UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

[X] ANNUAL REPORT UNDER SECTION 13 OR 15(d)

OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED - OCTOBER 31, 20182019

OR

[  ]TRANSITION REPORT UNDER SECTION 13 OR 15 (d)

OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM ______ TO ______

COMMISSION FILE NUMBER 000-28489001-36138

ADVAXIS, INC.

(NameExact name of Registrantregistrant as specified in Its Charter)its charter)

(609) 452-9813

(Issuer’s Telephone Number)Registrant’s telephone number)

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

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 Exchange 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 definition 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 is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).

Yes [  ] No [X]

As of April 30, 2018,2019, the aggregate market value of the voting common equity held by non-affiliates was approximately $82,957,000,$28,098,000 based on the closing bid price of the registrant’s common stock on the NASDAQNasdaq Capital Market. (For purposes of determining this amount, only directors, executive officers, and 10% or greater shareholders and their respective affiliates have been deemed affiliates). [X]

The registrant had 69,703,21950,211,424 shares of common stock, par value $0.001 per share, outstanding as of December 31, 2018.16, 2019.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the Proxy Statement for the registrant’s 20192020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the “Proxy Statement”) to be filed within 120 days of the end of the fiscal year ended October 31, 20182019 are incorporated by reference into Part III hereof. Except with respect to information specifically incorporated by reference in this Form 10-K, the Proxy Statement is not deemed to be filed as a part hereof.

Table of Contents

Form 10-K Index

PART 1

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This annual report on Form 10-K (“Form 10-K”) includes statements that are, or may be deemed to be, “forward-looking statements.” In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms “believes,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “may,” “could,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “approximately” or, in each case, their negative or other variations thereon or comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. They appear in a number of places throughout this Form 10-K and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs, projections, outlook, analyses or current expectations concerning, among other things, our ongoing and planned discovery and development of drug candidates, the strength and breadth of our intellectual property, our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and clinical trials, the timing of and our ability to make regulatory filings and obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for our product candidates, the degree of clinical utility of our product candidates, particularly in specific patient populations, expectations regarding clinical trial data, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth and strategies, the length of time that we will be able to continue to fund our operating expenses and capital expenditures, our expected financing needs and sources of financing, the industry in which we operate and the trends that may affect the industry or us.

By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events, competitive dynamics, and healthcare, regulatory and scientific developments and depend on the economic circumstances that may or may not occur in the future or may occur on longer or shorter timelines than anticipated. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this Form 10-K, we caution you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industry in which we operate may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K. In addition, even if our results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industry in which we operate are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K, they may not be predictive of results or developments in future periods.

Some of the factors that we believe could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated or predicted include:

Any forward-looking statements that we make in this Form 10-K speak only as of the date of such statement, and we undertake no obligation to update such statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Form 10-K. You should also read carefully the factors described in the “Risk Factors” section of this Form 10-K to better understand the risks and uncertainties inherent in our business and underlying any forward-looking statements. As a result of these factors, we cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements in this Form 10-K will prove to be accurate.

This Form 10-K includes statistical and other industry and market data that we obtained from industry publications and research, surveys and studies conducted by third-parties. Industry publications and third-party research, surveys and studies generally indicate that their information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, although they do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information. While we believe these industry publications and third-party research, surveys and studies are reliable, we have not independently verified such data.

We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. In addition, with respect to all of our forward-looking statements, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

In this Form 10-K, unless otherwise stated or the context otherwise indicates, references to “Advaxis,” “the Company,” “we,” “us,” “our” and similar references refer to Advaxis, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

Item 1. Business.

General

Advaxis Inc. (“Advaxis” or the “Company”) is a late-stageclinical-stage biotechnology Companycompany focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietaryListeria monocytogenes (“, orLm”)Lm, Technology antigen delivery products based on a platform technology that utilizes live attenuatedLm bioengineered to secrete antigen/adjuvant fusion proteins. TheseLm-based strains are believed to be a significant advancement in immunotherapy as they integrate multiple functions into a single immunotherapy and are designed to access and direct antigen presenting cells to stimulate anti-tumor T cell immunity, activate the immune system with the equivalent of multiple adjuvants, and simultaneously reduce tumor protection in the Tumor Microenvironment, (“TME”)or TME, to enable T cells to eliminate tumors. The Company believes thatLm Technology immunotherapies can complement and address significant unmet needs in the current oncology treatment landscape. Specifically, the Company’s product candidates have the potential to optimize the clinical impact of checkpoint inhibitors while having a generally well-tolerated safety profile. The Company’s passion for the clinical potential ofLm Technology is balanced by focus and fiscal discipline which is directed towards improving treatment options for cancer patients and increasing shareholder value.

Advaxis is focused on four product-related areassingle antigen and multiple antigen delivery products and is in various stages of clinical and pre-clinical development, which they believe will providedevelopment. All of the greatest opportunity to have a significant impact on patients and their families:

All four product areasCompany’s products are anchored in the Company’sLm Technology^TM, a unique platform designed for its ability to target various cancers in multiple ways. As an intracellular bacterium,Lm is an effective vector for the presentation of antigens through both the Major Histocompatibility Complex, (“MHC”)or MHC, I and II pathways, due to its active phagocytosis by Antigen Presenting Cells, (“APCs”).or APCs. Within the APCs,Lm produces virulence factors which allow survival in the host cytosol and potently stimulate the immune system.

Through a license from the University of Pennsylvania and through its own development efforts, Advaxis has exclusive access to a proprietary formulation of attenuatedLm that we callLm Technology.Lm Technology is designed to optimize this natural system, and one of the keys to the enhanced immunogenicity ofLm Technology is thetLLO – fusion-fusion protein, which is made up of tumor associated antigen, (“TAA”)or TAA, fused to a highly immunogenic bacterial protein that triggers potent cellular immunity. ThetLLO-fusion protein is also designed to help reduce immune tolerance in the TME and to promote antigen spreading, thereby improving activity in the TME. Multiple copies of thetLLO-fusion protein within each construct may increase antigen presentation and TME impact.

As the field of immunotherapy continues to evolve, the flexibility of theLm Technology platform has allowed Advaxis to develop highly innovative products. To date,Lm Technology has demonstrated preclinical synergy with multiple checkpoint inhibitors, co-stimulatory agents and radiation therapy, with a clinical trial currently underway in combination with Merck & Co., Inc.’s (“Merck”) PD-1 inhibitor.therapy. The safety profile of allLm Technology constructs seen to date across over 470 patients has been generally predictable and manageable, consisting mostly of mild to moderate flu-like symptoms that have been transient and associated with infusion.

The Advaxis Corporate Strategy

The Advaxis corporateOur strategy is to advance theLm Technology platform and leverage its unique capabilities to design and develop an array of cancer treatments. The Company and its collaboratorsWe are currently conducting or planning clinical studies ofLm Technology immunotherapies in HPV-associated cancers (including cervical and head and neck), prostate cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.other solid tumor types, prostate cancer and HPV-associated cancers. We are working with, or are in the process of identifying, collaborators for these programs.

Advaxis is currently focusing on its disease focused hotspot/”off the shelf” neoantigen-directed therapies. ADXS-HOT is a program that leverages the Company’s proprietary Lm technology to target hotspot mutations that commonly occur in specific cancer types. ADXS-HOT drug candidates are designed to target acquired shared or “public” mutations in tumor driver genes along with other cancer-associated antigens that also commonly occur in specific cancer types.

Moving forward, the Company expectsWe expect that itwe will continue to invest in itsour core clinical program areas and will also remain opportunistic in evaluating Investigator Sponsored Trials, (“ISTs”)or ISTs, as well as licensing opportunities. TheLm Technology platform is protected by a range of patents, covering both product and process, some of which the Company believeswe believe can be maintained into 2037.2039.

LmTechnology and the Immunotherapy Landscape

The challenge of cancer immunotherapy has been to find the best overall balance between efficacy and side effects when mobilizing the body’s immune system to fight against cancer. The development of immune checkpoint inhibitors was a significant step forward, particularly with anti-PD-1 therapies, and brought with it impressive clinical activity in many different types of cancers, including melanoma, lung, head and neck and urothelial cancers. However, a literature review published inSciencein 2018 noted that anti-PD-1 monotherapy response rates are only in the 15-25% range, and rise to ≥ 50%≥50% only in selected groups of patients with desmoplastic melanoma, Merkel carcinoma or tumors with mismatch-repair deficiency. Development of secondary resistance with disease progression is yet another common limitation of these therapies. Therefore, for most cancer patients, there is room for improvement. Checkpoint inhibitors can expand existing cancer fighting cells that may already be present in low numbers and support their activity against cancer cells, but if the right cancer-fighting cells are not present, checkpoint inhibitors may not provide clinical benefit. Similarly, there are many mechanisms of immune tolerance that are distinct from the checkpoints which may also be blocking the immune system from fighting cancer. Based on both pre-clinical and early clinical data, Advaxis believes that checkpoint inhibitors, when combined with treatments such asLm Technology, can have an amplified anti-tumor effect.LmTechnology incorporates several complementary elements that include innate immune stimulation, potent generation of cancer-targeted T cells, ability to boost immunity through multiple treatments, enhancing lymphocyte infiltration into tumors, reduction of non-checkpoint mediated immune tolerance within the tumor microenvironment, and promotion of antigen spreading which may amplify the effects of treatment. These results provide rationale for further testing ofLm Technology agents alone and in combination with checkpoint inhibitors.

Traditional cancer vaccines were another development within immunotherapy and have a history beginning over 30 years ago. Unfortunately, these vaccines have largely been unsuccessful for a variety of potential reasons. These include poor selection of targets, imbalanced antigen presentation by inclusion of certain immune enhancing agents (adjuvants), failure to consider the blocking actions of immune tolerance, and choice of vaccine vectors. In some cases, patients may develop neutralizing antibodies, preventing further treatments. In contrast to traditional cancer vaccines,Lm Technology takes advantage of a natural pathway in the immune system that evolved to protect us againstListeria infections, that also happens to generate the same type of immunity that is required when fighting cancer. The live but weakened (attenuated) bacteria stimulate a balanced concert of innate immune triggers and present the tumor antigen target precisely where it needs to be able to generate potent cancer fighting cells from within the immune system itself. The multitude of accompanying signals serves to broadly mobilize most of the immune system in support of fighting what seems to be aListeria infection, and is then “re-directed” against cancer cell targets. Additionally, the unique intracellular lifecycle ofListeria avoids the creation of neutralizing antibodies, thereby allowing for repeat administration as a chronic therapy with a sustained enhancing of tumor antigen-specific T cell immunity.

Looking back on the last two decades, there have been promising technology advancements to harness and activate killer T cells against cancers and every day more is learned about the interplay between immunity and cancer that can lead to improved treatments. However, there are still significant unmet needs in the immunotherapy landscape that Advaxis feelsLm Technology canmay be able to address and complement. Specifically,Lm Technology has the potential to optimize and expand checkpoint inhibitor activity in combination. It also avoids many of the limitations of previous cancer vaccine attempts by tapping into the pathway reserved for defense againstListeria infection while incorporating the best cancer targets science can identify, including neoantigens that result from mutations in the cancer. To date,Lm Technology products have a manageable safety profile, do not generate neutralizing antibodies lending themselves to retreatments, and most of the products are designed to be immediately available for treatment without the complication and expense of modifying a patient’s own cells in a laboratory.

LmTechnology: An optimizedListeria -based antigen delivery system

Advaxis’Listeria-based immunotherapies are designed for antigen delivery through a process of insertion of multiple copies of the proprietarytLLO-fusion protein into each extrachromosomal protein expression and secretion plasmid that makes and secretes the target protein right inside the patient’s antigen presenting cells to initiate and/or boost their immune response. ThetLLO-fusion protein approach was developed at the University of Pennsylvania as an improvement over insertion of a single copy of the target gene, as an ACT-A (or otherLm peptide) fusion, within the bacterial genome for four key reasons:

Through a license from the University of Pennsylvania, Advaxis has exclusive access to this proprietary formulation of attenuatedLmwhich further enhances what we believe to be a nearly ideal natural system. Clinical application in the Company’s four program areas is the core focus of current development efforts.

Clinical Pipeline

Advaxis is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietaryLm Technology antigen delivery products, with its latest stage program for cervical cancer in Phase 3 development.products. The Company and its collaborators are currently conducting or are in the planning process for conducting clinical studies ofLm Technology immunotherapies in four programthe following areas:

The Company is currently in the process of winding down its ADXS-NEO Phase 1Lm Technology personalized neoantigen-directed therapies clinical study and its AIM2CERV Phase 3 clinical trial with axalimogene filolisbac (AXAL) in high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer.

As a late-stageclinical-stage biotechnology company with no commercial products, Advaxis is aware of the need for fiscal responsibility, and is focusing its investment intoinvestments in areas that it anticipates will have the four program areas listed above.highest likelihood of clinical and commercial success. Additionally, the company will continue to be opportunistic by exploring ISTs, licensing and other external opportunities.

Advaxis Pipeline of Product Candidates

HPV-Related Cancers: Proof of Concept of LmTechnology

The Company is developing therapies for HPV-related cancers using axalimogene filolisbac (AXAL). Axalimogene filolisbac is anLm–based antigen delivery product directed against HPV and designed to target cells expressing HPV. The company’s HPV-related products are currently under investigation, or being considered, in two HPV-associated cancers: cervical cancer and head and neck cancer, either as a monotherapy or in combination. Advaxis has also completed treatment in two Phase 2 studies of axalimogene filolisbac for the treatment of anal cancer and has decided to not pursue further studies in this cancer type at this time.

Cervical Cancer: axalimogene filolisbac

HPV is the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract and is the cause of a range of conditions in both females and males. In women, persistent infection with specific oncogenic types of HPV (most frequently alpha7 and alpha9 families) may lead to precancerous lesions which, if untreated, may progress to cervical cancer. There are approximately 527,000 new cases of cervical cancer caused by HPV worldwide every year, and 12,000 new cases in the U.S. alone, according to the World Health Organization (“WHO”) Human Papillomavirus and Related Cancers in the World Summary Report 2017. There are approximately 4,250 deaths from cervical cancer each year according to the National Institutes of Health. Current preventative HPV vaccines such as Gardasil^®and Cervarix^® cannot treat or protect the large population of adults already infected with the virus, leaving several generations of women vulnerable. Furthermore, challenges with acceptance, accessibility, and compliance have resulted in suboptimal vaccination rates, with approximately 50% of young women and 38% of young men being fully vaccinated in the United States, according to statistics published by the Centers for Disease Control in 2017. Vaccination rates are even lower in other countries around the world.

Axalimogene filolisbac has received FDA orphan drug designation for invasive International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (“FIGO”) Stage II-IV cervical cancer and has received Fast Track designation from the FDA for the treatment of high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer. Axalimogene filolisbac has also been classified as an advanced-therapy medicinal product (“ATMP”) for the treatment of cervical cancer by the European Medicines Agency’s (“EMA”) Committee for Advanced Therapies (“CAT”). The CAT is the EMA’s committee responsible for assessing the quality, safety and efficacy of ATMPs. The Company completed the CAT certification procedure and the CAT certified that the preclinical and quality information have met the scientific and technical standards for a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA).

Phase 2 Trial Results – axalimogene filolisbac

In 2014, the company completed a randomized Phase 2 clinical trial (Lm -LLO-E7-15) with AXAL +/- chemotherapy in 109 women, conducted in India, with recurrent/refractory cervical cancer. The final results were presented at the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology (“ASCO”) Annual Meeting and showed that 32% (35/109) of patients were alive at 12 months, 22% (24/109) of patients were Long-term Survivors (“LTS”) alive greater than 18 months, and 18% (16/91) evaluable with adequate follow-up of patients were alive for more than 24 months. Of the 109 patients treated in the trial, LTS included not only patients with tumor shrinkage but also patients who had experienced stable disease or increased tumor burden. 17% (19/109) of the patients in the trial had recurrence of disease after at least two prior treatments for their cervical cancer; these patients comprised 8% (2/24) of LTS. Among the LTS, 25% (3/12) of patients had a baseline Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (“ECOG”) performance status of 2, a patient population that is often excluded from clinical trials. Furthermore, a 10% objective response rate (including 5 complete responses and 6 partial responses) and a disease control rate of 38% (42/109) were observed. The addition of cisplatin chemotherapy to axalimogene filolisbac in this trial did not significantly improve overall survival or objective tumor response (p =0.9981).

In this trial, 109 patients received 254 doses of axalimogene filolisbac. Axalimogene filolisbac was found to be well tolerated with 38% (41/109) of patients experiencing mild to moderate Grade 1 or 2 transient adverse events associated with infusion; 1 patient experienced a Grade 3 Serious Adverse Events (“SAE”). All observed treatment-related adverse events either self-resolved or responded readily to symptomatic treatment.

Based on these results, the Gynecological Oncology Group (“GOG”) Foundation, Inc. (now a member of NRG Oncology), under the sponsorship of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (“CTEP”) of the National Cancer Institute (“NCI”), conducted GOG-0265, an open-label, single-arm Phase 2 trial of axalimogene filolisbac in persistent or recurrent cervical cancer (patients must have received at least 1 prior chemotherapy regimen for the treatment of their recurrent/metastatic disease, not including that administered as a component of primary treatment) at numerous clinical sites in the U.S. The trial was a Simon 2-stage design, with the primary efficacy endpoint being 12-month survival, with the objective of the secondary efficacy endpoints to evaluate progression-free survival, overall survival and objective tumor response. The primary safety endpoints were to evaluate the number of patients with dose-limiting toxicities and the frequency and severity of adverse effects.

To evaluate the trial’s primary endpoint of 12-month overall survival rate, the GOG’s protocol featured a prospectively-defined logistic model-based calculation of the expected 12-month survival rate using key predictive factors significantly related to survival and derived from 17 serially conducted GOG/NRG 2-stage studies of inactive agents in persistent/recurrent metastatic cervical cancer (“PRmCC”) involving approximately 500 patients. This accumulated data by GOG used a consistent protocol design and a similar data collection methodology resulting in a robust and homogeneous patient dataset for the per protocol analysis of the primary endpoint. Per the trial protocol, this logistic model-based calculation was then used as a comparator for evaluating the 12-month survival rate of axalimogene filolisbac observed in GOG-0265.

The first stage of enrollment in GOG-0265 was successfully completed with 26 patients treated and met the predetermined safety and efficacy criteria required to proceed into the second stage of patient enrollment. Clinical data from the first stage of GOG-0265 was presented at the American Gynecological & Obstetrical Society (“AGOS”) annual meeting in September 2015. Overall survival at 12 months was 38.5% (10/26) (the predefined criteria for 12-month survival in order to progress to Stage 2 was ≥20%), and, among patients who had received the full treatment regimen of 3 doses of axalimogene filolisbac, the 12-month survival rate was 55.6% (10/18). The adverse events observed in the first stage of the trial have been consistent with those reported in other clinical studies with axalimogene filolisbac.

Stage 2 of the trial began enrollment in February 2015 which included a protocol amendment to allow patients to continue to receive repeat cycles of therapy until disease progression. Stage 2 enrollment was temporarily suspended with a clinical hold in October 2015 that resolved in mid-December 2015. Prior to re-initiating enrollment of a new cohort of Stage 2 patients, Advaxis and the GOG Foundation/NRG Oncology examined the 12-month survival rate and safety data obtained from the 24 patients who had previously enrolled in Stage 2. The Stage 2 population demonstrated that treatment with axalimogene filolisbac resulted in a 37.5% (9/24) 12-month survival rate. This data was consistent with the findings in Stage 1 that showed a 38.5% 12-month survival rate, despite a greater proportion of Stage 2 patients having previously taken and failed bevacizumab treatment prior to enrollment. Taken together, the available data from both stages of GOG-0265 comprise a Phase 2 clinical trial in 50 subjects with a 12 month survival rate of 38% (19/50). The protocol defined logistic model-based calculation of the expected 12-month milestone survival rate was calculated to be 24.5% using the key predictors from the patients enrolled in the trial. The 12-month survival rate of 38% for patients receiving axalimogene filolisbac in the trial represented a 52% improvement over the expected 12-month milestone survival rate of 24.5%.

Overall, 28 out of 50 (56%) patients experienced a Grade 1 or Grade 2 treatment-related adverse event (TRAE) associated with axalimogene filolisbac infusion. The most common (>30%) Grade 1 or Grade 2 TRAEs were fatigue, chills, anemia, nausea and fever. Eighteen (36%) patients experienced a Grade 3 TRAE and two patients experienced a Grade 4 AE, including a Klebsiella lung infection in one patient, and hypotension/cytokine related symptoms in another patient, which were considered possibly related to treatment.

In October 2016, upon review of these findings, the Company announced early closure of GOG-0265. Results from the GOG-0265 trial were presented as an oral late-breaker presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (“SGO”) annual meeting on March 14, 2017. Based on these data, the Company made a strategic decision to submit for conditional MAA in the European Union for axalimogene filolisbac to treat metastatic cervical cancer in patients who progress beyond first-line treatment in March 2018. However, Advaxis withdrew the application in July 2018 based on European Medicines Agency (EMA) feedback following its initial review indicating the application will likely need additional clinical data to support a conditional approval.

Advaxis also conducted a clinical trial with axalimogene filolisbac through a collaboration agreement with MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca. This Phase 1/2, open-label, multicenter, dose determination and expansion cohort trial was designed to determine the recommended Phase 2 dose (“RP2D”) and evaluate the safety and efficacy of axalimogene filolisbac, in combination with MedImmune’s investigational anti-PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, IMFINZI^TM (“durvalumab”), as a treatment for patients with metastatic squamous or non-squamous carcinoma of the cervix and metastatic HPV-associated squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (“SCCHN”). The dose determination phase of the trial is complete. Two dose cohorts were enrolled. Cohort 1 enrolled 5 patients with metastatic cervical cancer who received 1 x 10⁹cfu of axalimogene filolisbac + 3 mg/mg durvalumab. Cohort 2 enrolled 3 patients with metastatic cervical cancer and 2 patients with SCCHN who received 1 x 10⁹ cfu of axalimogene filolisbac + 10 mg/mg of durvalumab. No dose-limiting toxicities were observed in either cohort. The RP2D was determined to be 1 x 10⁹ cfu for axalimogene filolisbac + 10 mg/mg for durvalumab. Preliminary data showed that two patients with metastatic cervical cancer achieved a durable complete response (with confirmation) and a partial response (without confirmation), respectively.

TRAEs were reported in 91% of patients; the majority were either Grade 1 (64%) or Grade 2 (55%) events. The most commonly reported TRAEs were chills, fever, nausea and hypotension. Three patients reported Grade 3 TRAEs (1 x 10⁹ + 3 mg/kg - rigor/chills; 1 x 10⁹ + 10 mg/kg - rigor/chills; and 1 x 10⁹ + 10 mg/kg - diarrhea and shortness of breath). One patient experienced a Grade 4 TRAE of hypotension. As of February 27, 2018, the safety profile of the combination of axalimogene filolisbac and durvalumab was consistent with previous reported findings for both axalimogene filolisbac and durvalumab administered as monotherapy. However, on March 9, 2018, a clinical hold was issued for this study following submission by the Company of a safety report to the FDA regarding a patient death that occurred on February 27, 2018, post-dosing, involving acute respiratory failure after receiving nine months of combination therapy in the trial. New guidelines for the early detection and treatment of such rare events were agreed to with the FDA and were implemented in this and all other studies evaluating ourLm-based drug candidates. The clinical hold was lifted by FDA on July 12, 2018. Enrollment and dosing in all other Advaxis and durvalumab clinical programs were not affected by the clinical hold.

In November 2018, the Company announced that enrollment in the Part A expansion phase (N = 20 patients with SCCHN) and planned Part B expansion phase (N=90 patients with metastatic cervical cancer) had ended in order to maximize the efficient use of its resources. As of the latest internal data cut-off date of October 10, 2018, 7 patients receiving 1 x 10⁹ axalimogene filolisbac + 10 mg/kg durvalumab had been enrolled. In the Part B expansion, a total of 32 patients with metastatic cervical cancer were randomized to receive either 10 mg/kg durvalumab alone (N=16 patients) or 1 x 10⁹ axalimogene filolisbac + 10 mg/kg durvalumab (N = 16 patients) expansion phases.

Ongoing Registrational and Phase 3 Study: Axalimogene filolisbac

Women who are diagnosed with high risk, locally-advanced carcinoma of the cervix (“HRLACC”) face a higher chance that their cancer may recur following initial treatment when compared to earlier stages of the disease. When cervical cancer recurs, there are very few treatment options and the prognosis is dire. To address this unmet need, in 2016 the Company reached an agreement with the FDA, under its Special Protocol Assessment (“SPA”) process, for a Phase 3 trial evaluating axalimogene filolisbac in patients with HRLACC (“AIM2CERV” or “AdvaxisImmunotherapy2 PreventCervical Recurrence”) to be conducted in collaboration with the GOG/NRG Oncology.

AIM2CERV is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 trial of adjuvant axalimogene filolisbac following primary chemoradiation treatment of women with HRLACC. The primary objective of AIM2CERV is to compare the disease free survival of axalimogene filolisbac to placebo administered in the adjuvant setting following standard concurrent chemotherapy and radiotherapy (“CCRT”) administered with curative intent to patients with HRLACC. Secondary endpoints include examining overall survival and safety. The company’s goal is to develop a treatment to prevent or reduce the risk of cervical cancer recurrence after primary, standard of care treatment in women who are at high risk of recurrence. The current trial design has a planned sample size of 450 subjects to maintain adequate statistical power over a broader range of survival outcomes, as well as a pre-planned interim analysis (IA) of safety and efficacy. However, the Company has been evaluating the possibility of accelerating the IA timeline and establishing a more stringent futility boundary. The Company anticipates that in early 2019 it will finalize the redesign of the trial and review it with the FDA. During this time, the study is continuing to enroll patients under its current design, which is being conducted under a Special Protocol Assessment with the FDA.

HPV Program Licensing Agreements

Biocon Limited (“Biocon”), our co-development and commercialization partner for axalimogene filolisbac in India and key emerging markets, filed a Marketing Authorization Application (“MAA”) for licensure of this immunotherapy in India. The companies will evaluate next steps regarding potential registration in India.

Especificos Stendhal SA de CV (“Stendhal”), the Company’s co-development and commercialization partner for axalimogene filolisbac in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other Latin American countries, agreed to pay $10 million (“Support payment”) towards the expense of AIM2CERV over the duration of the trial, contingent upon Advaxis achieving annual project milestones, pursuant to a Co-Development and Commercialization Agreement (the “Stendhal Agreement”). The Company is currently in arbitration proceedings with Stendhal, see Legal Proceedings in Note 10 to the financial statements.

Knight Therapeutics Inc. (“Knight”), holds an exclusive license to commercialize axalimogene filolisbac in Canada, as well as other product candidates.

Advaxis granted Global BioPharma (“GBP”) an exclusive license for the development and commercialization of axalimogene filolisbac for the treatment of cervical cancer in Asia, Africa, and the former USSR territory, exclusive of India and certain other countries. GBP is responsible for all development and commercial costs and activities associated with the development in their territories.

Head and Neck Cancer

Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck (“SCCHN”) is the most frequently occurring malignant tumor of the head and neck and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. More than 90% of SCCHNs originate from the mucosal linings of the oral cavity, pharynx, or larynx and 70% of these cancers are caused by HPV. According to the American Cancer Society, head and neck cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in the United States. But while the Pap smear and other HPV tests have reduced rates of cervical cancer, rates of oral cavity and pharynx cancer are growing, with 51,540 new cases projected to be diagnosed in the United Stated in 2018 according to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (“SEER”) database.

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that approximately 12% of U.S. men and 3% of women were actively infected with oral HPV between 2011 and 2014. That totals 11 million men and 3 million women who are at risk for developing SCCHN. SCCHN is typically asymptomatic until it has metastasized, and screening options do not exist. The only way to prevent infection is the HPV vaccine, but compliance has been low to date. Another challenge is that preventative vaccines cannot protect those already infected or older than 26, leaving several generations of Americans vulnerable to SCCHN with no way of knowing if cancer is silently growing.

We conducted a clinical trial in collaboration with MedImmune to collaborate on a Phase 1/2, open-label, multicenter, two part trial to evaluate safety and efficacy of axalimogene filolisbac, in combination with durvalumab (MEDI4736), for patients with metastatic squamous or non-squamous carcinoma of the cervix and metastatic HPV-associated SCCHN. Part 1 of this trial is complete and results will be presented in 2019. The Company and MedImmune have decided to not continue further enrollment into the expansion phases of this study.

The Company plans to initiate an investigator-sponsored trial with a major research center in head and neck cancer in early 2019. Axalimogene filolisbac has received FDA orphan drug designation for HPV-associated head and neck cancer.

PersonalizedNeoantigen-directed Therapies (ADXS-NEO)

LmTechnology is an effective vector for immunotherapy, and the Company made the decision to branch into the growing field of individualized cancer treatments with ADXS-NEO. ADXS-NEO is designed to create individualized therapies by activating the patient’s immune system to respond against multiple mutations, or neoantigens, identified from an individual patient’s tumor through DNA sequencing. In August 2016, Advaxis entered into a global agreement with Amgen for the development and commercialization of ADXS-NEO. On December 10, 2018, Company received a written notice of termination of such agreement from Amgen. See Note 9 to our financial statements. The termination is effective as of February 8, 2019. The Company’s ADXS-NEO study is currently enrolling patients and the Company will evaluate whether to re-partner the ADXS-NEO program.

ADXS-NEO is an individualizedLm Technology antigen delivery product developed using whole-exome sequencing of a patient’s tumor to identify neoantigens. ADXS-NEO is designed to work by presenting a large payload of neoantigens directly into dendritic cells within the patient’s immune system and stimulating a T cell response against cancerous cells.

The FDA allowed the IND application of ADXS-NEO. In June 2018, the Company announced the commencement of a Phase 1 trial with the dosing of the first patient with ADXS-NEO. ADXS-NEO is being evaluated in an open-label, dose-escalation, multicenter clinical trial in the United States. The study is open to patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), metastatic microsatellite stable colon cancer and metastatic squamous head and neck cancer. The study had been in development in collaboration with Amgen until December 2018, when Amgen provided the Company with a notice of termination of their existing collaboration. Advaxis will evaluate whether to re-partner the ADXS-NEO program. Advaxis anticipates providing safety, tolerability and immune correlative data from the first two cohorts in the first half of 2019.

The Company has entered into various research collaborations, including with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, to advance the trial of neoepitope-based, personalized cancer therapy as part of the Tumor neoantigEn SeLection Alliance (“TESLA”) initiative.

Disease focused hotspot/‘off the shelf’ neoantigen therapies (ADXS-HOT)

Advaxis is creating a new group of immunotherapy constructs for major solid tumor cancers that combines our optimizedLm Technology vector with promising targets designed to generate potent anti-cancer immunity. The ADXS-HOT program is a series of novel cancer immunotherapies that will target somatic mutations, (“hotspots”),or hotspots, cancer testis antigens, (“CTAs”)or CTAs, and oncofetal antigens, (“OFAs”).or OFAs. These three types of targets form the basis of the ADXS-HOT program because they are designed to be more capable of generating potent, tumor specific, and high strength killer T cells, versus more traditional over-expressed native sequence TAAs.tumor associated antigens. Most hotspot mutations and OFA/CTA proteins play critical roles in oncogenesis; targeting both at once could significantly impair cancer proliferation. The ADXS-HOT products will combine many of the potential high avidity targets that are expressed in all patients with the target disease into one “off-the-shelf”, ready to administer treatment. The ADXS-HOT technology has a strong Intellectual Property (“IP”)intellectual property, or IP, position, with potential protection into 2037, and an IP filing strategy providing for broad coverage opportunities across multiple disease platforms and combination therapies.

In July 2018, the Company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, (FDA)or FDA, allowed the Company’s investigational new drug, or IND, application for its ADXS-HOT drug candidate (ADXS-503) for non-small cell lung cancer, (NSCLC).or NSCLC. ADXS-503 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial, enrolling patients at five sites. The first dose level with monotherapy in Part A, (1 X10⁸ CFU) has been completed, and the Part A-second dose level (5 X108 CFU) and Part B in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor are currently open to enrollment. The Company expects to report immune response data from Part A monotherapy in early 2020.

On December 3, 2019, Advaxis announced that it submitted an IND to the FDA for the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical study of ADXS-504, its ADXS-HOT drug candidate for prostate cancer.

HPV-Related Cancers

The Company conducted several studies evaluating axalimogene filolisbac, or AXAL, for HPV-related cancers. AXAL is anLm-based antigen delivery product directed against HPV and designed to target cells expressing HPV.

In June 2019, the Company announced the closing of its AIM2CERV Phase 3 clinical trial with axalimogene filolisbac (AXAL) in high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer. Company estimates showed that the remaining cost to complete the AIM2CERV trial ranged from $80 million to $90 million, and initial efficacy data was not anticipated for at least three years. Therefore, results from the clinical trial were not the basis for the decision to close the study, nor was safety as the trial recently underwent its third Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC) review with no safety issues noted. The Company is in the process of unblinding the AIM2CERV clinical data generated to date and currently has no plans to havefurther fund studies using AXAL.

In 2014, Advaxis granted Global BioPharma, or GBP, an exclusive license for the development and commercialization of AXAL in Asia, Africa, and the former USSR territory, exclusive of India and certain other countries. GBP is responsible for all development and commercial costs and activities associated with the development in their territories. GBP anticipates initiating its Phase 2, open-label controlled trial in HPV-associated NSCLC in patients following first-line chemotherapy in late 2019 or early 2020. The study will be assessing the effects of AXAL when combined with pemetrexed in patients with HPV+ NSCLC, following first subject enrolledline induction therapy.

OtherHPV Program Licensing Agreements

Biocon Limited, or Biocon, our co-development and commercialization partner for AXAL in India and key emerging markets, filed a MAA for licensure of this Phase 1/2 studyimmunotherapy in earlyIndia. The companies will evaluate next steps regarding potential registration in India.

Especificos Stendhal SA de CV, or Stendhal, the Company’s co-development and commercialization partner for AXAL in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and other Latin American countries, agreed to pay $10 million in support payment towards the expense of AIM2CERV over the duration of the trial, contingent upon Advaxis achieving annual project milestones, pursuant to a Co-Development and Commercialization Agreement, or the Stendhal Agreement. The Company is currently in arbitration proceedings with Stendhal. For more information, see Note 9, “Legal Proceedings” of the “Notes to the Financial Statements” included in Item 8.

Knight Therapeutics Inc., or Knight, holds an exclusive license to commercialize AXAL in Canada, as well as other product candidates.

Personalized Neoantigen-directed Therapies (ADXS-NEO)

ADXS-NEO is an individualizedLm Technology antigen delivery product developed using whole-exome sequencing of a patient’s tumor to identify neoantigens. ADXS-NEO is designed to work by presenting a large payload of neoantigens directly into dendritic cells within the patient’s immune system and stimulating a T cell response against cancerous cells. In October 2019, the Company announced that it has dosed its last patient in Part A, in monotherapy, and does not intend to continue into Part B, in combination with an anticipated readout of safety, tolerability and immune correlative data from the first cohorta checkpoint inhibitor. As a result, Advaxis is in the first halfprocess of 2019. Advaxis planswinding down this study. The Company intends to file additional ADXS-HOT INDs in 2019, in prostatepublish the final results from Part A of the ADXS-NEO study at a future medical meeting and bladder cancers.

to close its ADXS-NEO program IND thereafter.

Prostate Cancer (ADXS-PSA)

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer found in American men and is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, behind only lung cancer. More than 160,000 men are estimated to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018, with approximately 30,000 deaths each year. Unfortunately, in about 10 – 20%10-20% of cases, men with prostate cancer will go on to develop castration-resistant prostate cancer, (“CRPC”),or CRPC, which refers to prostate cancer that progresses despite androgen deprivation therapy. Metastatic CRPC, (“mCRPC”)or mCRPC, occurs when the cancer spreads to other parts of the body and there is a rising prostate-specific antigen, (“PSA”)PSA, level. This stage of prostate cancer has an average survival of 9-13 months, is associated with deterioration in quality of life, and has few therapeutic options available.

According to aRecent data review published by MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2016,regarding checkpoint inhibitor monotherapy has not shown significantsome antitumor activity that provides disease control in a subset of patients with bone predominant mCRPC previously treated with next generation hormonal agents and docetaxel. Data from the KEYNOTE-199 trial in bone predominant-mCRPC patients treated with KEYTRUDA®, or pembrolizumab, was updated at the ASCO GU meeting in 2019. In this trial, the total stable disease/disease stabilization rate was 39% with no responses reported so far, and only one patient with ≥50% decrease in the post-baseline PSA value. It is hypothesized that the limited activity in mCRPC to date. The authors hypothesize that may be due to 1) the inability of the checkpoint inhibitor to infiltrate the tumor microenvironment and that2) the presence of an immunosuppressive tumor micro-environment, or TME. The combination therapy with agents agents—likeLm constructs—that induce T cell infiltration within the tumor and decrease negative regulators in the TME may improve performance of checkpoints in prostate cancer. Recent data from the Keynote-199 trial in bone predominant-mCRCP patients treated with KEYTRUDA^®(“pembrolizumab”) was presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. In this trial, only 4 out of 60 patients (7%) had decrease PSA post-baseline, with only 1 case that was ≥50%. The total SD/disease stabilization rate was 37%.

LmTechnology constructs have been shown by multiple labsdemonstrated the ability to induce anti-tumor T cell responses and T cell infiltration in the TME and to reduce the number and suppressive function of Tregs and MDSCs in the tumor microenvironment and cause theTME. For example, destruction of Tregs in the TME has been documented as soon as five days after dosingLm constructs in models. This reduction of immune suppression in the tumors has been attributed to our proprietarytLLO -fusion tLLO-fusion peptides expressed by multiple copies of the plasmids in each bacteria. Because of all these effects, it is hypothesized thatLm constructs can turn “cold prostate tumors” into “hot tumors” that better respond to checkpoint inhibitors. Advaxis feelsbelieves that the combination of ADXS-PSA, ourits immunotherapy designed to target the PSA antigen, with a checkpoint inhibitor may provide an alternative treatment option for patients with mCRPC. Clinical benefit in prostate cancer could be a significant value creator to expand theLm Technology platform into the prostate cancer market.

Advaxis has entered into a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement with Merck to evaluate the safety and efficacy of ADXS-PSA as monotherapy and in combination with KEYTRUDA^® (“pembrolizumab”), Merck’s anti PD-1 antibody, in a Phase 1/2, open-label, multicenter, dose determination and expansion trial in patients with previously treated metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (Keynote-046)(KEYNOTE-046). ADXS-PSA was tested alone or in combination with KEYTRUDA in an advanced and heavily pretreated patient population who had progressed on androgen deprivation therapy. A total of 13 and 37 patients were evaluated on monotherapy and combination therapy, respectively. For the ADXS-PSA monotherapy dose escalation and determination portion of the trial, cohorts were started at a dose of 1 x 10⁹ cfu (n=7) and successfully escalated to higher dose levels of 5x10⁹ cfu (n=3) and 1x10¹⁰ cfu (n=3) without achieving a maximum tolerated dose. Treatment emergent adverse eventsTEAEs noted at these higher dose levels were generally consistent with those observed at the lower dose level (1 x 10⁹ cfu) other than a higher occurrence rate of Grade 2/3 hypotension. The ADXS-PSA monotherapy dose-determination phase of the trial has been completed. The Recommended Phase II Dose (RP2D) of ADXS-PSA monotherapy was determined to be 1x 10⁹ cfu based on a review of the totality of the clinical data. This dose was used in combination with 200mg of pembrolizumab in a cohort of six patients to evaluate the safety of the combination before moving into an expanded cohort of patients. The safety of the combination was confirmed and enrollment in the expansion cohort phase was initiated. Enrollment in this phase of the trial (n = 37)study was completed in January 2017.

UpdatedAt the final data cutoff of this studySeptember 16, 2019, median overall survival for 37 patients in mCRPC patients treated with ADXS-PSA monotherapy (Part A) and inthe combination with pembrolizumab (Part B) werearm was 33.6 months (95% CI, range 15.4-33.6 months). This updated median overall survival is an increase from the previous data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in June 2018. At entry, Part AApril 2019, where median overall survival was 21.1 months in the combination arm. The majority of TEAEs consisted of transient and Part B patients were similar in age (~70 yrs), Gleason score (~8.3), absence of visceral metastases (71% vs. 70%) and prior abiraterone use. Part B patients had higher median baseline PSA values (40.6 vs. 20.8 ng/ml), and more prior enzalutamide (53% vs. 26%) and chemotherapy (49% vs. 36%) use versus Part A patients. A total of 49 patients (98%) experienced treatment-related adverse events (TRAE), mainly chills,reversible Grade 1-2 chills/rigors, fever, nausea and hypotension. Five Part A and 13 Part B patients had grade 3-4 events: fatigue, hypotension, hypertension, anemia. Treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) were mostly mild or moderate constitutional symptoms such as fever, chills, rigors, hypotension, nausea and fatigue, consistentfatigue. The combination of ADXS-PSA and KEYTRUDA® has appeared to be well-tolerated to date, with immune activation and manageable with standard care. One patient in the monotherapy arm was discontinued from the study due to a grade 4 TRAE related to cytokine release, which resolved within 24 hours using medical management. Overall, two Part A (14%) v 16 Part B patients (43%) had a decreased PSA post-baseline. Of these, seven Part B (22%) versus 0 Part A patients achieved a PSA reduction ≥50% from baseline. Part B patients had higher rates (56.8%) of stable disease/disease stabilization than Part A patients (38.5%). Part B patients had higher rates (27%) of stable disease than monotherapy patients (7.7%). In all treated patients, an improvement in survival was observed in Part B patients with ≥ 50% PSA declines from baseline versus those with < 50% PSA declines. In conclusion, in this population of heavily pretreated mCRPC pts, ADXS-PSA + pembrolizumab had a manageable safety profile (mostly grade 1-2 TRAEs) and showed a greater level of activity compared to monotherapy.no additive toxicity observed. The Company anticipates providing an update onplans to present these new data at a medical conference in 2020. The Company is in discussions with potential partners regarding opportunities to expand or advance this study during the first quarter of 2019.mCRPC program.

OtherLmTechnology Products

HER2 Expressing Solid Tumors

HER2 is overexpressed in a percentage of solid tumors including osteosarcoma. According to published literature, up to 60% of osteosarcomas are HER2 positive, and this overexpression is associated with poor outcomes for patients. ADXS-HER2 is anLm Technology antigen delivery product candidate designed to target HER2 expressing solid tumors including human and canine osteosarcoma. ADXS-HER2 has received FDA and EMA orphan drug designation for osteosarcoma and has received Fast Track designation from the FDA for patients with newly-diagnosed, non-metastatic, surgically-resectable osteosarcoma.

In September 2018, the Company announced that it had granted a license to OS Therapies, LLC, (“or OS Therapies”)Therapies, for the use of ADXS31-164, also known as ADXS-HER2, for evaluation in the treatment of osteosarcoma in humans. Under the terms of the license agreement, OS Therapies, in collaboration with the Children’s Oncology Group, (COG), will be responsible for the conduct and funding of a clinical study evaluating ADXS-HER2 in recurrent, completely resected osteosarcoma. Pursuant to the agreement, Advaxis isexpects to receive an upfront payment, reimbursement for product supply and other support, clinical, regulatory, and sales-based milestone payments, and royalties on future product sales. Additional details of the financial terms have not been disclosed.

Canine Osteosarcoma

On March 19, 2014, we entered into a definitive Exclusive License Agreement, (the “Aratana Agreement”)or Aratana Agreement, with Aratana Therapeutics, Inc. (“Aratana”), or Aratana, where we granted Aratana an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing license, with the right to sublicense, certain of our proprietary technology that enables Aratana to develop and commercialize animal health products that will be targeted for treatment of osteosarcoma and other cancer indications in animals. A product license request was filed by Aratana for ADXS-HER2 (also known as AT-014 by Aratana) for the treatment of canine osteosarcoma with the United States Department of Agriculture, (“USDA”).or USDA. Aratana received communication in December 2017 that the USDA granted Aratana conditional licensure for AT-014 for the treatment of dogs diagnosed with osteosarcoma, one year of age or older. Initially, Aratana plans to make the therapeutic available for purchase at approximately two dozen veterinary oncology practice groups across the United States who participate in the study. Aratana received communication in December 2017 that the USDA granted Aratana conditional licensure for AT-014 for the treatment of dogs diagnosed with osteosarcoma, one year of age or older. Aratana is currently conducting an extended field study which is a requirement for full USDA licensure. Initially, Aratana plans to make the therapeutic available for purchase at approximately two dozen veterinary oncology practice groups across the United States who participate in the study.

Under the terms of the Aratana Agreement, Aratana paid an upfront payment to Advaxis in the amount of $1,000,000 upon signing of the Aratana Agreement. Aratana will also pay Advaxis: (a) up to $36.5 million based on the achievement of milestone relating to the advancement of products through the approval process with the USDA in the United States and the relevant regulatory authorities in the European Union, (“or E.U.”), in all four therapeutic areas and up to an additional $15 million in cumulative sales milestones based on achievement of gross sales revenue targets for sales of any and all products for use in non-human animal health applications, (the “Aratana Field”)or the Aratana Field, (regardless of therapeutic area), and (b) tiered royalties starting at 5% and going up to 10%, which will be paid based on net sales of any and all products (regardless of therapeutic area) in the Aratana Field in the United States. Royalties for sales of products outside of the United States will be paid at a rate equal to half of the royalty rate payable by Aratana on net sales of products in the United States (starting at 2.5% and going up to 5%). Royalties will be payable on a product-by-product and country-by-country basis from first commercial sale of a product in a country until the later of (a) the 10th anniversary of first commercial sale of such product by Aratana, its affiliates or sub licensees in such country or (b) the expiration of the last-to-expire valid claim of our patents or joint patents claiming or covering the composition of matter, formulation or method of use of such product in such country. Aratana will also pay us 50% of all sublicense royalties received by Aratana and its affiliates. In fiscal year 2018,2019, the Company received approximately $5,000$8,000 in royalty revenue from Aratana. Additionally, in July 2019, Aratana announced that their shareholders approved a merger agreement with Elanco Animal Health, or Elanco, whereby Elanco is now the majority shareholder of Aratana. All of the terms of the Aratana Agreement remain in effect.

Corporate Information

We were originally incorporated in the State of Colorado on June 5, 1987 under the name Great Expectations, Inc. We were a publicly-traded “shell” company without any business until November 12, 2004 when we acquired Advaxis, Inc., a Delaware corporation, through a Share Exchange and Reorganization Agreement, dated as of August 25, 2004, which we refer to as the Share Exchange, by and among Advaxis, the stockholders of Advaxis and us. As a result of the Share Exchange, Advaxis became our wholly-owned subsidiary and our sole operating company. On December 23, 2004, we amended and restated our articles of incorporation and changed our name to Advaxis, Inc. On June 6, 2006, our stockholders approved the reincorporation of our company from Colorado to Delaware by merging the Colorado entity into our wholly-owned Delaware subsidiary. Our date of inception, for financial statement purposes, is March 1, 2002 and the Company was uplisted to NASDAQNasdaq in 2014.

Our principal executive offices and manufacturing facility is located at 305 College Road East, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 and our telephone number is (609) 452-9813. We maintain a corporate website at www.advaxis.com which contains descriptions of our technology, our product candidates and the development status of each drug. We make available free of charge through our Internet website our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to these reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the SEC. We are not including the information on our website as a part of, nor incorporating it by reference into, this report. You may read and copy any materials we file at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549 on official business days during the hours of 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Please call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for information on the Public Reference Room. Additionally, theThe SEC maintains a website that contains annual, quarterly, and current reports, proxy statements, and other information that issuers (including us) file electronically with the SEC. The SEC’s website address is http://www.sec.gov.

Intellectual Property

Protection of our intellectual property is important to our business. We have a robust and extensive patent portfolio that protects our product candidates andLm -based immunotherapy technology. Currently, we own or have rights to over 400several hundred patents and applications, which are owned, licensed from, or co-owned with University of Pennsylvania, (“Penn”),or Penn, Merck, National Institute of Health, (“NIH”),or NIH, and/or Augusta University. We continuously grow this portfolio by filing new applications to protect our ongoing research and development efforts. We aggressively prosecute and defend our patents and proprietary technology. Our patents and applications are directed to the compositions of matter, use, and methods thereof, of ourLm-LLO immunotherapies for our product candidates, including axalimogene filolisbac,AXAL, ADXS-PSA, ADXS-NEO, ADXS-HOT, ADXS-HER2. We have and may continue to abandon prosecuting certain patents that are not strategically aligned with the direction of the Company.

Our approach to the intellectual property portfolio is to create, maintain, protect, enforce and defend our proprietary rights for the products we develop from our immunotherapy technology platform. We endeavor to maintain a coherent and aggressive strategic approach to building our patent portfolio with an emphasis in the field of cancer vaccines. Issued patents which are directed to axalimogene filolisbac,AXAL, ADXS-PSA, and ADXS-HER2 in the United States, will expire between 20172019 and 2032. Issued patents directed to our product candidates axalimogene filolisbac,AXAL, ADXS-PSA, and ADXS-HER2 outside of the United States, will expire in 2032. Issued patents directed to ourLm-based immunotherapy platform in the United States, will expire between 20172019 and 2031. Issued patents directed to ourLm-based immunotherapy platform outside of the United States, will expire between 20182019 and 2033.

We have pending patent applications directed to our product candidates axalimogene filolisbac,AXAL, ADXS-PSA, ADXS-HER2, ADXS-NEO and ADXS-HOT that, if issued would expire in the United States and in countries outside of the United States between 2020 and 2037. We have pending patent applications directed to methods of using of our product candidates axalimogene filolisbac, ADXS-DUAL,AXAL, ADXS-PSA, ADXS-NEO, ADXS-HOT, ADXS-HER2 directed to the following indications and others: HPV-related cervical cancer, prostate cancer and her2/neu-expressing cancer, that, if issued would expire in the United States and in countries outside of the United States between 2020 and 2037, depending on the specific indications.

We will be able to protect our technology from unauthorized use by third parties only to the extent it is covered by valid and enforceable patents or is effectively maintained as trade secrets. Patents and other proprietary rights are an essential element of our business.

Our success will depend in part on our ability to obtain and maintain proprietary protection for our product candidates, technology, and know-how, to operate without infringing on the proprietary rights of others, and to prevent others from infringing our proprietary rights. Our policy is to seek to protect our proprietary position by, among other methods, filing U.S. and foreign patent applications related to our proprietary technology, inventions, and improvements that are important to the development of our business. We also rely on trade secrets, know-how, continuing technological innovation, and in-licensing opportunities to develop and maintain our proprietary position.

Any patent applications which we have filed or will file or to which we have or will have license rights may not issue, and patents that do issue may not contain commercially valuable claims. In addition, any patents issued to us or our licensors may not afford meaningful protection for our products or technology, or may be subsequently circumvented, invalidated, narrowed, or found unenforceable. Our processes and potential products may also conflict with patents which have been or may be granted to competitors, academic institutions or others. As the pharmaceutical industry expands and more patents are issued, the risk increases that our processes and potential products may give rise to interferences filed by others in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or to claims of patent infringement by other companies, institutions or individuals. These entities or persons could bring legal actions against us claiming damages and seeking to enjoin clinical testing, manufacturing and marketing of the related product or process. In recent years, several companies have been extremely aggressive in challenging patents covering pharmaceutical products, and the challenges have often been successful. If any of these actions are successful, in addition to any potential liability for damages, we could be required to cease the infringing activity or obtain a license in order to continue to manufacture or market the relevant product or process. We may not prevail in any such action and any license required under any such patent may not be made available on acceptable terms, if at all. Our failure to successfully defend a patent challenge or to obtain a license to any technology that we may require to commercialize our technologies or potential products could have a materially adverse effect on our business. In addition, changes in either patent laws or in interpretations of patent laws in the United States and other countries may materially diminish the value of our intellectual property or narrow the scope of our patent protection.

We also rely upon unpatented proprietary technology, and in the future may determine in some cases that our interests would be better served by reliance on trade secrets or confidentiality agreements rather than patents or licenses. We may not be able to protect our rights to such unpatented proprietary technology and others may independently develop substantially equivalent technologies. If we are unable to obtain strong proprietary rights to our processes or products after obtaining regulatory clearance, competitors may be able to market competing processes and products.

Others may obtain patents having claims which cover aspects of our products or processes which are necessary for, or useful to, the development, use or manufacture of our services or products. Should any other group obtain patent protection with respect to our discoveries, our commercialization of potential therapeutic products and methods could be limited or prohibited.

The Drug Development Process

The product candidates in our pipeline are at various stages of preclinical and clinical development. The path to regulatory approval includes multiple phases of clinical trials in which we collect data that will ultimately support an application to regulatory authorities to allow us to market a product for the treatment, of a specific type of cancer. There are many difficulties and uncertainties inherent in research and development of new products, resulting in high costs and variable success rates. Bringing a drug from discovery to regulatory approval, and ultimately to market, takes many years and significant costs.

Clinical testing, known as clinical trials or clinical studies, is either conducted internally by pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies or is managed on behalf of these companies by Clinical Research Organizations, (“CRO”).or CROs. The process of conducting clinical studies is highly regulated by the FDA, as well as by other governmental and professional bodies. In a clinical trial, participants receive specific interventions according to the research plan or protocol created by the study sponsor and implemented by study investigators. Clinical trials may compare a new medical approach to a standard one that is already available or to a placebo that contains no active ingredients or to no intervention. Some clinical trials compare interventions that are already available to each other. When a new product or approach is being studied, it is not usually known whether it will be helpful, harmful, or no different than available alternatives. The investigators try to determine the safety and efficacy of the intervention by measuring certain clinical outcomes in the participants.

Phase 1. Phase 1 clinical trials begin when regulatory agencies allow initiation of clinical investigation of a new drug or product candidate. They typically involve testing an investigational new drug on a limited number of patients. Phase 1 studies determine a drug’s basic safety, maximum tolerated dose and how the drug is absorbed by, and eliminated from, the body. Typically, cancer therapies are initially tested on late-stage cancer patients.

Phase 2. Phase 2 clinical trials involve larger numbers of patients that have been diagnosed with the targeted disease or condition. Phase 2 clinical trials gather preliminary data on effectiveness (where the drug works in people who have a certain disease or condition) and to determine the common short-term side effects and risks associated with the drug. If Phase 2 clinical trials show that an investigational new drug has an acceptable range of safety risks and probable effectiveness, a company will continue to evaluate the investigational new drug in Phase 3 studies.

Phase 3. Phase 3 clinical trials are typically controlled multi-center trials that involve a larger number of patients to ensure the study results are statistically significant. The purpose is to confirm effectiveness and safety on a large scale and to provide an adequate basis for physician labeling. These trials are generally global in nature and are designed to generate clinical data necessary to submit an application for marketing approval to regulatory agencies.

Biologic License Application (BLA). The results of the clinical trials using biologics are submitted to the FDA as part of a BLA. Following the completion of Phase 3 studies, if the sponsor of a potential product in the United States believes it has sufficient information to support the safety and effectiveness of the investigational new drug, the sponsor submits a BLA to the FDA requesting that the investigational new drug be approved for marketing. The application is a comprehensive filing that includes the results of all preclinical and clinical studies, information about the drug’s composition, and the sponsor’s plans for manufacturing, packaging, labeling and testing the investigational new drug. The FDA’s review of an application is designated either as a standard review with a target review time of 10 months or a priority review with a target of 6 months. Depending upon the completeness of the application and the number and complexity of follow-up requests and responses between the FDA and the sponsor, the review time can take months to many years. Once approved through this process, a drug may be marketed in the United States, subject to any conditions imposed by the FDA.

Government Regulations

General

Government authorities in the United States and other countries extensively regulate, among other things, the preclinical and clinical testing, manufacturing, labeling, storage, record-keeping, advertising, promotion, import, export, marketing and distribution of drugs. In the United States, the FDA subjects drugs to rigorous review under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the Public Health Service Act and other federal statutes and regulations.

Orphan Drug Designation

Under the Orphan Drug Act, (“ODA”),or ODA, the FDA may grant Orphan Drug Designation, (“ODD”)ODD, to a drug or biological product intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which means a disease or condition that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States, or more than 200,000 individuals in the United States, but for which there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making a drug or biological product available in the United States will be recovered from domestic sales of the product.

The benefits of ODD can be substantial, including research and development tax credits and exemption from user fees, enhanced access to advice from the FDA while the drug is being developed, and market exclusivity once the product reaches approval and begins sales, provided that the new product is first to market and that this new product has not been previously approved for the same orphan disease or condition, with or without orphan drug designation. In order to qualify for these incentives, a company must apply for designation of its product as an “Orphan Drug” and obtain approval from the FDA. Orphan product designation does not convey any advantage in or shorten the duration of the regulatory review and approval process; however, an ODD product may be eligible for priority review. A drug that is approved for the ODD indication is granted seven years of orphan drug exclusivity. During that period, the FDA generally may not approve any other application for the same product for the same indication, although there are exceptions, most notably when the later product is shown to be clinically superior to the product with exclusivity.

We currently have ODD with the FDA for axalimogene filolisbacAXAL for treatment of anal cancer (granted August 2013), HPV-associated head and neck cancer (granted November 2013); and treatment of Stage II-IV invasive cervical cancer (granted May 2014). We also have ODD with the FDA for ADXS-HER2 for the treatment of osteosarcoma (granted May 2014).

In Europe, the Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products, (“COMP”)COMP, has issued a positive opinion on the application for ODD of axalimogene filolisbacAXAL for the treatment of anal cancer (December 2015) and on the application for ODD of ADXS-HER2 for osteosarcoma (November 2015).

Expedited Programs for Serious Conditions

Four core FDA programs are intended to facilitate and expedite development and review of new drugs to address unmet medical need in the treatment of serious or life-threatening conditions: fast track designation, breakthrough therapy designation, accelerated approval, and priority review. We intend to avail ourselves of any and all of these programs as applicable to our products.

FDA is required to facilitate the development, and expedite the review, of drugs that are intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening disease or condition for which there is no effective treatment, and which demonstrate the potential to address unmet medical needs for the condition. Under the fast track program, the sponsor of a new drug candidate may request that FDA designate the drug candidate for a specific indication as a fast track drug concurrent with, or after, the filing of the IND for the drug candidate. FDA must determine if the drug candidate qualifies for Fast Track Designation within 60 days of receipt of the sponsor’s request.

Under the fast track program and FDA’s accelerated approval regulations, FDA may approve a drug for a serious or life-threatening illness that provides meaningful therapeutic benefit to patients over existing treatments based upon a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit, or on a clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than irreversible morbidity or mortality, that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on irreversible morbidity or mortality or other clinical benefit, taking into account the severity, rarity or prevalence of the condition and the availability or lack of alternative treatments.

In clinical trials, a surrogate endpoint is a measurement of laboratory or clinical signs of a disease or condition that substitutes for a direct measurement of how a patient feels, functions or survives. Surrogate endpoints can often be measured more easily or more rapidly than clinical endpoints. A drug candidate approved on this basis is subject to rigorous post-marketing compliance requirements, including the completion of Phase 4 or post-approval clinical trials to confirm the effect on the clinical endpoint. Failure to conduct required post-approval studies, or confirm a clinical benefit during post-marketing studies, will allow FDA to withdraw the drug from the market on an expedited basis. All promotional materials for product candidates approved under accelerated regulations are subject to prior review by FDA.

In addition to other benefits such as the ability to use surrogate endpoints and engage in more frequent interactions with FDA, FDA may initiate review of sections of a fast track drug’s NDA before the application is complete. This rolling review is available if the applicant provides, and FDA approves, a schedule for the submission of the remaining information and the applicant pays applicable user fees. However, FDA’s time period goal for reviewing an application does not begin until the last section of the NDA is submitted. Additionally, the Fast Track Designation may be withdrawn by FDA if FDA believes that the designation is no longer supported by data emerging in the clinical trial process.

Disclosure of Clinical Trial Information

Sponsors of clinical trials of FDA regulated products, including drugs, are required to register and disclose certain clinical trial information. Information related to the product, patient population, phase of investigation, Trial sites and investigators and other aspects of the clinical trial is then made public as part of the registration. Sponsors are also obligated to discuss the results of their clinical trials after completion. Disclosure of the results of these trials can be delayed in certain circumstances for up to two years after the date of completion of the trial. Competitors may use this publicly available information to gain knowledge regarding the progress of development programs.

Coverage, Pricing and Reimbursement

Successful commercialization of new drug products depends in part on the extent to which reimbursement for those drug products will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which drug products they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. The availability and extent of reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford a drug product. Sales of drug products depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of drugs products are paid for by health maintenance, managed care, pharmacy benefit and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by government health administration authorities, private health coverage insurers and other third-party payors.

A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and other third-party payors have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular drug products. In many countries, the prices of drug products are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. In general, the prices of drug products under such systems are substantially lower than in the United States. Other countries allow companies to fix their own prices for drug products, but monitor and control company profits. Accordingly, in markets outside the United States, the reimbursement for drug products may be reduced compared with the United States. In the United States, the principal decisions about reimbursement for new drug products are typically made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. CMS decides whether and to what extent a new drug product will be covered and reimbursed under certain federal governmental healthcare programs, such as Medicare, and private payors tend to follow CMS to a substantial degree. However, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for drug products exists among third-party payors and coverage and reimbursement levels for drug products can differ significantly from payor to payor. In the United States, the process for determining whether a third-party payor will provide coverage for a biological product typically is separate from the process for setting the price of such product or for establishing the reimbursement rate that the payor will pay for the product once coverage is approved. With respect to biologics, third-party payors may limit coverage to specific products on an approved list, also known as a formulary, which might not include all of the FDA-approved products for a particular indication, or place products at certain formulary levels that result in lower reimbursement levels and higher cost sharing obligation imposed on patients. A decision by a third-party payor not to cover our product candidates could reduce physician utilization of a product. Moreover, a third-party payor’s decision to provide coverage for a product does not imply that an adequate reimbursement rate will be approved. Adequate third-party reimbursement may not be available to enable a manufacturer to maintain price levels sufficient to realize an appropriate return on its investment in product development. Additionally, coverage and reimbursement for products can differ significantly from payor to payor. One third-party payor’s decision to cover a particular medical product does not ensure that other payors will also provide coverage for the medical product, or will provide coverage at an adequate reimbursement rate. As a result, the coverage determination process usually requires manufacturers to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of their products to each payor separately and is a time-consuming process.

Coverage policies and third-party reimbursement rates may change at any time. Even if favorable coverage and reimbursement status is attained for one or more products for which we receive regulatory approval, less favorable coverage policies and reimbursement rates may be implemented in the future. Third-party payors are increasingly challenging the prices charged for medical products and services, examining the medical necessity and reviewing the cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical products, in addition to questioning safety and efficacy. If third-party payors do not consider a product to be cost-effective compared to other available therapies, they may not cover that product after FDA approval or, if they do, the level of payment may not be sufficient to allow a manufacturer to sell its product at a profit.

In addition, in many foreign countries, the proposed pricing for a drug must be approved before it may be lawfully marketed. The requirements governing drug pricing and reimbursement vary widely from country to country. In the European Union, governments influence the price of products through their pricing and reimbursement rules and control of national healthcare systems that fund a large part of the cost of those products to consumers. Some jurisdictions operate positive and negative list systems under which products may only be marketed once a reimbursement price has been agreed to by the government. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval, some of these countries may require the completion of clinical trials that compare the cost effectiveness of a particular product to currently available therapies. Other member states allow companies to fix their own prices for medicines, but monitor and control company profits. There can be no assurance that any country that has price controls or reimbursement limitations for pharmaceutical products will allow favorable reimbursement and pricing arrangements for any of our products. The downward pressure on healthcare costs in general, particularly prescription products, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected to the entry of new products. In addition, in some countries, cross border imports from low-priced markets exert a commercial pressure on pricing within a country.

Other Healthcare Laws

Manufacturing, sales, promotion and other activities following product approval are also subject to regulation by numerous regulatory authorities in the United States in addition to the FDA, including CMS, the HHS Office of Inspector General and HHS Office for Civil Rights, other divisions of the HHS and the Department of Justice.

Healthcare providers, physicians, and third-party payors will play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any products for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current and future arrangements with third-party payors, healthcare providers and physicians may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we market, sell and distribute any drugs for which we obtain marketing approval. In the United States, these laws include, without limitation, state and federal anti-kickback, false claims, physician transparency, and patient data privacy and security laws and regulations, including but not limited to those described below.

The U.S. federal Anti-Kickback Statute, or AKS, prohibits, among other things, any person or entity from knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting, receiving or providing any remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, to induce or in return for purchasing, leasing, ordering or arranging for or recommending the purchase, lease or order of any good, facility, item or service reimbursable, in whole or in part, under Medicare, Medicaid or other federal healthcare programs. The term “remuneration” has been broadly interpreted to include anything of value. The AKS has been interpreted to apply to arrangements between pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers on the one hand and prescribers, purchasers, formulary managers and beneficiaries on the other hand. Although there are a number of statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors protecting some common activities from prosecution, the exceptions and safe harbors are drawn narrowly. Failure to meet all of the requirements of a particular applicable statutory exception or regulatory safe harbor does not make the conduct per se illegal under the AKS. Instead, the legality of the arrangement will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis based on a cumulative review of all its facts and circumstances. Several courts have interpreted the statute’s intent requirement to mean that if any one purpose of an arrangement involving remuneration is to induce referrals of federal healthcare covered business, the statute has been violated. In addition, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. Moreover, a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the AKS constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act.

Although we would not submit claims directly to payors, drug manufacturers can be held liable under the federal False Claims Act, which imposes civil penalties, including through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, against individuals or entities (including manufacturers) for, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented to federal programs (including Medicare and Medicaid) claims for items or services, including drugs, that are false or fraudulent, claims for items or services not provided as claimed, or claims for medically unnecessary items or services. The government may deem manufacturers to have “caused” the submission of false or fraudulent claims by, for example, providing inaccurate billing or coding information to customers or promoting a product off-label. Several biopharmaceutical, medical device and other healthcare companies have been prosecuted under federal false claims and civil monetary penalty laws for, among other things, allegedly providing free product to customers with the expectation that the customers would bill federal programs for the product. Other companies have been prosecuted for causing false claims to be submitted because of the companies’ marketing of products for unapproved (e.g., or off-label), and thus non-covered, uses. In addition, the civil monetary penalties statute imposes penalties against any person who is determined to have presented or caused to be presented a claim to a federal health program that the person knows or should know is for an item or service that was not provided as claimed or is false or fraudulent. Claims which include items or services resulting from a violation of the federal AKS are false or fraudulent claims for purposes of the False Claims Act.

Our future marketing and activities relating to the reporting of wholesaler or estimated retail prices for our products, if approved, the reporting of prices used to calculate Medicaid rebate information and other information affecting federal, state and third-party reimbursement for our products, and the sale and marketing of our product candidates, are subject to scrutiny under these laws.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, created additional federal criminal statutes that prohibit, among other actions, knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme to defraud or to obtain, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises, any money or property owned by, or under the control or custody of, any healthcare benefit program, including private third-party payors, knowingly and willfully embezzling or stealing from a healthcare benefit program, willfully obstructing a criminal investigation of a healthcare offense and knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services. Similar to the U.S. federal Anti-Kickback Statute, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation.

In addition, there has been a recent trend of increased federal and state regulation of payments made to physicians and certain other healthcare providers. The Affordable Care Act, or the ACA, imposed, among other things, new annual reporting requirements through the Physician Payments Sunshine Act for covered manufacturers for certain payments and “transfers of value” provided to physicians and teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members. Failure to submit timely, accurately and completely the required information for all payments, transfers of value and ownership or investment interests may result in civil monetary penalties. Covered manufacturers must submit reports by the 90th day of each subsequent calendar year and the reported information is publicly made available on a searchable website.

We may also be subject to data privacy and security regulation by both the federal government and the states in which we conduct our business. HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, and their respective implementing regulations, including the Final HIPAA Omnibus Rule published on January 25, 2013, impose specified requirements relating to the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information held by covered entities and their business associates. Among other things, HITECH made HIPAAs security standards directly applicable to “business associates,” defined as independent contractors or agents of covered entities that create, receive, maintain or transmit protected health information in connection with providing a service for or on behalf of a covered entity, although it is unclear that we would be considered a “business associate” in the normal course of our business. HITECH also increased the civil and criminal penalties that may be imposed against covered entities, business associates and possibly other persons, and gave state attorneys general new authority to file civil actions for damages or injunctions in federal courts to enforce the federal HIPAA laws and seek attorney’s fees and costs associated with pursuing federal civil actions. In addition, state laws govern the privacy and security of health information in certain circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and may not have the same requirements, thus complicating compliance efforts.

Similar state and foreign fraud and abuse laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws, may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services. Such laws are generally broad and are enforced by various state agencies and private actions. Also, many states have similar fraud and abuse statutes or regulations that may be broader in scope and may apply regardless of payor, in addition to items and services reimbursed under Medicaid and other state programs. Some state laws require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant federal government compliance guidance, and require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers, marketing expenditures or drug pricing.

In order to distribute products commercially, we must comply with state laws that require the registration of manufacturers and wholesale distributors of drug and biological products in a state, including, in certain states, manufacturers and distributors who ship products into the state even if such manufacturers or distributors have no place of business within the state. Some states also impose requirements on manufacturers and distributors to establish the pedigree of product in the chain of distribution, including some states that require manufacturers and others to adopt new technology capable of tracking and tracing product as it moves through the distribution chain. Several states have enacted legislation requiring pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to establish marketing compliance programs, file periodic reports with the state, make periodic public disclosures on sales, marketing, pricing, clinical trials and other activities, and/or register their sales representatives, as well as to prohibit pharmacies and other healthcare entities from providing certain physician prescribing data to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for use in sales and marketing, and to prohibit certain other sales and marketing practices. All of our activities are potentially subject to federal and state consumer protection and unfair competition laws.

The scope and enforcement of each of these laws is uncertain and subject to rapid change in the current environment of healthcare reform, especially in light of the lack of applicable precedent and regulations. Federal and state enforcement bodies have recently increased their scrutiny of interactions between healthcare companies and healthcare providers, which has led to a number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions and settlements in the healthcare industry. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, imprisonment, exclusion of drugs from government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, as well as additional reporting obligations and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or other agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our financial results. If any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we expect to do business is found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to significant criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs. Ensuring business arrangements comply with applicable healthcare laws, as well as responding to possible investigations by government authorities, can be time- and resource-consuming and can divert a company’s attention from the business.

Current and Future Legislation

In the United States and foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval of our product candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to profitably sell any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. We expect that current laws, as well as other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and additional downward pressure on the price that we, or any collaborators, may receive for any approved products.

The ACA, for example, contains provisions that subject biological products to potential competition by lower-cost biosimilars and may reduce the profitability of drug products through increased rebates for drugs reimbursed by Medicaid programs, extend Medicaid rebates to Medicaid managed care plans, provide for mandatory discounts for certain Medicare Part D beneficiaries and annual fees based on pharmaceutical companies’ share of sales to federal healthcare programs. With the President Trump administration and current Congress, there will likely be additional administrative or legislative changes, including modification, repeal or replacement of all, or certain provisions of the ACA, which may impact reimbursement for drugs and biologics. On January 20, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing federal agencies with authorities and responsibilities under the ACA to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision of the ACA that would impose a fiscal or regulatory burden on states, individuals, healthcare providers, health insurers, or manufacturers of pharmaceuticals or medical devices. On October 13, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order terminating the cost-sharing subsidies that reimburse insurers under the ACA. Several state Attorneys General filed suit to stop the administration from terminating the subsidies, but their lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge in California on July 18, 2018. In addition, CMS has recently finalized regulations that would give states greater flexibility in setting benchmarks for insurers in the individual and small group marketplaces, which may have the effect of relaxing the essential health benefits required under the ACA for plans sold through such marketplaces. Further, each chamber of Congress has put forth multiple bills, and may do so again in the future, designed to repeal or repeal and replace portions of the ACA.

While Congress has not passed repeal legislation, the Tax Reform Act includes a provision that repealed, effective January 1, 2019, the tax-based shared responsibility payment imposed by the ACA on certain individuals who fail to maintain qualifying health coverage for all or part of a year that is commonly referred to as the “individual mandate.” Further, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, or the BBA, among other things, amended the ACA, effective January 1, 2019, to increase from 50 percent to 70 percent the point-of-sale discount that is owed by pharmaceutical manufacturers who participate in Medicare Part D and to close the coverage gap in most Medicare drug plans, commonly referred to as the “donut hole.” Congress may consider other legislation to repeal and replace elements of the ACA. On December 14, 2018, a U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of Texas ruled that the individual mandate portion of the ACA is an essential and inseverable feature of the ACA, and therefore because the mandate was repealed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid as well. The Trump administration and CMS have both stated that the ruling will have no immediate effect, and on December 30, 2018 the same judge issued an order staying the judgment pending appeal. A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals hearing to determine whether certain states and the House of Representatives have standing to appeal the lower court decision was held on July 9, 2019, but it is unclear when a Court will render its decision on this hearing, and what effect it will have on the status of the ACA. Litigation and legislation over the ACA are likely to continue, with unpredictable and uncertain results.

Additionally, other federal health reform measures have been proposed and adopted in the United States since the ACA was enacted:

Further, there has been heightened governmental scrutiny over the manner in which manufacturers set prices for their marketed products, which have resulted in several recent Congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted bills designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to product pricing, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs, and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for products. In addition, the U.S. government, state legislatures, and foreign governments have shown significant interest in implementing cost containment programs, including price-controls, restrictions on reimbursement and requirements for substitution of generic products for branded prescription drugs to limit the growth of government paid healthcare costs. For example, the U.S. government has passed legislation requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide rebates and discounts to certain entities and governmental payors to participate in federal healthcare programs. Further, Congress and the current administration have each indicated that it will continue to seek new legislative and/or administrative measures to control drug costs, and the current administration recently released a “Blueprint”, or plan, to reduce the cost of drugs. The Blueprint contains certain measures that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is already working to implement. For example, in May 2019, CMS issued a final rule to allow Medicare Advantage Plans the option of using step therapy for Part B drugs beginning January 1, 2020. This final rule codified CMS’s policy change that was effective January 1, 2019. Congress and the Trump administration have each indicated that it will continue to seek new legislative and/or administrative measures to control drug costs. Individual states in the United States have also been increasingly passing legislation and implementing regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing.

Non-U.S. Regulation

Before our products can be marketed outside the United States, they are subject to regulatory approval of the respective authorities in the country in which the product should be marketed. The requirements governing the conduct of clinical trials, product licensing, pricing and reimbursement vary widely from country to country. No action can be taken to market any product in a country until an appropriate application has been approved by the regulatory authorities in that country. The time spent in gaining approval varies from that required for FDA approval, and in certain countries, the sales price of a product must also be approved. The pricing review period often begins after market approval is granted. Even if a product is approved by a regulatory authority, satisfactory prices might not be approved for such product.

Collaborations, Partnerships and Agreements

Collaborations, partnerships and agreements are a key component of Advaxis’ corporate strategy. As a lateclinical stage biotechnology company without sales revenue, partnerships are an essential part of the ongoing strategy. Additionally, the evolution of the field of immunotherapy has resulted in combination treatments becoming ubiquitous; ongoing clinical studies and agreements with many of the leading, large oncology pharmaceutical companies helps validate thatLm Technology may play a key role in the cancer treatment protocols of the future.

Our collaborators and partners include Merck, Aratana, OS Therapies, Biocon, Global BioPharma, Knight, and others. For more information, see Note 98, “Collaboration and Licensing Agreements” of the “Notes to our financial statements.the Financial Statements” included in Item 8.

We entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement with Penn, on July 1, 2002 with respect to the innovative work of Yvonne Paterson, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Research at the School of Nursing at Penn, and former Professor of Microbiology at Penn, in the area of innate immunity, or the immune response attributed to immune cells, including dendritic cells, macrophages and natural killer cells, that respond to pathogens non-specifically (subject to certain U.S. government rights). This agreement was amended and restated as of February 13, 2007, and, thereafter, has been amended from time to time.

This license, unless sooner terminated in accordance with its terms, terminates upon the latter of (a) the expiration of the last to expire of the Penn patent rights; or (b) twenty years after the effective date of the license. Penn may terminate the license agreement early upon the occurrence of certain defaults by us, including, but not limited to, a material breach by us of the Penn license agreement that is not cured within 60 days after notice of the breach is provided to us.

The license provides us with the exclusive commercial rights to the patent portfolio developed by Penn as of the effective date of the license, in connection with Dr. Paterson and requires us to pay various milestone, legal, filing and licensing payments to commercialize the technology. In exchange for the license, Penn received shares of our Common Stock. However, as of October 31, 2016, Penn does not own shares of our Common Stock. In addition, Penn is entitled to receive a non-refundable initial license fee, royalty payments and milestone payments based on net sales and percentages of sublicense fees and certain commercial milestones. Under the amended licensing agreement, Penn is entitled to receive 2.5% of net sales in the territory. Should annual net sales exceed $250 million, the royalty rate will increase to 2.75%, but only with respect to those annual net sales in excess of $250 million. Additionally, Penn will receive tiered sales milestone payments upon the achievement of cumulative global sales ranging between $250 million and $2 billion, with the maximum aggregate amounts payable to Penn in the event that maximum sales milestones are achieved is $40 million. Notwithstanding these royalty rates, upon first in-human commercial sale (U.S. & E.U.), we have agreed to pay Penn a total of $775,000 over a four-year period as an advance minimum royalty, which shall serve as an advance royalty in conjunction with the above terms. In addition, under the license, we are obligated to pay an annual maintenance fee of $100,000 commencing on December 31, 2010, and each December 31st thereafter for the remainder of the term of the agreement until the first commercial sale of a Penn licensed product. We are responsible for filing new patents and maintaining and defending the existing patents licensed to us and we are obligated to reimburse Penn for all attorney’s fees, expenses, official fees and other charges incurred in the preparation, prosecution and maintenance of the patents licensed from Penn.

Upon first regulatory approval in humans (US or EU), Penn will be entitled to a milestone payment of $600,000. Furthermore, upon the achievement of the first sale of a product in certain fields, Penn will be entitled to certain milestone payments, as follows: $2.5 million will be due upon the first in-human commercial sale (US or EU) of the first product in the cancer field and $1.0 million will be due upon the date of first in-human commercial sale (US or EU) of a product in each of the secondary strategic fields sold.

Manufacturing

Current Good Manufacturing Practices, (“cGMPs”)or cGMPs, are the standards identified to conform to requirements by governmental agencies that control authorization and licensure for manufacture and distribution of drug products for either clinical investigations or commercial sale. GMPs identify the requirements for procurement, manufacturing, testing, storage, distribution and the supporting quality systems to ensure that a drug product is safe for its intended application. cGMPs are enforced in the United States by the FDA, under the authorities of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and its implementing regulations and use the phrase “current good manufacturing practices” (“cGMP”) to describe these standards.

Each of Advaxis’ wholly owned product candidates is manufactured using a platform process, with uniform methods and testing procedures. This allows for an accelerated pathway from construct discovery to clinical product delivery, while helping to keep cost of goods low. The Company intends to add new constructs to this standardized manufacturing process as its pipeline evolves.

Advaxis has entered into agreements with multiple third-party organizations, (“CMOs”)or CMOs, to handle the manufacturing, testing, and distribution of product candidates. These organizations have extensive experience within the biologics space and with the production of clinical and commercial GMP supplies.

In parallel, the Company has also continued to invest in internal process/analytical development, quality systems, manufacturing, and quality control infrastructure with the goal of accelerating and advancing our pipeline. Advaxis has constructed a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and laboratory to develop and manufacture clinical-grade products, supporting the clinical trials and future potential commercialization of the Company’s therapeutics. Increased manufacturing capability and capacity allows Advaxis to manufacture its own material and reduce reliance on CMOs, and improve supply flexibility, scalability, lead times, and costs of goods. The Company’s long-term manufacturing strategy is to leverage both their partners’ capabilities and their internal capabilities in order to build a supply chain that is reliable, flexible, and cost competitive.

Competition

The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are characterized by rapid technological developments and a high degree of competition. As a result, our actual or proposed immunotherapies could become obsolete before we recoup any portion of our related research and development expenses. While we believe that our product candidates, technology, knowledge and experience provide us with competitive advantages, we face competition from established and emerging pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, among others. The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are highly competitive, and this competition comes from both biotechnology firms and from major pharmaceutical companies, including: Aduro, BioNtech, Moderna, Gritstone, BMS, Inovio Pharmaceutical Inc., ISA Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Merck, Neon Therapeutics, Oncolytics Biotech Inc., Oncothyreon Inc., et al., each of which is pursuing cancer vaccines and/or immunotherapies.

Many of these companies have substantially greater financial, marketing, and human resources than we do (including, in some cases, substantially greater experience in clinical testing, manufacturing, and marketing of pharmaceutical products). We also experience competition in the development of our immunotherapies from universities and other research institutions and compete with others in acquiring technology from such universities and institutions. In addition, certain of our immunotherapies may be subject to competition from investigational new drugs and/or products developed using other technologies, some of which have completed numerous clinical trials.

Our competition will be determined in part by the potential indications for which drugs are developed and ultimately approved by regulatory authorities. Additionally, the timing of market introduction of some of our potential immunotherapies or of competitors’ products may be an important competitive factor. Accordingly, the speed with which we can develop immunotherapies, complete preclinical testing, clinical trials and approval processes and supply commercial quantities to market are expected to be important competitive factors. We expect that competition among products approved for sale will be based on various factors, including product efficacy, safety, administration, reliability, acceptance, availability, price and patent position.

Experience and Expertise

Our management team has extensive experience in oncology development, including contract research, development, manufacturing and commercialization across a board range of science, technologies, and process operations. We have built internal capabilities supporting research, clinical, medical, manufacturing and compliance operations and have extended our expertise with collaborations.

Employees

As of October 31, 2018,2019, we had 5835 employees, all of which were full time employees, 4827 of whom were engaged in research and development activities and 108 of whom were engaged in finance, business development, facilities, human resources and administrative support. Of our full-time employees, 16 hold1 holds a Ph.D. degrees.degree. None of our employees are represented by a labor union, and we consider our relationship with our employees to be good.

We will continue to rent necessary offices and laboratories to support our business.

Item 1A: Risk Factors.

You should carefully consider the risks described below as well as other information provided to you in this annual report, including information in the section of this document entitled “Forward-Looking Statements.” The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also impair our business operations. If any of the following risks actually occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially adversely affected, the value of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Capital Needs

We have incurred significant losses since our inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future.

We are a clinical-stage biotechnology company. Investment in biotechnology product development is highly speculative because it entails substantial upfront capital expenditures and significant risk that a product candidate will fail to gain regulatory approval or become commercially viable. We have not generated any revenue from product sales to date, and we continue to incur significant development and other expenses related to our ongoing operations. As a result, we are not profitable and have incurred losses in each period since our inception.

We expect to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future, and we expect these losses to increase as we continue our development of, and seek regulatory approvals for, our product candidates, and begin to commercialize any approved products. We may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may adversely affect our business. The size of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses and our ability to generate revenues. If any of our product candidates fails in clinical studies or do not gain regulatory approval, or if approved, fails to achieve market acceptance, we may never become profitable. Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Our prior losses and expected future losses have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our stockholders’ (deficit) equity and working capital.

We will require additional capital to fund our operations and if we fail to obtain necessary financing we will not be able to complete the development and commercialization of our product candidates.

The research and development of our products has consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception. We expect to continue to invest in advancing the clinical development of our product candidates and to commercialize any product candidates for which we receive regulatory approval. As of October 31, 2019, we had cash and cash equivalents of $32.4 million. We will require additional capital for the further development of our product candidates. We are pursuing various ways to support our development efforts including debt and/or equity financing as well as targeting potential collaborators of our products.

We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us we may have to significantly delay, scale back or discontinue the development or commercialization of one or more of our products or product candidates or one or more of our other research and development initiatives. Our forecast of the period of time through which our financial resources will be adequate to support our operations is a forward-looking statement and involves risks and uncertainties, and actual results could vary as a result of a number of factors, including the factors discussed elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section. We have based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could utilize our available capital resources sooner than we currently expect. Our future funding requirements, both near and long-term, will depend on many factors, including, but not limited to:

Our auditor’s report includes a going concern paragraph.

Our auditor’s report on our financial statements for the year ended October 31, 2019 includes a going concern paragraph. The Company’s products that are being developed have not generated significant revenue. As a result, the Company has suffered recurring losses and requires significant cash resources to execute its business plans. These losses are expected to continue for an extended period of time. The aforementioned factors raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year from the date of filing. The accompanying financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis, which contemplates the realization of assets and the satisfaction of liabilities in the normal course of business. The financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to the recoverability and classification of asset amounts or the classification of liabilities that might be necessary should the Company be unable to continue as a going concern within one year after the date the financial statements are issued.

Historically, the major source of our cash has been from proceeds from various public and private offerings of our common stock. Management’s plans to mitigate an expected shortfall of capital, to support future operations, include raising additional funds. The actual amount of cash that it will need to operate is subject to many factors.

The Company also recognizes it will need to raise additional capital in order to continue to execute its business plan in the future. There is no assurance that additional financing will be available when needed or that management will be able to obtain financing on terms acceptable to the Company or whether the Company will become profitable and generate positive operating cash flow. If the Company is unable to raise sufficient additional funds, it will have to scale back its operations.

Risks Related to Our Business, Industry and Strategy

We are a clinical stage company.

We are a clinical stage biotechnology company with a history of losses and can provide no assurance as to future operating results. As a result of losses that will continue throughout our clinical stage, we may exhaust our financial resources and be unable to complete the development of our products. We anticipate that our ongoingwe will continue to incur significant operational costs will increase significantly as we continue conductingexecute on our clinical development program.strategy. Our deficit will continue to grow during our drug development period.

We have sustained losses from operations in each fiscal year since our inception, and we expect losses to continue for the foreseeable future due to our substantial investment in research and development. As of October 31, 2018,2019, we had an accumulated deficit of approximately $367.7$384.3 million and stockholders’ equity of approximately $24.1$39.5 million. We expect to spend substantial additional sums on the continued administration and research and development of proprietary products and technologies with no certainty that our immunotherapies will become commercially viable or profitable as a result of these expenditures. If we fail to raise a significant amount of capital, we may need to significantly curtail operations or cease operations in the near future. If any of our product candidates fail in clinical trials or does not gain regulatory approval, we may never become profitable. Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods.

We are significantly dependent on the success of ourLmTechnology platform and our product candidates based on this platform.

We have invested, and we expect to continue to invest, significant efforts and financial resources in the development of product candidates based on ourLm Technology. Our ability to generate meaningful revenue, which may not occur for the foreseeable future, if ever, will depend heavily on the successful development, regulatory approval and commercialization of one or more of these product candidates, and such regulatory approval and commercialization may never occur.

The successful development of immunotherapies is highly uncertain.

Successful development of immunotherapies is highly uncertain and is dependent on numerous factors, many of which are beyond our control. Immunotherapies that appear promising in the early phases of development may fail to reach the market for several reasons including:

Success in preclinical and early clinical studies does not ensure that large-scale clinical studies will be successful. Clinical results are frequently susceptible to varying interpretations that may delay, limit or prevent regulatory approvals. The length of time necessary to complete clinical studies and to submit an application for marketing approval for a final decision by a regulatory authority varies significantly from one immunotherapy to the next and may be difficult to predict.

We are limited in our manufacturing, sales, marketing or distribution capability and we must rely upon third parties for such.

We currently have agreements with third party manufacturing facilities for production of many of our immunotherapies for research and development and testing purposes. While we have built our own manufacturing facility onsite in Princeton, New Jersey to manufacture clinical materials for some of our products, including ADXS-NEO, we depend on third-party manufacturers to supply most of our preclinical and clinical materials and will be reliant on a third-party manufacturer to produce axalimogene filolisbac on a commercial scale, should that product receive regulatory approval.materials. Third-party manufacturers must be able to meet our deadlines as well as adhere to quality standards and specifications. Our predominant reliance on third parties for the manufacture of our drug substance, investigational new drugs and, in the future, any approved products, creates a dependency that could severely disrupt our research and development, our clinical testing, and ultimately our sales and marketing efforts if the source of such supply proves to be unreliable or unavailable. If our own manufacturing operation or any contracted manufacturing operation is unreliable or unavailable, we may not be able to manufacture clinical drug supplies of our immunotherapies, and our preclinical and clinical testing programs may not be able to move forward and our entire business plan could fail. If we are able to commercialize our products in the future, there is no assurance that our own manufacturing operation or any third-party manufacturers will be able to meet commercialized scale production requirements in a timely manner or in accordance with applicable standards or current GMP.

If we are unable to establish, manage or maintain strategic collaborations in the future, our revenue and drug development may be limited.

Our strategy includes eventual substantial reliance upon strategic collaborations for marketing and commercialization of our clinical product candidates, and we may rely even more on strategic collaborations for research, development, marketing and commercialization for some of our immunotherapies. To date, we have been heavily reliant upon third party outsourcing for our clinical trials execution and production of drug supplies for use in clinical trials. Establishing strategic collaborations is difficult and time-consuming. Our discussions with potential collaborators may not lead to the establishment of collaborations on favorable terms, if at all. For example, potential collaborators may reject collaborations based upon their assessment of our financial, clinical, regulatory or intellectual property position. Our current collaborations, as well as any future new collaborations, may never result in the successful development or commercialization of our immunotherapies or the generation of sales revenue. To the extent that we have entered or will enter into co-promotion or other collaborative arrangements, our product revenues are likely to be lower than if we directly marketed and sold any products that we may develop.

Management of our relationships with our collaborators will require:

If we continue to enter into research and development collaborations at the early phases of drug development, our success will in part depend on the performance of our corporate collaborators. We will not directly control the amount or timing of resources devoted by our corporate collaborators to activities related to our immunotherapies and our collaborations may terminate at any time. Our corporate collaborators may not commit sufficient resources to our research and development programs or the commercialization, marketing or distribution of our immunotherapies. If any corporate collaborator fails to commit sufficient resources or terminate their collaborations with us, our preclinical or clinical development programs related to this collaboration could be delayed or terminated. For example, we had entered into a License and Collaboration Agreement, dated as of August 1, 2016 (the “Amgen Agreement”) pertaining to the development and commercialization of our ADXS-NEO program, whereby Amgen received an exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialize the ADXS-NEO program and we and Amgen collaborated through a joint steering committee for the development and commercialization of ADXS-NEO and Amgen reimbursed us for certain research and development costs in support of the ADXS-NEO program. On December 10, 2018, we received a written termination notice from Amgen with respect to the Amgen Agreement. We will evaluate whether to re-partner the ADXS-NEO program, but the loss of the Amgen Agreement, could have an impact on our ability to timely complete our ADXS-NEO study and on our financial condition and results of operations.

Further, our collaborators may pursue existing or other development-stage products or alternative technologies in preference to those being developed in collaboration with us. Finally, if we fail to make required milestone or royalty payments to our collaborators or to observe other obligations in our agreements with them, our collaborators may have the right to terminate those agreements.

We may incur significant costs complying with environmental laws and regulations.

We and our contracted third parties use hazardous materials, including chemicals and biological agents and compounds that could be dangerous to human health and safety or the environment. As appropriate, we store these materials and wastes resulting from their use at our or our outsourced laboratory facility pending their ultimate use or disposal. We contract with a third party to properly dispose of these materials and wastes. We are subject to a variety of federal, state and local laws and regulations governing the use, generation, manufacture, storage, handling and disposal of these materials and wastes. Compliance with such laws and regulations may be costly.

Additional laws and regulations governing international operations could negatively impact or restrict our operations.

If we further expand our operations outside of the United States, we must dedicate additional resources to comply with numerous laws and regulations in each jurisdiction in which we plan to operate. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, prohibits any U.S. individual or business from paying, offering, authorizing payment or offering anything of value, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official, political party or candidate for the purpose of influencing any act or decision of the foreign entity in order to assist the individual or business in obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA also obligates companies whose securities are listed in the United States to comply with certain accounting provisions requiring the company to maintain books and records that accurately and fairly reflect all transactions of the corporation, including international subsidiaries, and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls for international operations.

Compliance with the FCPA is expensive and difficult, particularly in countries in which corruption is a recognized problem. In addition, the FCPA presents particular challenges in the pharmaceutical industry, because, in many countries, hospitals are operated by the government, and doctors and other hospital employees are considered foreign officials. Certain payments to hospitals in connection with clinical trials and other work have been deemed to be improper payments to government officials and have led to FCPA enforcement actions.

Various laws, regulations and executive orders also restrict the use and dissemination outside of the United States, or the sharing with certain non-U.S. nationals, of information classified for national security purposes, as well as certain products and technical data relating to those products. If we expand our presence outside of the United States, it will require us to dedicate additional resources to comply with these laws, and these laws may preclude us from developing, manufacturing or selling certain products and product candidates outside of the United States, which could limit our growth potential and increase our development costs.

The failure to comply with laws governing international business practices may result in substantial civil and criminal penalties and suspension or debarment from government contracting. The SEC also may suspend or bar issuers from trading securities on U.S. exchanges for violations of the FCPA’s accounting provisions.

We are subject to certain U.S. and foreign anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, export control, sanctions and other trade laws and regulations. We can face serious consequences for violations.

Among other matters, U.S. and foreign anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, export control, sanctions and other trade laws and regulations, which are collectively referred to as Trade Laws, prohibit companies and their employees, agents, clinical research organizations, legal counsel, accountants, consultants, contractors and other partners from authorizing, promising, offering, providing, soliciting or receiving, directly or indirectly, corrupt or improper payments or anything else of value to or from recipients in the public or private sector. Violations of Trade Laws can result in substantial criminal fines and civil penalties, imprisonment, the loss of trade privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational harm and other consequences. We have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or government-affiliated hospitals, universities and other organizations. We plan to engage third parties for clinical trials and/or to obtain necessary permits, licenses, patent registrations and other regulatory approvals and we can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our personnel, agents or partners, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have prior knowledge of such activities.

If we use biological materials in a manner that causes injury, we may be liable for damages.

Our research and development activities involve the use of biological and hazardous materials. Although we believe our safety procedures for handling and disposing of these materials complies with federal, state and local laws and regulations, we cannot entirely eliminate the risk of accidental injury or contamination from the use, storage, handling or disposal of these materials. We do not carry specific biological waste or pollution liability or remediation insurance coverage, nor do our workers’ compensation, general liability, and property and casualty insurance policies provide coverage for damages and fines/penalties arising from biological exposure or contamination. Accordingly, in the event of contamination or injury, we could be held liable for damages or penalized with fines in an amount exceeding our resources, and our clinical trials or regulatory approvals could be suspended or terminated.

We need to attract and retain highly skilled personnel; we may be unable to effectively manage growth with our limited resources.

As of October 31, 2018,2019, we had 5835 employees, all of which were full time employees. Our ability to attract and retain highly skilled personnel is critical to our operations and expansion. We face competition for these types of personnel from other technology companies and more established organizations, many of which have significantly larger operations and greater financial, technical, human and other resources than we have. We may not be successful in attracting and retaining qualified personnel on a timely basis, on competitive terms, or at all. If we are not successful in attracting and retaining these personnel, or integrating them into our operations, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations will be materially adversely affected. In such circumstances we may be unable to conduct certain research and development programs, unable to adequately manage our clinical trials and other products, unable to commercialize any products, and unable to adequately address our management needs.

We depend upon our senior management and key consultants and their loss or unavailability could put us at a competitive disadvantage.

We depend upon the efforts and abilities of our senior executives, as well as the services of several key consultants. The loss or unavailability of the services of any of these individuals for any significant period of time could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. We have not obtained, do not own, nor are we the beneficiary of, key-person life insurance.

The biotechnology and immunotherapy industries are characterized by rapid technological developments and a high degree of competition. We may be unable to compete with more substantial enterprises.

The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are characterized by rapid technological developments and a high degree of competition. As a result, our actual or proposed immunotherapies could become obsolete before we recoup any portion of our related research and development and commercialization expenses. Competition in the biopharmaceutical industry is based significantly on scientific and technological factors. These factors include the availability of patent and other protection for technology and products, the ability to commercialize technological developments and the ability to obtain governmental approval for testing, manufacturing and marketing. We compete with specialized biopharmaceutical firms in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, as well as a growing number of large pharmaceutical companies that are applying biotechnology to their operations. Many biopharmaceutical companies have focused their development efforts in the human therapeutics area, including cancer. Many major pharmaceutical companies have developed or acquired internal biotechnology capabilities or made commercial arrangements with other biopharmaceutical companies. These companies, as well as academic institutions and governmental agencies and private research organizations, also compete with us in recruiting and retaining highly qualified scientific personnel and consultants. Our ability to compete successfully with other companies in the pharmaceutical field will also depend to a considerable degree on the continuing availability of capital to us.

We are aware of certain investigational new drugs under development or approved products by competitors that are used for the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of certain diseases we have targeted for drug development. Various companies are developing biopharmaceutical products that have the potential to directly compete with our immunotherapies even though their approach to may be different. The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are highly competitive, and this competition comes from both biotechnology firms and from major pharmaceutical companies, including companies like: Gritstone, Moderna, Aduro Biotech, Agenus Inc., Inovio Pharmaceutical Inc., ISA Pharmaceuticals, BMS, Merck and Neon Therapeutics, Oncolytics Biotech Inc. and Oncothyreon Inc., among others, each of which is pursuing cancer vaccines and/or immunotherapies. Many of these companies have substantially greater financial, marketing, and human resources than we do (including, in some cases, substantially greater experience in clinical testing, manufacturing, and marketing of pharmaceutical products). We also experience competition in the development of our immunotherapies from universities and other research institutions and compete with others in acquiring technology from such universities and institutions.

In addition, certain of our immunotherapies may be subject to competition from investigational new drugs and/or products developed using other technologies, some of which have completed numerous clinical trials.

Risks Related to the Development and Regulatory Approval of Our Product Candidates

Drug discovery and development is a complex, time-consuming and expensive process that is fraught with risk and a high rate of failure.

Product candidates are subject to extensive pre-clinical testing and clinical trials to demonstrate their safety and efficacy in humans. Conducting pre-clinical testing and clinical trials is a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive process that takes many years. We cannot be sure that pre-clinical testing or clinical trials of any of our product candidates will demonstrate the safety, efficacy and benefit-to-risk profile necessary to obtain marketing approvals. In addition, product candidates that experience success in pre-clinical testing and early-stage clinical trials will not necessarily experience the same success in larger or late-stage clinical trials, which are required for marketing approval.

Even if we are successful in advancing a product candidate into the clinical development stage, before obtaining regulatory and marketing approvals, we must demonstrate through extensive human clinical trials that the product candidate is safe and effective for its intended use. Human clinical trials must be carried out under protocols that are acceptable to regulatory authorities and to the independent committees responsible for the ethical review of clinical studies. There may be delays in preparing protocols or receiving approval for them that may delay the start or completion of the clinical trials. In addition, clinical practices vary globally, and there is a lack of harmonization among the guidance provided by various regulatory bodies of different regions and countries with respect to the data that is required to receive marketing approval, which makes designing global trials increasingly complex. There are a number of additional factors that may cause our clinical trials to be delayed, prematurely terminated or deemed inadequate to support regulatory approval, such as:

Any deficiency in the design, implementation or oversight of our development programs could cause us to incur significant additional costs, conduct additional trials, experience significant delays, prevent us from obtaining marketing approval for any product candidate or abandon development of certain product candidates, any of which could harm our business and cause our stock price to decline.

We may face legal claims; litigation islegal disputes are expensive and we may not be able to afford the costs.

We may face legal claims involving stockholders, consumers, competitors, regulators and other parties. As described in “Legal Proceedings” in Part I Item 3 of this Form 10-K, we are engaged in legal proceedings. Litigation and other legal proceedings are inherently uncertain, and adverse rulings could occur, including monetary damages, or an injunction stopping us from engaging in business practices, or requiring other remedies, such as compulsory licensing of patents.

The costs of litigation or any proceeding relating to our intellectual property or contractual rights could be substantial, even if resolved in our favor. Some of our competitors or financial funding sources have far greater resources than we do and may be better able to afford the costs of complex litigation. Also, a lawsuit, even if frivolous, will require considerable time commitments on the part of management, our attorneys and consultants. Defending these types of proceedings or legal actions involve considerable expense and could negatively affect our financial results.

We can provide no assurance of the successful and timely development of new products.

Our immunotherapies are at various stages of research and development. Further development and extensive testing will be required to determine their technical feasibility and commercial viability. We will need to complete significant additional clinical trials demonstrating that our product candidates are safe and effective to the satisfaction of the FDA and other non-U.S. regulatory authorities. The drug approval process is time-consuming, involves substantial expenditures of resources, and depends upon a number of factors, including the severity of the illness in question, the availability of alternative treatments, and the risks and benefits demonstrated in the clinical trials. Our success will depend on our ability to achieve scientific and technological advances and to translate such advances into licensable, FDA-approvable, commercially competitive products on a timely basis. Failure can occur at any stage of the process. If such programs are not successful, we may invest substantial amounts of time and money without developing revenue-producing products. As we enter a more extensive clinical program for our product candidates, the data generated in these studies may not be as compelling as the earlier results.

The proposed development schedules for our immunotherapies may be affected by a variety of factors, including technological difficulties, clinical trial failures, regulatory hurdles, clinical holds, competitive products, intellectual property challenges and/or changes in governmental regulation, many of which will not be within our control. Any delay in the development, introduction or marketing of our products could result either in such products being marketed at a time when their cost and performance characteristics would not be competitive in the marketplace or in the shortening of their commercial lives. In light of the long-term nature of our projects, the unproven technology involved and the other factors described elsewhere in this section, there can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully complete the development or marketing of any new products which could materially harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

Our research and development expenses are subject to uncertainty.

Factors affecting our research and development expenses include, but are not limited to:

There can be no guarantee that our research and development expenses will be consistent from period to period. We may be required to accelerate or delay incurring certain expenses depending on the results of our studies and the availability of adequate funding.

We may be required to suspend or discontinue clinical trials for a number of reasons, which could preclude approval of any of our product candidates.

Our clinical trials may be suspended at any time for a number of reasons. A clinical trial may be suspended or terminated by us, an IRB, the FDA or other regulatory authorities due to a failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, presentation or identification of unforeseen safety signals or issues, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using the investigational drug, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions, lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial, or for other business-related reasons. For example, in June 2019, we announced that we were closing our AIM2CERV Phase 3 clinical trial with AXAL in cervical cancer due to the delays we incurred as a result of the recent FDA partial clinical hold on the trial, as well as the estimated cost and time to completion of the trial. In addition, clinical trials for our product candidates could be suspended due to adverse side effects. Drug-related side effects could affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the trial or result in potential product liability claims. We may also voluntarily suspend or terminate our clinical trials if at any time we believe that they present an unacceptable risk to patients or do not demonstrate clinical benefit. If we elect or are forced to suspend or terminate any clinical trial of any product candidates that we develop, the commercial prospects of such product candidates will be harmed and our ability to generate product revenues from any of these product candidates will be delayed or eliminated. Any of these occurrences may significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Preliminary or interim results of a clinical trial are not necessarily predictive of future or final results.

Interim or preliminary data from clinical trials that we may conduct may not be indicative of the final results of the trial and are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. Interim or preliminary data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the interim or preliminary data. As a result, interim or preliminary data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available. Even if our clinical trials are completed as planned, we cannot be certain that their results will support our proposed indications.

We are subject to numerous risks inherent in conducting clinical trials.

We outsource the management of our clinical trials to third parties. Agreements with clinical research organizations,CROs, clinical investigators and medical institutions for clinical testing and data management services, place substantial responsibilities on these parties that, if unmet, could result in delays in, or termination of, our clinical trials. For example, if any of our clinical trial sites fail to comply with FDA-approved good clinical practices, we may be unable to use the data gathered at those sites. If these clinical investigators, medical institutions or other third parties do not carry out their contractual duties or regulatory obligations or fail to meet expected deadlines, or if the quality or accuracy of the clinical data they obtain is compromised due to their failure to adhere to our clinical protocols or for other reasons, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated, and we may be unable to obtain regulatory approval for, or successfully commercialize, our agents. We are not certain that we will successfully recruit enough patients to complete our clinical trials nor that we will reach our primary endpoints. Delays in recruitment, lack of clinical benefit or unacceptable side effects would delay or prevent the initiation of future development of our agents.

We or our regulators may suspend or terminate our clinical trials for a number of reasons. We may voluntarily suspend or terminate our clinical trials if at any time we believe they present an unacceptable risk to the patients enrolled in our clinical trials or do not demonstrate clinical benefit. In addition, regulatory agencies may order the temporary or permanent discontinuation of our clinical trials, or place our products on temporary or permanent hold, at any time if they believe that the clinical trials are not being conducted in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements or that they present an unacceptable safety risk to the patients enrolled in our clinical trials.

Our clinical trial operations are subject to regulatory inspections at any time. If regulatory inspectors conclude that we or our clinical trial sites are not in compliance with applicable regulatory requirements for conducting clinical trials, we may receive reports of observations or warning letters detailing deficiencies, and we will be required to implement corrective actions. If regulatory agencies deem our responses to be inadequate or are dissatisfied with the corrective actions we or our clinical trial sites have implemented, our clinical trials may be temporarily or permanently discontinued, we may be fined, we or our investigators may be precluded from conducting any ongoing or any future clinical trials, the government may refuse to approve our marketing applications or allow us to manufacture or market our products, and we may be criminally prosecuted.

The lengthy approval process as well as the unpredictability of future clinical trial results may result in our failing to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates, which would materially harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

We must comply with significant government regulations.

The research and development, manufacturing and marketing of human therapeutic and diagnostic products are subject to regulation, primarily by the FDA in the United States and by comparable authorities in other countries. These national agencies and other federal, state, local and foreign entities regulate, among other things, research and development activities (including testing in animals and in humans) and the testing, manufacturing, handling, labeling, storage, record keeping, approval, advertising and promotion of the products that we are developing. If we obtain approval for any of our product candidates, our operations will be directly or indirectly through our customers, subject to various federal and state fraud and abuse laws, including, without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statue and the federal False Claims Act, and privacy laws. Noncompliance with applicable laws and requirements can result in various adverse consequences, including delay in approving or refusal to approve product licenses or other applications, suspension or termination of clinical investigations, revocation of approvals previously granted, fines, criminal prosecution, civil and criminal penalties, recall or seizure of products, exclusion from having our products reimbursed by federal health care programs, the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, injunctions against shipping products and total or partial suspension of production and/or refusal to allow a company to enter into governmental supply contracts.

The process of obtaining requisite FDA approval has historically been costly and time-consuming. Current FDA requirements for a new human biological product to be marketed in the United States include: (1) the successful conclusion of preclinical laboratory and animal tests, if appropriate, to gain preliminary information on the product’s safety; (2) filing with the FDA of an IND to conduct human clinical trials for drugs or biologics; (3) the successful completion of adequate and well-controlled human clinical trials to establish the safety and efficacy of the investigational new drug for its recommended use; and (4) filing by a company and acceptance and approval by the FDA of a BLA for marketing approval of a biologic, to allow commercial distribution of a biologic product. The FDA also requires that any drug or formulation to be tested in humans be manufactured in accordance with its cGMP regulations. This has been extended to include any drug that will be tested for safety in animals in support of human testing. The cGMPs set certain minimum requirements for procedures, record-keeping and the physical characteristics of the laboratories used in the production of these drugs. A delay in one or more of the procedural steps outlined above could be harmful to us in terms of getting our immunotherapies through clinical testing and to market.

We can provide no assurance that our clinical product candidates will obtain regulatory approval or that the results of clinical studies will be favorable.

We are currently evaluating the safety and efficacy of several of our product candidates in a number of ongoing pre-clinical and clinical trials. However, even though the initiation and conduct of the clinical trials is in accordance with the governing regulatory authorities in each country, as with any investigational new drug (under an IND in the United States, or the equivalent in countries outside of the United States), we are at risk of a clinical hold at any time based on the evaluation of the data and information submitted to the governing regulatory authorities.

There can be delays in obtaining U.S FDA and/or other necessary regulatory approvals in the United States and in countries outside the United States for any investigational new drug and failure to receive such approvals would have an adverse effect on the investigational new drug’s potential commercial success and on our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. The time required to obtain approval by the FDA and non-U.S. regulatory authorities is unpredictable but typically takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. For example, the FDA or non-U.S. regulatory authorities may disagree with the design or implementation of our clinical trials or study endpoints; or we may be unable to demonstrate that a product candidate’s clinical and other benefits outweigh its safety risks. In addition, the FDA or non-U.S. regulatory authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data from preclinical studies or clinical trials or the data collected from clinical trials of our product candidates may not be sufficient to support the submission of a BLA or New Drug Application, (“NDA”)or NDA or other submission or to obtain regulatory approval in the United States or elsewhere. The FDA or non-U.S. regulatory authorities may fail to approve the manufacturing processes or facilities of third-party manufacturers with which we contract for clinical and commercial supplies; and the approval policies or regulations of the FDA or non-U.S. regulatory authorities may significantly change in a manner rendering our clinical data insufficient for approval.

In addition to the foregoing, approval policies, regulations, or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. We have not submitted for nor obtained regulatory approval for any product candidate in-humans (US & EU) and it is possible that none of our existing product candidates or any product candidates we may seek to develop in the future will ever obtain regulatory approval.

We may not obtain or maintain the benefits associated with orphan drug designation, including market exclusivity.

Although we have been granted FDA orphan drug designation for axalimogene filolisbacAXAL for use in the treatment of anal cancer, HPV-associated head and neck cancer, Stage II-IV invasive cervical cancer and for ADXS-HER2 for the treatment of osteosarcoma in the United States, as well as EMA orphan drug designation for axalimogene filolisbacAXAL for the treatment of anal cancer and for ADXS-HER2 for the treatment of osteosarcoma in the EU, and intend to continue to expand our designation for these uses where applicable, we may not receive the benefits associated with orphan drug designation. This may result from a failure to maintain orphan drug status or result from a competing product reaching the market that has an orphan designation for the same disease indication. Under U.S. rules for orphan drugs, if such a competing product reaches the market before ours does, the competing product could potentially obtain a scope of market exclusivity that limits or precludes our product from being sold in the United States for seven years. Even if we obtain exclusivity, the FDA could subsequently approve the same drug for the same condition if the FDA concludes that the later drug is clinically superior in that it is shown to be safer, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care. A competitor also may receive approval of different products for the same indication for which our orphan product has exclusivity or obtain approval for the same product but for a different indication for which the orphan product has exclusivity.

In addition, if and when we request orphan drug designation in Europe, the European exclusivity period is ten years but can be reduced to six years if the drug no longer meets the criteria for orphan drug designation or if the drug is sufficiently profitable so that market exclusivity is no longer justified. Orphan drug exclusivity may be lost if the FDA or EMEA determines that the request for designation was materially defective or if the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient quantity of the drug to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition.

We may incur substantial liabilities from any product liability claims if our insurance coverage for those claims is inadequate.

We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our immunotherapies in human clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if the approved products are sold commercially. An individual may bring a liability claim against us if one of the immunotherapies causes, or merely appears to have caused, an injury. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against the product liability claim, we will incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

We have Product Liability and Clinical Trial Liability insurance coverage for each clinical trial. We do not have product liability insurance for sold commercial products because we do not have products on the market. We currently are in the process of obtaining insurance coverage and plan to expand such coverage to include the sale of commercial products if marketing approval is obtained for any of our immunotherapies. However, insurance coverage is increasingly expensive and we may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost and we may not be able to obtain insurance coverage that will be adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise.

We may not obtain or maintain the benefits associated with breakthrough therapy designation.Breakthrough Therapy Designation.

If we apply for Breakthrough Therapy Designation, (“BTD”),or BTD, we may not be granted BTD, or even if granted, we may not receive the benefits associated with BTD. This may result from a failure to maintain breakthrough therapy status if it is no longer considered to be a breakthrough therapy. For example, a drug’s development program may be granted BTD using early clinical testing that shows a much higher response rate than available therapies. However, subsequent interim data derived from a larger study may show a response that is substantially smaller than the response seen in early clinical testing. Another example is where BTD is granted to two drugs that are being developed for the same use. If one of the two drugs gains traditional approval, the other would not retain its designation unless its sponsor provided evidence that the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over the recently approved drug. When BTD is no longer supported by emerging data or the designated drug development program is no longer being pursued, the FDA may choose to send a letter notifying the sponsor that the program is no longer designated as a breakthrough therapy development program.

We believe that our immunotherapies under development and in clinical trials will address unmet medical needs in the treatment of cancer. Our competition will be determined in part by the potential indications for which drugs are developed and ultimately approved by regulatory authorities. Additionally, the timing of market introduction of some of our potential products or of competitors’ products may be an important competitive factor. Accordingly, the relative speed with which we can develop immunotherapies, complete preclinical testing, clinical trials and approval processes and supply commercial quantities to market is expected to be important competitive factors. We expect that competition among products approved for sale will be based on various factors, including product efficacy, safety, reliability, availability, price and patent position.

Fast Track Designation or Breakthrough Therapy Designation from the FDA may not actually lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process.

The FDA has granted Fast Track Designation for AXAL for adjuvant therapy for high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer patients, and has granted Fast Track Designation for ADXS-HER2 for patients with newly-diagnosed, non-metastatic, surgically-resectable osteosarcoma. We may seek Breakthrough Therapy Designation for our product candidates or Fast Track Designation for certain of our other product candidates.

If a product is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition and the product demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for this condition, the product sponsor may apply for Fast Track Designation. The FDA has broad discretion whether or not to grant this designation, so even if we believe one of our product candidates is eligible for this designation, we cannot assure you that the FDA would decide to grant it. Even if we do receive Fast Track Designation, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures. The FDA may withdraw Fast Track Designation if it believes that the designation is no longer supported by data from our clinical development program.

A breakthrough therapy is defined as a product that is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other products, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product may demonstrate substantial improvement over existing therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. For products that have been designated as breakthrough therapies, interaction and communication between the FDA and the sponsor of the trial can help to identify the most efficient path for clinical development while minimizing the number of patients placed in ineffective control regimens.

Designation as a breakthrough therapy is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe one of our product candidates meets the criteria for designation as a breakthrough therapy, the FDA may disagree and instead determine not to make such designation. In any event, the receipt of a Breakthrough Therapy Designation may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to products considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures and does not assure ultimate approval by the FDA. In addition, even if a product candidate qualifies as a breakthrough therapy, the FDA may later decide that the product no longer meets the conditions for qualification and rescind the Breakthrough Therapy Designation.

The results of clinical trials conducted at clinical trial sites outside the United States might not be accepted by the FDA, and data developed outside of a foreign jurisdiction similarly might not be accepted by such foreign regulatory authority.

Some of the clinical trials for our product candidates that are being or will be conducted through our partnerships and collaborations may be conducted outside the United States, and we intend in the future to conduct additional clinical trials outside the United States. Although the FDA, European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may accept data from clinical trials conducted outside the relevant jurisdiction, acceptance of these data is subject to certain conditions. For example, the FDA requires that the clinical trial must be well designed and conducted and performed by qualified investigators in accordance with ethical principles such as IRB or ethics committee approval and informed consent, the trial population must adequately represent the U.S. population, and the data must be applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice in ways that the FDA deems clinically meaningful. In addition, while these clinical trials are subject to the applicable local laws, acceptance of the data by the FDA will be dependent upon its determination that the trials were conducted consistent with all applicable U.S. laws and regulations. There can be no assurance that the FDA will accept data from trials conducted outside of the United States as adequate support of a marketing application. Similarly, we must also ensure that any data submitted to foreign regulatory authorities adheres to their standards and requirements for clinical trials and there can be no assurance a comparable foreign regulatory authority would accept data from trials conducted outside of its jurisdiction.

Our relationships with healthcare providers and physicians and third-party payors will be subject to applicable anti-kickback, fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, which could expose us to criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm and diminished profits and future earnings.

Healthcare providers, physicians and third-party payors in the United States and elsewhere play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of pharmaceutical products. Arrangements with third-party payors and customers can expose pharmaceutical manufacturers to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, including, without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and the federal False Claims Act, or FCA, which may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which such companies sell, market and distribute pharmaceutical products. In particular, the research of our product candidates, as well as the promotion, sales and marketing of healthcare items and services, as well as certain business arrangements in the healthcare industry, are subject to extensive laws designed to prevent fraud, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. These laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, structuring and commission(s), certain customer incentive programs and other business arrangements generally. Activities subject to these laws also involve the improper use of information obtained in the course of patient recruitment for clinical trials. The applicable federal, state and foreign healthcare laws and regulations that may affect our ability to operate include, but are not limited to:

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The distribution of pharmaceutical products is subject to additional requirements and regulations, including extensive record-keeping, licensing, storage and security requirements intended to prevent the unauthorized sale of pharmaceutical products. Pharmaceutical companies may also be subject to federal consumer protection and unfair competition laws, which broadly regulate marketplace activities and activities that potentially harm consumers.

The scope and enforcement of each of these laws is uncertain and subject to rapid change in the current environment of healthcare reform, especially in light of the lack of applicable precedent and regulations. Federal and state enforcement bodies continue to closely scrutinize interactions between healthcare companies and healthcare providers, which has led to a number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions and settlements in the healthcare industry. Ensuring business arrangements comply with applicable healthcare laws, as well as responding to possible investigations by government authorities, can be time and resource-consuming and can divert a company’s attention from the business.

It is possible that governmental and enforcement authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law interpreting applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, including the imposition of civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in federal and state funded healthcare programs, contractual damages and the curtailment or restricting of our operations, as well as additional reporting obligations and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or other agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws. Further, if any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we expect to do business is found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to significant criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs. Any action for violation of these laws, even if successfully defended, could cause a biopharmaceutical manufacturer to incur significant legal expenses and divert management’s attention from the operation of the business. Prohibitions or restrictions on sales or withdrawal of future marketed products could materially affect business in an adverse way.

Obtaining and maintaining regulatory approval of our product candidates in one jurisdiction does not mean that we will be successful in obtaining regulatory approval of our product candidates in other jurisdictions.

Obtaining and maintaining regulatory approval of our product candidates in one jurisdiction does not guarantee that we will be able to obtain or maintain regulatory approval in any other jurisdiction, while a failure or delay in obtaining regulatory approval in one jurisdiction may have a negative effect on the regulatory approval process in others. For example, even if the FDA grants marketing approval of a product candidate, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities must also approve the manufacturing, marketing and promotion of the product candidate in those countries. Approval procedures vary among jurisdictions and can involve requirements and administrative review periods different from, and greater than, those in the United States, including additional preclinical studies or clinical trials, as clinical trials conducted in one jurisdiction may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions outside the United States, a product candidate must be approved for reimbursement before it can be approved for sale in that jurisdiction. In some cases, the price that we intend to charge for our products is also subject to approval.

We may also submit marketing applications in other countries. Regulatory authorities in jurisdictions outside of the United States have requirements for approval of product candidates with which we must comply prior to marketing in those jurisdictions. Obtaining foreign regulatory approvals and compliance with foreign regulatory requirements could result in significant delays, difficulties and costs for us and could delay or prevent the introduction of our products in certain countries. If we fail to comply with the regulatory requirements in international markets and/or receive applicable marketing approvals, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of our product candidates will be harmed.

Even if we receive regulatory approval of any product candidates, we will be subject to ongoing regulatory obligations and continued regulatory review, which may result in significant additional expense and we may be subject to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or experience unanticipated problems with our product candidates.

If any of our product candidates are approved, they will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements for manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, advertising, promotion, sampling, record-keeping, conduct of post-marketing studies and submission of safety, efficacy and other post-market information, including both federal and state requirements in the United States and requirements of comparable foreign regulatory authorities. In addition, we will be subject to continued compliance with cGMP and GCP requirements for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval.

Manufacturers and manufacturers’ facilities are required to comply with extensive FDA, EMA and comparable foreign regulatory authority requirements, including ensuring that quality control and manufacturing procedures conform to cGMP regulations. As such, we and our contract manufacturers will be subject to continual review and inspections to assess compliance with cGMP and adherence to commitments made in any BLA, other marketing application and previous responses to inspection observations. Accordingly, we and others with whom we work must continue to expend time, money and effort in all areas of regulatory compliance, including manufacturing, production and quality control.

Any regulatory approvals that we receive for our product candidates may be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or to the conditions of approval, or contain requirements for potentially costly post-marketing testing, including Phase 4 clinical trials and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the product candidate. Certain endpoint data we hope to include in any approved product labeling also may not make it into such labeling, including exploratory or secondary endpoint data such as patient-reported outcome measures. The FDA may also require a risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, or REMS, program as a condition of approval of our product candidates, which could entail requirements for long-term patient follow-up, a medication guide, physician communication plans or additional elements to ensure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. In addition, if the FDA, EMA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority approves our product candidates, we will have to comply with requirements including submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports and registration.

The FDA may impose consent decrees or withdraw approval if compliance with regulatory requirements and standards is not maintained or if problems occur after the product reaches the market. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with our product candidates, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with our third-party manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information, imposition of post-market studies or clinical trials to assess new safety risks or imposition of distribution restrictions or other restrictions under a REMS program. Other potential consequences include, among other things:

The FDA strictly regulates marketing, labeling, advertising and promotion of products that are placed on the market. Products may be promoted only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved label. The policies of the FDA, EMA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities may change and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay regulatory approval of our product candidates. We cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action, either in the United States or abroad. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may lose any marketing approval that we may have obtained and we may not achieve or sustain profitability.

Coverage and reimbursement may be limited or unavailable in certain market segments for our product candidates, if approved, which could make it difficult for us to sell any product candidates profitably.

The success of our product candidates, if approved, depends on the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for, or accurately estimate the potential revenue from, our product candidates or assure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for any product that we may develop.

Patients who are provided medical treatment for their conditions generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the costs associated with their treatment. Coverage and adequate reimbursement from governmental healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and commercial payors is critical to new product acceptance.

Government authorities and other third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which drugs and treatments they will cover and the amount of reimbursement. Coverage and reimbursement by a third-party payor may depend upon a number of factors, including the third-party payor’s determination that use of a product is:

In the United States, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for products exists among third-party payors. As a result, obtaining coverage and reimbursement approval of a product from a government or other third-party payor is a time-consuming and costly process that could require us to provide to each payor supporting scientific, clinical and cost-effectiveness data for the use of our products on a payor-by-payor basis, with no assurance that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be obtained. Even if we obtain coverage for a given product, the resulting reimbursement payment rates might not be adequate for us to achieve or sustain profitability or may require co-payments that patients find unacceptably high. Additionally, third-party payors may not cover, or provide adequate reimbursement for, long-term follow-up evaluations required following the use of product candidates, once approved. Patients are unlikely to use our product candidates, once approved, unless coverage is provided and reimbursement is adequate

Ongoing healthcare legislative and regulatory reform measures may have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Changes in regulations, statutes or the interpretation of existing regulations could impact our business in the future by requiring, for example: (i) changes to our manufacturing arrangements; (ii) additions or modifications to product labeling; (iii) the recall or discontinuation of our products; or (iv) additional record-keeping requirements. If any such changes were to be imposed, they could adversely affect the operation of our business.

In the United States, there have been and continue to be a number of legislative initiatives to contain healthcare costs. For example, in March 2010, the ACA was passed, which substantially changed the way healthcare is financed by both governmental and private insurers, and significantly impacted the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry. The ACA, among other things, addressed a new methodology by which rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program are calculated for drugs that are inhaled, infused, instilled, implanted or injected, increased the minimum Medicaid rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and extended the rebate program to individuals enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations, established annual fees and taxes on manufacturers of certain branded prescription drugs and created a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program, in which manufacturers must agree to offer 70% point-of-sale discounts off negotiated prices of applicable brand drugs to eligible beneficiaries during their coverage gap period, as a condition for the manufacturer’s outpatient drugs to be covered under Medicare Part D.

Some of the provisions of the ACA have yet to be fully implemented, while certain provisions have been subject to judicial and Congressional challenges, as well as efforts by the Trump administration to repeal or replace certain aspects of the ACA. For example, Congress has considered legislation that would repeal or repeal and replace all or part of the ACA. While Congress has not passed repeal legislation, the Tax Reform Act includes a provision that repealed, effective January 1, 2019, the tax-based shared responsibility payment imposed by the ACA on certain individuals who fail to maintain qualifying health coverage for all or part of a year that is commonly referred to as the “individual mandate.” As a result of the individual mandate repeal, subsequent litigation challenged the validity of the ACA. On December 14, 2018, a U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of Texas ruled that the individual mandate portion of the ACA is an essential and inseverable feature of the ACA, and therefore because the mandate was repealed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid as well. The Trump administration and CMS have both stated that the ruling will have no immediate effect, and on December 30, 2018 the same judge issued an order staying the judgment pending appeal. A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals hearing to determine whether certain states and the House of Representatives have standing to appeal the lower court decision was held on July 9, 2019, but it is unclear when the court will render its decision on this hearing, and what effect it will have on the status of the ACA. Litigation and legislation over the ACA are likely to continue, with unpredictable and uncertain results. We will continue to evaluate the effect that the ACA and its possible repeal and replacement has on our business.

Since January 2017, President Trump has signed two Executive Orders designed to delay the implementation of certain provisions of the ACA or otherwise circumvent some of the requirements for health insurance mandated by the ACA. Further, the Trump administration has concluded that cost-sharing reduction, or CSR, payments to insurance companies required under the ACA have not received necessary appropriations from Congress and announced that it will discontinue these payments immediately until those appropriations are made. The loss of the CSR payments is expected to increase premiums on certain policies issued by qualified health plans under the ACA. Bipartisan bills to appropriate funds for CSR payments were proposed in 2017 and 2018, but the proposals have not been enacted into law. Multiple state Attorneys General filed suit to stop the administration from terminating the subsidies, but their case was dismissed by a federal judge in California on July 18, 2018. Furthermore, on June 14, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that the federal government was not required to pay more than $12 billion in ACA risk corridor payments to third-party payors who argued were owed to them. The effects of this gap in reimbursement on third-party payors, the viability of the ACA marketplace and providers, and the potential effect on our business, are not yet known.

Inadequate funding for the FDA, the SEC and other government agencies could hinder their ability to hire and retain key leadership and other personnel, prevent new products and services from being developed or commercialized in a timely manner or otherwise prevent those agencies from performing normal business functions on which the operation of our business may rely, which could negatively impact our business.

The ability of the FDA to review and approve new products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, ability to hire and retain key personnel and accept the payment of user fees, and statutory, regulatory, and policy changes. Average review times at the agency have fluctuated in recent years as a result. In addition, government funding of the SEC and other government agencies on which our operations may rely, including those that fund research and development activities, is subject to the political process, which is inherently fluid and unpredictable.

Disruptions at the FDA and other agencies may also slow the time necessary for new drugs to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government agencies, which would adversely affect our business. For example, over the last several years, the U.S. government has shut down several times and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA and the SEC, have had to furlough critical employees and stop critical activities. If a prolonged government shutdown occurs, it could significantly impact the ability of the FDA to timely review and process our regulatory submissions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Further, upon completion of this offering and in our operations as a public company, future government shutdowns could impact our ability to access the public markets and obtain necessary capital in order to properly capitalize and continue our operations.

Approval of our product candidates does not ensure successful commercialization and reimbursement.

We are not currently marketing our product candidates; however, we are seeking partnering and commercial opportunities for axalimogene filolisbac.our products. We cannot assure you that we will be able to commercialize it or any other candidateof our product candidates ourselves or find a commercialization partner or that we will be able to agree to acceptable terms with any partner to launch and commercialize our products.

The commercial success of our product candidates is subject to risks in both the United States and European countries. In addition, in European countries, pricing and payment of prescription pharmaceuticals is subject to more extensive governmental control than in the United States. Pricing negotiations with European governmental authorities can take six to 12 months or longer after the receipt of regulatory approval and product launch. If reimbursement is unavailable in any country in which reimbursement is sought, limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at or reduced to unsatisfactory levels, our ability or any potential partner’s ability to successfully commercialize in such a country would be impacted negatively. Furthermore, if these measures prevent us or any potential partner from selling on a profitable basis in a particular country, they could prevent the commercial launch or continued sale in that country and could adversely impact the commercialization market opportunity in other countries.

Moreover, as a condition of approval, the regulatory authorities may require that we conduct post-approval studies. Those studies may reveal new safety or efficacy findings regarding our drug that could adversely impact the continued commercialization or future market opportunity in other countries.

In addition, we predominantly rely on a network of suppliers and vendors to manufacture our products. Should a regulatory authority make any significant findings on an inspection of our own operations or the operations of those companies, the ability for us to continue producing our products could be adversely impacted and further production could cease. Regulatory GMP requirements are extensive and can present a risk of injury or recall, among other risks, if not manufactured or labeled properly under GMPs.

Our potential revenues from the commercialization of our product candidates are subject to these and other factors, and therefore we may never reach or maintain profitability.

Even if we are successful in obtaining market approval, commercial success of any of our product candidates will also depend in large part on the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payers, including government payers such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs and managed care organizations, which may be affected by existing and future health care reform measures designed to reduce the cost of health care. Third-party payers could require us to conduct additional studies, including post-marketing studies related to the cost effectiveness of a product, to qualify for reimbursement, which could be costly and divert our resources. If government and other health care payers were not to provide adequate coverage and reimbursement levels for one any of our products once approved, market acceptance and commercial success would be reduced.

In addition, if one of our products is approved for marketing, we will be subject to significant regulatory obligations regarding product promotion, the submission of safety and other post-marketing information and reports and registration, and will need to continue to comply (or ensure that our third party providers comply) with cGMPs, and Good Clinical Practices, (“GCP”),or GCPs, for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval. In addition, there is always the risk that we or a regulatory authority might identify previously unknown problems with a product post-approval, such as adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency. Compliance with these requirements is costly, and any failure to comply or other issues with our product candidates’ post-market approval could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to our Intellectual Property

We rely upon patents to protect our technology. We may be unable to protect our intellectual property rights and we may be liable for infringing the intellectual property rights of others.

Our ability to compete effectively will depend on our ability to maintain the proprietary nature of our technologies, including theLm-LLO based immunotherapy platform technology, and the proprietary technology of others with whom we have entered into collaboration and licensing agreements.

Currently, we own or have rights to approximately 433several hundred patents and applications, which are owned, licensed from, or co-owned with Penn Merck, NIH, and/or Augusta University.and Merck. We have obtained the rights to all future patent applications in this field originating in the laboratories of Dr. Yvonne Paterson and Dr. Fred Frankel, at the University of Pennsylvania.

We own or hold licenses to a number of issued patents and U.S. pending patent applications, as well as foreign patents and foreign counterparts. Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain patent protection both in the United States and in other countries for our product candidates, as well as the methods for treating patients in the product indications using these product candidates. Such patent protection is costly to obtain and maintain, and we cannot guarantee that sufficient funds will be available. Our ability to protect our product candidates from unauthorized or infringing use by third parties depends in substantial part on our ability to obtain and maintain valid and enforceable patents. Due to evolving legal standards relating to the patentability, validity and enforceability of patents covering pharmaceutical inventions and the scope of claims made under these patents, our ability to obtain, maintain and enforce patents is uncertain and involves complex legal and factual questions. Even if our product candidates, as well as methods for treating patients for prescribed indications using these product candidates are covered by valid and enforceable patents and have claims with sufficient scope, disclosure and support in the specification, the patents will provide protection only for a limited amount of time. Accordingly, rights under any issued patents may not provide us with sufficient protection for our product candidates or provide sufficient protection to afford us a commercial advantage against competitive products or processes.

In addition, we cannot guarantee that any patents will issue from any pending or future patent applications owned by or licensed to us. Even if patents have issued or will issue, we cannot guarantee that the claims of these patents are or will be valid or enforceable or will provide us with any significant protection against competitive products or otherwise be commercially valuable to us. The laws of some foreign jurisdictions do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as in the United States and many companies have encountered significant difficulties in protecting and defending such rights in foreign jurisdictions. Furthermore, different countries have different procedures for obtaining patents, and patents issued in different countries offer different degrees of protection against use of the patented invention by others. If we encounter such difficulties in protecting or are otherwise precluded from effectively protecting our intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions, our business prospects could be substantially harmed.

The patent positions of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including our patent position, involve complex legal and factual questions, and, therefore, validity and enforceability cannot be predicted with certainty. Patents may be challenged, deemed unenforceable, invalidated, or circumvented as a result of laws, rules and guidelines that are changed due to legislative, judicial or administrative actions, or review, which render our patents unenforceable or invalid. Our patents can be challenged by our competitors who can argue that our patents are invalid, unenforceable, lack utility, sufficient written description or enablement, or that the claims of the issued patents should be limited or narrowly construed. Patents also will not protect our product candidates if competitors devise ways of making or using these product candidates without infringing our patents.

We will be able to protect our proprietary rights from unauthorized use by third parties only to the extent that our technologies, methods of treatment, product candidates, and any future products are covered by valid and enforceable patents or are effectively maintained as trade secrets and we have the funds to enforce our rights, if necessary.

The expiration of our owned or licensed patents before completing the research and development of our product candidates and receiving all required approvals in order to sell and distribute the products on a commercial scale can adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Litigation regarding patents, patent applications and other proprietary rights may be expensive and time consuming. If we are involved in such litigation, it could cause delays in bringing product candidates to market and harm our ability to operate.

Our success will depend in part on our ability to operate without infringing the proprietary rights of third parties. The pharmaceutical industry is characterized by extensive litigation regarding patents and other intellectual property rights. Other parties may obtain patents in the future and allege that the products or use of our technologies infringe these patent claims or that we are employing their proprietary technology without authorization.

In addition, third parties may challenge or infringe upon our existing or future patents. Proceedings involving our patents or patent applications or those of others could result in adverse decisions regarding:

Even if we are successful in these proceedings, we may incur substantial costs and divert management time and attention in pursuing these proceedings, which could have a material adverse effect on us. If we are unable to avoid infringing the patent rights of others, we may be required to seek a license, defend an infringement action or challenge the validity of the patents in court. Patent litigation is costly and time consuming. We may not have sufficient resources to bring these actions to a successful conclusion. In addition, if we do not obtain a license, develop or obtain non-infringing technology, fail to defend an infringement action successfully or have infringed patents declared valid, we may:

We may be unable to adequately prevent disclosure of trade secrets and other proprietary information.

We also rely on trade secrets to protect our proprietary technologies, especially where we do not believe patent protection is appropriate or obtainable. However, trade secrets are difficult to protect. We rely in part on confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, outside scientific collaborators, sponsored researchers, and other advisors to protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information. These agreements may not effectively prevent disclosure of confidential information and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of unauthorized disclosure of confidential information. In addition, others may independently discover our trade secrets and proprietary information. Costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our proprietary rights, and failure to obtain or maintain trade secret protection could adversely affect our competitive business position.

WeSome of our products are dependent upon our license agreement with Penn; if we breach the license agreement and/or fail to make payments due and owing to Penn under our license agreement, our business willmay be materially and adversely affected.

Pursuant to the terms of our license agreement with Penn, which has been amended from time to time, we have acquired exclusive worldwide licenses for patents and patent applications related to our proprietary Listeria vaccine technology. The license provides us with the exclusive commercial rights to the patent portfolio developed at Penn as of the effective date of the license, in connection with Dr. Paterson and requires us to pay various milestone, legal, filing and licensing payments to commercialize the technology. As of October 31, 2018,2019, we had $150,000 indid not have outstanding payables to Penn. We can provide no assurance that we will be able to make all future payments due and owing thereunder, that such licenses will not be terminated or expire during critical periods, that we will be able to obtain licenses from Penn for other rights that may be important to us, or, if obtained, that such licenses will be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. The loss of any current or future licenses from Penn or the exclusivity rights provided therein could materially harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

If we are unable to obtain licenses needed for the development of our product candidates, or if we breach any of the agreements under which we license rights to patents or other intellectual property from third parties, we could lose license rights that are important to our business.

If we are unable to maintain and/or obtain licenses needed for the development of our product candidates in the future, we may have to develop alternatives to avoid infringing on the patents of others, potentially causing increased costs and delays in drug development and introduction or precluding the development, manufacture, or sale of planned products. Some of our licenses provide for limited periods of exclusivity that require minimum license fees and payments and/or may be extended only with the consent of the licensor. We can provide no assurance that we will be able to meet these minimum license fees in the future or that these third parties will grant extensions on any or all such licenses. This same restriction may be contained in licenses obtained in the future.

Additionally, we can provide no assurance that the patents underlying any licenses will be valid and enforceable. To the extent any products developed by us are based on licensed technology, royalty payments on the licenses will reduce our gross profit from such product sales and may render the sales of such products uneconomical. In addition, the loss of any current or future licenses or the exclusivity rights provided therein could materially harm our business, financial condition and our operations.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Capital Needs

We have incurred significant losses since our inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future.

We are a clinical-stage biotechnology company. Investment in biotechnology product development is highly speculative because it entails substantial upfront capital expenditures and significant risk that a product candidate will fail to gain regulatory approval or become commercially viable. We have not generated any revenue from product sales to date, and we continue to incur significant development and other expenses related to our ongoing operations. As a result, we are not profitable and have incurred losses in each period since our inception.

We expect to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future, and we expect these losses to increase as we continue our development of, and seek regulatory approvals for, our product candidates, and begin to commercialize any approved products. We may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may adversely affect our business. The size of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses and our ability to generate revenues. If any of our product candidates fails in clinical studies or do not gain regulatory approval, or if approved, fails to achieve market acceptance, we may never become profitable. Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Our prior losses and expected future losses have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our stockholders’ (deficit) equity and working capital.

We will require additional capital to fund our operations and if we fail to obtain necessary financing we will not be able to complete the development and commercialization of our product candidates.

The research and development of our products has consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception. We expect to continue to invest in advancing the clinical development of our product candidates and to commercialize any product candidates for which we receive regulatory approval. As of October 31, 2018, we had cash and cash equivalents of $45.1 million. We will require additional capital for the further development of our product candidates. We are pursuing various ways to support our development efforts including debt and/or equity financing as well as targeting potential collaborators of our products.

We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us we may have to significantly delay, scale back or discontinue the development or commercialization of one or more of our products or product candidates or one or more of our other research and development initiatives. Our forecast of the period of time through which our financial resources will be adequate to support our operations is a forward-looking statement and involves risks and uncertainties, and actual results could vary as a result of a number of factors, including the factors discussed elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section. We have based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could utilize our available capital resources sooner than we currently expect. Our future funding requirements, both near and long-term, will depend on many factors, including, but not limited to:

Our auditor’s report includes a going concern paragraph.

Our auditor’s report on our financial statements for the year ended October 31, 2018 includes a going concern paragraph. The Company’s products that are being developed have not generated significant revenue. As a result, the Company has suffered recurring losses and requires significant cash resources to execute its business plans. These losses are expected to continue for an extended period of time. The aforementioned factors raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year from the date of filing. The accompanying financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis, which contemplates the realization of assets and the satisfaction of liabilities in the normal course of business. The financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to the recoverability and classification of asset amounts or the classification of liabilities that might be necessary should the Company be unable to continue as a going concern within one year after the date the financial statements are issued.

Historically, the major source of our cash has been from proceeds from various public and private offerings of our common stock. Management’s plans to mitigate an expected shortfall of capital, to support future operations, include raising additional funds. The actual amount of cash that it will need to operate is subject to many factors.

The Company also recognizes it will need to raise additional capital in order to continue to execute its business plan in the future. There is no assurance that additional financing will be available when needed or that management will be able to obtain financing on terms acceptable to the Company or whether the Company will become profitable and generate positive operating cash flow. If the Company is unable to raise sufficient additional funds, it will have to scale back its operations.

We have a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting and our inability to remediate this weakness or otherwise implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, or the inability of our independent registered public accounting firm to provide an unqualified report thereon, could have a material adverse effect on us.

As a public company, we are required to comply with the SEC’s rules implementing Sections 302 and 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which require management to certify financial and other information in our quarterly and annual reports and provide an annual management report on the effectiveness of controls over financial reporting.

The annual assessment for fiscal year 2018 resulted in the identification of a material weakness that existed as of October 31, 2018, regarding the accounting for a derivative liability.

This material weakness could, among other things, adversely impact our ability to provide timely and accurate financial information or result in a misstatement of the account balances or disclosures that would result in a material misstatement to our annual or interim financial statements that would not be prevented or detected. The material weakness is described in greater detail in Item 9A, Disclosure Controls and Procedures.

A substantial majority of our authorized shares of common stock under our certificate of incorporation are either outstanding or reserved for issuance.

Our certificate of incorporation currently authorizes the issuance of 95,000,000 shares of common stock and 5,000,000 shares of preferred stock, par value $0.001 per share, for a total of 100,000,000 shares of capital stock. As of December 31, 2018, a total of 6,082,766 shares of common stock are reserved for issuance upon the exercise of outstanding stock options, a total of 340,467 shares of common stock are reserved for issuance for outstanding restricted stock units and a total of 500,937 shares of common stock are reserved for issuance in connection with future grants of stock options and/or future issuances of shares under our 2015 Stock Incentive Plan, as amended. In addition, as of December 31, 2018, we have 952,999 shares of our common stock are available for grant under the ESPP and we have outstanding warrants to purchase 14,169,542 shares of our common stock. After taking into account the total number of shares of common stock issued and outstanding, in addition to the aggregate number of shares of common stock reserved for future issuance as described above, approximately 3% of our authorized shares of common stock remain available to be issued as of December 31, 2018.

We currently intend to solicit the approval of our stockholders at our upcoming 2019 annual meeting of stockholders to increase the number of authorized shares. Absent the approval, we are left without sufficient authorized shares of common stock to pursue a variety of other business and financial objectives without further action of the stockholders (except when required by applicable law or regulation). As a result, a delay in securing, or a failure to secure, stockholder approval to amend our certificate of incorporation would seriously jeopardize the financial viability of the Company. Unless and until we attain the approval of our stockholders to increase the number of authorized shares, our ability to manage our capital needs is restricted which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Additional authorized shares of common stock available for issuance may adversely affect the market price of our securities.

We are currently authorized to issue 95,000,000 shares of our common stock. As of December 31, 2018, we had 69,703,219 shares of our common stock issued and outstanding, excluding shares issuable upon exercise of our outstanding warrants, options, convertible promissory notes and shares of common stock earned but not yet issued under our director compensation program. Under our 2015 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or ESPP, our employees can buy our common stock at a discounted price. To the extent the shares of common stock are issued, options and warrants are exercised or convertible promissory notes are converted, holders of our common stock will experience dilution. In the event of any future financing of equity securities or securities convertible into or exchangeable for, common stock, holders of our common stock may experience dilution. In addition, as of December 31, 2018 we had outstanding options to purchase 6,082,766 shares of our common stock at a weighted average exercise price of $6.74 per share and outstanding warrants to purchase 14,169,542 shares of our common stock (including the 14,166,666 warrants subject to anti-dilution protection); and 952,999 shares of our common stock are available for grant under the ESPP.

Risks Related to Ownership of our Securities

Sales of additional equity securities may adversely affect the market price of our common stock and your rights may be reduced.

We expect to continue to incur drug development and selling, general and administrative costs, and to satisfy our funding requirements, we will need to sell additional equity securities, which may be subject to registration rights and warrants with anti-dilutive protective provisions. The sale or the proposed sale of substantial amounts of our common stock or other equity securities in the public markets may adversely affect the market price of our common stock and our stock price may decline substantially. Our shareholders may experience substantial dilution and a reduction in the price that they are able to obtain upon sale of their shares. Also, new equity securities issued may have greater rights, preferences or privileges than our existing common stock.

The price of our common stock and warrants may be volatile.

The trading price of our common stock and warrants may fluctuate substantially. The price of our common stock and warrants that will prevail in the market may be higher or lower than the price you have paid, depending on many factors, some of which are beyond our control and may not be related to our operating performance. These fluctuations could cause you to lose part or all of your investment in our common stock and warrants. Those factors that could cause fluctuations include, but are not limited to, the following:

In the past, following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been brought against that company. Due to the potential volatility of our stock price, we may therefore be the target of securities litigation in the future. Securities litigation could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention and resources from our business.

A limited public trading market may cause volatility in the price of our common stock.

The quotation of our common stock on the NASDAQNasdaq does not assure that a meaningful, consistent and liquid trading market currently exists, and in recent years such market has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have particularly affected the market prices of many smaller companies like us. Our common stock is thus subject to this volatility. Sales of substantial amounts of common stock, or the perception that such sales might occur, could adversely affect prevailing market prices of our common stock and our stock price may decline substantially in a short time and our shareholders could suffer losses or be unable to liquidate their holdings.

The market prices for our common stock may be adversely impacted by future events.

Our common stock began trading on the over-the-counter-markets on July 28, 2005 and is currently quoted on the NASDAQNasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ADXS. Market prices for our common stock and warrants will be influenced by a number of factors, including:

We are not currently in compliance with the continued listing requirements for NASDAQ.Nasdaq. If the price of our common stock continues to trade below $1.00 per share for a sustained period or we do not meet other continued listing requirements, our common stock may be delisted from the NASDAQNasdaq Global Market, which could affect the market price and liquidity for our common stock and reduce our ability to raise additional capital.

Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQNasdaq Global Select Market. In order to maintain that listing, we must satisfy minimum financial and other requirements including, without limitation, a requirement that our closing bid price be at least $1.00 per share. In March 2019, the Company executed a 1 for 15 reverse stock split in order to regain compliance after a prior Nasdaq notice of delisting. On October 23, 2018,September 3, 2019, we received a written notice from NASDAQNasdaq indicating that we are not in compliance with the minimum bid price requirement for continued listing on the NASDAQNasdaq Global Select Market. We have until April 22, 2019March 2, 2020 to regain compliance. We can regain compliance if at any time prior to April 22, 2019March 2, 2020 the bid price of our common stock closes at or above $1.00 per share for a minimum of ten consecutive business days.

If we fail to regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement by April 22, 2019,March 2, 2020, we may apply to transfer to The NASDAQ CapitalNasdaq Global Select Market where we should be afforded an additional 180-day period to regain compliance provided that (i) we meet the applicable market value of publicly held shares requirement for continued listing and all other applicable requirements for initial listing on the NASDAQ CapitalNasdaq Global Select Market (except for the bid price requirement) based on our most recent public filings and market information and (ii) we notify NASDAQNasdaq of our intent to cure the bid price requirement deficiency prior to the completion of the second 180-day compliance period by effecting a reverse stock split, if necessary. We anticipate that will seek stockholder approval at our next annual meeting, in 2019, to grant discretionary authority to our board of directors to amend our certificate of incorporation to effect a reverse split of our outstanding shares of common stock within a range of one share of common stock for every ten shares of common stock to one share of common stock for every twenty shares of common stock, with the exact reverse split ratio to be decided and publicly announced by the board of directors prior to the effective time of the amendment to our certificate of incorporation. We intend to monitor the closing bid price of our common stock and consider our available options to resolve our noncompliance with the minimum bid price requirement. There can be no assurance that we will be able to regain compliance with the minimum bid price requirement or we will otherwise be in compliance with other NASDAQNasdaq listing criteria. If we fail to regain compliance with the minimum bid requirement or to meet the other applicable continued listing requirements for the NASDAQNasdaq Global Select Market in the future and NASDAQNasdaq determines to delist our common stock, the delisting could adversely affect the market price and liquidity of our common stock and reduce our ability to raise additional capital. In addition, if

Unless our common stock is delisted from NASDAQ and the trading price remains below $5.00 per share, trading in our common stock might also become subjectcontinues to the requirements of certain rules promulgated under the Exchange Act, which require additional disclosure by broker-dealers in connection with any trade involving a stock defined as a “penny stock” (generally, any equity security notbe listed on a national securities exchange it will become subject to the so-called “penny stock” rules that impose restrictive sales practice requirements.

If we are unable to maintain the listing of our common stock on The Nasdaq Global Select Market or quoted on NASDAQanother national securities exchange, our common stock could become subject to the so-called “penny stock” rules if the shares have a market value of less than $5.00 per share. The SEC has adopted regulations that define a penny stock to include any stock that has a market price of less than $5.00 per share, subject to certain exceptions).exceptions, including an exception for stock traded on a national securities exchange. The SEC regulations impose restrictive sales practice requirements on broker-dealers who sell penny stocks to persons other than established customers and accredited investors. An accredited investor generally is a person whose individual annual income exceeded $200,000, or whose joint annual income with a spouse exceeded $300,000 during the past two years and who expects their annual income to exceed the applicable level during the current year, or a person with net worth in excess of $1.0 million, not including the value of the investor’s principal residence and excluding mortgage debt secured by the investor’s principal residence up to the estimated fair market value of the home, except that any mortgage debt incurred by the investor within 60 days prior to the date of the transaction shall not be excluded from the determination of the investor’s net worth unless the mortgage debt was incurred to acquire the residence. For transactions covered by this rule, the broker-dealer must make a special suitability determination for the purchaser and must have received the purchaser’s written consent to the transaction prior to sale. This means that if we are unable maintain the listing of our common stock on a national securities exchange, the ability of stockholders to sell their common stock in the secondary market could be adversely affected.

If a transaction involving a penny stock is not exempt from the SEC’s rule, a broker-dealer must deliver a disclosure schedule relating to the penny stock market to each investor prior to a transaction. The broker-dealer also must disclose the commissions payable to both the broker-dealer and its registered representative, current quotations for the penny stock, and, if the broker-dealer is the sole market-maker, the broker-dealer must disclose this fact and the broker-dealer’s presumed control over the market. Finally, monthly statements must be sent disclosing recent price information for the penny stock held in the customer’s account and information on the limited market in penny stocks.

If we fail to remain current with our listing requirements, we could be removed from the NASDAQNasdaq Capital Market, which would limit the ability of broker-dealers to sell our securities and the ability of shareholders to sell their securities in the secondary market.

Companies trading on the NASDAQNasdaq Marketplace, such as our Company, must be reporting issuers under Section 12 of the Exchange Act, as amended, and must meet the listing requirements in order to maintain the listing of our common stock on the NASDAQNasdaq Capital Market. If we do not meet these requirements, the market liquidity for our securities could be severely adversely affected by limiting the ability of broker-dealers to sell our securities and the ability of shareholders to sell their securities in the secondary market.

We may be at an increased risk of securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.

The market price of our common stock may be volatile, and in the past companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

We do not intend to pay cash dividends.

We have not declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock, and we do not anticipate declaring or paying cash dividends for the foreseeable future. Any future determination as to the payment of cash dividends on our common stock will be at our Board of Directors’ discretion and will depend on our financial condition, operating results, capital requirements and other factors that our Board of Directors considers to be relevant.

Our certificate of incorporation, bylaws and Delaware law have anti-takeover provisions that could discourage, delay or prevent a change in control, which may cause our stock price to decline.

Our certificate of incorporation, Bylaws and Delaware law contain provisions which could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if closing such a transaction would be beneficial to our shareholders. To date, we have not issued shares of preferred stock, however, we are authorized to issue up to 5,000,000 shares of preferred stock. This preferred stock may be issued in one or more series, the terms of which may be determined at the time of issuance by our Board of Directors without further action by shareholders. The terms of any series of preferred stock may include voting rights (including the right to vote as a series on particular matters), preferences as to dividend, liquidation, conversion and redemption rights and sinking fund provisions. The issuance of any preferred stock could materially adversely affect the rights of the holders of our common stock, and therefore, reduce the value of our common stock. In particular, specific rights granted to future holders of preferred stock could be used to restrict our ability to merge with, or sell our assets to, a third party and thereby preserve control by the present management.

Provisions of our certificate of incorporation, Bylaws and Delaware law also could have the effect of discouraging potential acquisition proposals or making a tender offer or delaying or preventing a change in control, including changes a shareholder might consider favorable. Such provisions may also prevent or frustrate attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our management. In particular, the certificate of incorporation, Bylaws and Delaware law, as applicable, among other things; provide the Board of Directors with the ability to alter the Bylaws without shareholder approval and provide that vacancies on the Board of Directors may be filled by a majority of directors in office, and less than a quorum.

We are also subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which, subject to certain exceptions, prohibits “business combinations” between a publicly-held Delaware corporation and an “interested shareholder,” which is generally defined as a shareholder who becomes a beneficial owner of 15% or more of a Delaware corporation’s voting stock for a three-year period following the date that such shareholder became an interested shareholder.

These provisions are expected to discourage certain types of coercive takeover practices and inadequate takeover bids and to encourage persons seeking to acquire control of our company to first negotiate with its board. These provisions may delay or prevent someone from acquiring or merging with us, which may cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

Item 1B: Unresolved Staff Comments.

None.

Item 2. Properties.

Our corporate offices and manufacturing facility are located in approximately 48,500 square feet of office space at 305 College Road East, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 which is occupied pursuant to a lease which expires on November 30, 2025.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

The information required under this item is set forth in Note 10. Commitments and Contingencies – Legal Proceedings with this Form 10-K and is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

None.

PART II

Item 5. Market for Our Common stock and Related Shareholder Matters.

Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQNasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “ADXS”.

We have not declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock, and we do not anticipate declaring or paying cash dividends for the foreseeable future.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

None.

Equity Compensation Plan Information

The following table provides information regarding the status of our existing equity compensation plans at October 31, 2018:2019:

* Number of securities remaining can be utilized for either options or restricted stock.

ITEM 6. Selected Financial Data.

Not applicable.

ITEM 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

This Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations and other portions of this report contain forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking information. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to, availability and cost of financial resources, product demand, market acceptance and other factors discussed in this report under the heading “Risk Factors”. This Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations should be read in conjunction with our financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this report.

Overview

Advaxis, Inc. (“Advaxis” or the “Company”) is a late-stageclinical-stage biotechnology Companycompany focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietaryLm Technology antigen delivery products based on a platform technology that utilizes live attenuatedListeria monocytogenes (“, orLm”) bioengineered to secrete antigen/adjuvant fusion proteins. TheseLm-based strains are believed to be a significant advancement in immunotherapy as they integrate multiple functions into a single immunotherapy by accessing and directing antigen presenting cells to stimulate anti-tumor T cell immunity, stimulate and activate the immune system with the equivalent of multiple adjuvants, and simultaneously reduce tumor protection in the Tumor Microenvironment, (“TME”)or TME, to enable the T cells to attack tumor cells. The Company believes thatLm Technology immunotherapies can complement and address significant unmet needs in the current oncology treatment landscape. Specifically, their product candidates have the potential to optimize checkpoint performance, while having a generally well-tolerated safety profile, and most of their product candidates are immediately available for treatment with a low cost of goods. The Company’s passion for the clinical potential ofLm Technology is balanced by focus and fiscal discipline and driven towards increasing shareholder value.

Advaxis is focused onand its collaborators are currently conducting or in the process of winding down clinical studies ofLm Technology immunotherapies in four program areas in various stages of clinical and pre-clinical development, which they believe will provide the greatest opportunity to have a significant impact on patients and their families:areas:

All four clinical program areas are anchored in the Company’sLm Technology^TM, a unique platform designed for its ability to safely and effectively target various cancers in multiple ways. As an intracellular bacterium,Lm is an effective vector for the presentation of antigens through both the Major Histocompatibility Complex, (“MHC”)or MHC, I and II pathways, due to its active phagocytosis by Antigen Presenting Cells, (“APCs”).or APCs. Within the APCs,Lm produces virulence factors which allow survival in the host cytosol and potently stimulate the immune system.

Results of Operations for the Year Ended October 31, 20182019 Compared to the Year Ended October 31, 20172018

Revenue

Revenue decreased $5.9increased $14.8 million to $20.9 million for the year ended October 31, 2019 compared to $6.1 million for the year ended October 31, 2018 compared to $12.0 million for the year ended October 31, 2017.2018. The decreaseincrease was due to changes in the estimated performance period associated with upfront fees received from Amgen in conjunction with the collaboration agreement signed in August 2016. On December 10, 2018, we received a written notice of termination from Amgen with respect to the Amgen Agreement, effective as of February 8, 2019. As of the notification date, we adjusted revenue on a cumulative catch-up basis considering the revised measure of progress for the combined performance obligation based on the modified service period up to and through the contract termination date resulting in additional revenue of $15.6 million. In addition, during the year ended October 31, 2019, the reimbursement of research and development costs of approximately $2.0 million was included in revenue as a result of adoption of ASC 606, whereas during the year ended October 31, 2018, we recorded reductions in research and development expenses of approximately $5.8 million pertaining to the reimbursement of research and development costs.

Research and Development Expenses

We invest in research and development to advance our LmLm technology through our pre-clinicalpreclinical and clinical development programs. Research and development expenses for the years ended October 31, 20182019 and 20172018 were categorized as follows (in thousands):