determine expected term. The simplified method was adopted since we do not believe that historical experience is representative of future performance because of the impact of the changes in our operations and the change in terms from historical options. For consultants we use the contract term for expected term. We estimate the expected volatility of our shares of common stock based upon the historical volatility of our share price over a period of time equal to the expected term of the grants. We estimate the risk-free interest rate based on the implied yield available on the applicable grant date of a U.S. Treasury note with a term equal to the expected term of the underlying grants. We made the dividend yield assumption based on our history of not paying dividends and our expectation not to pay dividends in the future.

We will reconsider use of the Black-Scholes pricing model and Monte Carlo Simulation if additional information becomes available in the future that indicates other models would be more appropriate. If factors change and we employ different assumptions in future periods, the compensation expense that we record may differ significantly from what we have recorded in the current period. See Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information.

Effect of Recent Accounting Pronouncements

We discuss the effect of recently issued pronouncements in Note 2 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Not required for a smaller reporting company.

See accompanying “Index to Consolidated Financial Statements.”

None.

Disclosure Controls and Procedures

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures, as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act. Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our President and Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, we evaluated the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures pursuant to Rule 13a-15 and 15d-15 of the Exchange Act. Based upon that evaluation, our President and Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of the end of fiscal year 2020.

Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) of the Exchange Act. Our management, including the principal executive officer and principal financial officer, does not expect that our internal controls over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and operated, cannot provide full assurance that the objectives of the control system are met, and no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within a company have been detected. Our internal control over financial reporting is designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of consolidated financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including the principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation as to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of October 31, 2020. In making this assessment, our management used the criteria for effective internal control set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission in the 2013 Internal Control – Integrated Framework. Based on this assessment, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of October 31, 2020.

This Annual Report on Form 10-K does not include an attestation report of our independent registered public accounting firm regarding internal control over financial reporting. Management’s report was not subject to attestation by the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm pursuant to a permanent exemption of the Commission that permits the Company to provide only management’s report in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Accordingly, our management’s assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of October 31, 2020 has not been audited by our auditors, Haskell & White LLP.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, the Company’s internal control over financial reporting.

On January 7, 2021, the Board of Directors of the Company confirmed its intention to hold the Company’s 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the “2021 Annual Meeting”) on Friday, May 21, 2021. The time and location of the 2021 Annual Meeting, and the matters to be considered, will be as set forth in the Company’s definitive proxy statement for the 2021 Annual Meeting to be filed in due course with the SEC.

Since the date of the 2021 Annual Meeting has been changed by more than 30 days from the anniversary date of the Company’s last annual meeting of shareholders, the Company is informing shareholders of this change and the updated deadline for shareholders to submit nominations for director or proposals for consideration at the 2021 Annual Meeting in accordance with the rules and regulations of the SEC and the Company’s By-laws. Accordingly, shareholders wishing to nominate a candidate for director or to propose other business at the 2021 Annual Meeting must ensure proper notice is received by the Company at its offices no later than March 17, 2021. The notice must include all of the information required by the Company’s By-laws.

PART III

Our Directors and Executive Officers

The following table sets forth certain information with respect to all of our directors and executive officers:

We believe that our Board represents a desirable mix of backgrounds, skills, and experiences. The principal occupation and business experience during the last five years for our executive officers and directors and some of the specific experiences, qualifications, attributes or skills that led to the conclusion that each person should serve as one of our directors in light of our business and structure is as follows:

Amit Kumar, Ph.D., 56, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Kumar has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since July 2017, as a director of the Company since November 2012 and as Chairman of the Board since August 2016. From June 2015 until August 2016, he served as Vice Chairman of the Board. Dr. Kumar served as a strategic advisor to the Company from September 2012 until July 2017. He has been Executive Chairman of the board of directors of Anixa Diagnostics Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company since June 2015. Upon his appointment as Executive Chairman of Anixa Diagnostics, Dr. Kumar resigned from his position as the CEO of Geo Fossil Fuels LLC, an energy company, which he had held since December 2010. From September 2001 to June 2010, he was President and CEO of CombiMatrix Corporation, a NASDAQ listed biotechnology company and also served as director from September 2000 to June 2012. He was Vice President of Life Sciences of Acacia Research Corporation, a publicly traded investment company, from July 2000 to August 2007 and also served as a director from January 2003 to August 2007. Dr. Kumar has served as Chairman of the board of directors of Ascent Solar Technologies, Inc., a publicly-held solar energy company, since June 2007. He served as a director of Aeolus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company, from June 2004 to June 2018. Dr. Kumar is Chairman of Actym Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company. Dr. Kumar has served on the board of the American Cancer Society since 2016. Dr. Kumar holds an A.B. in Chemistry from Occidental College. After graduate studies at Stanford University and Caltech, he received his Ph.D. from Caltech and completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard University. He has experience in technology driven startups, both at the board of directors and operating levels, in a broad variety of areas including finance, acquisitions, research and development, and marketing, and, as described above, has served as a director and/or officer of various publicly traded companies.

Lewis H. Titterton, Jr., 76, Director. Mr. Titterton has served as a director since July 2017, and as Lead Independent Director since July 2018. He previously served as a director of the Company from August 2010 through August 2016, as the Chairman of the Board from July 2012 through August 2016, and interim Chief Executive Officer from August 2012 until September 2012. He served on the board of directors of ParkerVision, Inc., a publicly traded wireless technology company, from September 2018 to April 2019. His background is in high technology with an emphasis on health care and he was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NYMED, Inc., a diversified health services company, from 1989 until October 2018. Mr. Titterton founded MedE America, Inc. in 1986 and was Chief Executive Officer of Management and Planning Services, Inc. from 1978 to 1986. Mr. Titterton also served as one of our Directors from July 1999 to January 2003. He holds an MBA from the State University of New York at Albany, and a B.A. degree from Cornell University. Mr. Titterton has been involved with our Company as a director or investor for over twenty years. Mr. Titterton also has substantial experience with advising on the strategic development of technology companies and over forty years of experience in various aspects of the technology industry.

Arnold Baskies, MD, FACS, 71, Director. Dr. Baskies has served on our Board since September 2018. He previously served as a director of the Company from August 2016 until September 2017. Dr. Baskies is a surgical oncologist affiliated with Virtua Health Systems in southern New Jersey, where he specializes in surgical oncology and general surgery, and is Clinical Professor of Surgery at Rowan School of Medicine. He trained at Boston University Medical Center and the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute where his early research involved immunotherapy. He has extensive experience in all facets of general surgical and surgical oncologic problems, with special interests in the treatment of breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, thyroid cancer, melanoma, and parathyroid disease, and is a co-investigator in several national studies dealing with breast cancer prevention. Dr. Baskies has served as a director of Baudax Bio, Inc., a publicly-held biotechnology company, since August 2020. He served as chairman of the New Jersey Governor’s Task Force on Early Detection, Prevention and Treatment of Cancer, having created and chaired the cancer control plan for the state from 2000-2016, and is a member of numerous societies, including the Society of Surgical Oncology, the American Society of Breast Surgeons, and the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Baskies has been involved with the American Cancer Society for 40 years. He was awarded the Society’s Silver Chalice Award in 1998 and the Society’s St. George National Award in 2009. He has held leadership positions at many levels of the organization, including service as the first board scientific officer for the American Cancer Society Board of Directors in 2015, and was the chief medical officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the former Eastern Division of the American Cancer Society. In 2017, he served as the Chairman of the National Board of Directors of the American Cancer Society. He helped develop the current guidelines for breast cancer screening and colon cancer screening which are used on a daily basis in the United States and internationally. He chairs the Global Cancer Control Advisory Council for the society and the St. Baldrick’s Foundation/ACS Alliance. He has helped set the standards for cancer care accreditation through his involvement with the Commission on Cancer. He received a medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine in 1975 and a bachelor of arts degree from Boston University College of Liberal Arts in 1971.

David Cavalier, 51, Director. Mr. Cavalier has served on our Board since September 2018. He is a seasoned executive and investor with over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology sector. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Mab & Stoke, Inc., a direct-to-consumer health and wellness company. He was the Chairman, from 2004 to 2018, and Chief Financial Officer, from 2013 to 2018, of Aeolus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company where in 2011 he was instrumental in winning and managing a $118 million advanced research and development contract from the U.S. Government. Prior to Aeolus, Mr. Cavalier was the founder, portfolio manager and Chief Operating Officer of Xmark Opportunity Partners, a biotechnology investment firm. Xmark was an activist fund, focused on creating positive change at the board and management level for portfolio companies. He began his biotech investment career at Brown Simpson Asset Management, where he co-managed the life sciences investment group. Mr. Cavalier previously worked for Tiger Real Estate, a private investment fund sponsored by Tiger Management Corporation. He began his career in the Investment Banking Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. working on debt and equity offerings for public and private real estate companies. Mr. Cavalier currently serves as the Chairman of the New York Advisory Board for Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit focused on policy, program and capital solutions for affordable housing. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.Phil. from Oxford University.

Emily Gottschalk, 60, Director. Ms. Gottschalk has served on our Board since October 2019. She is an experienced marketer with over 30 years of developing products for the consumer marketplace. She has been the CEO of The Garr Group, Inc. since 1997, a diverse entertainment and new product development company that she founded that sells entertainment and general merchandise to the mass, specialty and on-line market. Ms. Gottschalk co-founded IdeationUSA, LLC in 2017, a product development company focused on bringing innovative electronics to the consumer market. IdeationUSA identifies “white space” opportunities in the marketplace and defines and develops products that uniquely touch consumers lives. Ideation is equally focused on brick and mortar, on-line and emerging distribution channels. Previously, she was Marketing Director of Zany Brainy, a children’s educational toy store that she launched. Since 1997, Ms. Gottschalk’s companies have produced over 150 million CD’s/DVD’s to the US retail market, developed a proprietary Android tablet called “RealPad, by AARP” with Intel and has created private label brands across the home and craft market. She is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and serves on the board of several philanthropic organizations.

John Monahan, Ph.D., 74, Director. Dr. Monahan has served on our Board since August 2016. He is an experienced executive and has served on a number of biotechnology company boards over the years. He is currently a director of Synthetic Biologics, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company, and from 2010 through 2015 he was the Senior Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Synthetic Biologics, Inc. He is also a director of Heat Biologics, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company, a position that he has held since 2011. In 1992 he founded Avigen, Inc., a biotechnology company that pioneered the development of gene medicines based on adeno-associated virus vectors, now an industry standard. Over a 12-year period as its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Monahan took Avigen public through an initial public offering raising over $235 million and led the company through several IND applications. Prior to Avigen, Dr. Monahan served as Vice President - Research and Development at Somatix Therapy Corp., and Director of Molecular & Cell Biology at Triton Biosciences, Inc. He was also previously Research Group Chief, Department of Molecular Genetics at Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc., and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology at New York University. Dr. Monahan earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, and a B.S. in Science from University College, Dublin, Ireland. Dr. Monahan has over 50 publications in scientific literature and has made hundreds of presentations and public TV appearances, to scientific groups, investors and the general public over the years.

Michael J. Catelani, 54, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Catelani has served as our Chief Operating Officer since July 2017 and as Chief Financial Officer since November 2016. Mr. Catelani is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in finance and operations. From October 2012 to July 2017, he served as a contract Chief Financial Officer to a number of established privately held businesses in the biotechnology field. In July 2006, he co-founded Tacere Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company, and served as its Chairman, President and Chief Financial Officer until its sale in October 2012. While at Tacere, Mr. Catelani was instrumental in establishing and managing a $150 million drug development collaboration with Pfizer, Inc. Prior to Tacere, he served on the Board of Directors and was the Chief Financial Officer of Benitec Biopharma Limited, an Australian Stock Exchange-listed biotechnology company. Prior to Benitec, Mr. Catelani served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Axon Instruments, Inc., a U.S. corporation publicly traded on the Australian Stock Exchange that was a leading designer and manufacturer of instrumentation and software systems for biotechnology and diagnostics research. Previously, he served as the Vice President of Finance for Media Arts Group, Inc., an NYSE-listed company. Mr. Catelani has also worked with several early stage start-up companies in a variety of industries, including biotechnology, cleantech and retail, in both advisory and management roles. Mr. Catelani began his professional career at Ernst & Young and is a CPA (Inactive). He holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Accountancy, from Sacramento State University and an MBA from the University of California, Davis.

Of our current directors and executive officers, Drs. Kumar, Baskies and Monahan and Messrs. Titterton and Cavalier have served as a director of another public company within the past five years.

Our Significant Employees

We have no significant employees other than our executive management team.

Family Relationships

There are no family relationships between or among the directors, executive officers or persons nominated or chosen by the Company to become directors or executive officers.

Involvement of Certain Legal Proceedings

To the best of our knowledge, during the past ten years, none of the following occurred with respect to a present or former director or executive officer of the Company: (1) any bankruptcy petition filed by or against any business of which such person was a general partner or executive officer either at the time of the bankruptcy or within two years prior to that time; (2) any conviction in a criminal proceeding or being subject to a pending criminal proceeding (excluding traffic violations and other minor offenses); (3) being subject to any order, judgment or decree, not subsequently reversed, suspended or vacated, of any court of competent jurisdiction, permanently or temporarily enjoining, barring, suspending or otherwise limiting his or her involvement in any type of business, securities or banking activities; (4) being found by a court of competent jurisdiction (in a civil action), the Commission or the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to have violated a federal or state securities or commodities law, and the judgment has not been reversed, suspended or vacated; (5) being subject of, or a party to, any Federal or State judicial or administrative order, judgment, decree or finding relating to an alleged violation of the federal or state securities, commodities, banking or insurance laws or regulations or any settlement thereof or involvement in mail or wire fraud in connection with any business entity not subsequently reversed, suspended or vacated and (6) being subject of, or a party to, any disciplinary sanctions or orders imposed by a stock, commodities or derivatives exchange or other self-regulatory organization.

Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance

Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act requires our directors, executive officers and ten percent stockholders to file initial reports of ownership and reports of changes in ownership of our common stock with the Commission. Directors, executive officers and ten percent stockholders are also required to furnish us with copies of all Section 16(a) forms that they file. Based upon a review of these filings, we believe that all required Section 16(a) reports were made on a timely basis during fiscal year 2020.

Code of Ethics

We have adopted a formal code of ethics that applies to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer or controller or persons performing similar functions. We will provide a copy of our code of ethics to any person without charge, upon request. For a copy of our code of ethics write to Secretary, Anixa Biosciences, Inc., 3150 Almaden Expressway, Suite 250, San Jose, California 95118. A current copy of our code of ethics is also available on our website at http://ir.anixa.com/governance-docs.

Nomination Procedures

On July 9, 2015, the Board established a nominating and corporate governance committee (the “Nominating Committee”). The Nominating Committee has a charter which will be reviewed on an annual basis by members of the committee and will be at all times composed of exclusively independent directors. The principal duties and responsibilities of the Nominating Committee are to identify qualified individuals to become board members, recommend to the Board individuals to be designated as nominees for election as directors at the annual meetings of stockholders, and develop and recommend to the Board the Company’s corporate governance guidelines. In selecting directors, the Nominating Committee will consider candidates that possess qualifications and expertise that will enhance the composition of the Board, including the considerations set forth below. The considerations set forth below are not meant as minimum qualifications, but rather as guidelines in weighing all of a candidate’s qualifications and expertise.

We are of the view that the continuing service of qualified incumbents promotes stability and continuity in the board room, contributing to the Board’s ability to work as a collective body, while giving us the benefit of the familiarity and insight into our affairs that our directors accumulate during their tenure. Accordingly, the process of the Nominating Committee for identifying nominees for directors will reflect our practice of generally re-nominating incumbent directors who continue to satisfy the Board’s criteria for membership on the Board, whom the Nominating Committee believes continue to make important contributions and who consent to continue their service on the Board. If the Nominating Committee determines that an incumbent director consenting to re-nomination continues to be qualified and has satisfactorily performed his or her duties as director during the preceding term, and that there exist no reasons, including considerations relating to the composition and functional needs of the Board as a whole, why in the Nominating Committee’s view the incumbent should not be re-nominated, the Nominating Committee will, absent special circumstances, generally propose the incumbent director for re-election. Although we do not have a formal policy regarding the consideration of diversity in identifying and evaluating potential director candidates, the Nominating Committee will take into account the personal characteristics (gender, ethnicity and age), skills and experience, qualifications and background of current and prospective directors’ diversity as one factor in identifying and evaluating potential director candidates, so that the Board, as a whole, will possess what the nominating and corporate governance committee believes are appropriate skills, talent, expertise and backgrounds necessary to oversee our Company’s business.

If the incumbent directors are not nominated for re-election or if there is otherwise a vacancy on the Board, the Nominating Committee may solicit recommendations for nominees from persons that the Nominating Committee believes are likely to be familiar with qualified candidates, including from members of the Board and management. While the Nominating Committee may also engage a professional search firm to assist in identifying qualified candidates, the Nominating Committee did not engage any third party to identify or evaluate or assist in identifying or evaluating the Director Nominees. We do not have a policy with regard to the consideration of director candidates recommended by stockholders. Due to the size of our Company and Board, the Nominating Committee does not believe that such a policy is necessary.

Depending on its level of familiarity with the candidates, the Nominating Committee may choose to interview certain candidates that it believes may possess qualifications and expertise required for membership on the Board. It may also gather such other information it deems appropriate to develop a well-rounded view of the candidate. Based on reports from those interviews or from Board members with personal knowledge and experience with a candidate, and on all other available information and relevant considerations, the Nominating Committee will select and nominate candidates who, in its view, are most suited for membership on the Board.

The members of the nominating committee are Dr. Arnold Baskies (Chairman), Dr. John Monahan and Lewis H. Titterton, Jr.

Audit Committee and Audit Committee Financial Expert

On July 9, 2015, the Board established a separately-designated standing audit committee (the “Audit Committee”) established in accordance with Section 3(a)(58)(A) of the Exchange Act, and Nasdaq Listing Rules. The Audit Committee has a charter which will be reviewed on an annual basis by members of the committee and will be at all times composed of exclusively independent directors who are “financially literate,” meaning they are able to read and understand fundamental financial statements, including the Company’s balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. In addition, the committee will have at least one member who qualifies as an “audit committee financial expert” as defined in rules and regulations of the SEC.

The principal duties and responsibilities of the Company’s Audit Committee are to appoint the Company’s independent auditors, oversee the quality and integrity of the Company’s financial reporting and the audit of the Company’s financial statements by its independent auditors and in fulfilling its obligations, the Company’s Audit Committee will review with the Company’s management and independent auditors the scope and result of the annual audit, the auditors’ independence and the Company’s accounting policies.

The Audit Committee will be required to report regularly to the Board to discuss any issues that arise with respect to the quality or integrity of the Company’s financial statements, its compliance with legal or regulatory requirements and the performance and independence of the Company’s independent auditors.

The members of the Audit Committee are David Cavalier (Chairman), Lewis H. Titterton, Jr. and Dr. John Monahan. Our Board has determined that Mr. Cavalier qualifies as an Audit Committee financial expert as defined by SEC rules, based on his education, experience and background. Please see Mr. Cavalier’s biographical information above for a description of his relevant experience.

The following table sets forth certain information for the fiscal years ended October 31, 2020 and 2019, with respect to compensation awarded to, earned by or paid to our Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer (the “Named Executive Officers”). No other executive officer received total compensation in excess of $100,000 during fiscal year 2020.

Employment Agreements

Consulting Agreement with Dr. Amit Kumar

On September 19, 2012, the Company entered into a Consulting Agreement with Dr. Amit Kumar (the “Kumar Agreement”) pursuant to which Dr. Kumar agreed to provide business consulting services for an initial annual consulting fee of $120,000. On June 15, 2015, Dr. Kumar was appointed Vice Chairman of the Company and Executive Chairman of Anixa Diagnostics. As a result of this appointment, Dr. Kumar’s annual cash compensation was increased to $300,000 by the Board. On August 23, 2016, Dr. Kumar was appointed Executive Chairman of the Company, and on July 6, 2017, Dr. Kumar was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. As of the beginning of each subsequent calendar year, Dr. Kumar’s salary has been reviewed and adjusted by the Board’s Compensation Committee. On January 1, 2021, Dr. Kumar’s annual salary was $582,085.

If Dr. Kumar’s services are terminated by the Company or he terminates his services for any reason or no reason, the Company shall be obligated to pay to Dr. Kumar only any earned compensation and/or bonus due under the Kumar Agreement and any earned and unused paid time off and any unpaid reasonable and necessary expenses, due to him through the date of termination. All such payments shall be made in a lump sum immediately following termination.

Stock Options

Outstanding Stock Option Awards

The following table sets forth certain information with respect to unexercised stock options held by the Named Executive Officers outstanding on October 31, 2020:

Stock Option Grants

The following table summarizes stock option grants during fiscal year 2020.

Stock Option Exercises

During the year ended October 31, 2020, no stock options were exercised by Named Executive Officers.

Stock Awards

On May 8, 2018, a restricted stock award of 1,500,000 shares of common stock was granted under our 2018 Share Incentive Plan to Dr. Kumar. The restricted stock award vests in its entirety if during any 20 trading day period on or before May 31, 2021, the average closing stock price of the Company’s Common Stock is at least $11.00. The grant date fair value of this restricted stock award was $4,814,265.

Potential Payments upon Termination or Change in Control

Dr. Amit Kumar

The time-based and performance-based options granted Dr. Kumar on May 8, 2018 provide for the vesting of the unvested portion of his options to be accelerated and such accelerated options to become immediately exercisable upon a change in control as defined below. The intrinsic value of options granted on May 8, 2018 would be $-0-, which was calculated by multiplying (a) 1,100,000 options (being the number of options granted to him on May 8, 2018 that would be accelerated) by (b) an amount equal to the excess of (x) our closing share price on October 31, 2020 of $2.06 and (y) the options’ exercise price of $3.70 per share.

Options granted Dr. Kumar on December 12, 2019 provide for the vesting of the unvested portion of his options to be accelerated and such accelerated options to become immediately exercisable upon a change in control as defined below. The intrinsic value of options granted on December 12, 2019 would be $-0-, which was calculated by multiplying (a) 361,111 options (being the number of options granted to him on December 12, 2019 that would be accelerated) by (b) an amount equal to the excess of (x) our closing share price on October 31, 2020 of $2.06 and (y) the options’ exercise price of $3.84 per share.

Michael J. Catelani

Options granted Mr. Catelani on July 6, 2017 provide for the vesting of the unvested portion of his options to be accelerated and such accelerated options to become immediately exercisable if Mr. Catelani is terminated without cause or upon a change in control as defined below. The intrinsic value of options granted on July 6, 2017 would be $41,250, which was calculated by multiplying (a) 37,500 options (being the number of options granted to him on July 6, 2017 that would be accelerated) by (b) an amount equal to the excess of (x) our closing share price on October 31, 2019 of $2.06 and (y) the options’ exercise price of $0.96 per share.

Options granted Mr. Catelani on May 8, 2018 provide for the vesting of the unvested portion of his options to be accelerated and such accelerated options to become immediately exercisable upon a change in control as defined below. The intrinsic value of options granted on May 8, 2018 would be $-0-, which was calculated by multiplying (a) 83,333 options (being the number of options granted to him on May 8, 2018 that would be accelerated) by (b) an amount equal to the excess of (x) our closing share price on October 31, 2020 of $2.06 and (y) the options’ exercise price of $3.70 per share.

Options granted Mr. Catelani on December 12, 2019 provide for the vesting of the unvested portion of his options to be accelerated and such accelerated options to become immediately exercisable upon a change in control as defined below. The intrinsic value of options granted on December 12, 2019 would be $-0-, which was calculated by multiplying (a) 69,411 options (being the number of options granted to him on December 12, 2019 that would be accelerated) by (b) an amount equal to the excess of (x) our closing share price on October 31, 2020 of $2.06 and (y) the options’ exercise price of $3.84 per share.

Change in Control

Under our 2010 Share Incentive Plan and our 2018 Share Incentive Plan, “change in control” means:

It is the intent that this definition be construed consistent with the definition of “Change of Control” as defined under Code Section 409A and the applicable treasury regulations, as amended from time to time.

Director Compensation

On August 13, 2020, after a review of non-employee director compensation at comparable companies, the Board approved cash and equity compensation of directors. Each non-employee director shall receive cash compensation of $50,000 paid in four quarterly installments, and the grant of a 10 year nonqualified stock option to purchase 30,000 shares of common stock exercisable at $2.68, such option vesting monthly over a one year period. Our employee director, Dr. Amit Kumar, did not receive any additional compensation for services provided as a director during fiscal year 2020.

The 2010 Share Incentive Plan provides that on January 1^st of each year, each non-employee director (a “Director Participant”) of the Company at that time shall automatically be granted a 10 year nonqualified stock option to purchase 12,000 shares of common stock (or 16,000 in the case of the Chairman of the Board to the extent he qualifies as a Director Participant), with an exercise price equal to the closing price on the date of grant, that will vest in four equal quarterly installments in the year of grant (the “Annual Grant”). Effective January 1, 2018 through the expiration of the 2010 Share Incentive Plan, each Director Participant waived their right to receive the Annual Grant.

The following table sets forth compensation of Lewis H. Titterton, Jr., Dr. Arnold Baskies, David Cavalier, Emily Gottschalk and Dr. John Monahan, our non-employee directors, for fiscal year 2020:

The following table sets forth certain information with respect to our common stock beneficially owned as of January 7, 2021 (or exercisable within 60 days of such date) by (a) each person who is known by our management to be the beneficial owner of more than 5% of our outstanding common stock, (b) each of our directors and executive officers, and (c) all directors and executive officers as a group:

* Less than 1%.

Change in Control

We are not aware of any arrangement that might result in a change in control of the Company in the future.

Equity Compensation Plan Information

The following is information as of October 31, 2020 about shares of our common stock that may be issued upon the exercise of options, warrants and rights under all equity compensation plans in effect as of that date, including our our 2010 Share Incentive Plan and our 2018 Share Incentive Plan. See Note 4 to our Consolidated Financial Statements for more information on these plans.

Transactions with Related Persons

Aside from compensation arrangements with executive officers described above, there are no other transactions entered into by the Company with related persons.

Related Person Transaction Approval Policy

While we have no written policy regarding approval of transactions between us and a related person, our Board, as matter of appropriate corporate governance, reviews and approves all such transactions, to the extent required by applicable rules and regulations. Generally, management would present to the Board for approval at the next regularly scheduled Board meeting any related person transactions proposed to be entered into by us. The Board may approve the transaction if it is deemed to be in the best interests of our stockholders and the Company.

Director Independence

Our Board oversees the activities of our management in the handling of the business and affairs of our company. Our common stock trades on the NASDAQ Capital Market and we are subject to listing requirements which include the requirement that our Board be comprised of a majority of “independent” directors. Lewis H. Titterton, Jr., Dr. Arnold Baskies, David Cavalier, Emily Gottschalk and Dr. John Monahan currently meet the definition of “independent” as defined by the SEC. Dr. Amit Kumar is an employee of the Company and as such does not qualify as an “independent” director. The Board of Directors has separately designated audit, nominating and compensation committees.

The following table describes fees for professional audit services rendered and billed by Haskell & White LLP, our present independent registered public accounting firm and principal accountant, for the audit of our consolidated financial statements and for other services during fiscal years 2020 and 2019.

Procedures For Board of Directors Pre-Approval of Audit and Permissible Non-Audit Services of Independent Auditor

Our Board is ultimately responsible for reviewing and approving, in advance, any audit and any permissible non-audit engagement or relationship between us and our independent registered public accounting firm. On July 9, 2015, the Board established an Audit Committee which was authorized to assume these responsibilities. Haskell & White LLP’s engagement to conduct all audit and permissible non-audit related activities incurred during fiscal years 2020 and 2019 were approved by our audit committee in accordance with these procedures.

PART IV

(a)(1)(2) Financial Statement Schedules

See accompanying “Index to Consolidated Financial Statements.”

The Company has elected not to include a summary pursuant to this Item 16.

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the date indicated.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
OCTOBER 31, 2020

Additional information required by schedules called for under Regulation S-X is either not applicable or is included in the consolidated financial statements or notes thereto.

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM

To the Board of Directors and Shareholders

Anixa Biosciences, Inc.

Opinion on the Consolidated Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Anixa Biosciences, Inc. (the “Company”) as of October 31, 2020 and 2019, and the related consolidated statements of operations, shareholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the two years in the period ended October 31, 2020, and the related notes (collectively, the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the consolidated financial position of the Company as of October 31, 2020 and 2019, and the consolidated results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the two years in the period ended October 31, 2020, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.

Basis for Opinion

These consolidated financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s consolidated financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (“PCAOB”) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. The Company is not required to have, nor were we engaged to perform, an audit of its internal control over financial reporting. As part of our audit, we are required to obtain an understanding of internal control over financial reporting but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we express no such opinion.

Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2013.

Irvine, California
January 7, 2021

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
 

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EQUITY

FOR THE YEARS ENDED OCTOBER 31, 2020 and 2019

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

1. BUSINESS AND FUNDING

Description of Business

As used herein, “we,” “us,” “our,” the “Company” or “Anixa” means Anixa Biosciences, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries. Our primary operations involve developing therapies and vaccines that are focused on critical unmet needs in oncology and infectious disease. Our therapeutics programs include the development of a chimeric endocrine receptor T-cell technology, a novel form of CAR-T technology, initially focused on treating ovarian cancer, and the discovery and ultimately development of anti-viral drug candidates for the treatment of COVID-19 focused on inhibiting certain viral protein functions of the virus. Our vaccine programs include the development of a vaccine against triple negative breast cancer (“TNBC”), the most lethal form of breast cancer, and a vaccine against ovarian cancer.

Our subsidiary, Certainty Therapeutics, Inc. (“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”) relating to Wistar’s CAR-T technology. We have initially focused on the development of a treatment for ovarian cancer, but we may also 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. 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. Certainty, in collaboration with the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Inc. (“Moffitt”), is advancing toward human clinical testing its CAR-T technology for treating ovarian cancer.

In April 2020, in collaboration with OntoChem GmbH (“OntoChem”), we commenced a project 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. We are working with researchers at OntoChem and other collaboration partners to advance the compounds discovered through this screening process toward human clinical testing.

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. We are working in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic to develop a method to vaccinate women against contracting breast cancer, focused specifically on TNBC. A specific protein, alpha-lactalbumin, has been identified that is only present during lactation in healthy women, but reappears in many forms of breast cancer, especially TNBC. Studies have shown that vaccinating against this protein prevents breast cancer in mice. We are working with researchers and clinicians at Cleveland Clinic to prepare for treatment of patients in a Phase 1a clinical trial.

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 the use of vaccines for the treatment or prevention of ovarian cancers which express the extracellular domain of anti-Mullerian hormone receptor II (“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, AMHR2-ED is expressed at high levels in the ovaries of postmenopausal women with ovarian cancer. Researchers at Cleveland Clinic believe that a vaccination targeting AMHR2-ED could prevent the occurrence of ovarian cancer.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

On July 2, 2020, we implemented a strategic realignment of our business and redirected resources to exclusively focus on the development of therapeutics and vaccines. Accordingly, we suspended operations of our subsidiary, Anixa Diagnostics Corporation, and the development of the Cchek™ artificial intelligence driven platform of non-invasive blood tests for the early detection of cancer.

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 the Cchek™ liquid biopsy platform, as well as 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. We hope 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, and may depend on positive results from human clinical trials.

Funding

Based on currently available information as of January 7, 2021, we believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and expected cash flows will be sufficient to fund our activities for the next twelve months. We have implemented a business model that conserves funds by collaborating with third parties to develop our technologies. However, our projections of future cash needs and cash flows may differ from actual results. If current cash on hand, cash equivalents, short term investments and cash that may be generated from our business operations are insufficient to continue to operate our business, or if we elect to invest in or acquire a company or companies or new technology or technologies that are synergistic with or complementary to our technologies, we may be required to obtain more working capital. During fiscal year 2020, we raised approximately $9,266,000, net of expenses, through at-the-market equity offerings of 3,854,305 shares of common stock. This included approximately $427,000, net of expenses, through the sale of 112,238 shares of common stock in an at-the market equity offering which expired in November 2019 and approximately $8,839,000, net of expenses, through the sale of 3,742,067 shares of common stock in an at-the-market equity offering under which we may issue up to $50 million of common stock. Under our current at-the-market equity program which is currently effective and may remain available for us to use in the future, we may sell an additional approximately $40,811,000 of common stock. We may seek to obtain working capital during our fiscal year 2021 or thereafter through sales of our equity securities or through bank credit facilities or public or private debt from various financial institutions where possible. We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available on acceptable terms, or at all. If we do identify sources for additional funding, the sale of additional equity securities or convertible debt could result in dilution to our stockholders. We can give no assurance that we will generate sufficient cash flows in the future to satisfy our liquidity requirements or sustain future operations, or that other sources of funding, such as sales of equity or debt, would be available or would be approved by our security holders, if needed, on favorable terms or at all. If we fail to obtain additional working capital as and when needed, such failure could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Furthermore, such lack of funds may inhibit our ability to respond to competitive pressures or unanticipated capital needs, or may force us to reduce operating expenses, which would significantly harm the business and development of operations.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

2. SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

Basis of Presentation

The consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Anixa Biosciences, Inc. and its wholly and majority owned subsidiaries. All intercompany transactions have been eliminated.

Noncontrolling Interest

Noncontrolling interest represents Wistar’s equity ownership in Certainty and is presented as a component of equity. The following table sets forth the changes in noncontrolling interest for the two years ended October 31, 2020:

Revenue Recognition

Since fiscal 2016 our revenue has been derived solely from technology licensing and the sale of patented technologies. Revenue is recognized upon transfer of control of intellectual property rights and satisfaction of other contractual performance obligations to licensees in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive.

On November 1, 2018 we adopted Accounting Standards Update 2014-09 (“ASU 2014-09”), “Revenue from Contracts with Customers” using the modified retrospective method. Upon adoption of ASU 2014-09 we are required to make certain judgments and estimates in connection with the accounting for revenue. Such areas may include determining the existence of a contract and identifying each party’s rights and obligations to transfer goods and services, identifying the performance obligations in the contract, determining the transaction price and allocating the transaction price to separate performance obligations, estimating the timing of satisfaction of performance obligations, determining whether a promise to grant a license is distinct from other promised goods or services and evaluating whether a license transfers to a customer at a point in time or over time.

Our revenue arrangements provide for the payment of contractually determined, one-time, paid-up license fees in settlement of litigation and in consideration for the grant of certain intellectual property rights for patented technologies owned or controlled by the Company. These arrangements typically include some combination of the following: (i) the grant of a non-exclusive, retroactive and future license to manufacture and/or sell products covered by patented technologies owned or controlled by the Company, (ii) a covenant-not-to-sue, (iii) the release of the licensee from certain claims, and (iv) the dismissal of any pending litigation. In such instances, the intellectual property rights granted have been perpetual in nature, extending until the expiration of the related patents. Pursuant to the terms of these agreements, we have no further obligations with respect to the granted intellectual property rights, including no obligation to maintain or upgrade the technology, or provide future support or services. Licensees obtained control of the intellectual property rights they have acquired upon execution of the agreement. Accordingly, the performance obligations from these agreements were satisfied and 100% of the revenue was recognized upon the execution of the agreements.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Cost of Revenues

Cost of revenues include the costs and expenses incurred in connection with our patent licensing and enforcement activities, including inventor royalties paid to original patent owners, contingent legal fees paid to external counsel, other patent-related legal expenses paid to external counsel, licensing and enforcement related research, consulting and other expenses paid to third-parties and the amortization of patent-related investment costs. These costs are included under the caption “Operating costs and expenses” in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses, consisting primarily of employee compensation, payments to third parties for research and development activities and other direct costs associated with developing a platform for non-invasive blood tests for early detection of cancer, developing immuno-therapy drugs against cancer, development of our breast cancer vaccine, development of our ovarian cancer vaccine and development of anti-viral drug candidates for COVID-19, are expensed in the consolidated financial statements in the year incurred.

Fair Value Measurements

Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) 820 “Fair Value Measurements and Disclosures” (“ASC 820”) defines fair value, establishes a framework for measuring fair value under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and expands disclosures about fair value measurements. In accordance with ASC 820, we have categorized our financial assets and liabilities, based on the priority of the inputs to the valuation technique, into a three-level fair value hierarchy as set forth below. If the inputs used to measure the financial instruments fall within different levels of the hierarchy, the categorization is based on the lowest level input that is significant to the fair value measurement of the instrument.

Financial assets and liabilities recorded in the accompanying consolidated balance sheets are categorized based on the inputs to the valuation techniques as follows:

Level 1 – Financial instruments whose values are based on unadjusted quoted prices for identical assets or liabilities in an active market which we have the ability to access at the measurement date.

Level 2 – Financial instruments whose values are based on quoted market prices in markets where trading occurs infrequently or whose values are based on quoted prices of instruments with similar attributes in active markets.

Level 3 – Financial instruments whose values are based on prices or valuation techniques that require inputs that are both unobservable and significant to the overall fair value measurement. These inputs reflect management’s own assumptions about the assumptions a market participant would use in pricing the instrument.

ANIXA BIOSCIENCES, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

The following table presents the hierarchy for our financial assets measured at fair value on a recurring basis as of October 31, 2020: