Advaxis is a development stage biotechnology company with the intent to develop safe and effective immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases. These immunotherapies are based on a platform technology under exclusive license from the University of Pennsylvania that utilize live, attenuated Listeria monocytogenes bio-engineered to secrete antigen/adjuvant fusion proteins.
The discoveries that underlie this innovative technology are based upon the work of Yvonne Paterson, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology at Penn. Her work has shown that Lm-LLO based immunotherapies stimulate the immune system to induce antigen-specific anti-tumor immune responses involving both innate and adaptive arms of the immune system. In addition, this technology could facilitate the immune response by altering the microenvironment of tumors to make them more susceptible to immune attack.
We have focused our initial development efforts on therapeutic immunotherapies targeting HPV-associated diseases: cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN 2/3), recurrent or refractory cervical cancer, and head & neck cancer. In addition, we have developed immunotherapies for prostate cancer and HER2 expressing cancers (such as breast, gastric, bladder, brain, pancreatic, ovarian cancer, and canine osteosarcoma).