Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our business is subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risk factors below together with the information contained elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including Part II, Item 8 “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” and Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and in our other public filings in evaluating our business. Any of the risks and uncertainties described below and in our other filings with the SEC, either alone or taken together, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, prospects for growth, and the value of an investment in our common stock. In addition, these risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward looking statements contained in this Form 10-K (please read the Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in this Form 10-K).
Risk Factor Summary
An investment in our securities is subject to various risks, these risks include, among others, the brief bulleted list of our principal risk factors set forth below that make an investment in our company speculative or risky.
Risks related to our financial position and the need for additional capital
Risks related to the discovery, development and commercialization of our product candidates
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Risks related to our dependence on third parties
Risks related to our intellectual property
Risks related to regulatory and marketing approval and other legal compliance matters
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Risks related to our common stock
The summary risk factors described above should be read together with the text of the full risk factors below in this section entitled “Risk Factors” and the other information set forth in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The risks summarized above or described in full below are not the only risks that we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not precisely known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial may also materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and future growth prospects.
Risks related to our financial position and need for additional capital
We have incurred significant losses in each year since inception. We expect to incur losses for the foreseeable future and may never achieve or maintain profitability.
Since our inception, we have incurred significant losses on an aggregate basis. Our net loss was $12.6 million and $13.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively. Our accumulated deficit was $333.6 million as of December 31, 2025. We have not generated any commercial revenue to date from sales of any drugs and have financed our operations principally through private placements and the net proceeds received from the initial public offering (IPO) of our common stock. We have devoted substantially all of our efforts to research and development. We expect that it will be several years, if ever, before we have any product candidates ready for commercialization. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for the foreseeable future. The net losses we incur may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter.
To become and remain profitable, we must develop, obtain approval for and eventually commercialize a drug or drugs with significant market potential, either on our own or with a collaborator. This will require us to be successful in a range of challenging activities, including completing preclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates, obtaining marketing approval for these product candidates, manufacturing, marketing and selling those drugs for which we may obtain marketing approval and establishing and managing any collaborations for the development, marketing and/or commercialization of our product candidates. We may never succeed in these activities and, even if we do, may never generate revenues that are significant or large enough to achieve profitability. If we do 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 decrease the value of our company and could impair our ability to raise capital, maintain our research and development efforts, expand our business and/or continue our operations. A decline in the value of our company could also cause our stockholders to lose all or part of their investment.
Even if we succeed in commercializing one or more of our product candidates, we will continue to incur substantial research and development and other expenditures to develop and market additional product candidates. We may
encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may adversely affect our business. The size of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses and our ability to generate revenue. Our prior losses and expected future losses have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our stockholders’ equity and working capital.
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Our product candidates, if approved, may not achieve commercial success. Our commercial revenues, if any, will be derived from sales of drugs that we do not expect to be commercially available for many years, if at all. If we are unable to obtain product approvals or generate significant commercial revenues, our business will be materially harmed.
We have identified conditions and events that raise substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern.
We have incurred net losses and utilized cash in operations since inception. In addition, as of December 31, 2025, we had approximately $14.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and expect to continue to incur significant cash outflows and incur future additional losses to execute our operating plan. While we intend to finance our cash needs principally through collaborations, strategic alliances, or license agreements with third parties and/or debt or equity financings, there is no assurance that new financing will be available to us on commercially acceptable terms or in the amounts required, if at all. Due to the uncertainty in securing additional funding, and the insufficient amount of cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2025, we have concluded that substantial doubt exists about our ability to continue as a going concern within one year after the date of the filing of this Annual Report. If we are unsuccessful in securing sufficient financing, we may need to delay, reduce, or eliminate our research and development programs, which could adversely affect our business prospects, or cease operations.
Our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report have been prepared on a going concern basis under which an entity is able to realize its assets and satisfy its liabilities in the ordinary course of business. The consolidated financial statements do not give effect to any adjustments relating to the carrying values and classification of assets and liabilities that would be necessary should we be unable to continue as a going concern within one year after the date that the financial statements are issued.
Our future operations are dependent upon the successful entry into collaborations, strategic alliances, or license agreements with third parties and/or on the identification and successful completion of equity or debt financing and the achievement of profitable operations at an indeterminate time in the future. There can be no assurances that we will be successful in completing these collaborations or alliances, equity or debt financing or in achieving profitability. As such, there can be no assurance that we will be able to continue as a going concern.
Substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern may materially and adversely affect the price per share of our common stock, and it may be more difficult for us to obtain financing. If potential collaborators decline to do business with us or potential investors decline to participate in any future financings due to such concerns, our ability to increase our cash position may be limited. The perception that we may not be able to continue as a going concern may cause others to choose not to deal with us due to concerns about our ability to meet our contractual obligations. If we are unable to continue as a going concern, you could lose all or part of your investment.
Our limited operating history may make it difficult for you to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability. We have never generated commercial revenues and may never be profitable.
We are an early-stage company. Our operations to date have been limited to organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, developing our product candidates, identifying potential product candidates, conducting preclinical studies of our product candidates and conducting clinical trials of our product candidates. APR-1051 and ATRN-119, are in clinical development and our other product candidates are in preclinical development. We have currently paused further patient enrollment in both the once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and started the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches. We have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete large-scale, pivotal clinical trials, obtain marketing approvals, manufacture commercial-scale drug products, or arrange for a third party to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful drug commercialization. Typically, it takes about six to ten years to develop a new drug from the time it is in Phase 1 clinical trials to when it is approved for treating patients, but in many cases it may take longer. 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.
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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 may need to transition from a company with a research focus to a company capable of supporting commercial activities. We may not be successful in such a transition.
As we continue to build our business, we expect our financial condition and operating results may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Accordingly, you should not rely upon the results of any particular quarterly or annual periods as indications of future operating performance.
We will need substantial additional funding, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we are unable to raise capital when needed, we may be forced to delay, reduce and/or eliminate our research and drug development programs or future commercialization efforts.
Developing drug products, including conducting preclinical studies and clinical trials, is a very time-consuming, expensive and uncertain process that takes years to complete. We expect our expenses to increase in connection with our ongoing activities, particularly as we conduct clinical trials of, and seek marketing approval for our product candidates. In addition, if we obtain marketing approval for any of our product candidates, we expect to incur significant commercialization expenses related to drug sales, marketing, manufacturing and distribution to the extent that such sales, marketing, manufacturing and distribution are not the responsibility of any collaborator that we may have at such time for any such product candidate. Furthermore, since the completion of our IPO, we have incurred and expect to incur additional costs associated with operating as a public company. Accordingly, we will need to obtain substantial additional funding in connection with our continuing operations. The recent uncertainty and volatility in financial markets which in turn may make raising additional funds even more difficult or impossible for us. If we are unable to raise capital when needed or on attractive terms, we may be forced to delay, reduce and/or eliminate our research and drug development programs or future commercialization efforts.
We believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2025 and the proceeds from our January 2026 private placement will be sufficient to meet our currently projected operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements into the first quarter of 2027. Our estimate as to how long we expect our existing cash and cash equivalents to be able to continue to fund our operations is based on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could use our available capital resources sooner than we currently expect. Further, changing circumstances, some of which may be beyond our control, could cause us to consume capital significantly faster than we currently anticipate, and we may need to seek additional funds sooner than planned. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including:
● the costs, timing and outcome of regulatory review of our product candidates;
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● the costs of operating as a public company.
Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders and restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our product candidates.
We expect our expenses to increase in connection with our planned operations. Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial revenues from the sale of drugs, we expect to finance our cash needs through a combination of equity offerings, debt financings, collaborations, strategic alliances and/or licensing arrangements. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, ownership interests in our securities may be diluted, and the terms of these securities could include liquidation or other preferences and anti-dilution protections that could adversely affect the rights of our common stockholders. In addition, debt financing, if available, would result in fixed payment obligations and may involve agreements that include restrictive covenants that limit our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures, creating liens, redeeming stock or declaring dividends, that could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. In addition, securing financing could require a substantial amount of time and attention from our management and may divert a disproportionate amount of their attention away from day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our management’s ability to oversee the development of our product candidates.
If we raise additional funds through collaborations, strategic alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technology, future revenue streams or product candidates or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds when needed, we may be required to delay, reduce and/or eliminate our product candidate development or future commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market product candidates that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.
We are currently operating in a period of global economic uncertainty and capital markets disruption, which has been significantly impacted by geopolitical conflicts, natural and man-made disasters, global health emergencies and uncertainties in regulatory developments and legislative actions, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our results of operations could be adversely affected by general conditions in the global economy, uncertainty from political conditions and changing regulations, and disruption of global financial markets that may result in a recession or market correction. The financial markets and the global economy may be adversely affected by the current or anticipated impact of war, terrorism and geopolitical conflicts, including in Russia and Ukraine, the Middle East and other areas. Sanctions and enhanced export controls imposed by the United States and other countries in response to such conflicts may also adversely impact the financial markets and the global economy, and any economic countermeasures by the affected countries or others could exacerbate market and economic instability.
Changes in regulations and policies by the U.S. administration and the resulting political and economic uncertainty in the United States may also impact us, the financial markets and the global economy. For example, in April 2025, increased tariffs were imposed on all countries and individualized “reciprocal” higher tariffs on certain countries with which the United States has the largest trade deficits, with the highest tariffs imposed on imports from China. China and other countries responded by announcing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports. A few days later, the tariffs imposed on most
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countries were reduced to 10 percent, with the exception of China, for a period of 90 days to allow trade negotiations with those countries. It is unclear whether the tariff increases with China will continue to escalate. The tariff increases have significantly disrupted the global markets and may significantly escalate tensions between the U.S. and other countries, especially China. We procure APIs and other raw materials from a supplier in China . The extent of the impact that such tariffs, trade policies, or new legislation or regulations will have on our business specifically, or on the U.S. market and global economy generally, are uncertain and in the long term, unpredictable, and could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. The continued impact of these tariffs may impair our plans for further drug development in the U.S. market as well as our ability to generate revenues.
The current U.S. administration has recently issued regulations to restrict direct and indirect investment by U.S. persons into companies with specified connections to China that use specific technologies of concern. Such changes in the regulations and policies by the current U.S. administration and the resulting political and economic uncertainty materially impact our operations and those of our third-party service providers and reduce our ability to access capital, which could negatively affect our liquidity and adversely affect our business and the value of our common stock. The current U.S. administration may also enact other new regulations or policies that affect trade with China or otherwise impact the pharmaceutical industry by enacting laws to restrict U.S. pharmaceutical companies from contracting with Chinese companies on the development, research or manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. In April 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated national security investigations into the importation of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which could result in the imposition of new tariffs on imports within the pharmaceutical industry. Further, in April 2025, an executive order to lower prescription drug prices was signed. The details of such proposed regulations and policies are unclear, and the final terms and impact remain uncertain and may pose long-term risks to our business.
In addition, natural and man-made disasters and global health emergencies, including pandemics and epidemics, may adversely affect the financial markets and global economy, increase inflation and result in significant business disruptions. We and our third-party services providers could be subject to the impact of natural or man-made disasters and other business disruptions, which include, but are not limited to, hurricanes, flooding, typhoons, tornados, wildfires and fires, drought, extreme heat, earthquakes, water shortages, blizzards and other extreme weather conditions, resulting in significant damage to our facilities, inventory or equipment, which could disrupt, delay or curtail our operations. Such business disruptions may also heighten the risk of power outages, telecommunications, transportation or other infrastructure failure, cybersecurity incidents or physical security breaches. The cost of insurance has increased significantly, including as a result of the impact of climate change and inflation, and we may not be able to obtain sufficient coverage at a reasonable cost to protect us against losses from such disasters and unforeseen events.
The volatile business environment or continued unpredictable and unstable market conditions may result in further deterioration of the equity and credit markets, significant volatility in commodity prices, as well as supply chain interruptions and result in an economic downturn, which would make any equity or debt financing more difficult, costly and dilutive. Failure to secure any necessary financing in a timely manner and on favorable terms could have a material adverse effect on our growth strategy, financial performance and stock price and could require us to delay, limit, reduce, or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts.
Although our business has not been materially impacted by the tariffs adopted to date or adverse effects of geopolitical events, natural or man-made disasters or other business disruptions to date, such matters may affect our business in the future and it is impossible to predict the extent to which our operations, or those of our suppliers and manufacturers, will be impacted in the short and long term, or the ways in which such matters may impact our business. The extent and duration of such adverse geopolitical events, natural or man-made disasters or other business disruptions and actual or perceived political or economic instability and resulting market disruptions are impossible to predict but could be substantial. Any such disruptions may also magnify the impact of other risks described herein.
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Disruptions at the FDA, the SEC and other government agencies caused by funding shortages, government shutdowns or global health emergencies, their inability to hire, retain or deploy key leadership and other personnel, a high turnover of key leadership positions, or significant changes in policies and processes based on political considerations could prevent products from being developed, approved or commercialized in a timely manner or at all or otherwise prevent those agencies from performing normal business functions on which the operation of our business may rely, which could negatively impact our operations.
The ability of the FDA and other government agencies to review and approve products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, statutory, regulatory and policy changes, a government agency’s ability to hire and retain key personnel and accept the payment of user fees, high turnover in key leadership positions, and other events that may otherwise affect the government agency’s ability to perform routine functions. Average review times at the FDA and other government agencies have fluctuated in recent years as a result. For example, over the last several years, the U.S. government has shut down several times and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA and SEC, have had to furlough critical employees and stop critical activities. In addition, government funding of 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. Such disruptions at the FDA and other agencies may also increase the time necessary for new therapies or modifications to approved therapies to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government agencies, which would adversely affect our business.
The political and economic environment in the United States could materially impact our business operations and financial performance, and uncertainty surrounding the potential legal, regulatory and policy changes by the U.S. administration may directly affect us and the global economy.
The political and economic environment in the United States and elsewhere has resulted in and will continue to result in some uncertainty. Changing regulatory policies because of the changing political environment could impact our regulatory and compliance costs and future revenues, all of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results. For example, significant layoffs or turnover at FDA could affect the FDA’s ability to respond to regulatory filings. High turnover of key FDA leadership positions could result in regulatory inconsistency and unpredictability that may undermine product development and approval. Failure to adapt to or comply with evolving regulatory requirements or investor or stakeholder expectations and standards could negatively impact our reputation, ability to do business with certain partners, access to capital and our stock price.
Further, the current U.S. administration and congressional seat turnover may result in increased regulatory and economic uncertainty. Changes in federal policy by the executive branch and regulatory agencies may occur over time through the new presidential administration’s and/or Congress’s policy and personnel changes, which could lead to changes involving the level of oversight and focus on the pharmaceutical industry; however, the nature, timing and economic and political effects of such potential changes remain highly uncertain. Any future changes in federal and state laws and regulations, as well as the interpretation and implementation of such laws and regulations, could affect us in substantial and unpredictable ways. At this time, it is unclear what laws, regulations and policies may change and whether future changes or uncertainty surrounding future changes will adversely affect our operating environment and therefore our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Adverse developments affecting the financial services industry, such as actual events or concerns involving liquidity, defaults or non-performance by financial institutions or transactional counterparties, could adversely affect our current and projected business operations and our financial condition and results of operations.
Actual events involving limited liquidity, defaults, non-performance or other adverse developments that affect financial institutions, transactional counterparties or other companies in the financial services industry or the financial services industry generally, or concerns or rumors about any events of these kinds or other similar risks, have in the past and may in the future lead to market-wide liquidity problems. For example, on March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank, or SVB, was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or the FDIC, as receiver. Similarly, on March 12, 2023, Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital Corp. were each swept into receivership. Although a statement by the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC stated that all depositors of SVB would have access to all of their money after only one business day of
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closure, including funds held in uninsured deposit accounts, borrowers under credit agreements, letters of credit and certain other financial instruments with SVB, Signature Bank or any other financial institution that is placed into receivership by the FDIC may be unable to access undrawn amounts thereunder. If any of our counterparties to any such instruments were to be placed into receivership, we may be unable to access such funds. In addition, if any parties with whom we conduct business are unable to access funds pursuant to such instruments or lending arrangements with such a financial institution, such parties’ ability to pay their obligations to us or to enter into new commercial arrangements requiring additional payments to us could be adversely affected. In this regard, counterparties to SVB credit agreements and arrangements, and third parties such as beneficiaries of letters of credit (among others), may experience direct impacts from the closure of SVB and uncertainty remains over liquidity concerns in the broader financial services industry. Similar impacts have occurred in the past, such as during the 2008-2010 financial crisis.
Inflation and rapid increases in interest rates have led to a decline in the trading value of previously issued government securities with interest rates below current market interest rates. Although the U.S. Department of Treasury, FDIC and Federal Reserve Board have announced a program to provide up to $25 billion of loans to financial institutions secured by certain of such government securities held by financial institutions to mitigate the risk of potential losses on the sale of such instruments, widespread demands for customer withdrawals or other liquidity needs of financial institutions for immediately liquidity may exceed the capacity of such program. There is no guarantee that the U.S. Department of Treasury, FDIC and Federal Reserve Board will provide access to uninsured funds in the future in the event of the closure of other banks or financial institutions, or that they would do so in a timely fashion.
Although we assess our banking relationships as we believe necessary or appropriate, our access to funding sources and other credit arrangements in amounts adequate to finance or capitalize our current and projected future business operations could be significantly impaired by factors that affect us, the financial institutions with which we have arrangements directly, or the financial services industry or economy in general. These factors could include, among others, events such as liquidity constraints or failures, the ability to perform obligations under various types of financial, credit or liquidity agreements or arrangements, disruptions or instability in the financial services industry or financial markets, or concerns or negative expectations about the prospects for companies in the financial services industry. These factors could involve financial institutions or financial services industry companies with which we have financial or business relationships, but could also include factors involving financial markets or the financial services industry generally.
In addition, investor concerns regarding the U.S. or international financial systems could result in less favorable commercial financing terms, including higher interest rates or costs and tighter financial and operating covenants, or systemic limitations on access to credit and liquidity sources, thereby making it more difficult for us to acquire financing on acceptable terms or at all. Any decline in available funding or access to our cash and liquidity resources could, among other risks, adversely impact our ability to meet our operating expenses, financial obligations or fulfill our other obligations, result in breaches of our financial and/or contractual obligations or result in violations of federal or state wage and hour laws. Any of these impacts, or any other impacts resulting from the factors described above or other related or similar factors not described above, could have material adverse impacts on our liquidity and our current and/or projected business operations and financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, any further deterioration in the macroeconomic economy or financial services industry could lead to losses or defaults by parties with whom we conduct business, which in turn, could have a material adverse effect on our current and/or projected business operations and results of operations and financial condition. For example, a party with whom we conduct business may fail to make payments when due, default under their agreements with us, become insolvent or declare bankruptcy. Any bankruptcy or insolvency, or the failure to make payments when due, of any counterparty of ours, or the loss of any significant relationships, could result in material losses to us and may material adverse impacts on our business.
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Risks related to the discovery, development and commercialization of our product candidates
We are substantially dependent on the success of APR-1051 and ATRN-119which are in clinical development. Our clinical trials of APR-1051 and ATRN-119 may not be successful. If we are unable to obtain approval for and commercialize APR-1051 and ATRN-119 or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be materially harmed.
We have no products approved for sale. Our future success is substantially dependent on our ability to timely obtain marketing approval for, and then successfully commercialize, ATRN-119 and APR-1051. We are investing a majority of our efforts and financial resources in the research and development of ATRN-119 and APR-1051. Our business depends entirely on the successful development and commercialization of our product candidates. We currently have no drugs approved for sale and generate no revenues from sales of any products, and we may never be able to develop a marketable product.
Our product candidates will require additional clinical development, evaluation of clinical, preclinical and manufacturing activities, marketing approval in multiple jurisdictions, substantial investment and significant marketing efforts before we generate any revenues from product sales. We are not permitted to market commercially or promote any of our product candidates in the U.S. before we receive marketing approval from the FDA, and in other jurisdictions subject to marketing authorization from comparable foreign regulatory authorities, and we may never receive such marketing approvals.
The success of APR-1051 and ATRN-119 will depend on several factors, including the following:
● timely receipt of marketing approvals for APR-1051 and ATRN-119;
● the performance of our future collaborators, if any;
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● successful launch of commercial sales following any marketing approval;
● our ability to compete with other therapies.
We do not have control over many of these factors, including certain aspects of clinical development and the regulatory submission process, potential threats to our intellectual property rights and the manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sales efforts of any future collaborator. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that we will ever be able to generate revenue through the sale of our product candidates. If we are not successful in commercializing APR-1051 or ATRN-119, or are significantly delayed in doing so, our business will be materially harmed.
We are in the early stages of testing APR-1051 and ATRN-119 in Phase 1 clinical trials and we have not tested APR-1051 or ATRN-119 in later phase clinical trials. The results of preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of future results in later studies or trials. Initial success in clinical trials may not be indicative of results obtained when these trials are completed or in later-stage clinical trials.
We are in the early stages of testing APR-1051 and ATRN-119 in clinical trials and we have not tested APR-1051 or ATRN-119 in later phase clinical trials. The results of preclinical studies, whether or not conducted by us, may not be predictive of the results of clinical trials, and the results of the early-stage clinical trials that we are conducting today and that we may commence in the future may not be predictive of the results of the later-phase clinical trials. For example, even if successful, the results of our Phase 1 clinical trials of our product candidates APR-1051 and ATRN-119 and other product candidates may not be predictive of the results of further clinical trials of these product candidates or any of our other product candidates. In addition, initial success in clinical trials may not be indicative of results obtained when such trials are completed on in later stage clinical trials. In particular, the small number of patients in our current and planned early clinical trials may make the results of these trials less predictive of the outcome of later clinical trials. Moreover, preclinical and clinical data often are susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials nonetheless have failed to obtain marketing licensure of their product candidates. Our current and future clinical trials for APR-1051 and ATRN-119 may not ultimately be successful or support further clinical development. There is a high failure rate for product candidates proceeding through clinical trials. In addition, with the current pause on further patient
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enrollment in both once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches, we may be unable to advance development of ATRN-119 for monotherapy in a timely manner, if at all. Many companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in clinical development even after achieving encouraging results in earlier studies. Any such setbacks in our clinical development could materially harm our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.
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.
We have filed and obtained issuance of INDs for APR-1051 and ATRN-119, but we may not be able to file and obtain issuance of INDs that may be required for our other product candidates on the timelines we expect. For example, we may experience manufacturing delays or other delays with IND-enabling studies. 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 lead FDA, IRBs, or other authorities to suspend, terminate, or require changes to our clinical trials. Additionally, even if such regulatory and other 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 and changes to existing clinical trials we may submit as amendments to existing INDs or to a new IND. Any failure to file and obtain issuance of INDs on the timelines we expect or to obtain regulatory clearance or approvals for our trials may prevent us from completing our clinical trials or commercializing our products on a timely basis, if at all.
We have limited experience as a company conducting clinical trials and may be unable to complete pivotal clinical trials for any product candidates we may develop.
Our success is dependent upon our ability to initiate and successfully complete clinical trials and obtain regulatory approval for and commercialization of our product candidates. We have not demonstrated an ability to perform the functions necessary for the approval or successful commercialization of any product candidate. The successful commercialization of any product candidate may require us to perform a variety of functions, including:
● continuing to undertake preclinical development;
● designing and obtaining approval to commence clinical trials;
● successfully planning and enrolling subjects in clinical trials;
● participating in regulatory approval processes;
● formulating and manufacturing products; and
● conducting sales and marketing activities
While we have assembled a team with extensive experience in the discovery, development, and commercialization of oncology drugs to support our mission of developing novel synthetic lethality-based cancer therapeutics, we have limited experience designing, conducting and enrolling subjects in clinical trials. While certain members of our management and staff have significant experience in conducting clinical trials, to date, we have not completed any clinical trials as a company. Our operations to date provide a limited basis to assess our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates. In addition, with the current pause on further patient enrollment in both once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches, we may be unable to advance development of ATRN-119 for monotherapy in a timely manner, if at all.
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Because of this lack of experience, any future clinical trials we may conduct may not be completed on time, if at all. Large-scale trials require significant financial and management resources, monitoring and oversight, and may require reliance on third-party clinical investigators, consultants or contract research organizations, or CROs. Relying on third-party clinical investigators, CROs and manufacturers, which are all also subject to governmental oversight and regulations, may also cause us to encounter delays that are outside of our control. Failure to commence or complete, or delays in, clinical trials, could prevent us from or delay us in commercializing our product candidates.
We may find it difficult to enroll patients in our clinical trials. If we experience delays or difficulties in the enrollment of patients in clinical trials, our receipt of necessary marketing approvals could be delayed or prevented.
We may not be able to initiate or continue clinical trials for our product candidates if we are unable to locate and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials as required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Patient enrollment is a significant factor in the timing of clinical trials and our ability to enroll eligible patients and maintain their enrollment may be limited or may result in slower enrollment than we anticipate.
Patient enrollment may be affected if our competitors have ongoing clinical trials for product candidates that are under development for the same indications as our product candidates, and patients who would otherwise be eligible for our clinical trials instead enroll in clinical trials of our competitors’ product candidates. Patient enrollment may also be affected by other factors, including:
● size and nature of the patient population;
● severity of the disease under investigation;
● patient eligibility criteria for the trial in question;
● competing clinical trials or compassionate use programs;
● efforts to facilitate timely enrollment in clinical trials;
● physicians’ attitudes and practices with respect to clinical trial enrollment;
● the ability to monitor patients adequately during and after treatment;
● proximity and availability of clinical trial sites for prospective patients;
● continued enrollment of prospective patients by clinical trial sites; and
Our inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials and maintain their enrollment 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 for our product candidates, which would cause the value of our company to decline and limit our ability to obtain additional financing.
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Leveraging synthetic lethality in therapeutic targeting of DDR represents an emerging strategy to treat a broad spectrum of cancers, and negative perceptions of the efficacy, safety, or tolerability of this class of targets, including any that we develop, could adversely affect our ability to conduct our business, advance our product candidates or obtain regulatory approvals.
Aside from PARP inhibitors, such as Lynparza, Rubraca, Zejula and Talzenna, no synthetic lethality small molecule inhibitor therapeutics have been approved to date by the FDA. Pamiparib, a PARP inhibitor developed by Beigene, was approved in 2021 in China. Adverse events in future clinical trials of our product candidates or in clinical trials of other similar products and the resulting publicity, as well as any other adverse events in the field of synthetic lethality and DDR, or any adverse events involving other products that are perceived to be similar to DDR, such as those related to gene therapy or gene editing, could result in a decrease in the perceived benefit of one or more of our programs, increased regulatory scrutiny, decreased confidence by healthcare professionals, patients and CROs in our product candidates, difficulties and delays in regulatory clearance or approval for, enrollment of patients in, and conduct of, our clinical trials, and less demand for any product that we may develop. Our pipeline of product candidates could experience a greater quantity of reportable adverse events or other reportable negative clinical outcomes, manufacturing reportable events or material clinical events that could lead to clinical delays or holds by the FDA or applicable regulatory authority or other clinical delays, any of which could negatively impact the perception of one or more of our product development programs, as well as our business as a whole.
In addition, responses by U.S. federal or foreign governments to adverse events or negative public perception may result in new legislation or regulations that could limit our ability to develop any product candidates or commercialize any approved products, obtain or maintain regulatory approval, or otherwise achieve profitability. More restrictive statutory regimes, government regulations, or negative public opinion would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects, and may delay or impair the development of our product candidates and commercialization of any approved products or demand for any products we may develop.
If serious adverse or unacceptable side effects are identified during the development of our product candidates or we observe limited efficacy of our product candidates, we may need to abandon or limit the development of one or more of our product candidates.
Adverse events or unacceptable side effects caused by, or other unexpected properties of, our product candidates could cause us, any future collaborators, an institutional review board, or IRB, ethics committee, or EC, or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials of one or more of our product candidates and could result in the (i) delay or denial of marketing approval by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, (ii) approval with significant restrictions on distribution or use or (iii) required labeling information regarding safety concerns, if approved.
In general, our clinical trials of APR-1051 and ATRN-119 will or currently include cancer patients who are very sick and whose health is deteriorating. We expect that patients may experience adverse events, serious adverse events or may die during their participation in our current or future clinical trials for APR-1051 and ATRN-119 or other product candidates. We cannot predict with certainty what adverse events may occur in our clinical trials. Any adverse events, serious adverse events, or deaths occurring in our clinical trials, whether related to our product candidates or not, could affect perceptions relating to our product candidates. In addition, our previous clinical trials of eprenetapopt included cancer patients who were very sick and whose health was deteriorating, and we expect that additional clinical trials of eprenetapopt and our other product candidates would include similar patients with deteriorating health. Multiple patients in these trials have experienced adverse events. The most commonly reported adverse events include nausea, vomiting, constipation, dizziness, fatigue, and neutropenia. Some patients in these trials have experienced serious adverse events. The most common serious adverse events include febrile neutropenia, pneumonia, sepsis, and pyrexia.
In addition, if any of our product candidates are associated with adverse events or undesirable side effects or have properties that are unexpected, our trials could be suspended or terminated and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development of or deny approval of our product candidates for any or all targeted indications. We, or any future collaborators, may abandon development or limit development of that product candidate to certain 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. Drug-related side effects could affect patient
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recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the trial or result in potential product liability claims. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects significantly.
The outcome of preclinical testing and early clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later clinical trials, interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results, and the results of our clinical trials may not satisfy the requirements of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities.
We currently have no drugs approved for sale and we cannot guarantee that we will ever have marketable drugs. Clinical failure can occur at any stage of clinical development. Clinical trials may produce negative or inconclusive results, and we or any future collaborators may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical trials or preclinical studies. Additionally, with the current pause on further patient enrollment in both once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches, we may be unable to advance development of ATRN-119 for monotherapy in a timely manner, if at all. We will be required to demonstrate with substantial evidence through adequate and well-controlled clinical trials that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in treating specific conditions in order to obtain marketing approvals for their commercial sale. Success in preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials does not mean that future larger registration clinical trials will be successful because product candidates in later-stage clinical trials may fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA and non-U.S. regulatory authorities despite having progressed through preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials. Product candidates that have shown promising results in preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may still suffer significant setbacks in subsequent later-stage clinical trials. Additionally, the outcome of preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later-stage clinical trials. Further, in our oncology clinical trials to date, we have used achievement of stable disease as evidence for disease control (stable disease, partial response or complete response) by our product candidates; however, the FDA does not view stable disease as an objective response for the purposes of FDA approval. If we fail to receive positive results in clinical trials of our product candidates, the development timeline and regulatory approval and commercialization prospects for our most advanced product candidates, and, correspondingly, our business and financial prospects would be negatively impacted.
From time to time, we may publish or report interim or preliminary data from our clinical trials. Interim or preliminary data from clinical trials that we may conduct may not be indicative of the final results of the trial and are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. Interim or preliminary data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the interim or preliminary data. As a result, interim or preliminary data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available.
In addition, the design of a clinical trial can determine whether its results will support approval of a drug and flaws in the design of a clinical trial may not become apparent until the clinical trial is well advanced. We have limited experience in designing clinical trials and may be unable to design and conduct a clinical trial to support marketing approval. Further, if our product candidates are found to be unsafe or lack efficacy, we will not be able to obtain marketing approval for them and our business would be harmed. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including those with greater resources and experience than us, have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials, even after obtaining promising results in preclinical studies and earlier clinical trials.
In some instances, there can be significant variability in safety and efficacy results between different clinical trials of the same product candidate due to numerous factors, including changes in trial protocols, differences in size and type of the patient populations, differences in and adherence to the dosing regimen and other trial protocols and the rate of dropout among clinical trial participants. We do not know whether any clinical trials we may conduct will demonstrate consistent or adequate efficacy and safety sufficient to obtain marketing approval to market our product candidates.
In addition, in the event that a safety issue, clinical hold, or other adverse finding occurs in one of our clinical trials, that event could adversely affect any other clinical trials for the same product candidate. Moreover, there is a relatively limited safety data set for product candidates with the same mechanism of action as APR-1051, ATRN-119 or our other product candidates. An adverse safety issue or other adverse finding in a clinical trial conducted by a third party with a
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similar mechanism of action could adversely affect clinical trials involving APR-1051, ATRN-119 or our other product candidates.
Further, our product candidates may not be approved even if they achieve their primary endpoints in clinical trials, including registration trials. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our trial design and our interpretation of data from preclinical studies and clinical trials. In addition, any of these regulatory authorities may change requirements for the approval of a product candidate even after reviewing and providing comments or advice on a protocol for a pivotal clinical trial that has the potential to result in approval by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. In addition, any of these regulatory authorities may also approve a product candidate for fewer or more limited indications than we request or may grant approval contingent on the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials. In addition, the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may not approve the labeling claims that we believe would be necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of our product candidates.
Before obtaining marketing approvals for the commercial sale of any product candidate for a target indication, we must demonstrate with substantial evidence gathered in preclinical studies and adequate and well-controlled clinical trials, and, with respect to approval in the United States, to the satisfaction of the FDA and elsewhere to the satisfaction of other comparable foreign regulatory authorities, that the product candidate is safe and effective for use for that target indication. There is no assurance that the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities will consider our future clinical trials to be sufficient to serve as the basis for approval of one of our product candidates for any indication. The FDA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities retain broad discretion in evaluating the results of our clinical trials and in determining whether the results demonstrate that a product candidate is safe and effective. If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials of a product candidate than we expect prior to its approval, we will need substantial additional funds and there is no assurance that the results of any such additional clinical trials will be sufficient for approval.
Clinical drug development is a lengthy and expensive process, with an uncertain outcome. If clinical trials of our product candidates fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of regulatory authorities or do not otherwise produce positive results, we may incur additional costs, experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete, the development of our product candidates or be unable to obtain marketing approval.
Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our product candidates, we must complete preclinical development and then conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our product candidates. Clinical testing is expensive, difficult to design and implement, can take many years to complete and
is uncertain as to outcome. A failure of one or more clinical trials can occur at any stage of testing. The outcome of preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later clinical trials, and interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. Additionally, with the current pause on further patient enrollment in both once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches, we may be unable to advance development of ATRN-119 for monotherapy in a timely manner, if at all.
Moreover, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their drugs.
We do not know whether ongoing clinical trials will be completed on schedule or at all, or whether future clinical trials will begin on time, need to be redesigned, enroll patients on time or be completed on schedule, if at all. Clinical trials can be delayed for a variety of reasons, including delays related to:
● obtaining regulatory authorization to commence a trial;
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● recruiting suitable patients to participate in a trial;
● deviations from approved clinical trial protocols that may occur;
● addressing any conflicts with new or existing laws or regulations;
● the need to add new clinical trial sites;
We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates, including:
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If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials or other testing of our product candidates beyond those that we currently contemplate, if we are unable to successfully complete clinical trials of our product candidates or other testing, if the results of these trials or tests are not positive or are insufficiently positive to support marketing approval, or if there are safety concerns, we may:
● incur unplanned costs;
● obtain marketing approval in some countries and not in others;
● be subject to additional post-marketing testing requirements; or
● have the drug removed from the market after obtaining marketing approval.
Our drug development costs will also increase if we experience delays in testing or marketing approvals. We do not know whether clinical trials will begin as planned, will need to be restructured or will be completed on schedule, or at all. Furthermore, we rely on third-party CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure the proper and timely conduct of our clinical trials, and while we have agreements governing their committed activities, we have limited influence over their actual performance. Significant clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our product candidates or allow our competitors to bring drugs to market before we do and impair our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.
We may expend our limited resources to pursue a particular product candidate or indication and fail to capitalize on product 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 product candidates that we identify for specific indications. As a result, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other product 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 drugs or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future research and development programs and product candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable drugs. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular product candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that product candidate through collaboration, licensing or other strategic arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights to such product candidate.
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If we are required to in the future and if we are unable to successfully develop companion diagnostic tests for our product candidates that require such tests, or experience significant delays in doing so, we may not realize the full commercial potential of these product candidates.
We may be required by the FDA to develop, either by ourselves or with collaborators, companion diagnostic tests for our product candidates for certain indications. To be successful, we or our collaborators will need to address a number of scientific, technical, regulatory and logistical challenges. We have no prior experience with medical device or diagnostic test development. If we choose to develop and seek FDA approval for companion diagnostic tests on our own, we will require additional personnel. We may rely on third parties for the design, development and manufacture of companion diagnostic tests for our therapeutic product candidates that require such tests. If these parties are unable to successfully develop companion diagnostics for these therapeutic product candidates, or experience delays in doing so, we may be unable to enroll enough patients for our current and planned clinical trials, the development of these therapeutic product candidates may be adversely affected, these therapeutic product candidates may not obtain marketing approval, and we may not realize the full commercial potential of any of these therapeutics that obtain marketing approval. Any failure to successfully develop this companion diagnostic may cause or contribute to delayed enrollment of this trial, and may prevent us from initiating or completing further clinical trials to support marketing approval for our product candidates. As a result, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially harmed.
We may not be successful in our efforts to identify or discover additional potential product candidates.
Our research programs may initially show promise in identifying potential product candidates, yet fail to yield product candidates for clinical development for a number of reasons, including:
Research programs to identify new product candidates require substantial technical, financial and human resources. If we are unable to identify suitable compounds for preclinical and clinical development, our business would be harmed.
If any of our product candidates receives marketing approval and we, or others, later discover that the drug is less safe or effective than previously believed or causes undesirable side effects that were not previously identified, our ability, or that of any future collaborators, to market the drug could be compromised.
Clinical trials of our product candidates must be conducted in carefully defined subsets of patients who have agreed to enter into clinical trials. Consequently, it is possible that our clinical trials, or those of any future collaborator, may indicate an apparent positive effect of a product candidate that is greater than the actual positive effect, if any, or alternatively fail to identify undesirable side effects. If one or more of our product candidates receives marketing approval and we, or others, discover that the drug is less safe or effective than previously believed or causes undesirable side effects that were not previously identified, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:
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● the drug may become less competitive in the marketplace; and
● our reputation may suffer.
Any of these events could have a material and adverse effect on our operations and business and could adversely impact our stock price.
Even if any of our product candidates receive marketing approval, they may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, healthcare payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.
If any of our product candidates receive marketing approval, they may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, healthcare payors and others in the medical community. For example, current cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy are well-established in the medical community, and doctors may continue to rely on these treatments. If our product candidates do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant revenues from sales of drugs and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including:
● the efficacy and safety of the product;
● the potential advantages of the product compared to alternative therapies;
● the prevalence and severity of any side effects;
● the strength of sales, marketing and distribution support;
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We face substantial competition, which may result in others discovering, developing or commercializing products before or more successfully than we do.
The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries generally, and the cancer drug sector specifically, are highly competitive and characterized by rapidly advancing technologies, evolving understanding of disease etiology and a strong emphasis on proprietary new drugs. We face competition with respect to APR-1051, ATRN-119 and our other product candidates, and will face competition with respect to any product candidates that we may seek to discover and develop or commercialize in the future, from major pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. There are a number of major pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that currently market and sell drugs or are pursuing the development of drugs for the treatment of cancer. Potential competitors also include academic institutions and governmental agencies and public and private research institutions.
There are a large number of companies developing or marketing treatments for cancer, including the indications for which we may develop product candidates. Many of the companies that we compete or may compete against in the future have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approved drugs than we do. Small or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or that may be necessary for, our programs.
Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize drugs that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any drugs that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory approval for their drugs more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. The key competitive factors affecting the success of all of our product candidates, if approved, are likely to be their efficacy, safety, convenience, price, the effectiveness of companion diagnostics in guiding the use of related therapeutics, the level of generic competition and the availability of reimbursement from government and other third-party payors.
There are a variety of available drug therapies marketed for cancer. In many cases, these drugs are administered in combination to enhance efficacy. Some of the currently-approved drug therapies are branded and subject to patent protection and may be established as the standard of care for treatment of indications for which we may choose to seek regulatory approvals. Many of these approved drugs are well-established therapies and are widely accepted by physicians, patients and third-party payors, and, even if our product candidates were to be approved, there can be no assurance that our product candidates would displace existing treatments. In addition to currently marketed therapies, there are also a number of drugs in late-stage clinical development to treat cancer, including the indications for which we are developing product candidates. These clinical-stage product candidates may provide efficacy, safety, tolerability, convenience and other benefits that are not provided by currently-marketed therapies. As a result, they may provide significant competition for any of our product candidates for which we obtain regulatory approval.
We are developing APR-1051, which is an orally bioavailable small molecule inhibitor of WEE1, a key regulator of multiple phases of the cell cycle. We are aware of other product candidates that are in preclinical and clinical development for the treatment of various cancers through similar mechanisms of action, including product candidates developed by Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, Debiopharm, IMPACT Therapeutics, Schrodinger and Acrivon Therapeutics, among others. If APR-1051 were to be approved, it will compete with currently marketed drugs or drugs that may be approved for marketing by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities in the future and such competition will not be limited to drugs with similar mechanisms of action.
We are also developing ATRN-119 which is an orally bioavailable small molecule product candidate that targets Ataxia ATR protein within the DNA damage response pathway. We are aware of other product candidates that are in clinical development for the treatment of various cancers through similar mechanisms of action, including product candidates in clinical development being tested by Artios Pharma Ltd., AstraZeneca Plc, Bayer AG, IMPACT Therapeutics, Inc., and Xeno Therapeutics (formerly Repare Therapeutics, Inc.), among others. If ATRN-119 were to be approved, it will
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compete with currently marketed drugs or drugs that may be approved for marketing by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities in the future and such competition will not be limited to drugs with similar mechanisms of action. With the current pause on further patient enrollment in both once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches, we may be unable to advance development of ATRN-119 for monotherapy in a timely manner, if at all.
Our business and operations would suffer in the event of IT system failures, cybersecurity attacks, data breaches, or vulnerabilities in our or our third-party vendors’ information security program or defenses.
Our business relies upon information technology systems operated by us and by our third party service providers. These systems may fail or experience operational disruption, experience cybersecurity attacks, or be damaged by computer viruses and unauthorized access. In the ordinary course of business, we collect, store and transmit confidential information (including but not limited to intellectual property, proprietary business information and personal information). It is critical that we do so in a secure manner to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of such confidential information. We have developed, and continue to mature our policies and procedures to ensure the security and integrity of our information technology systems and confidential and proprietary information. If we do not continue to mature our cybersecurity defensive technological safeguards, policies and procedures or those safeguards, policies and procedures are insufficient to ensure the protection of our information technology systems and confidential and proprietary information, we may be vulnerable to security breaches or disruptions and system breakdowns or other damage or interruptions, and face legal and reputational risk. We also have outsourced elements of our operations to third parties, and as a result we manage a number of third-party vendors and other contractors and consultants who have access to or store our confidential information. While we endeavor to select providers with reasonable and industry standard information security programs, we are reliant on these third-party vendors’ commitments regarding their information technology systems and cybersecurity programs. If our third-party vendors fail to protect their information technology systems and our confidential and proprietary information, we may be vulnerable to disruptions in service and unauthorized access to our confidential or proprietary information and we could incur liability and reputational damage and the further development and commercialization of our product candidates could be delayed. While we have not, to our knowledge, experienced any material IT system failures or cybersecurity attacks to date, we frequently must defend against and respond to cybersecurity incidents and attacks and cannot assure you that our data protection efforts and our investment in information technology will prevent significant breakdowns, data leakages, compromises of personal information or confidential commercial information, other operationally significant breaches in our systems or those of our third-party vendors and other contractors and consultants, or other cyber incidents that could have a material adverse effect upon our reputation, business, operations or financial condition. If such an event were to occur and cause interruptions in our operations, it could result in a material disruption of our development programs, business operations, a breach of sensitive personal information or a loss or corruption of critical data assets including trade secrets or other proprietary information. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from future clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. Such IT system failures, cybersecurity attacks or vulnerabilities to our or our third-party vendors’ information security programs or defenses could result in legal liability, reputational damage, business interruption, and our competitive position could be harmed and the further development and commercialization of our products or any future products could be delayed or disrupted. Moreover, containing and remediating any IT system failure, cybersecurity attack or vulnerability may require significant investment of resources. Furthermore, significant security breaches or disruptions of our internal information technology systems or those of our third-party vendors and other contractors and consultants could result in the loss, misappropriation and/or unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of, or the prevention of access to, confidential information (including trade secrets or other intellectual property, proprietary business information and personal information), which could result in financial, legal, business and reputational harm to us.
If, in the future, we are unable to establish sales and marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to sell and market our product candidates, we may not be successful in commercializing our product candidates if and when they are approved.
We do not have a sales or marketing infrastructure and have no experience in the sale or marketing of pharmaceutical drugs. We are not currently a party to a strategic collaboration that provides us with access to a collaborator’s resources
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in selling or marketing drugs. To achieve commercial success for any approved drug for which sales and marketing is not the responsibility of any strategic collaborator that we may have in the future, we must either develop a sales and marketing organization or outsource these functions to other third parties. In the future, we may choose to build a sales and marketing infrastructure to market or co-promote some of our product candidates if and when they are approved, or enter into collaborations with respect to the sale and marketing of our product candidates.
There are risks involved with both establishing our own sales and marketing capabilities and entering into arrangements with third parties to perform these services. For example, recruiting and training a sales force is expensive and time-consuming and could delay any commercial launch of a product candidate. If the commercial launch of a product 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. This may 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 product candidates on our own include:
If we enter into arrangements with third parties to perform sales and marketing services, our revenues from the sale of drugs or the profitability of these revenues to us are likely to be lower than if we were to market and sell any drugs that we develop ourselves. In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to sell and market our product candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. Third parties may also fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our product candidates effectively and we may not have sufficient control or oversight over third parties to ensure they sell and market our product candidates in compliance with all applicable law. 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 our product candidates.
If the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities approve generic versions of any of our product candidates that receive marketing approval, or such authorities do not grant our product candidates appropriate periods of data or market exclusivity before approving generic versions of our product candidates, the sales of our product candidates could be adversely affected.
Once an NDA is approved, the drug covered thereby becomes a “reference-listed drug” in the FDA’s publication, “Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations,” known as the “Orange Book.” Manufacturers may seek marketing approval of generic versions of reference-listed drugs through submission of abbreviated new drug applications, or ANDAs, in the United States. In support of an ANDA, a generic manufacturer need not conduct clinical trials demonstrating safety and efficacy. Rather, the applicant generally must show that its drug is pharmaceutically equivalent to the reference listed drug, in that it has the same active ingredient(s), dosage form, strength, route of administration and conditions of use or labeling as the reference-listed drug, and that the generic version is bioequivalent to the reference-listed drug, meaning it is absorbed in the body at the same rate and to the same extent. Generic drugs may be significantly less costly to bring to market than the reference-listed drug and companies that produce generic
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drugs are generally able to offer them at lower prices. Thus, following the introduction of a generic drug, a significant percentage of the sales of any branded product or reference-listed drug is typically lost to the generic drug.
The FDA may not approve an ANDA for a generic drug until any applicable period of non-patent regulatory exclusivity for the reference-listed drug has expired. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA, provides a period of five years of data exclusivity for a new drug containing a new chemical entity, or NCE. During the data exclusivity period, the FDA may not accept for review an ANDA or a 505(b)(2) NDA submitted by another company for another version of such product candidate where the applicant does not own or have a legal right of reference to all the data required for approval. However, an application may be submitted after four years if it contains a certification of patent invalidity or non-infringement. The FDCA also provides three years of marketing exclusivity for an NDA, 505(b)(2) NDA or supplement to an approved NDA if new clinical investigations, other than bioavailability studies, that were conducted or sponsored by the applicant are deemed by the FDA to be essential to the approval of the application, for example, for new indications, dosages or strengths of an existing product candidate. This three-year marketing exclusivity covers only the conditions associated with the new clinical investigations and does not prohibit the FDA from approving ANDAs for product candidates containing the original active agent for other conditions of use. Five-year data exclusivity and three-year marketing exclusivity will not delay the submission or approval of a full NDA. However, an applicant submitting a full NDA would be required to conduct or obtain a right of reference to all of the nonclinical studies and adequate and well-controlled clinical trials necessary to demonstrate safety and effectiveness. Manufacturers may seek to launch these generic drugs following the expiration of the marketing exclusivity period, even if we still have patent protection for our drug competition that our product candidates may face from generic versions of our product candidates could materially and adversely impact our future revenue, profitability and cash flows and substantially limit our ability to obtain a return on the investments we have made in those product candidates. Our future revenues, profitability and cash flows could also be materially and adversely affected and our ability to obtain a return on the investments we have made in those product candidates may be substantially limited if our product candidates, if and when approved, are not afforded the appropriate periods of non-patent exclusivity.
Even if we obtain regulatory approval of any product candidate, the approved product may be subject to post-approval studies and will remain subject to ongoing regulatory requirements. If we fail to comply, or if concerns are identified in subsequent studies, our approval could be withdrawn, and our product sales could be suspended.
If we are successful at obtaining regulatory approval for APR-1051, ATRN-119, or any of our other product candidates, regulatory agencies in the United States and other countries where a product will be sold may require extensive additional clinical trials or post-approval clinical trials that are expensive and time-consuming to conduct. With the current pause on further patient enrollment in both once daily and twice daily monotherapy dosing arms of ABOYA-119 and the orderly wind-down of certain clinical trial site activities associated with the monotherapy arms as we explore ATTN-119 in potential combination approaches, we may be unable to advance development of ATRN-119 for monotherapy in a timely manner, if at all. These trials may reveal side effects or other harmful effects in patients that use our products after they are on the market, which may result in the limitation or withdrawal of our drugs from the market. Alternatively, we may not be able to conduct such additional trials, which might force us to abandon our efforts to develop or commercialize certain product candidates. Even if post-approval studies are not requested or required, after our products are approved and on the market, there might be safety issues that emerge over time that require a change in product labeling, additional post-market studies or clinical trials, imposition of distribution and use restrictions under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS, or withdrawal of the product from the market, which would cause our revenue to decline.
Additionally, any products that we may successfully develop will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements after they are approved. These requirements will govern the manufacturing, packaging, marketing, distribution, and use of our products. If we fail to comply with such regulatory requirements, approval for our products may be withdrawn, and product sales may be suspended. We may not be able to regain compliance, or we may only be able to regain compliance after a lengthy delay, significant expense, lost revenues and damage to our reputation.
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Even if we are able to commercialize any product candidate, such product candidate may become subject to unfavorable pricing regulations, third-party coverage and reimbursement policies or healthcare reform initiatives, which could harm our business.
The regulations that govern marketing approval, pricing, coverage and reimbursement for new drugs vary widely from country to country. 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 approval is granted. 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 product 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 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 product candidates, even if our product candidates obtain marketing approval.
Our ability to commercialize any products successfully also will depend in part on the extent to which reimbursement and coverage for these products and related treatments will be available from government authorities, private health insurers and other organizations, and if reimbursement and coverage is available, the level of reimbursement and coverage. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. A primary trend in the healthcare industry in the United States 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, the third-party payors who reimburse patients or healthcare providers, such as government and private insurance plans, are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices, and are seeking to reduce the prices charged or the amounts reimbursed for medical products. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for any drug that we commercialize and, if coverage and reimbursement are available, we cannot be sure as to the level of reimbursement. Reimbursement may impact the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval. If reimbursement is not available or is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval.
There may be significant delays in obtaining reimbursement for newly approved drugs, and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the drug is approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Moreover, eligibility for reimbursement does not imply that any drug will be reimbursed in all cases or at a rate that covers our costs, including research, development, manufacture, sale and distribution. 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, may be incorporated into existing payments for other items or services and may reflect budgetary constraints or imperfections in Medicare data. 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 rates. Our inability to promptly obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement rates from both government-funded and private payors for new products that we develop and for which we obtain marketing approval could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, our ability to raise capital needed to commercialize products and our overall financial condition.
Product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and to limit commercialization of any drugs that we may develop. Our insurance policies may be inadequate and may potentially expose us to unrecoverable risk.
We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our product candidates in clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if we commercially sell any drugs that we may develop. If we cannot successfully defend
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ourselves against claims that our product candidates or drugs caused injuries, we will incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:
● decreased demand for any product candidates or drugs that we may develop;
● injury to our reputation and significant negative media attention;
● withdrawal of clinical trial participants;
● significant costs to defend the related litigation;
● substantial monetary awards to trial participants or patients;
● loss of revenue;
● reduced resources of our management to pursue our business strategy; and
● the inability to commercialize any drugs that we may develop.
We currently hold clinical trial liability insurance coverage for up to $5.0 million, but that coverage may not be adequate to cover any and all liabilities that we may incur. We would need to increase our insurance coverage when we begin the commercialization of our product candidates, if ever. 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.
Governments outside of the United States tend to impose strict price controls, which may adversely affect our revenues from the sales of our products, if any.
In some countries, particularly member states of the EU, the pricing of prescription pharmaceuticals is subject to governmental control. In these countries, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after the receipt of marketing approval for a product. In addition, there can be considerable pressure by governments and other stakeholders on prices and reimbursement levels, including as part of cost containment measures. Political, economic and regulatory developments may further complicate pricing negotiations, and pricing negotiations may continue after reimbursement has been obtained. Reference pricing used by various EU member states and parallel distribution, or arbitrage between low-priced and high-priced member states, can further reduce prices. In some countries, we, or our future collaborators, may be required to conduct a clinical trial or other studies that compare the cost-effectiveness of our product candidates to other available therapies in order to obtain or maintain reimbursement or pricing approval. Publication of discounts by third-party payors or authorities may lead to further pressure on the prices or reimbursement levels within the country of publication and other countries. If reimbursement of any product candidate approved for marketing is unavailable or limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at unsatisfactory levels, our business could be materially harmed.
The reactivation of p53 is a novel and unproven therapeutic approach and our development of eprenetapopt may never lead to a marketable product.
We believe that mutant p53 still has the potential to be an attractive target for novel cancer therapy due to the high incidence of p53 mutations across a range of cancer types and the universally inferior prognosis for cancer patients with mutated p53. However, to our knowledge, no one has advanced a product candidate with this mechanism of action into the market. The scientific evidence to support the feasibility of developing these product candidates is both preliminary and limited. For instance, even though eprenetapopt has shown promising results in preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials, we may not succeed in demonstrating safety and efficacy of eprenetapopt in larger-scale clinical trials. In December 2020, we announced that our pivotal Phase 3 trial failed to meet its predefined primary endpoint of complete remission (CR) rate. On August 4, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) placed a partial clinical hold on the clinical trials of eprenetapopt in combination with azacitidine in our myeloid malignancy programs. On August 11,
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2021, the FDA placed a clinical hold on our clinical trial evaluating eprenetapopt with acalabrutinib or with venetoclax and rituximab in lymphoid malignancies. In the first quarter of 2022, FDA notified us that it would continue the partial clinical hold on three ongoing clinical studies in our myeloid program. However, we received clearance from FDA to proceed under our existing IND with a new trial in R/R MDS and AML.
Given these results, FDA feedback and the costs of continuing the p53 reactivator development programs, we have shifted our primary focus of our activities to the discovery and development of molecules targeting DDR pathways in oncology through synthetic lethality. Advancing eprenetapopt as a novel product to reactivate p53 creates significant challenges for us, including:
Risks related to our dependence on third parties
We rely on third parties to conduct our clinical trials and some aspects of our research and preclinical studies, and those third parties may not perform satisfactorily, including failing to conduct their operations in compliance with regulatory requirements or to meet deadlines for the completion of such trials, research and studies.
We currently rely on third parties, such as CROs, clinical data management organizations, medical institutions and clinical investigators, to conduct our clinical trials and expect to continue to rely upon third parties to conduct additional clinical trials. We currently rely and expect to continue to rely on third parties to conduct some aspects of our research and preclinical studies. Any of these third parties may terminate their engagements with us at any time. If we need to enter into alternative arrangements, it would delay our drug development activities.
Our reliance on these third parties for research and development activities will reduce our control over these activities but will not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. For example, we will remain responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the general investigational plan, study protocols for the trial, statistical analysis plan and other study-specific documents (for example, monitoring and blinding plans). Moreover, the FDA requires us to comply with standards, commonly referred to as GCP, International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, or ICH, guidelines, and regulations regarding the informed consent process, safety reporting requirements, data collection guidelines, and other regulations for conducting, recording and reporting the results of clinical trials to assure that data and reported results are credible and accurate and that the rights, integrity and confidentiality of trial participants are protected. The EMA, also requires us to comply with similar standards. Regulatory authorities enforce these GCP requirements through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we or any of our CROs fail to comply with applicable GCP requirements, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA, EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional 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 clinical trials comply with GCP and other applicable regulations. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with product produced under current Good Manufacturing Practices, or cGMP, regulations. Our failure to comply with these regulations may require us to conduct new clinical trials, which would delay the marketing approval process. We also are required to register certain ongoing clinical trials and post the results of certain completed clinical trials on a government-sponsored database, ClinicalTrials.gov, within certain timeframes. Failure to do so can result in fines, adverse publicity and civil and criminal sanctions.
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Furthermore, these third parties may also have relationships with other entities, some of which may be our competitors. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines or conduct our clinical trials in accordance with regulatory requirements or our stated protocols, we will not be able to obtain, or may be delayed in obtaining, marketing approvals for our product candidates and will not be able to, or may be delayed in our efforts to, successfully commercialize our product candidates.
We also expect to rely on other third parties to store and distribute drug supplies for our clinical trials. Any performance failure on the part of such third parties could delay clinical development or marketing approval of our product candidates or commercialization of our product candidates, producing additional losses and depriving us of potential revenue from sales of drugs.
Although we currently plan to retain all commercial rights to our product candidates, we may enter into strategic collaborations for the development, marketing and commercialization of our product candidates. If those collaborations are not successful, the development, marketing and/or commercialization of our product candidates that are the subject of such collaborations would be harmed.
As we further develop our product candidates, we may build a commercial infrastructure with the capability to directly market it to a variety of markets and geographies. Although we currently plan to retain all commercial rights to our product candidates, we may enter into strategic collaborations for the development, marketing and commercialization of our product candidates. Our likely collaborators for any collaboration arrangements include large and mid-size pharmaceutical companies, regional and national pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies. If we do enter into any such arrangements with any third parties, we will likely have limited control over the amount and timing of resources that our collaborators dedicate to the development, marketing and/or commercialization of our product candidates. Our ability to generate revenues from these arrangements will depend on our collaborators’ abilities to successfully perform the functions assigned to them in these arrangements. In addition, any future collaborators may have the right to abandon research or development projects and terminate applicable agreements, including funding obligations, prior to or upon the expiration of the agreed upon terms.
Collaborations involving our product candidates would pose the following risks to us:
● collaborators may not perform their obligations as expected;
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Collaboration agreements may not lead to development or commercialization of product candidates in the most efficient manner, or at all.
We are currently dependent on a single third party manufacturer for the manufacture of the active pharmaceutical ingredient for our product candidates. This reliance on a single third party increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our product candidates or drugs or such quantities at an acceptable cost, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.
We do not have any manufacturing facilities or personnel, and we currently have no plans to build our own clinical or commercial scale manufacturing capabilities. We currently contract with third parties for the manufacture of our product candidates for certain preclinical trials and clinical trial materials, including raw materials and consumables necessary for their manufacture, consistent with applicable cGMP requirements. We intend to continue to contract for these materials in the future, including commercial manufacture if our product candidates receive marketing approval.
The API and drug product for our product candidates is currently manufactured by a single contract manufacturer. Although we may do so in the future, we do not currently have arrangements in place for redundant supply of the API and drug product for our product candidates.
We expect to rely on third-party manufacturers or third-party collaborators for the manufacture of our product candidates for commercial supply of any of our product candidates for which we or any of our future collaborators obtain marketing approval. We may be unable to establish any agreements with third-party manufacturers or to do so on acceptable terms. Even if we are able to establish agreements with third-party manufacturers, reliance on third-party manufacturers entails additional risks, including:
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The facilities used by our contract manufacturers to manufacture our product candidates must be approved by the FDA or the EMA pursuant to inspections that will be conducted after we submit our NDA to the FDA or our MAA to the EMA. We do not have complete control over all aspects of the manufacturing process of, and are dependent on, our contract manufacturing partners for compliance with cGMP regulations for manufacturing both active drug substances and finished drug products. Third-party manufacturers may not be able to comply with cGMP regulations or similar regulatory requirements outside of the United States. If our contract manufacturers cannot successfully manufacture material that conforms to our specifications and the strict regulatory requirements of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory bodies, they will not be able to secure and/or maintain marketing approval for their manufacturing facilities. In addition, we do not have complete control over the ability of our contract manufacturers to maintain adequate quality control, quality assurance and qualified personnel. If the FDA, the EMA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority does not approve these facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates or if it withdraws any such approval in the future, we may need to find alternative manufacturing facilities, which would significantly impact our ability to develop, obtain marketing approval for or market our product candidates, if approved.
Our failure, or the failure of our third-party manufacturers, to comply with applicable regulations could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of product candidates or drugs, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect supplies of our product candidates and harm our business and results of operations.
Any drugs that we may develop may compete with other product candidates and drugs for access to manufacturing facilities. There are a limited number of manufacturers that operate under cGMP regulations and that might be capable of manufacturing for us.
Any performance failure on the part of our existing or future manufacturers could delay clinical development or marketing approval.
We do not currently have arrangements in place for redundant supply of the API of our product candidates. If our current contract manufacturer cannot perform as agreed, we may be required to replace that manufacturer. Although we believe that there are several potential alternative manufacturers who could manufacture our product candidates, we may incur added costs and delays in identifying and qualifying any such replacement.
Our current and anticipated future dependence upon others for the manufacture of our product candidates or drugs may adversely affect our future profit margins and our ability to commercialize any drugs that receive marketing approval on a timely and competitive basis.
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Risks related to our intellectual property
If we are unable to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for our product candidates or for our technology, our competitors could develop and commercialize products or technology similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize any product candidates we may develop, and our technology may be adversely affected.
Our commercial success will depend in large part on obtaining and maintaining patent, trademark and trade secret protection of our proprietary technologies and our product candidates, their respective components, formulations, methods used to manufacture them and methods of treatment, as well as successfully defending these patents against third-party challenges. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad relating to our product candidates as well as other technologies that are important to our business. Our ability to stop unauthorized third parties from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing our product candidates is dependent upon the extent to which we have rights under valid and enforceable patents or trade secrets that cover these activities.
The chemical structure of eprenetapopt is in the public domain. Accordingly, we do not own or license any composition of matter patents claiming the compound of eprenetapopt and will not in the future own or license any composition of matter patents claiming the chemical structure of eprenetapopt as described in the public domain. Our patent portfolio for eprenetapopt currently consists of method-of-use and formulation patent claims, and dosing, manufacturing processes, crystalline solid form, and combination therapy patent application claims. Our existing patents and any future patents we obtain may not be sufficiently broad to prevent others from using our technology or from developing competing products and technologies. Any failure to obtain or maintain patent protection with respect to eprenetapopt and our other product candidates could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. If it is later determined that our activities or product candidates infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the intellectual property of third parties we may be liable for damages, enhanced damages or subjected to an injunction, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our patent portfolio for our portfolio of DDR inhibitors, including our WEE1 and ATR programs, currently includes compositions of matter, pharmaceutical compositions, and methods of use patent claims. Our existing patents and any future patents we may obtain may not be sufficiently broad to prevent others from using our technology or from developing competing products and technologies. Any failure to obtain or maintain patent protection with respect to our portfolio of DDR inhibitors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. If it is later determined that our activities or product candidates infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the intellectual property of third parties we may be liable for damages, enhanced damages or subjected to an injunction, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
The patenting process is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. In addition, we may not pursue or obtain patent protection in all relevant markets. During the course of business, we have decided not to pursue certain products or processes and have not pursued certain corresponding intellectual property. However, we may decide to pursue such products or processes again in the future. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection.
The patent position of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies generally is highly uncertain and involves complex legal and factual questions for which many legal principles remain unresolved. In recent years patent rights have been the subject of significant litigation. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued in the United States or in other jurisdictions which protect our technology or products or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and products.
Our ability to obtain and maintain valid and enforceable patents depends on whether the differences between our inventions and the prior art, including our own previously filed patent applications and scientific publications, allow our inventions to be patentable over the prior art. We are aware of certain scientific publications by our inventors and other
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third parties that disclose subject matter relating to certain of our patents, that may be used by third parties to challenge the validity and enforceability of our patents and patent applications. If such third parties are successful, we could lose valuable patent rights. In the United States, an inventor’s own publication cannot be used as prior art to the inventor’s patent application on the same subject matter when published less than one year before the effective filing date of the patent application. Such a publication may be considered prior art in certain jurisdictions that do not provide such a grace period. Publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all. Therefore, we cannot be certain that we were the first to make the inventions claimed in our patents or pending patent applications, or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. In addition, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, might require that the term of a patent issuing from a pending patent application be disclaimed and limited to the term of another patent that is commonly owned or names a common inventor. Although we enter into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to confidential or patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, CROs, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors, and other third parties, certain of these parties have and others may in the future breach the agreements and disclose such output before a patent application is filed, thereby jeopardizing our ability to seek patent protection.
Moreover, the coverage claimed in a patent application can be significantly reduced before the patent is issued, and its scope can be reinterpreted after issuance. Even if our patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Our competitors may be able to circumvent our patents by developing similar or alternative technologies or products in a non-infringing manner.
The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and our patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Such challenges may result in the patent claims of our patents being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, which could limit our ability to stop or prevent us from stopping others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our technology and products. In addition, some of our owned patents and patent applications may in the future be co-owned with third parties. If we do not have exclusive control of the grant of licenses under any such third-party co-owners’ interest in such patents or patent applications or we are otherwise unable to secure such exclusive rights, such co-owners may be able to license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners of our co-owned patents in order to enforce such patents against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us.
Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, which may be extended due to epidemic or pandemic disease outbreaks, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours or otherwise provide us with a competitive advantage. Upon the expiration of our current patents, we may lose the right to exclude others from practicing these inventions based on patent exclusivity. The expiration of these patents could also have a similar material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.
Our proprietary position for eprenetapopt depends upon patents that consist of formulation patent claims, which may not prevent a competitor or other third party from using the same product candidate for another use or in another formulation.
Composition-of-matter patent claims on the active pharmaceutical ingredient, or API, in pharmaceutical drug products are generally considered to be the favored form of intellectual property protection for drug products because such patents may provide protection without regard to any particular method of use or manufacture or formulation of the API used. The chemical structure of eprenetapopt is in the public domain. Accordingly, we do not own or license any composition of matter patents claiming the compound of eprenetapopt and will not in the future own or license any composition of matter patents claiming the chemical structure of eprenetapopt as described in the public domain.
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Method-of-use patent claims protect the use of a product for the specified method and dosing or formulation patent claims cover dosing regimens or formulations of the API. These types of patent claims do not prevent a competitor or other third party from marketing an identical API for an indication that is outside the scope of the method claims or from developing a different dosing regimen or formulation that is outside the scope of the dosing or formulation claims. Moreover, with respect to method-of-use patents, even if competitors or other third parties do not actively promote their product for our targeted indications or uses for which we may obtain patents, physicians may recommend that patients use these products off-label, or patients may do so themselves. Although off-label use may infringe or contribute to the infringement of method-of-use patents, the practice is common and such infringement is difficult to prevent or prosecute.
In addition, there are numerous publications and other prior art that may be relevant to our patents and may be used to challenge the validity of such patents in litigation or other intellectual property-related proceedings. If such challenges are successful, our patents may be narrowed or found to be invalid and we may lose valuable intellectual property rights. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial conditions and results of operations and prospects.
Issued patents covering our product candidates and other technologies could be narrowed or found invalid or unenforceable if challenged in court or before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad.
If we seek to enforce a patent covering our product candidates or other technologies against a third party, that third party could assert that such patent is invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, challenges to validity or enforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of patentable subject matter, lack of novelty, obviousness, inadequate written description, indefiniteness, or lack of enablement. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that relevant information was withheld from or a misleading statement was made to the USPTO during prosecution.
In addition, third parties may raise claims challenging the validity or enforceability of our patents before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include preissuance submission of prior art to the USPTO and re-examination, post-grant review, inter partes review, interference proceedings, derivation proceedings, and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., opposition proceedings). Moreover, we may have to participate in interference proceedings declared by the USPTO to determine priority of invention or in post-grant challenge proceedings, such as oppositions in a foreign patent office, that challenge our priority of invention or other features of patentability with respect to our patents and patent applications. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of, or invalidate or render unenforceable, our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize our product candidates or other technologies and compete directly with us, without payment to us.
In the United States, an inventor’s own publication may not be effective prior art to the inventor’s patent application on the same subject matter when published less than one year before the effective filing date of the patent application. Such a publication might be considered prior art in certain jurisdictions that do not provide such a grace period. For those non-US jurisdictions, reliance on non-patent exclusivity may provide sufficient competitive protection to exclude others from commercializing generic versions of our products.
Such proceedings also may result in substantial cost and require significant time from our scientists and management, even if the eventual outcome is favorable to us. If we are unsuccessful in any such proceeding or other priority or inventorship dispute, we may be required to obtain and maintain licenses from third parties, including parties involved in any such interference proceedings or other priority or inventorship disputes. Such licenses may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or may be non-exclusive. If we are unable to obtain and maintain such licenses, we may need to cease the development, manufacture, and commercialization of one or more of the product candidates we may develop. The loss of exclusivity or the narrowing of our patent claims could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.
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We may be subject to other claims challenging the inventorship of our patents and other intellectual property.
We may also be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators or other third parties have an interest in our patents, trade secrets, or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. For example, we may have inventorship disputes arise from conflicting obligations of employees, consultants or others who are involved in developing our product candidates or other technologies. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging inventorship of our patents, trade secrets or other intellectual property. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, intellectual property that is important to our product candidates and other technologies. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management and other employees. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects.
If we do not obtain patent term extension or data exclusivity for any product candidates we may develop, our business may be materially harmed.
Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of any FDA marketing approval of any product candidates we may develop, one or more of our U.S. patents may be eligible for limited patent term extension under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, commonly referred to as the Hatch-Waxman Act. The Hatch-Waxman Act permits a patent term extension of up to five years as compensation for patent term lost during the FDA regulatory review process. A patent term extension cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of product approval, only one patent may be extended and only those claims covering the approved drug, a method for using it, or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. Similar extensions as compensation for patent term lost during regulatory review processes are also available in certain foreign countries and territories, such as in Europe under a Supplementary Patent Certificate. However, we may not be granted an extension in the United States and/or foreign countries and territories because of, for example, failing to exercise due diligence during the testing phase or regulatory review process, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents, or otherwise failing to satisfy applicable requirements. Moreover, the applicable time period or the scope of patent protection afforded could be less than we request. If we are unable to obtain patent term extension or the term of any such extension is shorter than what we request, our competitors may obtain approval of competing products following our patent expiration, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects could be materially harmed.
We may not be successful in obtaining, through acquisitions, in-licenses or otherwise, rights that may be necessary to our product candidates or other technologies.
The growth of our business may depend in part on our future ability to acquire or in-license any relevant third-party proprietary rights that we may identify as necessary or important to our business operations. For example, our programs may involve additional product candidates that may require the use of additional proprietary rights held by third parties. Our product candidates may also require specific formulations to work effectively and efficiently. These formulations may be covered by intellectual property rights held by others. We may develop products containing our compounds and pre-existing pharmaceutical compounds. These pharmaceutical compounds may be covered by intellectual property rights held by others. We may be required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities to provide a companion diagnostic test or tests with our product candidates. These diagnostic test or tests may be covered by intellectual property rights held by others. We may be unable to acquire or in-license such third-party intellectual property rights. We may fail to obtain any of these licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all, which would harm our business. We may need to cease use of the compositions or methods covered by such third-party intellectual property rights, and may need to seek to develop alternative approaches that do not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate intellectual property rights which may entail additional costs and development delays, even if we were able to develop such alternatives, which may not be feasible. Even if we are able to obtain a license to such intellectual property rights, any such license may be non-exclusive, which may allow our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us.
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Additionally, we sometimes collaborate with academic institutions and clinical research organizations to accelerate our research or development under written agreements with these institutions and organizations. In certain cases, these institutions and organizations may own or jointly own with us inventions that are created under such collaborations and provide us with an option to negotiate a license to any of the institution’s rights in such inventions. Regardless of such option, we may be unable to negotiate a license within the specified timeframe or under terms that are acceptable to us. If we are unable to do so, the institution or organization may offer the intellectual property rights to others, potentially blocking our ability to pursue our program and allowing third parties to compete with us.
The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive practice, and companies that may be more established, or have greater resources than we do, may also be pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-
party intellectual property rights that we may consider necessary or attractive in order to commercialize our product candidates. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their larger size and cash resources or greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment or at all. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully complete such negotiations and ultimately acquire the rights to the intellectual property surrounding the additional product candidates that we may seek to acquire. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to third-party intellectual property that may be necessary, we may have to abandon development of such program and our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects could suffer.
Changes in U.S. patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our product candidates and technology.
Recent or future patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents. Assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, prior to March 2013, in the United States, the first to invent the claimed invention was entitled to the patent, while outside the United States, the first to file a patent application was entitled to the patent regardless of whether another inventor had made the invention earlier. In March 2013, under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or America Invents Act, the United States moved from a “first-to-invent” to a “first-to-file” system. Under a “first-to-file” system, assuming the other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application generally will be entitled to a patent on the invention regardless of whether another inventor had made the invention earlier. A third party that files a patent application in the USPTO after March 2013, but before us, could therefore be awarded a patent covering an invention of ours even if we had made the invention before it was made by such third party. Since patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing or until issuance, we cannot be certain that we were the first to either (i) file any patent application related to our product candidates or other technologies or (ii) invent any of the inventions claimed in our patents or patent applications.
The America Invents Act includes a number of other significant changes to U.S. patent law, including provisions that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted, redefine prior art and establish a new post-grant review system. These include allowing third party submission of prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution and additional procedures to attack the validity of a patent by USPTO-administered post-grant proceedings, including post-grant review, inter partes review, and derivation proceedings. Because of a lower evidentiary standard in USPTO proceedings compared to the evidentiary standard in United States federal courts necessary to invalidate a patent claim, a third party could potentially provide evidence in a USPTO proceeding sufficient for the USPTO to hold a claim invalid even though the same evidence would be insufficient to invalidate the claim if first presented in a district court action. Accordingly, a third party may attempt to use the USPTO procedures to invalidate our patent claims that would not have been invalidated if first challenged by the third party in a district court action. An adverse determination in any such proceeding could reduce the scope of, or invalidate, our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize our technology or products and compete directly with us, without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize products without infringing third-party patent rights, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition. Accordingly, the America Invents Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents.
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In addition, the patent positions of companies in the development and commercialization of biologics and pharmaceuticals are particularly uncertain. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. This combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the validity and enforceability of patents, once obtained. Depending on future actions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts, and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that could have a material adverse effect on our existing patent portfolio and our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property in the future.
We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents and other intellectual property rights, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful.
Competitors may infringe our patents, or we may be required to defend against claims of infringement. In addition, our patents also may become involved in inventorship, priority, validity or unenforceability disputes. To counter or defend against such claims can be expensive and time consuming. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. For example, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent owned by us is invalid or unenforceable. There is also the risk that, even if the validity of these patents is upheld, the court will refuse to stop the third party on the ground that such third party’s activities do not infringe our owned patents, including finding that the other party’s use of our patented technology falls under the safe harbor to patent infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1). Even if resolved in our favor, these lawsuits are expensive and would consume time and other resources, including distracting our personnel from their normal responsibilities. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing, or distribution activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such litigation or proceedings adequately. Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of such litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their greater financial resources and more mature and developed intellectual property portfolios. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent litigation or other proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our ability to compete in the marketplace. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation.
We may not be able to detect infringement against our patents which may be more difficult for formulation patents. Even if we detect infringement by a third party of our patents, we may choose not to pursue litigation against or settlement with the third party. If we later sue such third party for patent infringement, the third party may have certain legal defenses available to it, which otherwise would not be available except for the delay between when the infringement was first detected and when the suit was brought. Such legal defenses may make it impossible for us to enforce our patents against such third party.
If another party questions the patentability of any of our claims in our U.S. patents, the third party can request that the USPTO review the patent claims such as in an inter partes review, ex parte re-exam or post-grant review proceedings. These proceedings are expensive and may result in a loss of scope of some claims or a loss of the entire patent. In addition to potential USPTO review proceedings, we may become a party to patent opposition proceedings in the European Patent Office, or EPO, or similar proceedings in other foreign patent offices, where either our foreign patents are challenged. The costs of these opposition or similar proceedings could be substantial, and may result in a loss of scope of some claims or a loss of the entire patent. An unfavorable result at the USPTO, EPO or other patent office may result in the loss of our right to exclude others from practicing one or more of our inventions in the relevant country or jurisdiction, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
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If we are sued for infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating patents or other intellectual property rights of third parties, it will be costly and time consuming, and an unfavorable outcome in that litigation would have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our commercial success depends upon our ability to develop, manufacture, market and sell our product candidates and use our proprietary technologies without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of third parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation involving patents and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. We may be exposed to, or threatened with, future litigation by third parties having patent or other intellectual property rights alleging that our product candidates and/or proprietary technologies infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate their intellectual property rights. We cannot guarantee that our product candidates and other technologies that we have developed, are developing or may develop in the future will not infringe existing or future patents owned by third parties. U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by third parties, exist in the fields relating to our product candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued, the risk increases that others may assert our product candidates infringe the patent rights of others. Moreover, it is not always clear to industry participants, including us, which patents cover various types of drugs, products or their methods of use or manufacture. Thus, because of the large number of patents issued and patent applications filed in our fields, there may be a risk that third parties may allege they have patent rights encompassing our product candidates, technologies or methods. It is also possible that patents owned by third parties of which we are aware, but which we do not believe are relevant to our product candidates or other technologies, could be found to be infringed by our product candidates or other technologies. In addition, because some patent applications in the United States may be maintained in secrecy until the patents are issued, patent applications in the United States and many foreign jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, and publications in the scientific literature often lag behind actual discoveries, we cannot be certain that others have not filed patent applications covering our product candidates or technology. If any such patent applications issue as patents, and if such patents have priority over our patent applications or patents, we may be required to obtain rights to such patents owned by third parties which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or may only be available on a non-exclusive basis.
If a third party claims that we infringe its intellectual property rights, we may face a number of issues even if we believe such claims are without merit, including, but not limited to:
Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of complex patent litigation more effectively than we can because they have substantially greater resources. In addition, any uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of any litigation could have a material adverse effect on our ability to raise the funds necessary to continue our operations or could otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial
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condition and prospects. The occurrence of any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or growth prospects.
We may choose to challenge the patentability of claims in a third party’s U.S. patent by requesting that the USPTO review the patent claims in an ex-parte re-exam, inter partes review or post-grant review proceedings. These proceedings are expensive and may consume our time or other resources. We may choose to challenge a third party’s patent in patent opposition proceedings in the EPO, or other foreign patent office. The costs of these opposition proceedings could be substantial, and may consume our time or other resources. If we fail to obtain a favorable result at the USPTO, EPO or other patent office then we may be exposed to litigation by a third party alleging that the patent may be infringed by our product candidates or proprietary technologies.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights with patents throughout the world.
Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on all of our product candidates throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and the laws of some foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Competitors may use our technology in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and, further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection but where enforcement is not as strong as in the United States. These products may compete with our product candidates in jurisdictions where we do not have any issued patents and our patent claims or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from so competing. Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biopharmaceuticals, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products against third parties in violation of our proprietary rights generally. The initiation of proceedings to enforce our intellectual property rights or proceedings by third parties to challenge the scope or validity of our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial cost and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business and could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly.
Many countries have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to third parties. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against government agencies or government contractors. In these countries, the patent owner may have limited remedies, which could materially diminish the value of such patent. If we are forced to grant a license to third parties with respect to any patents relevant to our business, our competitive position may be impaired, and our business, financial condition, results of operations, and growth prospects may be adversely affected.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends upon compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.
The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other provisions during the patent prosecution process and following the issuance of a patent. In some cases, an inadvertent failure to comply with such requirements can be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules. There are situations, however, in which non-compliance could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. In such an event, competitors might be able to enter the market earlier than would otherwise have been the case if our patent were in force, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.
We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants or advisors have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their current or former employers or claims asserting ownership of what we regard as our own intellectual property.
As is common in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, we employ individuals who were previously employed at other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors.
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