ACRV US Equity☆

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

The following information sets forth risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements we have made in this Annual Report and those we may make from time to time. You should carefully consider the risks described below, in addition to the other information contained in this Annual Report and our other public filings. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be harmed by any of these risks. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks not presently known to us or other factors not perceived by us to present significant risks to our business at this time also may impair our business operations.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Capital Needs

We have incurred significant losses since our inception. We expect to incur losses over the next several years and may never achieve or maintain profitability.

Since our inception, we have incurred significant losses, and we expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses for the foreseeable future. Our net loss was $77.9 million and $80.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively. As of December 31, 2025, we had an accumulated deficit of $274.9 million. Since our inception, we have financed our operations primarily with proceeds from the sales of shares of our convertible preferred stock and the issuance of convertible notes, proceeds raised in our IPO and concurrent private placement and proceeds from our April 2024 Private Placement. We have no products approved for commercialization and have never generated any revenue from product sales.

All of our drug candidates are still in clinical and preclinical testing. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses over the next several years. Our net losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year. We anticipate that our expenses will increase substantially as we:

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continue to conduct our ongoing clinical trials of ACR-368 and ACR-2316, as well as initiate and complete additional clinical trials of future drug candidates or current drug candidates in new indications or patient populations;

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continue to advance the preclinical development of our other drug candidates, and our preclinical and discovery programs;

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seek regulatory approval for any drug candidates that successfully complete clinical trials;

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pursue marketing approvals and reimbursement for our drug candidates;

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manufacture material under current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, for clinical trials and potential commercial sales at our contracted manufacturing facilities;

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develop, establish and validate our commercial-scale cGMP manufacturing process;

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maintain, expand, enforce, defend and protect our intellectual property portfolio;

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comply with regulatory requirements established by the applicable regulatory authorities;

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establish, either alone or with a third party, a sales, marketing and distribution infrastructure and scale up external, or establish internal, manufacturing and distribution capabilities to commercialize any drug candidates for which we may obtain regulatory approval;

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hire and retain additional personnel, including research, clinical, development, manufacturing quality control, quality assurance, regulatory and scientific personnel;

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add operational, financial, corporate development, management information systems and administrative personnel, including personnel to support our product development and planned future commercialization efforts; and

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incur additional legal, accounting and other expenses in operating as a public company.

To date, we have not generated any revenue from the commercialization of any drug candidate. To become and remain profitable, we must succeed in developing and eventually commercializing drug candidates that generate significant revenue. This will require us to be successful in a range of challenging activities, including completing preclinical testing and clinical trials of our drug candidates, validating manufacturing processes, obtaining regulatory approval, and manufacturing, marketing and selling any drug candidates for which we may obtain regulatory approval, as well as discovering and developing additional drug candidates. All of our drug candidates are in clinical or preclinical development. We may never succeed in these activities and, even if we do, may never generate any revenue or revenue that is significant enough to achieve profitability.

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Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with drug candidate development, we are unable to accurately predict the timing or amount of expenses or when, or if, we will be able to achieve profitability. If we are required by regulatory authorities to perform clinical trials or preclinical studies in addition to those currently expected, or if there are any delays in the initiation and completion of our clinical trials or the development of any of our drug candidates, our expenses could increase.

Even if we achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to become and remain profitable would depress the value of our company and could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business, maintain our development efforts, obtain product approvals, diversify our offerings or continue our operations. A decline in the value of our company could also cause you to lose all or part of your investment.

We have a limited operating history and no history of commercializing products, which may make it difficult for an investor to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability.

We are a clinical-stage biotechnology company with a limited operating history. We commenced operations in March 2018, and our operations to date have been largely focused on organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, building our AP3 platform, developing our manufacturing capabilities and developing our clinical and preclinical drug candidates, including undertaking preclinical studies and conducting clinical trials. To date, we have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete pivotal clinical trials, obtain regulatory approvals, manufacture a product on a commercial scale, or arrange for a third party to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful commercialization, and we may not be successful in doing so. Consequently, any predictions you make about our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history or a history of successfully developing and commercializing products.

In addition, as a business with a limited operating history, we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other known and unknown factors. We will eventually need to transition from a company with a research and clinical focus to a company, if any of our drug candidates are approved, capable of supporting commercial activities. We may not be successful in such a transition.

We will need additional funding to meet our financial obligations and to pursue our business objectives. If we are unable to raise capital when needed, we could be forced to curtail our planned longer-term operations and the pursuit of our growth strategy.

Our operations have consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception, and we expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses over the next several years as we continue to develop our drug candidate pipeline and, to a lesser extent, build out our manufacturing capabilities for our drug candidates, which, if approved, may not achieve commercial success. Our revenue, if any, will be derived from sales of products that may not be commercially available for a number of years, if at all. If we obtain marketing approval for any drug candidates that we develop or otherwise acquire, we expect to incur significant commercialization expenses related to product sales, marketing, distribution and manufacturing. We also expect an increase in our expenses associated with creating additional infrastructure to support operations as a public company. Accordingly, we will need to obtain substantial additional funding in order to continue our operations.

As of December 31, 2025, we had cash, cash equivalents and investments of $118.6 million. We believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents and investments as of December 31, 2025, will be sufficient to fund our operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into the second quarter of 2027. This estimate is based on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could exhaust our available capital resources sooner than we expect. Changes may occur beyond our control that would cause us to consume our available capital before that time, including changes in and progress of our development activities, acquisitions of additional drug candidates and changes in regulation. The timing and amount of our funding requirements will depend on many factors, including but not limited to:

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the rate of progress in the development of ACR-368, ACR-2316, and our other drug candidates;

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the scope, progress, results and costs of non-clinical studies, preclinical development, laboratory testing and clinical trials for ACR-368, ACR-2316, and our future drug candidates and associated development programs;

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the extent to which we develop, in-license or acquire other drug candidates and technologies in our pipeline;

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the scope, progress, results and costs as well as timing of process development and manufacturing scale-up and validation activities associated with ACR-368, ACR-2316, and our future drug candidates and other programs as we advance them through preclinical and clinical development;

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the ability of our AP3 platform to identify sensitive tumor types and patient responders;

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the number and development requirements of drug candidates that we may pursue;

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the costs, timing and outcome of regulatory review of our drug candidates;

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our headcount growth and associated costs as we expand our research and development capabilities and establish a commercial infrastructure;

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the timing and costs of securing sufficient capacity for commercial supply of our drug candidates, or the raw material components thereof;

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the costs and timing of future commercialization activities, including product manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution, for any of our drug candidates for which we receive marketing approval;

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the costs necessary to obtain regulatory approvals, if any, for products in the United States and other jurisdictions, and the costs of post-marketing studies that could be required by regulatory authorities in jurisdictions where approval is obtained;

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the costs and timing of preparing, filing and prosecuting patent applications, maintaining and enforcing our intellectual property rights and defending any intellectual property-related claims;

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the continuation of our existing licensing and collaboration arrangements and entry into new collaborations and licensing arrangements, if at all;

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the need and ability to hire additional research, clinical, development, scientific and manufacturing personnel;

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the costs we incur in maintaining business operations;

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the need to implement additional internal systems and infrastructure;

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the effect of competing technological, product and market developments;

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the revenue, if any, received from commercial sales of our drug candidates for which we receive marketing approval;

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the costs of operating as a public company; and

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business disruptions affecting the initiation, patient enrollment, development and operation of our clinical trials, including a public health emergency or geopolitical events, including the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, related sanctions against Russia and conflicts in the Middle East.

We will require additional capital to achieve our business objectives. Additional funds may not be available on a timely basis, on favorable terms or at all, and such funds, if raised, may not be sufficient to enable us to continue to implement our long-term business strategy. Any additional fundraising efforts may divert our management from their day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop and commercialize our drug candidates. Further, our ability to raise additional capital may be adversely impacted by potential worsening global economic conditions, such as new or increased tariffs and other barriers to trade, and the recent disruptions to and volatility in the credit and financial markets in the United States and worldwide resulting from geopolitical tensions, such as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions against Russia and conflicts in the Middle East. If we are unable to raise sufficient additional capital, we could be forced to curtail our planned operations and the pursuit of our growth strategy.

Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or drug candidates.

Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial revenue, we may finance our cash needs through a combination of equity offerings, government or private-party grants, debt financings and license and collaboration agreements. We do not currently have any committed external source of funds. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interest of our existing stockholders will be diluted, and the terms of such securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a common stockholder. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends.

If we raise additional funds through collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may be required to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies, future revenue streams or drug candidates, grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us or commit to future payment streams. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings when needed, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future

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commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market drug candidates that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.

Risks Related to the Design and Development of Our Drug Candidates

Our business substantially depends upon the successful clinical development of drug candidates using our AP3 platform and OncoSignature companion diagnostics. If we are unable to obtain regulatory approval for, and successfully commercialize, drugs developed through the application of our AP3 platform and OncoSignature tests, our business may be materially harmed.

Using our AP3 platform, we have developed predictive OncoSignature tests for our clinical drug candidate, ACR-368, as well as for two other clinical-stage drug candidates. Negative results in the development of ACR-368 may also impact our ability to successfully develop other drug candidates, either at all or within anticipated timeframes because, although other drug candidates may target different indications, the underlying technology platform, and specifically the use of an OncoSignature test, to identify patient responders is conceptually the same for certain of our drug candidates requiring an OncoSignature for patient selection. Accordingly, a failure in any one program may decrease trust in our AP3 platform’s ability to successfully deploy OncoSignature tests in the clinic. In addition, if ACR-368 shows unexpected adverse events or a lack of efficacy in the indications we intend to treat, or if we experience other regulatory or developmental issues, our development plans and business could be harmed. We cannot guarantee the successful clinical development, approval and commercialization of ACR-368.

The regulatory approval processes of the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities are lengthy, time consuming and inherently unpredictable, and if we are ultimately unable to obtain regulatory approval for our drug candidates, on a timely basis or at all, our business will be substantially harmed.

Our lead drug candidate is currently in Phase 2 clinical development under a master protocol designed for expedited drug development in certain contexts using our ACR-368 OncoSignature test. We cannot guarantee that we will achieve sufficient ORR for marketing approval. For our preclinical drug candidates, we must complete preclinical development and then conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our drug candidate in humans before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities. Clinical testing is expensive, difficult to design and implement, can take many years to complete and is uncertain as to the outcome.

The length of time necessary to complete clinical trials and to submit an application for marketing approval for a decision by a regulatory authority may be difficult to predict. The clinical trial requirements of the FDA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities and the criteria these regulators use to determine the safety and efficacy of a drug candidate vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use and market of the drug candidate. As a result, the regulatory approval process for drug candidates such as ours is uncertain and may be more expensive and take longer than the approval process for drug candidates based on other, better known or more extensively studied technologies. It is difficult to determine how long it will take or how much it will cost to obtain regulatory approvals for our drug candidates in either the United States or other comparable regions of the world or how long it will take to commercialize our drug candidates. Delay or failure to obtain, or unexpected costs in obtaining, the regulatory approval necessary to bring a potential drug candidate to market would adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our drug candidates, including ACR-368 and ACR-2316, could fail to receive regulatory approval for many reasons, including the following:

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the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with the design or implementation of our clinical trials;

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we may be unable to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities that a drug candidate is safe and effective for its proposed indication;

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the results of clinical trials may not meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities for approval;

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we may be unable to demonstrate that a drug candidate’s clinical and other benefits outweigh its safety risks;

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the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data from preclinical studies or clinical trials;

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the data collected from clinical trials of our drug candidates may not be sufficient to support the submission of an NDA to the FDA or other submission or to obtain regulatory approval in the United States or elsewhere;

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the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may fail to approve the manufacturing processes or facilities of third-party manufacturers with which we contract for clinical and commercial supplies;

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we or third-party collaborators may fail to obtain regulatory approval of companion diagnostic tests, if required, on a timely basis, or at all; and

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the approval policies or regulations of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may significantly change in a manner rendering our clinical data insufficient for approval.

Prior to obtaining approval to commercialize a drug candidate in the United States or elsewhere, we or our collaborators must demonstrate with substantial evidence from one or more well-controlled clinical trials, and to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory agencies, that such drug candidates are safe and effective for their intended uses. Results from nonclinical studies and clinical trials can be interpreted in different ways. Even if we believe the nonclinical or clinical data for our drug candidates are promising, such data may not be sufficient to support approval by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA may also require us to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials for our drug candidates either prior to or post-approval, or it may object to elements of our clinical development program. Depending on the extent of these or any other studies required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, approval of any regulatory approval applications that we submit may be delayed by several years, or may require us to expend significantly more resources than we have available.

Of the large number of potential products in development, only a small percentage successfully complete the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory approval processes and are commercialized. The lengthy approval process as well as the unpredictability of future clinical trial results may result in our failing to obtain regulatory approval to market our drug candidates, which would significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

In addition, even if we were to obtain approval, regulatory authorities may approve any of our drug candidates for fewer or more limited indications than we request, may impose significant limitations in the form of narrow indications, warnings, or a post-marketing risk management strategy such as a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS, or the equivalent in another jurisdiction. Regulatory authorities may not approve the price we intend to charge for our products, may grant approval contingent on the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials, or may approve a drug candidate with a label that does not include the labeling claims necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of that drug candidate. Any of the foregoing scenarios could materially harm the commercial prospects for our drug candidates.

We are highly dependent on the success of ACR-368 and/or ACR-2316, as these are our first drug candidates being developed for clinical development and regulatory approval. We may never obtain approval for ACR-368, ACR-2316 or any other drug candidate.

Our future success is highly dependent on our ability to obtain regulatory approval for, and then successfully commercialize or identify a strategic partner to commercialize, our lead drug candidate, ACR-368. ACR-368 has been dosed in more than 400 patients at the RP2D in past single center and multi-center Phase 2 clinical trials. We have received clearance from the FDA for an IND application to advance ACR-368 in Phase 2 single arm clinical trials conducted under the FDA program known as the master protocol. We currently have no products that are approved for sale in any jurisdiction. ACR-368 or any of our other future drug candidates may not achieve success in their clinical trials or obtain regulatory approval. If we do not obtain regulatory approval for ACR-368 and successfully commercialize ACR-368 in one or more indications or if we experience significant delays in doing so, we may never generate any revenue or become profitable.

Our ability to generate product revenues, which we do not expect will occur for several years, if ever, will depend heavily on the successful development and eventual commercialization of ACR-368, ACR-2316 or other future drug candidates identified through the application of our AP3 platform and OncoSignature companion diagnostics. The success of ACR-368, ACR-2316, or any other future drug candidate will depend on several factors, including the following:

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successful completion of preclinical studies and clinical trials;

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timely and successful enrollment of patients in, and completion of, clinical trials with favorable results;

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demonstration of safety, efficacy and acceptable risk-benefit profiles of ACR-368, ACR-2316, and our future drug candidates to the satisfaction of the FDA and other regulatory agencies;

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the ability of our AP3 platform-based OncoSignature tests to identify patient responders;

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the AP3 platform may not work equally well for all therapeutic targets;

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our ability, or that of our collaborators, to develop and obtain clearance or approval of companion diagnostics, on a timely basis, or at all;

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receipt and related terms of marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities for ACR-368 and our future drug candidates, including the completion of any required post-marketing studies or trials;

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raising additional funds necessary to complete the clinical development of and commercialization of ACR-368;

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successfully identifying and developing, acquiring or in-licensing additional drug candidates to expand our pipeline;

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acceptance of an IND application by the FDA or other similar clinical trial applications from other regulatory authorities for clinical trials for future drug candidates;

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obtaining and maintaining patent, trade secret and other intellectual property protection and regulatory exclusivity for ACR-368, ACR-2316, and our future drug candidates and our OncoSignature companion diagnostics;

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making arrangements with third-party manufacturers, or establishing manufacturing capabilities, for both clinical and commercial supplies of our drug candidates;

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establishing sales, marketing and distribution capabilities and launching commercial sales of our products, if approved, whether alone or in collaboration with third parties;

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acceptance of our products, if approved, by patients, the medical community and third-party payors;

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effectively competing with other therapies available on the market or in development;

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obtaining and maintaining third-party payor coverage and adequate reimbursement; and

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maintaining a continued acceptable safety profile of any products following regulatory approval.

Many of these factors are beyond our control, and it is possible that none of our drug candidates, including ACR-368 and ACR-2316, will ever obtain regulatory approval even if we expend substantial time and resources seeking such approval. If we experience significant delays or are otherwise unable to successfully commercialize our drug candidates, it would materially harm our business.

Depending on our clinical trial results, we may seek NDA approval for ACR-368 in the United States under the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway, but this pathway may not lead to faster development, regulatory review, or approval process and does not increase the likelihood that ACR-368 will receiving marketing approval.

Depending on our clinical trial results, we intend to seek approval for ACR-368 for one or more indications, and we may seek approval of our future drug candidates, where applicable, under the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. A product may be eligible for accelerated approval if it is designed to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, generally provides a meaningful advantage over available therapies, and demonstrates an effect on 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, or IMM, that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on IMM or other clinical benefit. The FDA considers a clinical benefit to be a positive therapeutic effect that is clinically meaningful in the context of a given disease, such as IMM. For the purposes of accelerated approval, a surrogate endpoint is a marker, such as a laboratory measurement, radiographic image, physical sign, or other measure that is thought to predict clinical benefit, but is not itself a measure of clinical benefit. The accelerated approval pathway may be used in cases in which the advantage of a new product over available therapy may not be a direct therapeutic advantage, but is a clinically important improvement from a patient and public health perspective. If granted, accelerated approval is usually contingent on the sponsor’s agreement to conduct adequate and well-controlled post-marketing clinical trials to confirm the product’s clinical benefit. These confirmatory trials must be completed with due diligence. If the sponsor fails to conduct such studies in a timely manner, or if such post-approval studies fail to verify the product’s predicted clinical benefit, the FDA may withdraw its approval of the product on an expedited basis. In addition, for products being considered for accelerated approval, the FDA currently requires, unless otherwise informed by the Agency, pre-approval of promotional materials, which could adversely impact the timing of the commercial launch of the product. There can be no assurance that the FDA would allow ACR-368 or any of the drug candidates we may develop to proceed on an accelerated approval pathway, and even if the FDA did allow such pathway, there can be no assurance that expedited development will occur or that the FDA will review and approve such submission or application on a timely basis, or at all. Moreover, even if we received accelerated approval, any post-marketing studies required to confirm clinical benefit may not show such benefit, which could lead to withdrawal of any approvals we have obtained. In addition, receiving accelerated approval does not assure that the product’s accelerated approval will eventually be converted to a traditional approval.

Moreover, Congress is considering potential changes to the Accelerated Approval Program that could impact our ability to obtain Accelerated Approval, or increase the burdens associated with postmarketing requirements in the event we do obtain Accelerated Approval. In particular, the FDA must specify certain conditions for required postapproval studies for products that receive Accelerated Approval, which may include enrollment targets and milestones, including the target date for study completion, by the time the drug is approved. The FDA may also require postapproval studies to be underway at the time of Accelerated Approval or within a specified time period following Accelerated Approval for such drugs, and must explain any instances where it does not require such studies. The FDA’s January 2025 draft guidance on “Accelerated Approval and Considerations for Determining Whether a Confirmatory Trial is Underway,” while not finalized, suggests that the FDA generally intends to consider a confirmatory trial to be “underway” prior to

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accelerated approval if (1) the trial has a target completion date that is consistent with diligent and timely conduct of the trial, considering the nature of the trial’s design and objectives, (2) the sponsor’s progress and plans for postapproval conduct of the trial provide sufficient assurance to expect timely completion of the trial, and (3) enrollment of the confirmatory trial has been initiated.

Any delay in obtaining, or inability to obtain, approval through the Accelerated Approval Program, or any issues in maintaining approval granted under the Accelerated Approval Program, would delay or prevent commercialization of our products, and would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Early clinical trials for ACR-2316 may not predict the success of later clinical trials. Furthermore, the results of clinical trials for ACR-2316 may not satisfy the requirements of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities.

ACR-2316 is in the early stages of clinical development and is not currently approved for sale and there is no guarantee that it will ever be marketable. Clinical failure can occur at any stage of clinical development. We are required to demonstrate with substantial evidence through well-controlled clinical trials that ACR-2316 is safe and effective for use in a diverse population before we can seek marketing approvals for its commercial sale. Success in preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials does not mean that future larger registration clinical trials will be successful. This is because product candidates in later-stage clinical trials may fail to demonstrate sufficient safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA and other regulatory authorities despite having progressed through preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials. In particular, the outcome of preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later-stage clinical trials. We do not know whether any clinical trials we may conduct for ACR-2316 will demonstrate consistent or adequate efficacy and safety results sufficient to obtain marketing approval.

In addition, even if ACR-2316 is approved for commercial sale, the success of ACR-2316 will depend on a number of factors beyond our control, including emerging and competing therapies and the market acceptance and adoption of ACR-2316 versus actual or perceived competing therapies.

We may incur additional costs or experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete the development and/or commercialization of ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our other future drug candidates identified through the application of our AP3 platform and OncoSignature companion diagnostics.

Any delays in the commencement or completion of our ongoing, planned or future clinical trials could significantly increase our product development costs. We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to obtain marketing approval or commercialize ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates identified through the application of our AP3 platform and OncoSignature companion diagnostics, including but not limited to:

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regulators, IRBs, or ethics committees, or ECs, may not authorize us or our investigators to commence a clinical trial or conduct a clinical trial at a prospective trial site;

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the FDA may disagree as to the design or implementation of our clinical trials or with our recommended doses with respect to ACR-368, or any of our future drug candidates;

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we may experience delays in reaching, or fail to reach, agreement on acceptable clinical trial contracts or clinical trial protocols with prospective CROs and prospective trial sites;

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clinical trials for ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates may produce negative or inconclusive results, and we may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical trials, delay or halt clinical trials or abandon product development programs;

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lack of adequate funding to continue clinical trials;

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the number of patients required for clinical trials may be larger than we anticipate, enrollment in these clinical trials may be slower than we anticipate or may be lower than we anticipate due to challenges in recruiting and enrolling suitable patients who meet the trial criteria, participants may drop out of these clinical trials at a higher rate than we anticipate, or the duration of these clinical trials may be longer than we anticipate;

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competition for clinical trial participants from investigational and approved therapies may make it more difficult to enroll patients in our clinical trials;

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we may experience difficulties in maintaining contact with patients after treatment, resulting in incomplete data;

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we or third-party collaborators may fail to obtain regulatory approval of companion diagnostic tests, if required, on a timely basis, or at all;

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our third-party contractors may fail to meet their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner, or at all, or may fail to comply with regulatory requirements;

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we may have to suspend or terminate clinical trials for various reasons, including a finding by us or by a Data Monitoring Committee for a trial that the participants are being exposed to unacceptable health risks;

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ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates may have undesirable or unexpected side effects or other unexpected characteristics, causing us or our investigators, regulators or IRBs or ECs to suspend or terminate the trials;

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the cost of clinical trials may be greater than we anticipate;

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changes to clinical trial protocols; and

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the supply or quality of ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates or other materials necessary to conduct clinical trials may be insufficient or inadequate and result in delays or suspension of our clinical trials.

Delays, including delays caused by the above factors, can be costly and could negatively affect our ability to complete a clinical trial or obtain timely marketing approvals. We do not know whether any of our planned preclinical studies or clinical trials will begin on a timely basis or at all, will need to be restructured or will be completed on schedule, or at all. For example, the FDA may place a partial or full clinical hold on any of our current or future clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including safety concerns and noncompliance with regulatory requirements. If we are not able to complete successful clinical trials, we will not be able to obtain regulatory approval and will not be able to commercialize ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates.

Significant preclinical or clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our drug candidates or allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do and impair our ability to successfully commercialize our drug candidates, which would limit our future revenues and harm our commercial prospects.

The successful clinical development of some of our drug candidates may depend in part on the co-approval of an OncoSignature test as a companion diagnostic test. If we or our companion diagnostic collaborator are unable to obtain regulatory approval for our OncoSignature companion diagnostic tests for such drug candidates, we may not obtain regulatory approval and realize the commercial potential of certain drug candidates.

A key part of our development strategy for some of our drug candidates is identifying subsets of patients with specific types of tumors. The identification of these patients will require the use and development of companion diagnostics. According to the FDA’s 2014 guidance document on “In Vitro Companion Diagnostic Devices”, for novel therapeutic products that depend on the use of a diagnostic test and where the diagnostic device could be essential for the safe and effective use of the corresponding therapeutic product, the premarket application for the companion diagnostic device should be developed and approved or cleared contemporaneously with the therapeutic, although the FDA recognizes that there may be cases when contemporaneous development may not be possible. However, in cases where a drug cannot be used safely or effectively without the companion diagnostic, the FDA’s guidance indicates it will generally not approve the drug without the approval or clearance of the diagnostic device. The FDA also issued a draft guidance in July 2016 setting forth the principles for co-development of an in vitro companion diagnostic device with a therapeutic product and final guidance in April 2020 offering considerations for the development and labeling of diagnostic devices intended to support the use of multiple oncology therapeutic products. The draft guidance describes principles to guide the development and contemporaneous marketing authorization for the therapeutic product and its corresponding in vitro companion diagnostic.

We do not have experience or capabilities in developing or commercializing diagnostics, and we have limited history with operating our CLIA-certified laboratory. We have not commercialized or submitted or obtained 510(k) clearance, De Novo classification, or Premarket Approval Application, or PMA, for any companion diagnostic, and any setbacks we encounter could delay any commercial launch of ACR-368, if approved. It may be necessary to resolve issues such as selectivity/specificity, analytical validation, reproducibility, or clinical validation of companion diagnostics during the development and regulatory approval processes. Moreover, even if data from preclinical studies and early clinical trials appear to support development of a companion diagnostic for a drug candidate, data generated in later clinical trials may fail to support the analytical and clinical validation of the companion diagnostic. We and our future collaborators may encounter difficulties in developing, obtaining regulatory approval for, manufacturing and commercializing companion diagnostics similar to those we face with respect to our drug candidates, including issues with achieving regulatory clearance or approval, production of sufficient quantities at commercial scale and with appropriate quality standards, and in gaining market acceptance. If we are unable to successfully develop companion diagnostics for our drug candidates, or experience delays in doing so, the development of these drug candidates may be adversely affected, these drug candidates may not obtain marketing approval, and we may not realize the full commercial potential of any of these therapeutics that have or may obtain marketing approval. We may not be able to enter into arrangements with another diagnostic company to develop and obtain regulatory approval for an alternative diagnostic test for use in connection with the development and commercialization of our drug candidates or do so on

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commercially reasonable terms, which could adversely affect and/or delay the development or commercialization of our therapeutic candidates or therapeutics.

Companion diagnostics are subject to regulation by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities as medical devices and will likely require separate regulatory approval prior to commercialization. If we or third parties are unable to successfully develop companion diagnostics for our drug candidates, or experience delays in doing so:

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the development of these drug candidates may be delayed because it may be difficult to identify patients for enrollment in our clinical trials in a timely manner;

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these drug candidates may not receive marketing approval if their safe and effective use depends on a companion diagnostic; and

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we may not realize the full commercial potential of these drug candidates that receive marketing approval if, among other reasons, we are unable to appropriately identify patients or types of tumors targeted by these drug candidates.

Further, requirements for companion diagnostics may evolve. The FDA has been paying particular focus to laboratory developed tests (“LDTs”), which includes some in vitro diagnostic products. The FDA issued a final rule in May 2024 that would have subjected many LDTs to regulatory requirements including, in some cases, premarket authorization. A federal district court vacated the FDA final rule in May 2025, holding that LDTs are not subject to FDA regulation. The FDA rescinded the final rule in September 2025. The FDA has not indicated how it will interpret the court ruling or whether it will seek a different regulatory approach with respect to LDTs or components thereof. If the FDA were to develop an alternate approach to regulating LDTs, or if Congress were to enact legislation giving FDA authority to regulate our current or future LDTs, or any related components, materials, or software, that may delay or prevent approval of companion diagnostic products, such as the OncoSignature diagnostic product.

Even if our drug candidates and any associated companion diagnostics are approved for marketing, the need for companion diagnostics may slow or limit adoption of our drug candidates. Although we believe companion diagnostic testing is becoming more prevalent in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, our drug candidates may be perceived negatively compared to alternative treatments that do not require the use of companion diagnostics, either due to the additional cost of the companion diagnostic or the need to complete additional testing prior to administering our drug candidates.

If any of these events were to occur, our business and growth prospects would be harmed materially.

We may not be able to file INDs or IND amendments to commence additional clinical trials on the timelines we expect, and even if we are able to, the FDA may not permit us to proceed.

Although we received clearance from the FDA for an IND to advance ACR-368 in Phase 2 single arm clinical trials conducted under the master protocol as well as IND clearance for ACR-2316 to advance into a Phase 1 clinical trial, we may not be able to file INDs for our other drug candidates on the timelines we expect. For example, we may experience, or our partners may experience, manufacturing delays or other delays with IND-enabling studies. Further, requirements for master protocols may evolve and we may not be able to conduct future trials under a master protocol. In December 2023, the FDA published a draft guidance, Master Protocols for Drug and Biological Product Development, which provides recommendations on the design and analysis of trials conducted under a master protocol as well as guidance on the submission of documentation to support regulatory review. Evolving requirements for master protocols may delay or inhibit future trials relying on a master protocol. Moreover, we cannot be sure that submission of an IND will result in the FDA allowing further clinical trials to begin, or that, once begun, issues will not arise that suspend or terminate clinical trials. Additionally, even if such regulatory authorities agree with the design and implementation of the clinical trials set forth in an IND, we cannot guarantee that such regulatory authorities will not change their requirements in the future. These considerations also apply to new clinical trials we may submit as amendments to existing INDs or to a new IND. Any failure to file INDs on the timelines we expect or to obtain regulatory approvals for our trials may prevent us from completing our clinical trials or commercializing our products on a timely basis, if at all.

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If we experience delays or difficulties in enrolling patients in our ongoing or planned clinical trials, our receipt of necessary regulatory approval could be delayed or prevented.

We may not be able to initiate or continue our ongoing or planned clinical trials if we are unable to identify and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials as required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. In addition, some of our competitors currently have ongoing clinical trials for drug candidates that would treat the same patients as our lead clinical drug candidate, and patients who would otherwise be eligible for our clinical trials may instead enroll in clinical trials of our competitors’ drug candidates. We also perform ACR-368 OncoSignature testing in our clinical trial. If we encounter delays or technical challenges, enrollment in our clinical trials may be substantially delayed. Patient enrollment is also affected by other factors, including but not limited to:

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the severity of the disease under investigation;

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our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators of appropriate competencies and experience;

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the incidence and prevalence of our target indications;

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competing studies or trials with similar eligibility criteria;

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invasive procedures required to enroll patients and to obtain evidence of the drug candidates’ performance during clinical trials;

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availability and efficacy of approved medications for the disease under investigation;

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eligibility criteria defined in the protocol for the trial in question;

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the size and nature of the patient population required for analysis of the trial’s primary endpoints;

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efforts to facilitate timely enrollment in clinical trials;

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whether we are subject to a partial or full clinical hold on any of our clinical trials;

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reluctance of physicians to encourage patient participation in clinical trials;

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the ability to monitor patients adequately during and after treatment;

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our ability to obtain and maintain patient consents; and

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proximity and availability of clinical trial sites for prospective patients.

Our inability to enroll and maintain a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials would result in significant delays or may require us to abandon one or more clinical trials altogether. Enrollment delays in our clinical trials may result in increased development costs, which would cause the value of our company to decline, limit our ability to obtain additional financing and delay or limit our ability to obtain regulatory approval for our drug candidates.

Additionally, the FDA may modify or enhance trial requirements which may affect enrollment. In August 2023, the FDA published a guidance document, Informed Consent, Guidance for IRBs, Clinical Investigators, and Sponsors, which supersedes past guidance and finalizes draft guidance on informed consent. Further, in December 2023, the FDA published a final rule, Institutional Review Board Waiver or Alteration of Informed Consent for Minimal Risk Clinical Investigations, which allows exceptions from informed consent requirements when a clinical investigation poses no more than minimal risk to the human subject and includes appropriate safeguards to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of human subjects. These guidance documents present evolving requirements for informed consent which may affect recruitment and retention of patients in clinical trials. Effects on recruitment and retention of patients may hinder or delay a clinical trial and could cause a significant setback to an applicable program.

Additionally, in June 2023, the FDA published a draft guidance, E6(R3) Good Clinical Practice (GCP), which seeks to unify standards for clinical trial data for ICH member countries and regions. Changes to data requirements may cause the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities to disagree with data from preclinical studies or clinical trials, and may require further studies.

Unexpected adverse side effects or other safety risks associated with ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our other future drug candidates could delay or preclude approval, cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials or abandon further development, limit the commercial profile of an approved product or result in significant negative consequences following marketing approval, if any.

As is the case with small molecule therapeutics generally, side effects and adverse events associated with ACR-368 have been observed. Although ACR-368 has been evaluated in approximately 1,000 patients in clinical trials to date with a generally favorable tolerability profile, unexpected side effects may still arise in our ongoing or any future clinical trial.

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Our trials will be primarily based on the established RP2D dosing regimen used in over 400 patients in past trials. In the past trials, the most frequent treatment related adverse events greater than or equal to Grade 3, which are considered serious adverse events, were primarily reversible, manageable hematological toxicities, including neutropenia and thrombocytopenia and there was only limited non-hematological toxicities. In one of the clinical trials (a cohort of 58 platinum-sensitive patients), there were three deaths deemed possibly related to study treatment. In addition, our trials will also, in part, include testing of ACR-368 at RP2D in combination with low dose gemcitabine, which could result in greater severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Undesirable side effects could result in the delay, suspension or termination of clinical trials by us or regulatory authorities for a number of reasons. Furthermore, clinical trials by their nature utilize a sample of the potential patient population. With a limited number of subjects and limited duration of exposure, rare and severe side effects of our drug candidates or those of our competitors may only be uncovered with a significantly larger number of patients exposed to the drug.

Additionally, due to the high mortality rates of the cancers for which we are initially pursuing development and the pretreated and advanced nature of disease in many patients in our ongoing clinical trials of ACR-368, a material percentage of patients in these clinical trials ultimately will die during a trial for reasons unrelated to the drug. For example, in the Phase 1b/2 combination arm of our Phase 2 trial for ACR-368 we dosed a patient who had previously failed three lines of prior therapy. The patient died prior to receiving a second dose of ACR-368 and the death was determined by the trial investigator not to be drug related, but instead related to the subject’s disease progression. If we elect to, or are required to, delay, suspend or terminate any clinical trial, whether due to a patient death or otherwise, the commercial prospects of ACR-368 or our future drug candidates could be harmed and our ability to generate product revenues could potentially be delayed or eliminated. Serious adverse events observed in clinical trials could hinder or prevent market acceptance of our drug candidates, which would harm our commercial prospects, our financial condition and our reputation.

Moreover, if ACR-368, ACR-2316, or any of our future drug candidates are associated with undesirable or unexpected side effects in clinical trials, we may elect to abandon or limit their development to more narrow uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk-benefit perspective, which may limit the commercial expectations for the drug candidate, even if it is approved. We may also be required to modify our trial plans based on findings in our clinical trials. Side effects could also affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete a trial. Many drugs that initially showed promise in early stage testing have later been found to cause side effects that prevented further development. In addition, regulatory authorities may draw different conclusions, require additional testing to confirm these determinations, require more restrictive labeling or deny regulatory approval of the drug candidate.

It is possible that, as we test our drug candidates in larger, longer and more extensive clinical trials, including with different dosing regimens, or as the use of our drug candidates becomes more widespread following any regulatory approval, illnesses, injuries, discomforts and other adverse events that were observed in earlier trials, as well as conditions that did not occur or went undetected in previous trials, will be reported by patients. If such side effects become known later in development or upon approval, if any, such findings may harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects significantly.

In addition, if ACR-368 receives marketing approval, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by treatment with such drug, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including but not limited to:

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regulatory authorities may withdraw approval of or seize the drug;

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we may be required to recall a product, or change the way the drug is administered to patients, or conduct additional clinical trials;

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regulatory authorities may require additional warnings in the labeling, such as a contraindication or a boxed warning, or issue safety alerts, Dear Healthcare Provider letters, press releases or other communications containing warnings or other safety information about the product;

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we may be required to implement a REMS, or create a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to patients;

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additional restrictions may be imposed on the marketing or promotion of the particular product or the manufacturing processes for the product or any component thereof;

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we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients;

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we may be subject to regulatory investigations and government enforcement actions;

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the drug could become less competitive; and

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our reputation may suffer.

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Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of our drug candidates, if approved, and could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Preliminary, interim and topline data from our clinical trials that we announce or publish from time to time may change as more patient data becomes available and is subject to audit and verification procedures that could result in material changes in the final data.

From time to time, we may publicly disclose preliminary, interim or topline data from our clinical trials, such as futility analyses, ORR, or various primary and secondary clinical endpoints. These updates will be based on a preliminary analysis of then-available data, and the results and related findings and conclusions are subject to change following a more comprehensive review of the data related to the particular study or trial. Additionally, interim data from clinical trials that we may complete are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data becomes available. Therefore, positive interim results in any ongoing clinical trial may not be predictive of such results in the completed study or trial. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, and we may not have received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data. As a result, the topline results that we report may differ from future results of the same studies, or different conclusions or considerations may qualify such results, once additional data has been received and fully evaluated. Topline data also remains subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, topline data should be viewed with caution until the final data is available. In addition, we may report interim analyses of only certain endpoints rather than all endpoints. Adverse changes between preliminary or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business and prospects. Further, additional disclosure of interim data by us or by our competitors in the future could result in volatility in the price of our common stock. See the description of risks under the heading “Risks Related to Ownership of our Common Stock and our Status as a Public Company” for more disclosure related to the risk of volatility in our stock price.

Further, others, including regulatory agencies, may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular drug candidate or product and our company in general. Additionally, requirements regarding clinical trial data may evolve. In June 2023, the FDA published a draft guidance, E6(R3) Good Clinical Practice (GCP), which seeks to unify standards for clinical trial data for ICH member countries and regions. Changes to data requirements may cause the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities to disagree with data from preclinical studies or clinical trials, and may require further studies.

In addition, the information we choose to publicly disclose regarding a particular study or clinical trial is typically selected from a more extensive amount of available information. You or others may not agree with what we determine is the material or otherwise appropriate information to include in our disclosure, and any information we determine not to disclose may ultimately be deemed significant with respect to future decisions, conclusions, views, activities or otherwise regarding a particular product, drug candidate or our business.

Additionally, other future clinical trials we conduct may be open-label trials in which both the patient and investigator know whether the patient is receiving the investigational drug candidate or either an existing approved product or placebo. Open-label clinical trials typically test only the investigational drug candidate and sometimes may do so at different dose levels. Open-label clinical trials are subject to various limitations that may exaggerate any therapeutic effect as patients in open-label clinical trials are aware when they are receiving treatment. Open-label clinical trials may be subject to a “patient bias” where patients perceive their symptoms to have improved merely due to their awareness of receiving an experimental treatment. In addition, open-label clinical trials may be subject to an “investigator bias” where those assessing and reviewing the physiological outcomes of the clinical trials are aware of which patients have received treatment and may interpret the information of the treated group more favorably given this knowledge.

If the preliminary or topline data that we report differs from late, final or actual results, or if others, including regulatory authorities, disagree with the conclusions reached, our ability to obtain approval for, and commercialize, ACR-368, ACR-2316, or any other future drug candidates may be harmed.

We may in the future seek to engage in business co-development pharma partnerships leveraging our AP3 platform for patient responder identification or uncovering of resistance mechanisms to drug candidates or in strategic transactions to acquire or in-license additional products, drug candidates or technologies. If we are unable to realize the benefits from such transactions, it may adversely affect our ability to develop and commercialize an expanded pipeline of drug candidates, negatively impact our cash position, increase our expenses and present significant distractions to our management.

From time to time, we may consider strategic transactions, such as additional collaborations, acquisitions of companies, asset purchases, joint ventures and in-licensing of new products, drug candidates or technologies that we believe will complement or augment

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our existing business. For example, in 2021, we acquired our lead drug candidate, ACR-368, pursuant to worldwide license agreement with Lilly. If we acquire assets with promising markets or technologies, we may not be able to realize the benefit of acquiring such assets if we are not able to successfully integrate them with our existing technologies. We may encounter numerous difficulties in developing, testing, manufacturing and marketing any new products resulting from a strategic acquisition that delay or prevent us from realizing their expected benefits or enhancing our business.

Following any such strategic transaction, we may not achieve any expected synergies to justify the transaction. For example, such transactions may require us to incur non-recurring or other charges, increase our near-term and long-term expenditures and pose significant integration or implementation challenges or disrupt our management or business. These transactions would entail numerous operational and financial risks, including, but not limited to, exposure to unknown liabilities, disruption of our business and diversion of our management’s time and attention in order to manage a collaboration or develop acquired products, drug candidates or technologies, incurrence of substantial debt or dilutive issuances of equity securities to pay transaction consideration or costs, higher than expected acquisition or integration costs, write-downs of assets or goodwill or impairment charges, increased amortization expenses, difficulty and cost in facilitating the transaction or combining the operations and personnel of any acquired business, impairment of relationships with key suppliers, manufacturers or customers of any acquired business due to changes in management and ownership and the inability to retain key employees of any acquired business.

Accordingly, although there can be no assurance that we will undertake or successfully complete any transactions of the nature described above, any transactions that we do complete may be subject to the foregoing or other risks and could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Conversely, any failure to enter any strategic transaction that would be beneficial to us could delay the development and potential commercialization of our drug candidates and could have a negative impact on the competitiveness of any drug candidate that reaches market.

We may expend our limited resources to pursue a particular drug candidate or indication and fail to capitalize on drug candidates or indications that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.

Because we have limited financial and managerial resources, we focus on research programs and drug candidates that we identify for specific indications. As a result, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other future drug candidates or for other indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential.

Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future research and development programs and drug candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable products. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular drug candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that drug candidate through collaboration, licensing or other royalty arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights to that drug candidate.

Our clinical development is focused on the development of precision oncology medicines utilizing our proprietary precision medicine platform, which is based on a novel scientific approach and may never lead to marketable products.

The development of precision oncology medicines for patients whose tumors are sensitive to a specific product or drug candidate based on direct protein measurement is a rapidly emerging field, and the scientific discoveries that form the basis for our efforts to develop drug candidates are relatively new. Furthermore, our OncoSignature companion diagnostic is based on new technology, which makes it difficult to predict the time and cost of development and of subsequently obtaining regulatory approval, if at all.

The scientific evidence to support the feasibility of developing drug candidates based on these discoveries is both preliminary and limited. Although we believe, based on our extensive preclinical evaluation, that our approach is applicable across stages of drug development and therapeutic modalities, clinical results may not confirm this hypothesis or may only confirm it for certain tumor types. Therefore, we do not know if our approach will be successful, but if our approach is unsuccessful, our business will suffer.

Efforts to identify, acquire or in-license, and then develop drug candidates require substantial technical, financial and human resources, whether or not any drug candidates are ultimately identified. We apply our AP3 platform in our efforts to discover potential precision targets for which drug candidates may be developed. Our efforts may initially show promise in identifying potential drug candidates, yet fail to yield drug candidates for clinical development, approved products or commercial revenues for many reasons, including the following:

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the methodology used may not be successful in identifying potential drug candidates;

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competitors may develop alternatives that render any drug candidates we develop obsolete;

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any drug candidates we develop may nevertheless be covered by third parties’ patents or other exclusive rights;

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a drug candidate may be shown to have harmful side effects or other characteristics that indicate it is unlikely to be effective or otherwise does not meet applicable regulatory criteria;

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a drug candidate may not be capable of being produced in commercial quantities at an acceptable cost, or at all; and

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a drug candidate may not be accepted as safe and effective by physicians, patients, the medical community or third-party payors.

Increasing demand for compassionate use of our drug candidates could negatively affect our reputation and harm our business.

We are developing drug candidates for the treatment of indications for which there are currently limited or no available therapeutic options. It is possible for individuals or groups to target companies with disruptive social media campaigns related to a request for access to unapproved drugs for patients with significant unmet medical need. If we experience a similar social media campaign regarding our decision to provide or not provide access to any of our current or future drug candidates under an expanded access policy, our reputation may be negatively affected and our business may be harmed.

Media attention to individual patients’ expanded access requests has resulted in the introduction and enactment of legislation at the local and national level referred to as “Right to Try” laws, such as the federal Right to Try Act of 2017 signed into law on May 30, 2018, which are intended to allow patients access to unapproved therapies earlier than traditional expanded access programs. A possible consequence of both activism and legislation in this area may be the need for us to initiate an unanticipated expanded access program or to make our drug candidates more widely available sooner than anticipated.

In addition, some patients who receive access to drugs prior to their commercial approval through compassionate use, expanded access programs or right to try access have life-threatening illnesses and have exhausted all other available therapies. The risk for serious adverse events in this patient population is high, which could have a negative impact on the safety profile of our drug candidates if we were to provide them to these patients, which could cause significant delays or an inability to successfully commercialize our drug candidates, which could materially harm our business. If we were to provide patients with any of our drug candidates under an expanded access program, we may in the future need to restructure or pause any compassionate use and/or expanded access programs for a variety of reasons, which could prompt adverse publicity or other disruptions related to current or potential participants in such programs.

Risks Related to Government Regulation

Our relationships with customers, healthcare providers, including physicians, and third-party payors are subject, directly or indirectly, to federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse laws, false claims laws, health information privacy and security laws and other healthcare laws and regulations. If we are unable to comply, or have not fully complied, with such laws, we could face substantial penalties.

Healthcare providers, including physicians, and third-party payors in the United States and elsewhere will play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any drug candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current and future arrangements with healthcare professionals, principal investigators, consultants, customers and third-party payors subject us to various federal and state fraud and abuse laws and other healthcare laws, including, without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the federal civil and criminal false claims laws and the law commonly referred to as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, as well as regulations promulgated under such laws. These laws will impact, among other things, our clinical research, proposed sales, marketing and educational programs, and other interactions with healthcare professionals. In addition, we may be subject to patient privacy laws by both the federal government and the states in which we conduct or may conduct our business. See “Part I, Item 1, Business—Government Regulation—Other Healthcare Laws and Compliance Requirements” of our Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2025, for more information on the healthcare laws and regulations that may affect our ability to operate.

Because of the breadth of these laws and the narrowness of the statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors available, it is possible that some of our business activities could be subject to challenge under one or more of such laws. 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 penalties, including, without limitation, civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, individual imprisonment, exclusion from participating in federal and state funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, additional reporting requirements and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or similar agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws, contractual damages, diminished profits and future earnings, reputational harm and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could harm our business.

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The risk of our being found in violation of these laws is increased by the fact that many of them have not been fully interpreted by the regulatory authorities or the courts, and their provisions are open to a variety of interpretations. Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will involve substantial costs. Any action against us for violation of these laws, even if we successfully defend against it, could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and divert our management’s attention from the operation of our business. The shifting compliance environment and the need to build and maintain robust and expandable systems to comply with multiple jurisdictions with different compliance and/or reporting requirements increases the possibility that a healthcare company may run afoul of one or more of the requirements.

Even if we obtain FDA approval of any of our drug candidates in the United States, we may never obtain approval for or commercialize any of them in any other jurisdiction, which would limit our ability to realize their full market potential.

In order to market any products in any particular jurisdiction, we must establish and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements on a country-by-country basis regarding safety and efficacy.

Approval by the FDA in the United States does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions. However, the failure to obtain approval in one jurisdiction may negatively impact our ability to obtain approval elsewhere. In addition, clinical trials conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries, and regulatory approval in one country does not guarantee regulatory approval in any other country.

Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional product testing and validation and additional administrative review periods. Seeking foreign regulatory approval could result in difficulties and increased costs for us and require additional preclinical studies or clinical trials which could be costly and time consuming. Regulatory requirements can vary widely from country to country and could delay or prevent the introduction of our products in those countries. We do not have any drug candidates approved for sale in any jurisdiction, including in international markets, and we do not have experience in obtaining regulatory approval in international markets. If we fail to comply with regulatory requirements in international markets or to obtain and maintain required approvals, or if regulatory approvals in international markets are delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of any product we develop will be unrealized.

Even if we receive regulatory approval of our current or future drug 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 drug candidates.

Any drug candidate for which we obtain marketing approval will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements for, among other things, manufacturing processes, submission of post-approval clinical data and safety information, labeling, packaging, distribution, adverse event reporting, storage, recordkeeping, export, import, advertising, promotional activities and product tracking and tracing. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, establishment registration and drug listing requirements, continued compliance with cGMP requirements relating to manufacturing, quality control, quality assurance and corresponding maintenance of records and documents, requirements regarding the distribution of samples to physicians and recordkeeping and GCP requirements for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval.

The FDA and other federal and state agencies, including the Department of Justice, closely regulate compliance with all requirements governing prescription drug and biologic products, including requirements pertaining to their marketing and promotion in accordance with the provisions of the approved labeling and manufacturing of products in accordance with cGMP requirements. However, companies may share truthful and not misleading information that is otherwise consistent with a product’s FDA approved labeling. The FDA imposes stringent restrictions on manufacturers’ communications regarding off-label use and if we market our products for uses beyond their approved diseases, we may be subject to enforcement action for off-label marketing. Violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, relating to the promotion of prescription drugs for unapproved uses may lead to enforcement actions and investigations alleging violations of federal and state health care fraud and abuse laws, as well as state consumer protection laws.

In addition, later discovery of previously unknown adverse events or other problems with our products, manufacturers or manufacturing processes, 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 yield various results, including but not limited to:

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restrictions on manufacturing such products;

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restrictions on the labeling or marketing of a product;

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restrictions on product distribution or use;

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requirements to conduct post-marketing studies or clinical trials;

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warning or untitled letters, or holds on clinical trials;

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withdrawal of the products from the market;

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refusal to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications that we submit;

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recall of products;

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fines, restitution or disgorgement of profits or revenues;

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suspension or withdrawal of marketing approvals;

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refusal to permit the import or export of our products;

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product seizure or detention;

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injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties; or

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litigation involving patients using our products.

The FDA’s policies, and the policies of foreign regulatory agencies, may change and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay regulatory approval of our drug candidates.

We also cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative or executive action, either in the United States or abroad. For example, executive orders or other actions could impose significant burdens on, or otherwise materially delay, the FDA’s ability to engage in routine oversight activities such as implementing statutes through rulemaking, issuance of guidance, and review and approval of marketing applications. If such executive actions were to impose restrictions on the FDA’s ability to engage in oversight and implementation activities in the normal course, our business could be negatively impacted. 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 which would adversely affect our business, prospects and ability to achieve or sustain profitability.

Enacted and future healthcare legislation may increase the difficulty and cost for us to progress our clinical programs and obtain marketing approval of and commercialize our drug candidates and may affect the prices we may set.

In the United States, the European Union and other jurisdictions, there have been, and we expect there will continue to be, a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes to the healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval or licensure 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 or licensure. In the United States, the biopharmaceutical industry has been a particular focus of these efforts and has been significantly affected by legislative initiatives. Current laws, as well as other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and in additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any FDA-approved product. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law on August 16, 2022, allows Medicare to: beginning in 2026, establish a “maximum fair price” for a fixed number of pharmaceutical and biological products covered under Medicare Parts B and D following a price negotiation process with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); and, beginning in 2023, penalize drug companies that raise prices for products covered under Medicare Parts B and D faster than inflation, among other reforms. CMS has taken a number of steps to implement the IRA, including: releasing the negotiated maximum prices, which will be effective in 2026, for the first ten drugs that were subject to the IRA’s negotiation process, releasing quarterly lists of Medicare Part B products that are subject to adjusted coinsurance rates based on the inflationary rebate provisions of the IRA, and announcing a list of fifteen additional drugs that will be subject to price negotiations during 2025. While it remains to be seen how the drug pricing provisions imposed by the IRA will affect the broader pharmaceutical industry, several pharmaceutical manufacturers and other industry stakeholders have challenged the law, including through lawsuits brought against HHS, the Secretary of HHS, CMS, and the CMS Administrator challenging the constitutionality and administrative implementation of the IRA’s drug price negotiation provisions. It is unclear how future regulatory actions to implement the IRA, as well as the outcome of pending litigation against the IRA brought against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Secretary of HHS, CMS, and the CMS Administrator challenging the constitutionality and administrative implementation of the IRA’s drug price negotiation provisions, may affect our products and future profitability. Reductions in reimbursement levels may also negatively impact the prices we receive or the frequency with which our products are prescribed or administered, with any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs potentially resulting in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. See “Part I, Item 1, Business—Government Regulation—Healthcare Reform” of our Annual Report for the year ended December 31, 2025, for more information on specific healthcare reform measures that may affect our business.

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In the European Union, similar political, economic and regulatory developments may affect our ability to profitably commercialize our drug candidates, if approved. In addition to continuing pressure on prices and cost containment measures, legislative developments at the European Union or member state level may result in significant additional requirements or obstacles that may increase our operating costs. The delivery of healthcare in the European Union, including the establishment and operation of health services and the pricing and reimbursement of medicines, is almost exclusively a matter for national, rather than European Union, law and policy. National governments and health service providers have different priorities and approaches to the delivery of health care and the pricing and reimbursement of products in that context. In general, however, the healthcare budgetary constraints in most EU member states have resulted in restrictions on the pricing and reimbursement of medicines by relevant health service providers. Coupled with ever-increasing European Union and national regulatory burdens on those wishing to develop and market products, this could prevent or delay marketing approval of our drug candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to commercialize our drug candidates, if approved.

In markets outside of the United States and the European Union, reimbursement and healthcare payment systems vary significantly by country, and many countries have instituted price ceilings on specific products and therapies.

We cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action in the United States, the European Union or any other jurisdiction. If we or any third parties we may engage are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we or such third parties are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, our drug candidates may lose any regulatory approval that may have been obtained and we may not achieve or sustain profitability.

If we or our third-party manufacturers and suppliers fail to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.

We are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. Although we do not currently manufacture our drug products or drug candidates on site, our research and development activities do involve the use of biological and hazardous materials and produce hazardous waste products at small quantities. We generally contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and wastes. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination or injury from these materials, which could cause an interruption of our commercialization efforts, research and development efforts and business operations, environmental damage resulting in costly clean-up and liabilities under applicable laws and regulations governing the use, storage, handling and disposal of these materials and specified waste products. Although we believe that the safety procedures utilized by our third-party manufacturers for handling and disposing of these materials generally comply with the standards prescribed by these laws and regulations, we cannot guarantee that this is the case or eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or injury from these materials. In such an event, we may be held liable for any resulting damages and such liability could exceed our resources and state or federal or other applicable authorities may curtail our use of certain materials and/or interrupt our business operations. Furthermore, environmental laws and regulations are complex, change frequently and have tended to become more stringent. We cannot predict the impact of such changes and cannot be certain of our future compliance. In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. These current or future laws and regulations may impair our research, development, or production efforts. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations also may result in substantial fines, penalties, or other sanctions.

Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials or other work-related injuries, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not carry specific biological waste or hazardous waste insurance coverage, workers compensation or property and casualty and general liability insurance policies that include coverage for damages and fines arising from biological or hazardous waste exposure or contamination.

Disruptions at the FDA, the SEC and other government agencies could hinder their ability to perform 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 funding, 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.

Future 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, in recent years, including in October 2025, the U.S. government shut down several times and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA and the SEC, had to furlough critical

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employees and stop critical activities. If a prolonged government shutdown were to occur in the future, 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, the current or 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.

If a prolonged government shutdown occurs in the future, or if global health concerns prevent the FDA or other regulatory authorities from conducting their regular inspections, reviews, or other regulatory activities, it could significantly impact the ability of the FDA or other regulatory authorities to timely review and process our regulatory submissions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

If we obtain approval to commercialize any products outside of the United States, a variety of risks associated with international operations could adversely affect our business.

If ACR-368, ACR-2316, or any of our other drug candidates are approved for commercialization, we may seek to enter into agreements with third parties to market them in certain jurisdictions outside the United States. We expect that we would be subject to additional risks related to international pharmaceutical operations, including but not limited to:

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different regulatory requirements for drug and companion diagnostic trials and approvals and rules governing drug and companion diagnostic commercialization in foreign countries;

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reduced protection for intellectual property rights;

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foreign reimbursement, pricing and insurance regimes;

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unexpected changes in tariffs, trade barriers and regulatory requirements;

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economic weakness, including inflation, or political instability in particular foreign economies and markets;

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foreign currency fluctuations, which could result in increased operating expenses and reduced revenues, and other obligations incident to doing business in another country;

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business interruptions resulting from geopolitical actions, including war, global conflicts and terrorism or natural disasters including earthquakes, typhoons, floods and fires, or from economic or political instability;

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greater difficulty with enforcing our contracts;

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potential noncompliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, the U.K. Bribery Act 2010 and similar anti-bribery and anticorruption laws in other jurisdictions; and

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production shortages resulting from any events affecting raw material supply or manufacturing capabilities abroad.

We have no prior experience in these areas. In addition, there are complex regulatory, tax, labor and other legal requirements imposed by individual countries in Europe with which we will need to comply. If we are unable to successfully manage the challenges of international expansion and operations, our business and operating results could be harmed.

We may develop our current and future drug candidates in combination with other therapies, and safety or supply issues with combination-use products may delay or prevent development and approval of our drug candidates.

We may develop our current or future drug candidates in combination with one or more cancer therapies, both approved and unapproved. Even if any drug candidate we develop were to receive marketing approval or be commercialized for use in combination with other existing therapies, we would continue to be subject to the risks that the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside of the United States could revoke approval of the therapy used in combination with our drug candidates or that safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues could arise with these existing therapies. Combination therapies are commonly used for the treatment of cancer, and we would be subject to similar risks if we develop any of our drug candidates for use in combination with other drugs or for indications other than cancer. Similarly, if the therapies we use in combination with our drug candidates are replaced as the standard of care for the indications we choose for any of our drug candidates, the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside of the United States may require us to conduct additional clinical trials. The occurrence of any of these risks could result in our own products, if approved, being removed from the market or being less successful commercially.

We may also evaluate our drug candidates in combination with one or more cancer therapies that have not yet been approved for marketing by the FDA or a similar regulatory authority outside of the United States. We may be unable to effectively identify and collaborate with third parties for the evaluation of our drug candidates in combination with their therapies. We will not be able to market and sell any drug candidate we develop in combination with any such unapproved cancer therapies that do not ultimately obtain

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marketing approval. The regulations prohibiting the promotion of products for unapproved uses are complex and subject to substantial interpretation by the FDA and other government agencies. In addition, there are additional risks similar to the ones described for our products currently in development and clinical trials that result from the fact that such cancer therapies are unapproved, such as the potential for serious adverse effects, delay in their clinical trials and lack of FDA approval.

If the FDA or a similar regulatory authority outside of the United States does not approve these other drugs or revokes approval of, or if safety, efficacy, manufacturing, or supply issues arise with, the drugs we choose to evaluate in combination with any drug candidate we develop, we may be unable to obtain approval of or market such product.

We may not be able to obtain or maintain orphan drug designation or exclusivity for our drug candidates.

Regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions, including the United States, may designate drugs for relatively small patient populations as “orphan drugs.” Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may designate a drug as an orphan drug if it is intended to treat patients with a rare disease or condition, which is generally defined as a patient population of fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States, or if the disease or condition affects more than 200,000 individuals in the United States and there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing the drug for the type of disease or condition will be recovered from sales of the product in the United States.

Orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives, such as opportunities for grant funding towards clinical trial costs, tax advantages and user fee waivers. Additionally, if a product that has orphan designation subsequently receives the first FDA approval for the disease or condition for which it has such designation, the product is entitled to orphan drug exclusivity, which means that the FDA may not approve any other applications to market the same drug for the same indication for seven years, except in certain circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority (i.e., another product is safer, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care) over the product with orphan exclusivity or where the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient product quantity. Competitors, however, may receive approval of different products for the same indication for which the orphan product has exclusivity, or obtain approval for the same product but for a different indication than that for which the orphan product has exclusivity.

ACR-368 has been granted orphan drug designation, or ODD, for the treatment of anal cancer. We may apply for an ODD in the United States or other geographies for ACR-368 for the treatment of other diseases or conditions or for our future drug candidates. However, obtaining an orphan drug designation can be difficult, and we may not be successful in doing so. Even if we obtain orphan drug designation for a drug candidate in specific indications, we may not be the first to obtain regulatory approval of the drug candidate for the orphan-designated indication due to the uncertainties associated with developing drug products. In addition, exclusive marketing rights in the United States may be limited if we seek approval for an indication broader than the orphan-designated indication or may be lost if the FDA later determines that the request for orphan designation was materially defective or if the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient quantities of the product to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition. Orphan drug designation does not ensure that we will receive marketing exclusivity in a particular market, and we cannot assure you that any future application for orphan drug designation in any other geography or with respect to any other future drug candidate will be granted. Orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug, nor gives the drug any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process.

It is also possible that current or future litigation or action by Congress could change the scope of available orphan exclusivity. Any changes to the orphan drug provisions could change our opportunities for, or likelihood of success in obtaining, orphan drug designation and/or exclusivity and would materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

A Fast Track designation by the FDA, even if granted for our lead drug candidate, or any of our future drug candidates, may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process and does not increase the likelihood that our drug candidates will receive marketing approval.

At various times, we may seek Fast Track designation for one or more of our drug candidates. If a drug candidate is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition and the drug candidate demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for this condition, the drug sponsor may apply for FDA Fast Track designation for a particular indication.

On May 8, 2023, ACR-368 was granted two Fast Track designations from the FDA for the investigation of ACR-368 monotherapy for patients with OncoSignature-positive platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and EC. We may seek Fast Track designation for certain of our future drug candidates, but there is no assurance that the FDA will grant this status to any of our proposed drug candidates and we might only be successful in receiving a Fast Track designation from the FDA for a drug candidate after applying on more than one occasion. Sponsors may have greater interactions with the FDA and marketing applications filed by sponsors of products in Fast Track development may qualify for priority review and rolling review under the policies and procedures offered by the FDA, but the receipt

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of a Fast Track designation does not assure any such qualification or ultimate marketing approval by the FDA. The FDA has broad discretion whether or not to grant a Fast Track designation, so even if we believe a particular drug candidate is eligible for this designation, there can be no assurance that the FDA would decide to grant it. Even if we do receive a Fast Track designation, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures, and receiving a Fast Track designation does not provide assurance of ultimate FDA approval. In addition, the FDA may withdraw a Fast Track designation if it believes that the designation is no longer supported by data from our clinical development program. In addition, the FDA may withdraw any Fast Track designation at any time.

A Breakthrough Therapy or Breakthrough Device designation by the FDA, even if granted for any of our current or future drug candidates or companion diagnostics, may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process and it does not increase the likelihood that our drug candidates will receive marketing approval.

At various times, we may seek Breakthrough Therapy designation for our lead drug candidate and some or all of our future drug candidates and Breakthrough Device designation for our OncoSignature companion diagnostic and future companion diagnostic candidates. Breakthrough Therapy designation is a process designed to expedite the development and review of drugs that are intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the drug 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 drug candidates 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. Drugs designated as breakthrough therapies by the FDA may also be eligible for other expedited approval programs, including accelerated approval.

The FDA has also implemented a Breakthrough Device program that is intended to help patients receive more timely access to breakthrough medical technologies that have the potential to provide more effective treatment or diagnosis for life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating diseases or conditions. A device also must meet one of the following criteria: (i) it represents breakthrough technology; (ii) there is no approved or cleared alternative; (iii) it offers significant advantages over existing cleared or approved devices; or (iv) availability of the device is in the best interest of patients. Under the program, device candidates are eligible to receive priority review and interactive communications from the FDA regarding device development and clinical trial protocols, all the way through to commercialization decisions. On November 16, 2023, the FDA granted Breakthrough Device Designation to the ACR-368 OncoSignature assay for the identification of ovarian cancer patients who may benefit from ACR-368 treatment. On January 21, 2025, the FDA granted Breakthrough Device Designation to the ACR-368 OncoSignature Assay for the identification of EC patients who may benefit from treatment with ACR-368.

Designation as a Breakthrough Therapy or Breakthrough Device is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe a product candidate meets the criteria for designation as a Breakthrough Therapy or Breakthrough Device, the FDA may disagree and instead determine not to make such a designation. In any event, the receipt of a Breakthrough Therapy or Breakthrough Device designation for a product candidate may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to candidate products considered for approval under non-expedited FDA review procedures and does not assure ultimate approval by the FDA of a product candidate. In addition, even if a product candidate qualifies as a Breakthrough Therapy or Breakthrough Device, the FDA may later decide that the product candidate no longer meets the conditions for qualification. Thus, even though we intend to seek Breakthrough Therapy designation for our lead drug candidate and some or all of our future drug candidates and Breakthrough Device designation for our OncoSignature companion diagnostic and any future companion diagnostic candidates for the treatment of various cancers, there can be no assurance that we will receive Breakthrough Therapy or Breakthrough Device designations.

The biopharmaceutical industry is subject to extensive regulatory obligations and policies that may be subject to change, including due to judicial challenges, election cycles, and resulting regulatory updates and changes in policy priorities.

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion holding that courts reviewing agency action pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “must exercise their independent judgment” and “may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.” The decision will have a significant impact on how lower courts evaluate challenges to agency interpretations of law, including those by the HHS, FDA, CMS and other agencies with significant oversight of the biopharmaceutical industry. The new framework is likely to increase both the frequency of such challenges and their odds of success by eliminating one way in which the government previously prevailed in such cases. As a result, significant regulatory policies will be subject to increased litigation and judicial scrutiny.

In addition, federal agency priorities, leadership, policies, rulemaking, communications, spending, and staffing may be significantly impacted by election cycles and legislative developments. For example, the current presidential administration’s commitment to significantly reduce government spending through cuts to federal healthcare programs and reductions in the workforces of key government agencies, such as the HHS, FDA, and CMS. Efforts by the current administration to limit federal agency budgets or

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personnel may result in reductions to agency budgets, employees, and operations. The administration and agencies have also made abrupt announcements about new or changed regulatory policies, such as policies related to the use of artificial intelligence to review product applications. And, the recent federal government shutdown may prevent the FDA or other regulatory authorities from conducting their regular inspections, reviews or other regulatory activities, and may significantly impact the ability of the FDA to timely review and process our regulatory submissions. These developments may lead to greater uncertainty regarding FDA policies, slower response times and longer review periods, potentially affecting our ability to progress development of our product candidates or obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates.

Any resulting changes in regulation may result in unexpected delays, increased costs, or other negative impacts on our business that are difficult to predict. Also, changes in the administration’s policies and personnel may result in decisions contrary to or overriding those previously made by government personnel under prior administrations.

Our business activities have been, and may in the future be, challenged under U.S. federal or state and foreign healthcare laws, which may subject us to civil or criminal proceedings, investigations, or penalties.

The current U.S. administration, HHS, and FDA announced in September 2025, an initiative intended to ensure transparency and accuracy in direct-to-consumer (“DTC”) prescription drug advertisements through a series of reforms that are expected to include FDA rulemaking, additional enforcement action, and expanded regulatory oversight of digital and social media promotional activities. Failure to comply with applicable FDA requirements and restrictions in the area of promotional activities (including those that currently apply or may apply in the future to DTC advertising) may subject a company to adverse enforcement action by the FDA, the Department of Justice, or the Office of the Inspector General of HHS, as well as state authorities. This could subject us to a range of penalties that could have a significant commercial impact, including civil and criminal fines and agreements that materially restrict the manner in which we promote or distribute a drug. Any such failures could also cause significant reputational harm. The FDA may take enforcement action for promoting unapproved uses of a product or other violations of its advertising laws and regulations.

Risks Related to Our Reliance on Third Parties

We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties, including independent clinical investigators, contracted laboratories and CROs, to conduct our preclinical studies and clinical trials. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or meet expected deadlines, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our drug candidates and our business could be substantially harmed.

We have relied upon and plan to continue to rely upon third parties, including independent clinical investigators, contracted laboratories and third-party CROs, to conduct our preclinical studies and clinical trials in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements and to monitor and manage data for our ongoing preclinical and clinical programs. We rely on these parties for execution of our preclinical studies and clinical trials, and control only certain aspects of their activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies and trials is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal and regulatory requirements and scientific standards, and our reliance on these third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. We and our third party contractors and CROs are required to comply with good laboratory practices, or GLPs, as applicable, and GCP requirements, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for all of our products in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce these GLPs and GCPs through periodic inspections of laboratories conducting GLP studies, trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we, our investigators or any of our CROs or contracted laboratories fail to comply with applicable GLPs and GCPs, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional preclinical studies or clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. We cannot assure you that upon inspection by a given regulatory authority, such regulatory authority will determine that any of our preclinical studies or clinical trials comply with applicable GLP or GCP regulations. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with drug products produced in compliance with applicable cGMP regulations. Our failure to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat preclinical studies or clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process.

Further, these laboratories, investigators and CROs are not our employees and we will not be able to control, other than by contract, the amount of resources, including time, which they devote to our drug candidates and clinical trials. If independent laboratories, investigators or CROs fail to devote sufficient resources to the development of our drug candidates, or if their performance is substandard, it may delay or compromise the prospects for approval and commercialization of any drug candidates that we develop. In addition, the use of third-party service providers requires us to disclose our proprietary information to these parties, which could increase the risk that this information will be misappropriated.

Our CROs have the right to terminate their agreements with us in the event of an uncured material breach. In addition, some of our CROs have an ability to terminate their respective agreements with us if we make a general assignment for the benefit of our creditors or if we are liquidated.

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If any of our relationships with these third-party laboratories, CROs or clinical investigators terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative laboratories, CROs or investigators or to do so in a timely manner or on commercially reasonable terms. If laboratories, CROs or clinical investigators do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines, if they need to be replaced or if the quality or accuracy of the clinical data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our preclinical or clinical protocols, regulatory requirements or for other reasons, our preclinical or clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize our drug candidates. As a result, our results of operations and the commercial prospects for our drug candidates would be harmed, our costs could increase and our ability to generate revenues could be delayed.

Switching or adding additional laboratories or CROs or investigators involves additional cost and requires management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new laboratory or CRO commences work. As a result, delays occur, which can materially impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines. Though we carefully manage our relationships with our contracted laboratories and CROs, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter similar challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, clinical investigators may serve as scientific advisors or consultants to us from time to time and may receive cash or equity compensation in connection with such services. If these relationships and any related compensation result in perceived or actual conflicts of interest, or the FDA concludes that the financial relationship may have affected the interpretation of the preclinical study or clinical trial, the integrity of the data generated at the applicable preclinical study or clinical trial site may be questioned and the utility of the preclinical study or clinical trial itself may be jeopardized, which could result in the delay or rejection by the FDA. Any such delay or rejection could prevent us from commercializing our clinical-stage drug candidate or any future drug candidates.

We rely on third parties to supply and manufacture our drug candidates, and we expect to continue to rely on third parties to manufacture our products, if approved. The development of such drug candidates and the commercialization of any products, if approved, could be stopped, delayed or made less profitable if any such third party fails to provide us with sufficient quantities of drug candidates or products or fails to do so at acceptable quality levels or prices or fails to maintain or achieve satisfactory regulatory compliance.

We do not currently have the infrastructure or capability internally to manufacture all our drug candidates for use in the conduct of our preclinical studies and clinical trials or for commercial supply, if our products are approved. We rely on, and expect to continue to rely on CMOs. Any replacement of our CMOs could require significant effort and expertise because there may be a limited number of qualified CMOs. This could be particularly problematic if we rely on a single-source supplier. Reliance on third-party providers may expose us to more risk than if we were to manufacture our drug candidates ourselves. We are dependent on our CMOs for the production of our drug candidates in accordance with relevant regulations, such as cGMP, which includes, among other things, quality control, quality assurance and the maintenance of records and documentation. Moreover, many of the third parties with whom we contract may also have relationships with other commercial entities, including our competitors, for whom they may also be conducting product development activities that could harm our competitive position.

Our third-party manufacturers may be subject to damage or interruption from, among other things, fire, natural or man-made disaster, war, global conflicts, disease outbreaks or public health pandemics, power loss, telecommunications failure, unauthorized entry, computer viruses, denial-of-service attacks, acts of terrorism, human error, vandalism or sabotage, financial insolvency, bankruptcy and similar events.

If we were to experience an unexpected loss of supply of or if any supplier were unable to meet our demand for any of our drug candidates, we could experience delays in our research or ongoing and planned clinical trials or commercialization. We could be unable to find alternative suppliers of acceptable quality, in the appropriate volumes who could meet our timelines at an acceptable cost. Moreover, our suppliers are often subject to strict manufacturing requirements and rigorous testing requirements, which could limit or delay production. The long transition periods necessary to switch manufacturers and suppliers, if necessary, could significantly delay our preclinical studies, our clinical trials and the commercialization of our products, if approved, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In complying with the applicable manufacturing regulations of the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities, we and our third-party suppliers must spend significant time, money and effort in the areas of design and development, testing, production, record-keeping and quality control to assure that the products meet applicable specifications and other regulatory requirements. The failure to comply with these requirements could result in an enforcement action against us, including the seizure of products and shutting down of production. We and any of these third-party suppliers may also be subject to audits by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities. If any of our third-party suppliers fails to comply with cGMP or other applicable manufacturing regulations, our ability to develop and commercialize the products could suffer significant interruptions. We face risks inherent in relying on CMOs, as any disruption, such as a fire, natural hazards, global conflicts, vandalism or an outbreak of contagious disease affecting the CMO or

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any supplier of the CMO could significantly interrupt our manufacturing capability. In case of a disruption, we will have to establish alternative manufacturing sources. This would require substantial capital on our part, which we may not be able to obtain on commercially acceptable terms or at all. Additionally, we would likely experience months of manufacturing delays as the CMO builds or locates replacement facilities and seeks and obtains necessary regulatory approvals. If this occurs, we will be unable to satisfy manufacturing needs on a timely basis, if at all.

Our current and future partnerships will be important to our business. If we are unable to enter into new partnerships, or if these partnerships are not successful, our business could be adversely affected.

We have existing partnerships and license agreements, including with Lilly for ACR-368. Moreover, a part of our business strategy is to carefully evaluate and, as deemed appropriate, potentially enter into partnerships in the future, including with major biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies. We have limited capabilities for product development and do not yet have any capability for commercialization. Accordingly, we may enter into partnerships with other companies to provide us with additional drug candidates and funding for our programs and AP3 platform. If we fail to enter into or maintain partnerships on reasonable terms or at all, our ability to develop our existing or future research programs and drug candidates or to identify future drug candidates through the application of our AP3 platform and OncoSignature companion diagnostics could be delayed, the commercial potential of our product could change and our costs of development and commercialization could increase. Furthermore, we may find that our programs require the use of intellectual property rights held by third parties, and the growth of our business may depend in part on our ability to acquire or in-license these intellectual property rights.

Our current partnerships, and any partnerships we may enter into in the future, may pose a number of risks, including, but not limited to, the following:

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partners have significant discretion in determining the efforts and resources that they will apply;

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partners may not perform their obligations as expected;

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partners could independently develop, or develop with third parties, products that compete directly or indirectly with our products and drug candidates if the partners believe that the competitive products are more likely to be successfully developed or can be commercialized under terms that are more economically attractive than ours;

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partners may fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements regarding the development, manufacture, distribution or marketing of a drug candidate or product;

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disagreements with partners, including disagreements over proprietary rights, contract interpretation or the preferred course of development, might cause delays or terminations of the research, development or commercialization of drug candidates, might lead to additional responsibilities for us with respect to drug candidates, or might result in litigation or arbitration, any of which would be time-consuming and expensive;

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partners may not properly maintain or defend our intellectual property rights or may use our proprietary information in such a way as to invite litigation that could jeopardize or invalidate our intellectual property or proprietary information or expose us to potential litigation;

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partners may infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties, which may expose us to litigation and potential liability;

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if a partners of ours is involved in a business combination, the partner might deemphasize or terminate the development or commercialization of any drug candidate licensed to it by us; and

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partnerships may be terminated by the partner, and, if terminated, we could be required to raise additional capital to pursue further development or commercialization of the applicable drug candidates.

If our partnerships do not result in the successful discovery, development and commercialization of drug candidates or if one of our partners terminates its agreement with us, we may not receive any future research funding or milestone or royalty payments under such partnership.

All of the risks relating to product development, regulatory approval and commercialization also apply to the activities of our partners. Additionally, if one of our partners terminates its agreement with us, we may find it more difficult to attract new partners and our perception in the business and financial communities could be adversely affected.

We may not be able to negotiate partnerships on a timely basis, on acceptable terms, or at all. Our ability to reach a definitive agreement for a partnership will depend, among other things, upon an assessment of the partner’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed partnership and the proposed partner’s evaluation of a number of factors. These factors may include the

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design or results of preclinical studies or clinical trials, the likelihood of regulatory approval, the potential market for the subject drug candidate, the costs and complexities of manufacturing and delivering such drug candidate to patients, the potential of competing products, the existence of any uncertainty with respect to our ownership of technology (which can exist if there is a challenge to such ownership regardless of the merits of the challenge) and industry and market conditions generally. The partner may also consider alternative drug candidates or technologies for similar indications that may be available to collaborate on and whether such a partnership could be more attractive than the one with us.

Risks Related to Commercialization of Our Drug Candidates

Even if any of our current or drug candidates receive marketing approval, they may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.

If ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates receive marketing approval, they may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. For example, current cancer treatments, such as existing targeted therapies, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, are well established in the medical community, and doctors may continue to rely on these treatments. If our drug candidates do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant product revenues and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of our drug candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:

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the efficacy, safety and potential advantages compared to alternative treatments;

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the acceptance of our drug candidates as front-line treatments for various indications;

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the prevalence and severity of any side effects, in particular compared to alternative treatments;

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limitations or warnings contained in the labeling approved by the FDA or other regulatory authorities;

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the size of the target patient population;

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the willingness of the target patient population to try new therapies and of physicians to prescribe these therapies;

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our ability to offer our products for sale at competitive prices;

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the convenience and ease of administration compared to alternative treatments;

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the strength of marketing and distribution support;

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publicity for our drug candidates and competing products and treatments;

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the existence of distribution and/or use restrictions, such as through a REMS;

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the availability of third-party payor coverage and adequate reimbursement;

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the timing of any marketing approval in relation to other product approvals;

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support from patient advocacy groups; and

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any restrictions on the use of our products together with other medications.

If the market opportunities for our drug candidates are smaller than we estimate or if any approval that we obtain is based on a narrower definition of the patient population, then our revenue potential and ability to achieve profitability will be adversely affected.

The total addressable market opportunity for ACR-368, ACR-2316, and any other future drug candidates we may develop will ultimately depend upon, among other things, the proportion of patients identified as sensitive to our treatments based on our OncoSignature tests in our target indications, acceptance by the medical community, patient access, drug and any related companion diagnostic pricing and their reimbursement.

We may initially seek regulatory approval of ACR-368, ACR-2316, or our future drug candidates as therapies for patients that are found, or predicted using AP3 to be, sensitive to our current and future drug candidates. The number of patients in our targeted commercial markets and elsewhere may turn out to be lower than expected, patients may not be otherwise amenable to treatment with our drugs or new patients may become increasingly difficult to identify or gain access to, all of which would adversely affect our results of operations and our business.

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We currently have no marketing and sales organization and may have to invest significant resources to develop these capabilities. If we are unable to establish sales and marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to market and sell our products, we may not be able to generate revenue.

We currently have no sales or marketing infrastructure or experience in the sale, marketing or distribution of drug products. Our operations to date have been focused on developing our AP3 platform, our proprietary predictive OncoSignature tests, clinical development of ACR-368 and ACR-2316, organizing and staffing our company, business planning and raising capital. To achieve commercial success for any product for which we obtain marketing approval, we will need to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, either ourselves or through collaboration or other arrangements with third parties.

There are risks involved with establishing our own sales and marketing capabilities. For example, recruiting and training a sales force is expensive and time-consuming and could delay any product launch. If the commercial launch of a drug candidate for which we recruit a sales force and establish marketing capabilities is delayed or does not occur for any reason, we would have prematurely or unnecessarily incurred these commercialization expenses. These efforts are expected to be costly, and our investment would be lost if we cannot retain or reposition our sales and marketing personnel.

Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our products on our own include:

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our inability to recruit, train and retain adequate numbers of effective sales and marketing personnel;

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our inability to raise financing necessary to build our commercialization infrastructure;

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the inability of sales personnel to obtain access to physicians or educate an adequate number of physicians as to the benefits of our products;

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unfavorable third-party payor coverage and reimbursement in any geography;

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the lack of complementary products to be offered by sales personnel, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to companies with more extensive product lines; and

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unforeseen costs and expenses associated with creating an independent sales and marketing organization.

We may not be able to build an effective sales and marketing organization in the United States, the European Union or other key global markets. If we are unable to build our own distribution and marketing capabilities or to find suitable partners for the commercialization of our drug candidate, we may have difficulties generating revenue from them.

If we enter into arrangements with third parties to perform sales and marketing services, our product revenues and our profitability, if any, are likely to be lower than if we were to market and sell any products that we develop ourselves. In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to market and sell our drug candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are acceptable to us. We will also have less oversight and control of a third party sales force than we would with an employed sales force. If we do not establish sales and marketing capabilities successfully, either on our own or in collaboration with third parties, we will not be successful in commercializing any drug candidate for which we receive marketing approval.

The precision oncology space is competitive, which may result in others discovering, developing or commercializing products before or more successfully than we do.

The development and commercialization of drug products is highly competitive. We face competition with respect to our current drug candidates and will face competition with respect to any drug candidates that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the future, from major pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies and existing or emerging biotechnology companies, academic research institutions and governmental agencies and public and private research institutions worldwide.

We anticipate several biopharmaceutical companies will aim to develop precision oncology approaches for the larger subsets of cancers where genetics has proven insufficient for patient responder identification over the next decade. We expect that the broader biopharmaceutical field will eventually recognize proteomics as the next era of precision medicine. We are aware of several competitors with CHK inhibitors, including Boundless Bio (BBI-355, discontinued), Sierra Oncology (SRA737, discontinued), and Sentinel Oncology (SOL578), WEE1 inhibitors, including Astrazeneca/Merck (adavosertib, discontinued), Zentalis (azenosertib), Debiopharm (Debio0123), Impact Therapeutics (IMP7068), Shouya Holdings (SY-4835), Aprea (APR-1051), BioCity Biopharma (SC0191), Wigen Biomedicine Technology (WJ05), HUYA Biomedicines (HBI-2448), and WEE1 degrader from Bristol Myers Squibb (WEE1 CELMoD), and PKMYT1 inhibitors, including Repare Therapeutics (lunresertib), Qilu Pharma (QLS1209), and Evariste (EVT-0003023). There is one competitor that we know of developing a dual WEE1/PKMYT1 inhibitor, Schrödinger (SGR-3515).

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Many of the companies against which we are competing or against which we may compete in the future, either alone or through collaborations, have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approved products than we do. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Smaller and other early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These third parties compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific, management and sales and marketing personnel, establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs.

Furthermore, we also face competition more broadly across the oncology market for cost-effective and reimbursable cancer treatments. There are a variety of available drug therapies marketed for cancer. In many cases, these drugs are administered in combination to enhance efficacy. While ACR-368 or our future drug candidates, if approved, may compete with these existing drugs and other therapies, to the extent they are ultimately used in combination with or as an adjunct to these therapies, our drug candidates may not be competitive with them. Some of these drugs are branded and subject to patent protection, and others are available on a generic basis. Insurers and other third-party payors may also encourage the use of generic products or specific branded products. As a result, obtaining market acceptance of, and gaining significant share of the market for, our drug candidates may pose challenges. In addition, many companies are developing new oncology therapeutics, and we cannot predict what the standard of care will be as drug candidates progress through clinical development.

Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient to administer, are less expensive or with a more favorable labeling than ACR-368 or our future drug candidates. Our competitors also may obtain FDA, foreign regulatory authority, or other marketing or regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than any approval we may obtain for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market, thereby limiting our potential for commercial success.

Even if we are able to commercialize any drug candidates, the products may become subject to unfavorable pricing regulations, third-party reimbursement practices or healthcare reform initiatives, which would harm our business.

The regulations that govern marketing approvals, pricing, coverage and reimbursement for new drug products vary widely from country to country. Current and future legislation may significantly change the approval requirements in ways that could involve additional costs and cause delays in obtaining approvals. Some countries require approval of the sale price of a drug before it can be marketed. In many countries, the pricing review period begins after marketing or product licensing approval is granted. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our drug candidate to other available therapies. In some foreign markets, prescription pharmaceutical pricing remains subject to continuing governmental control even after initial approval is granted. As a result, we might obtain marketing approval for a drug candidate in a particular country, but then be subject to price regulations that delay our commercial launch of the product, possibly for lengthy time periods, and negatively impact the revenues, if any, we are able to generate from the sale of the product in that country. Adverse pricing limitations may hinder our ability to recoup our investment in one or more drug candidates, even if such drug candidates obtain marketing approval.

Our ability to commercialize any drug candidates successfully also will depend in part on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement for these products and related treatments will be available from third-party payors, including government healthcare programs, private health insurers and other organizations. Third-party payors decide which medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. In the United States, the principal decisions about reimbursement for new medicines are typically made by CMS, which decides whether and to what extent a new medicine will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare. Private payors often, but not always, follow CMS’s decisions regarding coverage and reimbursement.

A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party payors have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular medications. Increasingly, government authorities and third-party payors are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for medical products. Coverage and reimbursement may not be available for any product that we commercialize and, even if these are available, the level of reimbursement may not be sufficient to cover our costs. Reimbursement may affect the demand for, or the price of, any drug candidate for which we obtain marketing approval or licensure. Obtaining and maintaining coverage and adequate reimbursement for our products may be difficult. We may be required to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies to justify coverage and reimbursement or the level of reimbursement relative to other therapies. If coverage and adequate reimbursement are not available or reimbursement is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize any drug candidate for which we obtain marketing approval or licensure.

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Additionally, companion diagnostic tests will be required to obtain coverage and reimbursement separate and apart from the coverage and reimbursement we seek for our drug candidates, if approved.

There may also be significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs, and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the drug is approved by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside of the United States. Moreover, eligibility for coverage and reimbursement does not imply that a drug will be paid for in all cases or at a rate that covers our costs, including research, development, intellectual property, manufacture, sale and distribution expenses. Interim reimbursement levels for new drugs, if applicable, may also not be sufficient to cover our costs and may not be made permanent. Reimbursement rates may vary according to the use of the drug and the clinical setting in which it is used, may be based on reimbursement levels already set for lower cost drugs and may be incorporated into existing payments for other services. Net prices for drugs may be reduced by mandatory discounts or rebates required by government healthcare programs or private payors and by any future relaxation of laws that presently restrict imports of drugs from countries where they may be sold at lower prices than in the United States. Third-party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement policies, but also have their own methods and approval process apart from Medicare determinations. Our inability to promptly obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement rates from third-party payors for any approved products that we develop could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, our ability to raise capital needed to commercialize products and our overall financial condition.

We also cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, our drug candidates may lose any marketing approval that may have been obtained and we may not achieve or sustain profitability, which would adversely affect our business.

The market opportunities for any current or future drug candidate we develop, if and when approved, may be limited to those patients who are ineligible for established therapies or for whom prior therapies have failed, and may be small.

Cancer therapies are sometimes characterized as first-line, second-line, or third-line, and the FDA often approves new therapies initially only for third-line use. When cancer is detected early enough, first-line therapy, usually chemotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, radiation therapy or a combination of these, is sometimes adequate to cure the cancer or prolong life without a cure. Second- and third-line therapies are administered to patients when prior therapy is not effective. We expect to initially seek approval of our drug candidates we develop as a therapy for patients who have received one or potentially more prior treatments. Subsequently, for those products that prove to be sufficiently beneficial, if any, we would expect to seek approval potentially as a first-line therapy, but there is no guarantee that drug candidates we develop, even if approved, would be approved for first-line therapy, and, prior to any such approvals, we may have to conduct additional clinical trials.

The number of patients who have the cancers we are targeting may turn out to be lower than expected. Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for our current programs or future drug candidates in both oncology and non-oncology indications may be limited, if and when approved. Even if we obtain significant market share for any drug candidate, if and when approved, if the potential target populations are small, we may never achieve profitability without obtaining marketing approval for additional indications, including to be used as first- or second-line therapy.

Product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and to limit commercialization of any products that we may develop.

We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our drug candidates in human clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if we commercialize any products that we may develop. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against any claims that our drug candidates or products caused injuries, we will incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in, but are not limited to:

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decreased demand for any drug candidates or products that we may develop;

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injury to our reputation and significant negative media attention;

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initiation of investigations by regulators;

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withdrawal of clinical trial participants;

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significant time and costs to defend the related litigation;

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diversion of management and scientific resources from our business operations;

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substantial monetary awards to trial participants or patients;

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loss of revenue;

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reduced resources of our management to pursue our business strategy; and

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the inability to commercialize any products that we may develop.

Our current product liability insurance coverage for the United States and certain other jurisdictions may not be adequate to cover all liabilities that we may incur. We likely will need to increase our insurance coverage as we expand our clinical trials or if we commence commercialization of ACR-368 or our future drug candidates. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise. A successful product liability claim or series of claims brought against us could decrease our cash and adversely affect our business and financial condition.

Risks Related to Employee Matters and Our Operations

Our future success depends on our ability to retain key executives and to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel.

We are highly dependent on the management, development, clinical, financial and business development expertise of our executive officers, particularly Peter Blume-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., our co-founder, President and CEO, the inventor of our AP3 platform and OncoSignature patient selection method and a member of our board of directors and Kristina Masson, Ph.D., M.B.A., our co-founder, EVP of Business Operations, a member of our board of directors, and President and CEO of our phosphoproteomics subsidiary in Lund, Sweden. Each of our executive officers may currently terminate their employment with us at any time. We do not currently maintain “key person” insurance for any of our executives or employees.