Considering ADRO have yet to prove their concept, you are correct. That deal was struck pre-IND. Of course, there have been multiple deals for them, with pre-IND deals netting smaller initial blocks of money, followed by earlier milestones.
It's tough to compare the ADRO and ADXS deals without knowing the terms, which is why big companies like AMGN don't want to make those terms public in the first place. The STING agreement netted $200 million upfront, but with only $250 million backloaded. That was in 2015, as well, with ridiculous hype being poured into immunotherapies. But ADRO maintained nearly half of the developmental costs for the STING drug, so they had to carry a lot of the risk along the way.
The ADXS-AMGN deal, on the other hand, took place later (tough to quantify what that means), under less favorable financial conditions for ADXS (no other important partnerships, unlike ADRO). Furthermore, AMGN is set up to fund the entirety of clinical development of NEO, not just half, along with the $475 million in milestones. Cash upfront was lower, possibly to reflect both the weaker hand of ADXS and the relative risk they took on.
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