10-K
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024
OR
Commission File Number: 001-39509
Dyne Therapeutics, Inc.
(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its Charter)
(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)
Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (781) 786-8230
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of each class TradingSymbol(s) Name of each exchange on which registered
Common Stock, $0.0001 par value per share DYN Nasdaq Global Select Market
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. YES ☒No☐
Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YES ☐No☒
Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes☒ NO ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit such files). Yes☒ NO ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer ☒ Accelerated filer ☐
Non-accelerated filer ☐ Smaller reporting company ☐
Emerging growth company ☐
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒
If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements.☐
Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). YES ☐ NO ☒
The aggregate market value of Common Stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant computed by reference to the price of the registrant’s Common Stock as of June 28, 2024, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $3.0 billion (based on the last reported sale price on the Nasdaq Global Select Market as of such date). For this computation, the registrant has excluded the market value of all shares of Common Stock reported as beneficially owned by its executive officer and directors; such exclusion shall not be deemed to constitute an admission that any such person is an affiliate of the registrant.
The number of shares of Registrant’s Common Stock outstanding as of February 21, 2025 was 113,121,357.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
The Registrant intends to file a definitive proxy statement pursuant to Regulation 14A relating to the 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders within 120 days of the end of the Registrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. Portions of such definitive proxy statement are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to the extent stated herein.
Table of Contents
Page
PART I
Item 1. Business 2
Item 1A. Risk Factors 52
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments 120
Item 1C. Cybersecurity 120
Item 2. Properties 122
Item 3. Legal Proceedings 122
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures 122
PART II
Item 6. [Reserved] 124
Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk 137
Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 137
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures 137
Item 9B. Other Information 140
Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspection 140
PART III
Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 141
Item 11. Executive Compensation 141
Item 14. Principal Accounting Fees and Services 141
PART IV
Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules 142
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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Industry Data
This Annual Report on Form 10-K, or this Annual Report, contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that involve substantial risk and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact, contained in this Annual Report, including statements regarding our strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenue, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management, are forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “target,” “would,” or the negative of these words or other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words.
The forward-looking statements in this Annual Report include, among other things, statements about:
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the initiation, timing, design, progress and results of our research and development programs, preclinical studies and clinical trials;
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the anticipated timing of the submission and clearance of investigational new drug applications, or INDs, and comparable foreign applications for any product candidates we may develop;
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the timing of and our ability to submit applications for, obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for any product candidates we may develop;
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our estimates regarding expenses, future revenue, capital requirements, need for additional financing and the period over which we believe our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund our operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements;
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our plans to develop and, if approved, subsequently commercialize any product candidates we may develop;
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the potential advantages of our FORCE platform;
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our commercialization, marketing and manufacturing capabilities and strategy;
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our intellectual property position and our expectations regarding our ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection;
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our ability to identify additional products, product candidates or technologies with significant commercial potential that are consistent with our commercial objectives;
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the impact of government laws and regulations;
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our competitive position and expectations regarding developments and projections relating to our competitors and any competing therapies that are or become available; and
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our ability to establish and maintain collaborations or obtain additional funding.
We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements we make. We have included important factors in this Annual Report, particularly in Item 1A. “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report, that we believe could cause actual results or events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements that we make. Moreover, we operate in a competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risk factors and uncertainties may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all risk factors and uncertainties, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. Our forward-looking statements do not reflect the potential impact of any future acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, collaborations, joint ventures or investments we may make or enter into.
You should read this Annual Report and the documents that we have filed or incorporated by reference as exhibits to this Annual Report with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect. The forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report are made
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as of the date of this Annual Report, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.
This Annual Report includes statistical and other industry and market data that we obtained from independent industry publications and research, surveys and studies conducted by independent third parties as well as our own estimates of the prevalence of certain diseases and conditions. The market data used in this Annual Report involves a number of assumptions and limitations, and you are cautioned not to give undue weight to such data. Industry publications and third-party research, surveys and studies generally indicate that their information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, although they do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information. Our estimates of the patient population with the potential to benefit from treatment with any of our product candidates includes several key assumptions based on our industry knowledge, industry publications, third-party research and other surveys, which may be based on a small sample size and may fail to accurately reflect the addressable patient population. While we believe that our internal assumptions are reasonable, no independent source has verified such assumptions.
This Annual Report contains references to our trademarks and service marks and to those belonging to other entities. Solely for convenience, trademarks and trade names referred to in this Annual Report, including logos, artwork and other visual displays, may appear without the ® or TM symbols, but such references are not intended to indicate in any way that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our rights or the rights of the applicable licensor to these trademarks and trade names. We do not intend our use or display of other entities’ trade names, trademarks or service marks to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us by, any other entity.
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Risk Factor Summary
Our business is subject to a number of risks that, if realized, could materially affect our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition. These risks are discussed more fully in the “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report. These risks include, but are not limited to, the following:
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we will need substantial additional funding. If we are unable to raise capital when needed, we could be forced to delay, reduce or eliminate our product development programs or commercialization efforts;
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our product candidates are in varying stages of preclinical and clinical development, and we have not completed clinical development of any product candidate. As a result, it will be at least a couple of years before we commercialize a product candidate, if ever. If we are unable to advance product candidates through preclinical studies and clinical trials, obtain marketing approval and ultimately commercialize them, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be materially harmed;
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we may encounter substantial delays in commencement, enrollment or completion of our clinical trials and the data from the clinical trials of our product candidates may fail to demonstrate sufficient safety and efficacy to warrant further development or satisfy the applicable regulatory authorities, which could prevent us from commercializing any product candidates we determine to develop on a timely basis, if at all;
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our approach to the discovery and development of product candidates based on our FORCE platform is unproven, and we may not be successful in our efforts to develop our product candidates;
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the outcome of preclinical studies and initial data from earlier-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of final results of clinical trials or future clinical trials and data from trials in one indication may not be predictive of results of clinical trials in other indications;
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if our product candidates cause undesirable side effects or have other unexpected adverse properties, such side effects or properties could delay or prevent us from conducting clinical trials or seeking or obtaining regulatory approval, limit the commercial potential of our product candidates or result in significant negative consequences to the extent such effects or adverse properties are observed following any marketing approval;
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we rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties to conduct some or all aspects of our product manufacturing, research, preclinical and clinical testing, and these third parties may not perform satisfactorily;
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we face substantial competition, which may result in others discovering, developing or commercializing products before us or more successfully than we do;
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our rights to develop and commercialize any product candidates are subject and may in the future be subject, in part, to the terms and conditions of licenses granted to us by third parties. If we fail to comply with our obligations under current or future intellectual property license agreements or otherwise experience disruptions to our business relationships with our current or any future licensors, we could lose intellectual property rights that are important to our business; and
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if we or our licensors are unable to obtain, maintain and defend patent and other intellectual property protection for any product candidates or technology, or if the scope of the patent or other intellectual property protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products and technology similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully develop and commercialize our product candidates or our technology may be adversely affected due to such competition.
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PART I
Item 1. Business.
Overview
We are a clinical-stage neuromuscular disease company focused on discovering and advancing innovative life-transforming therapeutics for people living with genetically driven neuromuscular diseases. Leveraging the modularity of our FORCE platform, we are developing targeted therapeutics that are designed to overcome limitations in delivery to muscle tissue and the central nervous system, or CNS. Our proprietary FORCE platform therapeutics consist of a payload that we rationally design to target the genetic basis of the disease we are seeking to treat, a linkerand an antigen-binding fragment, or Fab, that we attach to the payload using the linker. With our FORCE platform, we have the flexibility to deploy different classes of payloads (such as oligonucleotides and enzymes) with specific mechanisms of action that modify target functions. We leverage this modularity to focus on neuromuscular diseases with high unmet need, with etiologic targets and with clear translational potential from preclinical disease models to well-defined clinical development and regulatory pathways.
Using our FORCE platform, we are assembling a broad portfolio of product candidates, including product candidates being developed for myotonic dystrophy type 1, or DM1, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD, facioscapulohumeral dystrophy, or FSHD, and Pompe disease. In addition, we plan to expand our portfolio through development efforts focused on rare skeletal muscle diseases, as well as cardiac and metabolic muscle diseases, including some with larger patient populations, and diseases involving the CNS. We have identified product candidates for each of our DM1, DMD, FSHD and Pompe programs that are in varying stages of preclinical and clinical development. The following table summarizes our portfolio:
Our product candidate DYNE-101 is being evaluated in ACHIEVE, an ongoing Phase 1/2 global clinical trial in patients with DM1. ACHIEVE, which is designed to be a registrational trial, consists of a 24-week multiple ascending dose, or MAD, randomized, placebo-controlled period, a 24-week open-label extension, or OLE, a 96-week long-term extension, and a registrational expansion cohort. In January 2025, we announced the completion of the MAD portion of the trial and our plans to initiate a registrational expansion cohort to support submission for Accelerated Approval in the U.S. We plan to complete enrollment of the registrational expansion cohort in mid-2025 with data from this cohort in the first half of 2026 and potential submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval in the first half of 2026.
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Our product candidate DYNE-251 is being evaluated in DELIVER, an ongoing Phase 1/2 global clinical trial in patients with DMD who have mutations amenable to exon 51 skipping. DELIVER, which is designed to be a registrational trial, consists of a 24-week MAD, randomized, placebo-controlled period, a 24-week OLE, a 192-week long-term extension, and a registrational expansion cohort. In September 2024, we announced the completion of the MAD portion of the trial, and in November 2024 we announced the initiation of the registrational expansion cohort to support submission for Accelerated Approval in the U.S. We plan to complete enrollment of the registrational expansion cohort in the first quarter of 2025 with data from this cohort in late 2025 and potential submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval in early 2026.
Our approach
We have designed our proprietary FORCE platform using our deep knowledge of muscle biology. Our therapeutics consist of three essential components: a proprietary Fab, a linker and a payload that we attach to our Fab using the linker. We engineered our proprietary Fab to bind to Transferrin receptor 1, or TfR1, to enable targeted delivery to skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle, and TfR1 binding may also enable delivery to the CNS. We connect the proprietary Fab to the therapeutic payload with a linker. We selected the linker for our DM1, DMD and FSHD product candidates based on its clinically validated safety and efficacy in approved products, its serum stability and its ability to release the therapeutic payload within the muscle cell. For our Pompe product candidate, we selected a linker that effectively connects to the GAA enzyme payload. We attach the Fab and linker to a therapeutic payload that can be an antisense oligonucleotide, or ASO, a small interfering RNA, or siRNA, a phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer, or PMO, a small molecule, or a large molecule such as an enzyme, that we rationally select to target the genetic basis of disease to potentially stop or reverse disease progression. We use the same Fab for our product candidates which enables modularity of the platform.
While some therapeutics have been approved for the treatment of neuromuscular diseases, the development of these therapeutics have been limited by challenges in the delivery of the payload to the tissue or area of the CNS that requires therapy. To overcome these limitations, our FORCE platform utilizes the importance of TfR1, which is highly expressed on the surface of muscle cells, as the foundation of our novel approach of linking therapeutic payloads to our TfR1-binding Fab to deliver targeted therapeutics for muscle diseases. The mechanism of FORCE delivery is designed to utilize the natural biology of TfR1. We do not use membrane destabilizing agents to enter the cell or to escape the endosome. As a result, FORCE displays a distinct pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile, with the potential for a wide therapeutic index.
We have demonstrated proof-of-concept of our FORCE platform in our ACHIEVE and DELIVER clinical trials as well as in multiple in vitro and in vivo studies. In murine and non-human primate, or NHP, studies, we have delivered ASOs and PMOs to genetic targets within muscle tissue and observed durable, disease-modifying, functional benefit in preclinical models of disease. In ACHIEVE, DYNE-101 has demonstrated robust splicing correction and DMPK knockdown while also showing improvement across multiple clinical measures including myotonia, strength, timed function tests, and patient reported outcomes including measurements of the CNS manifestations of DM1. In DELIVER, DYNE-251 has demonstrated best-in-class levels of dystrophin expression, exon skipping and percent dystrophin positive fibers while also showing improvement across multiple clinical measures including strength and time function tests.
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The following graphic illustrates the three components of our therapeutics:
FORCE platform
Proprietary antibody (Fab)
Our proprietary Fab is engineered to bind to TfR1 to enable targeted delivery of nucleic acids and other molecules to skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle. A Fab is the region of an antibody that binds to antigens. We selected a Fab antibody over monoclonal antibodies, or mAbs, due to its potential significant advantages when targeting TfR1 to enable muscle delivery, including enhanced tissue penetration, increased tolerability due to lower protein load and reduced risk of immune system activation due to the lack of the Fc domain, the portion of an antibody that interacts with the immune system, on the Fab. To identify the proprietary Fab we use in our product candidates, we generated and screened proprietary antibodies for selectivity to TfR1 in order to enhance muscle specificity and for binding to TfR1 without interfering with the receptor’s function of transporting iron into cells. Binding to TfR1 may also enable delivery to the CNS.
Linker
The role of the linker is to connect, or conjugate, the Fab and the therapeutic payload, such as oligonucleotide or enzyme. As a result, it is critical that the linker maintain stability in serum and provide release kinetics that favor sufficient payload accumulation in the targeted muscle cell. For our DM1, DMD and FSHD product candidates, we have selected the Val-Cit linker based on its clinically validated safety and efficacy in approved products, its serum stability and its endosomal release attributes. We believe that serum stability is necessary to enable systemic intravenous administration, stability of the conjugated oligonucleotide in the bloodstream, delivery to muscle tissue and internalization of the therapeutic payload in the muscle cells. In preclinical studies, our Val-Cit linker facilitated precise conjugation of multiple types of payloads to our proprietary Fabs, including ASOs, siRNAs, and PMOs. For our Pompe product candidate, we selected a linker that effectively connects to the GAA enzyme payload. This broad flexibility enables us to rationally select the appropriate type of payload to address the genetic basis of each muscle disease. Additionally, our linker and conjugation chemistry allow us to optimize the ratio of payload molecules attached to each Fab for each type of payload. We believe that our linker and
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conjugation chemistry will enable us to rapidly design, produce and screen molecules to enable new muscle disease programs.
Optimized payload
With our FORCE platform, we have the flexibility to deploy different types of therapeutic payloads with specific mechanisms of action that modify target functions. Using this modularity, we rationally select the therapeutic payload for each program to match the biology of the target, with the aim of addressing the genetic basis of disease and stopping or reversing disease progression. For instance, in our DM1 program, where the genetic driver of DM1 is mutant DMPK pre-mRNA located in the nucleus, we have determined to use an ASO because ASOs have advantages in degrading RNA in the nucleus when compared to siRNAs. In the case of our DMD program, we are utilizing an exon skipping PMO payload with the goal of enhancing dystrophin expression. For our FSHD program, we are utilizing a siRNA payload designed to reduce DUX4 expression. For our Pompe program, we are utilizing enzyme replacement therapy to address the deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme, acid alpha glucosidase, or GAA, the genetic basis of Pompe.
Advantages of our FORCE platform
Our FORCE platform is designed to deliver disease-modifying therapeutics for a broad portfolio of serious muscle diseases. We believe that our FORCE platform may provide the following potential advantages:
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Targeted delivery to muscle tissue and the CNS;
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Potent targeting of the genetic basis of disease to stop or reverse disease progression;
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Enhanced tolerability;
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Extended durability;
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Redosable administration;
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Well-established and scalable manufacturing; and
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Accelerated and efficient development enabled by use of a single Fab across multiple product candidates and programs.
Our strategy
Our goal is to become the leading neuromuscular disease company by advancing innovative life-transforming therapeutics for genetically driven neuromuscular diseases. To accomplish this, we intend to continue building a team that shares our commitment to patients, to continue to enhance our platform and to advance our pipeline. The key elements of our strategy are to:
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Advance our co-lead product candidates for DM1 and DMD through development and to commercialization to offer meaningful benefit to patients;
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Progress our FSHD program to the clinic with the goal of ultimately offering a therapeutic for a disease with no approved treatments;
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Progress our Pompe program to the clinic with the goal of ultimately offering a therapeutic to provide meaningful benefit to patients;
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Establish a DMD franchise by expanding our DMD program to reach additional DMD patient populations;
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Expand our pipeline to additional product candidates and indications to fully exploit the potential of our proprietary FORCE platform;
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Selectively enter into strategic collaborations to maximize the value of our pipeline and our proprietary FORCE platform; and
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Build a sustainable leadership position in neuromuscular diseases with a deep connection to patients, caregivers, the research community and physicians.
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Our culture and team
We have established a patient-focused culture that drives our shared mission of developing life-transforming therapeutics for people living with serious neuromuscular diseases. Our shared definition of success is simple: we do what we say we are going to do. We keep our commitments to patients, employees and other Dyne stakeholders. We endeavor to act with integrity and transparency.
Our management team is led by John Cox, our President and Chief Executive Officer, who brings over 30 years of leadership experience with life sciences companies; Johanna Friedl-Naderer, our Chief Commercial Officer, who has more than two decades of biopharmaceutical experience leading global commercialization and product launches in rare diseases; Doug Kerr, M.D., our Chief Medical Officer, who has more than 25 years of expertise in early- and late-stage clinical development, with deep experience in neurology; and Oxana Beskrovnaya, Ph.D., our Chief Scientific Officer, who has extensive experience in musculoskeletal and renal research. Our organization is comprised of 191 talented individuals with significant experience across discovery, preclinical research, manufacturing, clinical development and operations. We have also established scientific and clinical advisory boards comprised of leading experts in the fields of muscle disease drug discovery and development and nucleic acid therapeutics, who share our mission of delivering disease-modifying therapeutics for patients with neuromuscular diseases.
Our portfolio
We are creating a pipeline of product candidates and programs to address diseases with high unmet need with etiologic targets. Our initial focus is on DM1, DMD, FSHD and Pompe with potential pipeline expansion opportunities in additional rare skeletal muscle diseases, as well as cardiac and metabolic muscle diseases and diseases involving the CNS. In selecting diseases to target with our FORCE platform, we seek diseases with clear translational potential from preclinical disease models to well-defined clinical development and regulatory pathways, and where we believe that we would be able to commercialize any products that we develop and are approved with an efficient, targeted sales force. We have global commercial rights to all of our programs.
Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1)
Overview
We are developing our product candidate, DYNE-101, to address the genetic basis of DM1 by targeting the toxic nuclear DMPK RNA that causes the disease. DYNE-101 consists of our proprietary Fab conjugated with a clinically-validated linker to an ASO and is designed to reduce the accumulation of DMPK pre-mRNA in the nucleus, release splicing proteins and potentially stop or reverse disease progression. In in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies supporting our DM1 program, we have observed a reduction in nuclear foci and toxic nuclear DMPK RNA, correction of splicing changes, reversal of myotonia, which is a neuromuscular condition in which the relaxation of a muscle is impaired, and enhanced muscle distribution. DYNE-101 is currently being evaluated in the ACHIEVE trial, a Phase 1/2 global clinical trial of adult patients with DM1. ACHIEVE, which is designed to be a registrational trial, consists of a 24-week MAD randomized, placebo-controlled period, a 24-week OLE, a 96-week long-term extension and a registrational expansion cohort. In January 2025, we announced the completion of the MAD portion of the trial, our plans to initiate a registrational expansion cohort to support submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval, and the selection of the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W dose to be evaluated in the registrational expansion cohort. We also reported 6-month clinical data from the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W cohort of the MAD portion of the trial, including data on safety, tolerability, splicing, DMPK knockdown, and multiple clinical measures including myotonia as measured by video hand opening time, or vHOT, muscle strength, timed function tests, and patient reported outcomes including those measuring the CNS-manifestations of DM1. At the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W dose, DYNE-101 resulted in significant splicing correction at three months compared to baseline, which was associated with improvement in multiple functional endpoints, beginning at three months and continuing at six months.
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Disease overview and prevalence
DM1 is a monogenic, autosomal dominant, progressive disease that primarily affects skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscles. DM1 patients can suffer from various manifestations of the disease including myotonia, muscle weakness, cardiac arrhythmias, respiratory problems, fatigue, cardiac abnormalities, gastrointestinal, or GI, complications, early cataracts and cognitive and behavioral impairment.
DM1 is caused by an abnormal expansion in a region of the DMPK gene. Specifically, DM1 is caused by an increase in the number of CTG triplet repeats found in the 3’ non-coding region of the DMPK gene. The number of repeats ranges from up to approximately 35 in healthy individuals to many thousands in DM1 patients. The higher-than-normal number of triplet repeats form large hairpin loops that entrap the DMPK pre-mRNA in the nucleus and impart toxic activity, referred to as a toxic gain-of-function mutation. The mutant DMPK pre-mRNA sequesters in the nucleus, forming nuclear foci that bind splicing proteins. This inhibits the ability of splicing proteins to perform their normal function in the nucleus of guiding pre-mRNA processing of gene transcripts from many other genes. As a result, multiple pre-mRNAs that encode key proteins are mis-spliced. This mis-splicing in the nucleus results in the translation of atypical proteins which ultimately cause the clinical presentation of DM1. When nuclear DMPK levels are reduced, the nuclear foci that bind splicing proteins are diminished, releasing splicing proteins, allowing normal mRNA processing and translation of normal proteins, and potentially stopping or reversing disease progression. This disease process is illustrated below:
DM1: Genetic basis and clinical presentation
DM1 is estimated to have a genetic prevalence of 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 8,000 people in the United States and Europe, affecting over 40,000 people in the United States and over 74,000 people in Europe. However, we believe that the patient population is currently underdiagnosed due to lack of available therapies as is observed for other rare diseases. DM1 is highly variable with respect to disease severity, presentation and age of onset.
We are advancing our own efforts to better characterize the actual DM1 patient population through a natural history study that we are sponsoring. We believe that the introduction of new therapies for DM1 will cause the diagnosis rate to improve, resulting in an increase in the overall prevalence estimates for the disease. Based on age of onset and severity of symptoms, DM1 is typically categorized into four overlapping phenotypes: late-onset; classical (adult-onset); childhood; and congenital (cDM1):
Overview of DM1 phenotypes
Phenotype Clinical presentation Estimated % of DM1 patients Age of onset
Late-onset • Myotonia• Muscle weakness• Cataracts 10% 40 - 70 years
Classical (Adult-onset) • Muscle weakness and wasting 65% Early teens - 50 years
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Childhood • Psychological problems• Low IQ• Incontinence 15% 1 - 10 years
All DM1 phenotypes, except the late-onset form, are associated with high levels of disease burden and premature mortality. The clinical course of DM1 is progressive, and may become extremely disabling, especially when more generalized limb weakness and respiratory muscle involvement develops. Systemic manifestations such as fatigue, GI complications, cataracts and excessive daytime sleepiness greatly impact a patient’s quality of life. As a result, DM1 leads to physical impairment, activity limitations and decreased participation in social activities and work. Excluding congenital DM1 deaths, life expectancy ranges from 45 years to 60 years. Approximately 80% of early mortality is caused by cardiorespiratory complications. Respiratory failure due to muscle weakness (especially diaphragmatic weakness) causes at least 50% of early mortality, and cardiac abnormalities, including sudden death, account for approximately 30% of early mortality.
Current approaches and limitations
There are currently no disease-modifying therapies to treat DM1 that are approved and treatment is focused largely on symptom management or palliative therapies. There are a number of product candidates in development, including product candidates in late-stage clinical development, that also are focused on symptom management or palliative therapies and do not target toxic nuclear DMPK RNA, which is the genetic basis of the disease. In addition, delpacibart etedesiran is an antibody linked siRNA that targets the genetic basis of DM1 and is currently being evaluated in a Phase 3 clinical trial. There remains a high unmet medical need for new disease-modifying therapies.
Our approach - DYNE-101
Our program is designed to address the genetic basis of DM1 by targeting the toxic nuclear DMPK RNA that is the cause of the disease. Our product candidate, DYNE-101, consists of our proprietary Fab targeting TfR1 conjugated to an ASO to reduce the levels of mutant DMPK RNA in the nucleus, thereby releasing splicing proteins, allowing normal mRNA processing and translation of normal proteins, and potentially stopping or reversing disease progression. The ASO is a gapmer oligonucleotide that is designed to translocate to the nucleus, bind its complementary sequence on the DMPK RNA, recruit RNAseH1 to degrade DMPK RNA and thus reduce toxic nuclear DMPK RNA. We have chosen to develop our product candidate with an ASO because single-stranded ASOs preferentially target nuclear RNAs, which is essential for degradation of toxic nuclear DMPK RNA. DYNE-101 has been awarded orphan drug designation for the treatment of DM1 by both the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, and the FDA also awarded it fast track designation for the treatment of DM1.
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Preclinical data
We have conducted extensive preclinical studies supporting the development of DYNE-101 in multiple preclinical disease models. In in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies, we observed a reduction of nuclear foci, correction of splicing and reversal of myotonia in disease models, reduction of toxic human nuclear DMPK in a hTfR1/DMSXL DM1 mouse model developed by us. In NHPs, DYNE-101 demonstrated a favorable safety profile and achieved enhanced muscle distribution as evidenced by a reduction in wild-type DMPK RNA.
Phase 1/2 ACHIEVE Clinical Trial of DYNE-101 in DM1
DYNE-101 is currently being evaluated in the ACHIEVE trial, a global Phase 1/2 clinical trial consisting of a 24-week MAD, randomized, placebo-controlled period, a 24-week OLE, a 96-week long-term extension, and a registrational expansion cohort. The primary endpoints of the MAD portion of the trial were safety and tolerability; with secondary endpoints of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, including change from baseline in splicing as measured by the composite alternative splicing index, or CASI-22, as well as multiple measures of muscle strength and function and patient-reported outcomes, including the Myotonic Dystrophy Health Index, or MDHI. In the MAD portion of the ACHIEVE trial, patients were randomized to receive DYNE-101 or placebo intravenously every four weeks or every eight weeks for 24 weeks, depending on cohort. Patient cohorts were dosed from 1.8 mg/kg to 6.8 mg/kg (approximate ASO dose). Following the MAD placebo-controlled period, patients transition to DYNE-101 treatment in the OLE portion of the trial and in the long-term extension.
In January 2025, we reported efficacy and safety data from adult DM1 patients enrolled in the randomized, placebo-controlled MAD portion of the DYNE-101 ACHIEVE trial, including data from the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W cohort (n=8) at up to 6 months. At the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W dose, DYNE-101 resulted in significant splicing correction at 3 months compared to baseline, which was associated with improvement in multiple functional endpoints, beginning at 3 months and continuing at 6 months. Key findings from ACHIEVE included:
DMPK: Analysis of muscle biopsy data for the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W cohort demonstrated a substantial knockdown of DMPK (DYNE-101 molecular target) RNA levels.
CASI-22: Splicing correction at 3 months for the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W cohort was robust and was associated with improvement in multiple functional endpoints, supporting CASI-22 at 3 months as a surrogate endpoint for potential U.S. Accelerated Approval.
Myotonia (vHOT): Early and sustained improvement in myotonia as measured by vHOT was seen in the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W cohort, as well as at low doses with modest splicing correction, deepening with more time on drug.
Strength and Timed Assessments: Functional measures such as 5 Times Sit to Stand Test, reflective of muscle strength and dynamic balance, Quantitative Myometry Testing (QMT), a test of muscle strength and fatigue, and the 10-Meter Walk/Run Test (10MWR) showed early and sustained clinical benefit at the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W dose.
MDHI: DYNE-101 at the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W doses showed encouraging trends on the MDHI patient reported outcome measure, including those that assess CNS disease manifestations. These represent some of the most burdensome manifestations of DM1 and daily quality of life issues for patients and their families.
In January 2025, we also reported updated safety and tolerability data from the 56 patients enrolled in the MAD portion of the ACHIEVE trial. As of the data cutoff date of December 6, 2024, DYNE-101 demonstrated a favorable safety profile. Additionally, the majority of treatment-emergent adverse events were mild or moderate, and no related serious treatment-emergent adverse events were identified. In addition, no participants demonstrated persistent related anemia, and no clinically meaningful changes were observed in kidney or liver parameters. Also, no participants demonstrated kidney injury. Liver enzyme elevations were observed in a minority of participants, with no impact on liver function.
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Interpretation of the elevated liver enzyme levels was complicated by underlying liver disease and elevated baseline values up to approximately 2.5 times greater than the upper limit of normal.
In January 2025, we announced the completion of the MAD portion of the trial, our plans to initiate a registrational expansion cohort to support submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval, and the selection of the 6.8 mg/kg Q8W dose to be evaluated in the registrational expansion cohort. We plan to enroll up to 48 patients in the registrational expansion cohort and the primary endpoint for this cohort will be mean splicing correction at 3 months as measured by CASI-22, supported by clinically meaningful measures of muscle strength and function as secondary endpoints. The registrational expansion cohort will also assess various quality of life and CNS-related endpoints (e.g., fatigue, daytime sleepiness). We intend that the data from the registrational expansion cohort and the 56 patients from the long-term extension portion of ACHIEVE will support a submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval. We plan to complete enrollment of the registrational expansion cohort in mid-2025 with data from this cohort in the first half of 2026 and potential submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval in the first half of 2026. We are also pursuing expedited approval pathways globally for DYNE-101.
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)
Overview
We are developing product candidates under our DMD program to address the genetic basis of DMD by delivering a PMO to muscle tissue to promote the skipping of specific DMD exons in the nucleus, allowing muscle cells to create a more complete, functional dystrophin protein and to potentially stop or reverse disease progression. We believe that PMOs, with their preferential targeting of nuclear mechanisms, are the best payload to address nuclear exon skipping. In in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies, our PMOs when conjugated to a Fab targeting TfR1 have shown increased exon skipping, increased dystrophin expression, reduced muscle damage and increased muscle function. We are seeking to build a global DMD franchise by initially focusing on the development of our product candidate DYNE-251 for patients with mutations amenable to skipping exon 51, to be followed by the development of product candidates for patients with mutations amenable to skipping other exons, including exon 53, 45 and 44. DYNE-251 is currently being evaluated in the DELIVER trial, a Phase 1/2 global clinical trial in males with mutations amenable to skipping exon 51. The DELIVER trial consists of a 24-week MAD randomized, placebo-controlled period, a 24-week open-label extension, a 192-week long-term extension, and a registrational expansion cohort with the potential to support Accelerated Approval in the U.S. In September 2024, we reported positive data from the MAD portion of the DELIVER trial, including on safety, tolerability and dystrophin expression and in November 2024, announced we have begun enrolling a 20 mg/kg Q4W (approximate PMO dose) registrational expansion cohort of 32 participants as part of the DELIVER trial.
Disease overview and prevalence
DMD is a monogenic, X-linked, disease caused by mutations in the gene that encodes for the dystrophin protein. Dystrophin protein is essential to maintain the structural integrity and normal function of muscle cells for walking, breathing and cardiac function. In patients with DMD, mutations in the dystrophin gene lead to certain exons being misread, resulting in the loss of function of the dystrophin protein. The reduction or absence of dystrophin leads to damage to muscle cell membranes, resulting in muscle cell death and progressive loss of muscle function.
DMD symptoms typically begin to manifest with weakness and progressive loss of muscle function beginning in the first few years of life. Young boys experience progressive muscle wasting and have difficulty standing up, climbing stairs, running, breathing and performing daily functions. As the disease progresses the severity of damage to skeletal and cardiac muscles results in patients experiencing total loss of ambulation in the pre-teenage or early teenage years. Progressive loss of upper extremity function is often observed in the mid-to-late teens followed by respiratory and/or cardiac failure, resulting in death before the age of 30. The below graphic highlights the mechanism of exon skipping and resulting dystrophin expression in healthy individuals and in DMD patients and how our DMD program is designed to address the genetic basis of DMD.
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Targeting the Genetic Basis of DMD
We estimate that DMD occurs in approximately one in every 3,500 to 5,000 live male births and that approximately 12,000 to 15,000 patients in the United States, and approximately 25,000 patients in Europe, have DMD. Approximately 80% of patients with DMD have DMD mutations amenable to exon skipping in the nucleus. Exons 51, 53, 45 and 44 represent nearly half of the total mutations observed in DMD that are amenable to exon skipping, as illustrated in the figure below.
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Overview of DMD exons amenable to skipping
Current approaches and limitations
Currently, patients with DMD are treated with corticosteroids to manage the inflammatory component of the disease. There are four FDA-approved naked PMO-based oligonucleotide therapies, each addressing a specific mutation: EXONDYS 51 (eteplirsen), which is approved for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 51 skipping, VYONDYS 53 (golodirsen), which is approved for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 53 skipping, VILTEPSO (vitolarsen), which is approved for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 53 skipping and AMONDYS 45 (casimersen), which is approved for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 45 skipping. Additionally, there is one FDA-approved gene therapy for patients with a confirmed mutation in the dystrophin gene, ELEVIDYS (delandistrogene moxeparvovec-rokl). Each of the four naked PMO-based oligonucleutide therapies requires weekly intravenous infusions and ELEVIDYS requires a one-time intravenous infusion. Eteplirsen, golodirsen and casimersen have demonstrated a less than 1% mean increase in dystrophin in clinical trials and vitolarsen has demonstrated an approximately 3% increase in dystrophin in clinical trials. The FDA-approved labels for all four drugs state that a clinical benefit has not yet been established and that continued approval may be contingent upon the verification of such clinical benefit in confirmatory clinical trials. In Europe, the EMA has rejected an application for approval of eteplirsen citing insufficient evidence of clinical benefit. In addition, a fourth drug, TRANSLARNA (ataluren), has only been conditionally approved in the European Union, Iceland and South Korea for non-sense mutations in DMD in ambulatory patients aged five years and older. Each of these approved products seeks to address DMD through the exon skipping approach we are pursuing, but we believe their limited efficacy is due to poor muscle uptake and biodistribution. There are a number of product candidates in development, including product candidates in late-stage clinical development, which seek to address DMD through the exon skipping approach we are pursuing, including naked oligonucleotides, targeted oligonucleotides and PMOs conjugated to charged peptides, as well as product candidates that seek to address DMD through gene editing and gene replacement with viral gene therapies and with other approaches. We believe that
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each of these approaches currently have significant limitations, and that there continues to be a high unmet medical need for new disease-modifying therapies.
Our approach
Our DMD program is designed to address the genetic basis of DMD by promoting the skipping of specific DMD exons in the nucleus, allowing muscle cells to create more complete, functional dystrophin protein. Under our DMD program, we are developing product candidates that incorporate our proprietary Fab targeting TfR1 conjugated to a PMO designed to promote the skipping of specific DMD exons in the nucleus. Existing clinical data generated by others supports the benefits of utilizing a single stranded ASO or PMO to skip the faulty exon in the nucleus of DMD patient cells. We believe our Fab targeting TfR1 allows for more efficient delivery of a PMO to skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle cells, creating an opportunity to increase dystrophin expression, enable less frequent dosing and provide greater clinical benefit compared to current therapeutic approaches. We plan to develop our program candidates for DMD with a PMO, initially for exon 51 and in the future for other exon mutations including exons 53, 45 and 44.
DYNE-251
We are evaluating DYNE-251 in the Phase 1/2 global DELIVER clinical trial for people living with DMD who are amenable to exon 51 skipping. DYNE-251 consists of a PMO conjugated to a Fab that binds to TfR1. DYNE-251 has been awarded fast track, orphan drug and rare pediatric disease designations by the FDA for the treatment of DMD mutations amenable to exon 51 skipping.
Preclinical data
We have conducted multiple in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies of our FORCE platform in DMD that have shown increased exon skipping, increased dystrophin expression, reduced muscle damage and increased muscle function. We believe these data support the potential for DYNE-251 to be a disease-modifying therapy for patients with DMD amenable to skipping exon 51.
In studies in the mdx mouse DMD model, a validated and widely accepted mouse model in DMD which has a mutation in exon 23, we observed that single intravenous doses of an exon 23-targeting PMO conjugated to a Fab targeting TfR1 which we refer to as FORCE-M23D, achieved robust, durable exon skipping in cardiac and skeletal muscles after a single dose. In NHPs, DYNE-251 demonstrated a favorable safety profile and achieved robust exon skipping, especially in the heart and diaphragm muscles which weaken over time leading to mortality in people living with DMD.
Phase 1/2 DELIVER Clinical Trial of DYNE-251 in DMD
DYNE-251 is currently being evaluated in the DELIVER trial, a Phase 1/2 global clinical trial consisting of a 24-week MAD randomized, placebo-controlled period, a 24-week OLE, and a 192-week long-term extension, and a registrational expansion cohort. The trial, which is designed to be registrational, is enrolling ambulant and non-ambulant males with DMD who are ages 4 to 16 and have mutations amenable to exon 51 skipping. The primary endpoints of the MAD portion were safety, tolerability and change from baseline in dystrophin levels as measured by Western blot. Additional endpoints in the MAD portion of the trial included pharmacokinetics and change from baseline in exon 51 skipping levels, muscle tissue percent dystrophin positive fibers, multiple assessments of muscle function, including North Star Ambulatory Assessment, or NSAA, score, Stride Velocity 95th Centile and certain timed functional tests.
In the MAD portion of the DELIVER trial, patients were randomized to receive DYNE-251 or placebo every four or eight weeks intravenously for 24 weeks, depending on cohort. Patients cohorts were dosed from 0.7 mg/kg to 20 mg/kg (approximate PMO dose). Following the placebo-controlled period, patients transition to DYNE-251 treatment in the open-label portion of the trial and in the long-term extension.
In September 2024, we announced the completion of the MAD portion and positive clinical data from the DELIVER trial. The efficacy assessment of the DYNE-251 DELIVER trial reported in September 2024 was
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based on 6-month biomarker and functional data from eight male participants enrolled in the 20 mg/kg (approximate PMO dose) cohort who were randomized to receive DYNE-251 or placebo once every four weeks and 12-month functional data from six male participants who were randomized in the 10 mg/kg (approximate PMO dose) cohort.
During the open label extension period, all participants in the 10 mg/kg cohort were dose escalated to 20 mg/kg Q4W regimen. DYNE-251 demonstrated dose-dependent exon skipping and dystrophin expression and improvement in multiple functional endpoints in both cohorts. In the 20 mg/kg Q4W cohort, DYNE-251 demonstrated best-in-class levels of dystrophin expression, exon skipping and percent dystrophin. DYNE-251 also demonstrated encouraging trends in multiple functional endpoints in both cohorts. Key findings included:
Dystrophin expression: DYNE-251 demonstrated the highest level of dystrophin expression for an exon 51 skipping therapy as measured by Western blot. Patients treated with 20 mg/kg of Q4W had a mean absolute dystrophin expression of 3.71% of normal (unadjusted for muscle content), more than 10-fold higher than the 0.3% reported in a clinical trial of the weekly standard of care, eteplirsen. When adjusting for muscle content, the DYNE-251 treated group reached 8.72% mean absolute dystrophin. However, the DELIVER trial does not compare DYNE-251 to eteplirsen, and no head-to-head trials have been conducted comparing DYNE-251 to eteplirsen. Eteplirsen data may not be directly comparable to the data from our DELIVER trial due to differences between the trials in trial protocols, dosing regimens, methodologies for calculating muscle content adjusted dystrophin and patient populations. Accordingly, these cross-trial comparisons may not be reliable.
Function: Meaningful improvements in multiple functional endpoints were observed in both the 20 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg Q4W groups, including NSAA, Stride Velocity 95th Centile, or SV95C, 10-Meter Walk/Run Time (10-MWR), and Time to Rise from Floor. The 10 mg/kg cohort showed continued improvement in all reported measures from 6 months to 12 months.
SV95C is a digital objective outcome measure of ambulatory performance in patients’ normal daily environment and is approved as a primary endpoint for Duchenne clinical trials in Europe. The change from baseline observed in both the 10 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg cohorts of DELIVER met the published minimal clinically important difference as defined by the EMA.
In January 2025, we reported updated safety and tolerability data based on 54 participants enrolled in the DELIVER trial. As of the data cutoff date of November 21, 2024, DYNE-251 demonstrated a favorable safety profile and the majority of treatment emergent adverse events were mild or moderate and no related serious treatment emergent adverse events were identified other than in two participants at the 40 mg/kg dose level which events were potentially related to study drug. One participant experienced symptoms which suggested hemolytic uremic syndrome, potentially caused by an infection. The second participant had a history of unexplained hemolytic anemia and developed fever and tonsillitis after joining the DELIVER trial. Both participants have recovered.
We have begun enrolling a 20 mg/kg Q4W (approximate PMO dose) registrational expansion cohort of approximately 32 participants as part of the DELIVER trial. We continue to pursue accelerated approval in the U.S. based on dystrophin as a surrogate endpoint. We plan to complete enrollment of the registrational expansion cohort in the first quarter of 2025 with data from this cohort in late 2025 and potential submission for U.S. Accelerated Approval in early 2026. We are also pursuing expedited approval pathways globally for DYNE-251.
Facioscapulohumeral Dystrophy (FSHD)
Overview
We are developing DYNE-302 to address the genetic basis of FSHD by reducing DUX4 expression in muscle tissue. In June 2024, we announced new preclinical data for DYNE-302, our product candidate for FSHD, that demonstrated robust and durable DUX4 suppression and functional benefit in a mouse
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model. We generated these data using an innovative hTfR1/iFLExD mouse model we developed that expresses TfR1 and enables tunable DUX4 induction in skeletal muscle. In hTfR1/iFLExD mice, a single intravenous dose of DYNE-302 resulted in dose-dependent and robust reduction of the DUX4 transcriptome that lasted up to three months, with benefit on muscle structure and function. DYNE-302 also demonstrated high in vitro potency in FSHD patient-derived myotubes. We are progressing DYNE-302 through investigational new drug, or IND/clinical trial application, or CTA-enabling studies.
Disease overview and prevalence
FSHD is one of the most common muscular dystrophies and affects both sexes equally, with onset typically in teens and young adults. FSHD is characterized by progressive skeletal muscle loss that initially causes weakness in muscles in the face, shoulders, arms and trunk and progresses to weakness in muscles in lower extremities and the pelvic girdle. Skeletal muscle weakness results in significant physical limitations, including progressive loss of facial muscles that can cause an inability to smile or communicate, difficulty using arms for activities of daily living and difficulty getting out of bed, with many patients ultimately becoming dependent upon the use of a wheelchair for daily mobility activities. We estimate that the patient population is between 16,000 and 38,000 in the United States and approximately 35,000 in Europe. We believe that there may be additional patients who are not formally diagnosed due to a perceived difficulty of obtaining a diagnosis and the fact that there are no approved treatments. Approximately two-thirds of cases are familial-inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion and one-third of cases occur randomly or as a result of environmental factors. FSHD affects all ethnic groups with similar incidence and prevalence.
FSHD is caused by aberrant expression of the DUX4 gene in muscle resulting in inappropriate presence of the DUX4 protein, a transcription factor causing the expression of other genes. Normally, DUX4-driven gene expression is limited to early embryonic development, after which time the DUX4 gene is silenced. In patients with FSHD, a genetic mutation causes expression of DUX4 protein to continue after embryonic development. The DUX4 protein regulates the expression of multiple genes encoding other proteins, some of which are toxic to muscle. Evidence of aberrant expression of DUX4 and the genes it activates, including ZSCAN4, MBD3L2, and TRIM43, is a major molecular signature that distinguishes muscles affected by FSHD from healthy muscle. The aberrant expression of DUX4 in FSHD results in muscle death and replacement by fat, which leads to the progressive muscle weakness and disability which characterize the disease, as shown in the figure below.
FSHD: genetic basis and disease process
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Current approaches and limitations
There are currently no approved therapies for FSHD, and patients are treated with pain management and physical therapy. There are a number of product candidates in clinical development, including losmapimod, a p38 MAPK inhibitor that is intended to modulate DUX4 expression and is being evaluated in a Phase 3 clinical trial. To aid in the development of therapies for FSHD, we are sponsoring an ongoing natural history study seeking to validate new clinical outcome assessments and evaluate physiological biomarkers to support the design and implementation of future clinical trials.
Pompe Disease
Overview
We are developing DYNE-401 to deliver an enzyme replacement therapy to address the deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme, GAA that causes Pompe disease. We engineered FORCE-GAA by leveraging the FORCE platform and evaluated efficacy in vivo using hTfR1/6Neo mice, that were developed by crossing the well-established 6Neo mouse model of Pompe with mice expressing human transferrin receptor 1. Using this approach, intravenous, or IV, administration cleared glycogen in muscle and the CNS and normalized lysosomal size in hTfR1/6Neo mice. This approach reduced serum neurofilament light chain, a biomarker of axonal injury, providing evidence of benefit in the CNS and displayed superior dose potency compared to GAA alone. Additional data with this approach supported the potential for monthly dosing which is less frequent than approved enzyme replacement therapies for Pompe.
Disease overview and prevalence
Pompe disease is a rare, severe neuromuscular disorder caused by deficiency of GAA. Lack of GAA leads to glycogen accumulation and increase in lysosomal size in muscle and subsequent weakness, cardiomyopathy and respiratory failure. Enzyme replacement therapy with GAA is the standard of care and increases survival but has inadequate efficacy in skeletal muscle. Pompe is also characterized by CNS manifestations, including behavioral and cognitive deficits due to glycogen accumulation in CNS cells, which are not addressed by the standard of care therapy. We estimate that the patient population for Pompe is approximately 3,800 in the United States and 7,000 in Europe.
Current approaches and limitations
There are three currently approved treatments for Pompe disease, all of which are enzyme replacement therapies that use recombinant human acid alpha glucosidase (rhGAA): Myozyme/Lumizyme (alglucosidase alfa), Nexviazyme/Nexviadyme (avalglucosidase alfa), and Pombiliti + Opfolda (cipaglucosidase alfa-atga in combination with miglustat). The first therapy approved, alglucosidase alfa, has improved the prognosis for Pompe disease patients. However, patients still experience disease progression and significant symptoms, largely attributed to poor delivery and uptake of the enzyme by skeletal muscle. Next-generation therapies, avalglucosidase alfa and the combination of cipaglucosidase alfa-atga with miglustat, were developed to enhance enzyme delivery and uptake by skeletal muscle. Both provide incrementally better clinical outcomes than alglucosidase alfa but failed to demonstrate superiority to alglucosidase alfa in Phase 3 trials, reflecting substantial remaining unmet medical need. Importantly, there is limited evidence that any of these three medicines penetrates the CNS, where Pompe symptoms include decreased processing speed, learning disabilities, and cognitive decline. Beyond these marketed products, the pipeline of drugs in development for the treatment of Pompe consists of early-stage product candidates that aim to address Pompe disease via alternative strategies, including improving muscle targeting of enzyme replacement therapy, reducing glycogen production and modifying liver or muscle cells to express GAA using gene therapy. There remains a high unmet medical need for new disease-modifying therapies for Pompe disease.
Discovery Programs and Pipeline Expansion Opportunities
We intend to expand our FORCE portfolio by pursuing programs in additional indications, including additional rare skeletal muscle diseases, as well as cardiac and metabolic muscle diseases and diseases involving the CNS. By rationally selecting therapeutic payloads to conjugate with our proprietary Fab and
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linker, we plan to develop product candidates to address the genetic basis of additional muscle diseases. For example, we plan to prioritize ASOs for indications driven by nuclear genetic targets and siRNAs for indications driven by cytoplasmic targets. We have completed screening and identified potent ASO and siRNA payloads against a number of cardiac and metabolic targets. We may selectively establish strategic collaborations for certain of these programs where we believe we could benefit from the resources or capabilities of other biopharmaceutical companies. We may also seek strategic collaborations where we believe we can utilize our FORCE platform to enhance delivery of third-party payloads to muscle tissue.
We have demonstrated in preclinical studies that the FORCE platform achieved delivery to the CNS. Intravenous, or IV, administration of FORCE conjugate, our proprietary Fab antibody conjugated to an ASO, achieved delivery to the CNS via TfR1 in both NHPs and our hTfR1/DMSXL mouse model. The hTfR1/DMSXL model that we developed expresses the human TfR1 and carries a human DMPK gene with more than 1,000 CTG repeats that represents a severe DM1 phenotype. In these studies, FORCE conjugate was generally well tolerated. In NHPs, FORCE conjugate achieved superior delivery compared to unconjugated ASO when both were administered intravenously. In addition, IV administration of FORCE in our preclinical studies showed broader distribution throughout the brain compared to intrathecal administration of unconjugated ASO. FORCE conjugate was also delivered to the brain of hTfR1/DMSXL mice and demonstrated robust knockdown of toxic human nuclear DMPK RNA and foci reduction in hTfR1/DMSXL mice.
Manufacturing
We do not own or operate manufacturing facilities. We currently rely on third-party contract manufacturing organizations, or CMOs, and suppliers for our Fab antibody, linkers and payloads that comprise our program candidates and the conjugation of these components. We plan to use third-party CMOs to support our IND-enabling studies and to fully supply our clinical trials and commercial activities but may also seek to eventually establish our own manufacturing facility for long-term commercial supply. As we scale manufacturing, we intend to continue to expand and strengthen our network of CMOs. We believe there are multiple sources for all of the materials required for the manufacture of our product candidates, as well as multiple CMOs who could assemble the antibody, linker and payload that comprise our program candidates.
Manufacturing is subject to extensive regulations that impose procedural and documentation requirements. These regulations govern record keeping, manufacturing processes and controls, personnel, quality control and quality assurance. Our CMOs are required to comply with these regulations and are assessed through regular monitoring and formal audits. Our third-party manufacturers are required to manufacture any product candidates we develop under current Good Manufacturing Practice, or cGMP, requirements and other applicable laws and regulations.
We have personnel with extensive technical, manufacturing, analytical and quality experience to oversee all contracted manufacturing and testing activities. We have established a CMC Advisory Board to support our manufacturing personnel.
Intellectual property
We strive to protect our proprietary technology, inventions, improvements, platforms, program candidates, product candidates and components thereof, their methods of use and processes for their manufacture that we believe are important to our business, including by obtaining, maintaining, defending and enforcing patent and other intellectual property rights for the foregoing in the United States and in foreign jurisdictions. We also rely on trade secrets and confidentiality agreements to protect our confidential information and know-how and other aspects of our business that are not amenable to, or that we do not consider appropriate for, patent protection.
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Our future commercial success depends in part on our ability to:
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obtain, maintain, enforce and defend patent and other intellectual property rights for our important technology, inventions and know-how;
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preserve the confidentiality of our trade secrets and other confidential information;
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obtain and maintain licenses to use and exploit intellectual property owned or controlled by third parties;
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operate without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating any valid and enforceable patents and other intellectual property rights of third parties; and
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defend against challenges and assertions by third parties challenging the validity or enforceability of our intellectual property rights, or our rights in our intellectual property, or asserting that the operation of our business infringes, misappropriates or otherwise violates their intellectual property rights.
As of December 31, 2024, we owned 60 patent application families related to our business, comprised of eight U.S. provisional patent applications, 36 issued U.S. patents, 48 pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, six pending Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT, patent applications, and 411 pending foreign patent applications in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Eurasia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa, and three granted foreign patents. We exclusively licensed one patent family, comprised of three issued U.S. patents, two pending U.S. patent applications and one issued European patent that has been validated in Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Our owned and licensed patent estate covers various aspects of our programs and technology, including our FORCE platform, proprietary antibodies, oligonucleotide conjugates, enzyme conjugates, methods of treatment and aspects of manufacturing. Any U.S. or foreign patents issued from national stage filings of our PCT patent applications and any U.S. patents issued from non-provisional applications we may file in connection with our provisional patent applications would be scheduled to expire on various dates from 2039 through 2045, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustments or extensions and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity and other governmental fees. Further details on certain segments of our patent portfolio are included below.
FORCE platform
With regard to our FORCE platform, as of December 31, 2024, we owned three issued U.S. patents, nine pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, and 67 pending foreign patent applications in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Eurasia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and South Africa. These applications relate to various aspects of our FORCE platform including proprietary antibodies, oligonucleotide conjugates, enzyme conjugates, methods of manufacture and methods of treatment. The three issued U.S. patents are expected to expire in 2042 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions. Any patents issued from these applications are expected to expire from 2039 to 2042; however, patent term extension may be available.
DM1 program
With regard to our DM1 program, as of December 31, 2024, we owned three pending U.S. provisional patent applications, 16 issued U.S. patents, ten pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, two granted foreign patents, and 99 pending foreign patent applications in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Eurasia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. These applications relate to composition of matter and methods of treating disease involving our FORCE platform in the context of DM1. The 16 issued U.S. patents are expected to expire in 2039, 2042 and 2043 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions. The two granted foreign patents are expected to expire in 2039 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions.
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Any additional patents issued from these applications are expected to expire from 2039 to 2045; however, patent term extension may be available.
DMD programs (exons 51, 53, 44, 45, and other)
With regard to our DMD programs, as of December 31, 2024, we owned two pending PCT patent applications, 20 issued U.S. patents, 15 pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, three granted foreign patents and 147 pending foreign patent applications in Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, Europe, Eurasia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and South Africa. These patent filings relate to composition of matter and methods of treating disease involving our FORCE platform in the context of DMD. The 20 issued U.S. patents are expected to expire in 2039 and 2042 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions. The three granted foreign patents are expected to expire in 2039 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions. Any additional patents issued from these applications are expected to expire in 2039 and 2041 to 2044; however, patent term extension may be available.
FSHD program
With regard to our FSHD program, as of December 31, 2024, we owned two pending PCT patent applications, 12 issued U.S. patents, two pending U.S. provisional patent applications, five pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, two granted foreign patents and 58 pending foreign patent applications in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Eurasia, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and South Africa. These patent filings relate to composition of matter and methods of treating disease involving our FORCE platform in the context of FSHD. The 12 issued U.S. patents are expected to expire in 2039 and 2042 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions. The two granted foreign patents are expected to expire in 2039 without taking into account any possible patent term extensions. Any additional patents issued from these applications are expected to expire in 2039 and 2041 to 2045; however, patent term extension may be available. We also in-license a patent family from the University of Mons, or UMONS, comprising two pending U.S. patent applications. Any patents issued from these applications are expected to expire in 2031; however patent term extension may be available.
Pompe Program
With regard to our Pompe program, as of December 31, 2024, we owned one pending U.S. provisional patent application and seven pending foreign patent applications in Canada, China, Europe, Eurasia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and South Africa. These patent filings relate to composition of matter and methods of treating disease involving our FORCE platform in the context of Pompe disease. Any patents issued from these applications are expected to expire in 2039 and 2045; however, patent term extension may be available.
Discovery programs
With regard to our discovery programs, as of December 31, 2024, we owned one pending PCT patent application, three pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, and nine pending foreign patent applications in China, Canada, Europe and Japan. These applications relate to composition of matter and methods of treating disease involving our FORCE platform in the context of a variety of additional rare skeletal muscle diseases, as well as cardiac and metabolic muscle diseases and diseases involving the CNS. Any patents issued from these applications are expected to expire in 2039, 2041 and 2042; however, patent term extension may be available.
Patent prosecution
A PCT patent application is not eligible to become an issued patent until, among other things, we file one or more national stage patent applications in the jurisdictions in which we seek patent protection and do so within prescribed timelines of the PCT application’s priority date. These prescribed timelines are generally 30 months, 31 months or 32 months, depending on the jurisdiction. If we do not timely file any national stage patent applications, we may lose our priority date with respect to our PCT patent
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application and any potential patent protection on the inventions disclosed in such PCT patent application.
Moreover, a provisional patent application is not eligible to become an issued patent. A provisional patent application may serve as a priority filing for a non-provisional patent application we file within 12 months of such provisional patent application. If we do not timely file non-provisional patent applications, we may lose our priority date with respect to our existing provisional patent applications and any potential patent protection on the inventions disclosed in our provisional patent applications.
While we intend to timely file additional provisional patent applications and national stage and non-provisional patent applications relating to our PCT patent applications, we cannot predict whether any of our patent applications will result in the issuance of patents. If we do not successfully obtain patent protection, or if the scope of the patent protection we or our licensors obtain with respect to our product candidates or technology is insufficient, we will be unable to use patent protection to prevent others from using our technology or from developing or commercializing technology and products similar or identical to ours or other similar competing products and technologies. Our ability to stop third parties from making, using, selling, offering to sell, importing or otherwise commercializing any of our technology, inventions and improvements, either directly or indirectly, will depend in part on our success in obtaining, maintaining, defending and enforcing patent claims that cover our technology, inventions and improvements.
The patent positions of companies like ours are generally uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions. The protection afforded by a patent varies on a product-by-product basis, from jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction, and depends upon many factors, including the type of patent, the scope of its coverage, the availability of patent term adjustments and regulatory-related patent term extensions, the availability of legal remedies in a particular jurisdiction and the validity and enforceability of the patent. Patent laws and related enforcement in various jurisdictions outside of the United States are uncertain and may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Changes in the patent laws and rules, whether by legislation, judicial decisions or regulatory interpretation, in the United States and other jurisdictions may have uncertain affects that could improve or diminish our ability to protect our inventions and obtain, maintain, defend and enforce our patent rights, and could therefore affect the value of our business in uncertain ways.
The area of patent and other intellectual property rights in biotechnology is evolving and has many risks and uncertainties, and third parties may have blocking patents and other intellectual property that could be used to prevent us from commercializing our platform and product candidates and practicing our proprietary technology. Our patent rights may be challenged, narrowed, circumvented, invalidated or ruled unenforceable, which could limit our ability to stop third parties from marketing and commercializing related platforms or product candidates or limit the term of patents that cover our platform and any product candidates. In addition, the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with protection or competitive advantages against third parties with similar technology, and third parties may independently develop similar technologies.
Moreover, because of the extensive time required for development, testing and regulatory review of a potential product, it is possible that before any of our product candidates can be commercialized, any related patent may expire or remain in force for only a short period following commercialization, thereby reducing any competitive advantage provided by the patent. For this and other risks related to our proprietary technology, inventions, improvements, platforms and product candidates and intellectual property rights related to the foregoing, please see the section entitled “Risk factors—Risks related to our intellectual property.”
Patent term
The term of individual patents depends upon the laws of the jurisdictions in which they are obtained. In most jurisdictions in which we file, the patent term is 20 years from the earliest date of filing of the first non-provisional patent application to which the patent claims priority. However, the term of U.S. patents
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may be extended or adjusted for delays incurred due to compliance with FDA requirements or by delays encountered during prosecution that are caused by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or the USPTO. For example, in the United States, a patent claiming a new biologic product, its method of use or its method of manufacture may be eligible for a limited patent term extension under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, or the Hatch-Waxman Act, for up to five years beyond the normal expiration date of the patent. Patent term extension cannot be used to extend the remaining term of a patent past a total of 14 years from the product’s approval date in the United States. Only one patent applicable to an approved product is eligible for the extension, and the application for the extension must be submitted prior to the expiration of the patent for which extension is sought. A patent that covers multiple products for which approval is sought can only be extended in connection with one of the approvals. During the period of extension, if granted, the scope of exclusivity is limited to the approved product for approved uses. Some foreign jurisdictions, including Europe and Japan, have analogous patent term extension provisions, which allow for extension of the term of a patent that covers a drug approved by the applicable foreign regulatory authority. For more information on patent term extensions, see Item 1. “Business—Government regulation—Patent term restoration and extension” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In the future, if and when any product candidates we may develop receive FDA approval, we expect to apply for patent term extensions on issued patents covering those product candidates. Moreover, we intend to seek patent term adjustments and extensions for any of our issued patents in any jurisdiction where such adjustments and extensions are available. However, there is no guarantee that the applicable authorities, including the USPTO and FDA, will agree with our assessment of whether such adjustments and extensions should be granted, and even if granted, the length of such adjustments and extensions.
Trade secrets
In addition to patent protection, we also rely on trade secrets, know-how, unpatented technology and other proprietary information to strengthen our competitive position. We currently, and may in the future continue to, rely on third parties to assist us in developing and manufacturing our products. Accordingly, we must, at times, share trade secrets, know-how, unpatented technology and other proprietary information, including those related to our platform, with them. We may in the future also enter into research and development collaborations with third parties that may require us to share trade secrets, know-how, unpatented technology and other proprietary information under the terms of research and development partnerships or similar agreements. Nonetheless, we take steps to protect and preserve our trade secrets and other confidential and proprietary information and prevent the unauthorized disclosure of the foregoing, including by entering into non-disclosure and invention assignment agreements with parties who have access to our trade secrets or other confidential and proprietary information, such as employees, consultants, outside scientific collaborators, contract research and manufacturing organizations, sponsored researchers and other advisors, at the commencement of their employment, consulting or other relationships with us. In addition, we take other appropriate precautions, such as maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems, to guard against any misappropriation or unauthorized disclosure of our trade secrets and other confidential and proprietary information by third parties.
Despite these efforts, third parties may independently develop substantially equivalent proprietary information and techniques or otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information. In addition, we cannot provide any assurances that all of the foregoing non-disclosure and invention assignment agreements have been duly executed, and any of the counterparties to such agreements may breach them and disclose our trade secrets and other confidential and proprietary information. Although we have confidence in the measures we take to protect and preserve our trade secrets and other confidential and proprietary information, they may be inadequate, our agreements or security measures may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for such breaches. Moreover, to the extent that our employees, contractors, consultants, collaborators and advisors use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to our rights in any know-how or inventions arising out of such work. For more information, please see the section entitled “Risk factors—Risks related to our intellectual property.”
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License agreement with the University of Mons
In April 2020, we entered into a license agreement with UMONS, or the UMONS Agreement, pursuant to which UMONS granted to us an exclusive, worldwide license to certain patents and patent applications related to oligonucleotides for our FSHD program and a non-exclusive, worldwide license to existing, related know-how. Each of the issued patents licensed to us under the UMONS Agreement is scheduled to expire in 2031. The licenses under the UMONS Agreement confer on us the right to research, develop and commercialize products, which we refer to as licensed products, and to practice processes, in each case, covered by the licensed patents and existing, related know-how.
Under the UMONS Agreement, we are obligated to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop at least one licensed product and, to the extent regulatory approval is obtained in such jurisdictions, to commercialize at least one licensed product in the United States and the United Kingdom or a member country of the European Union. Unless terminated earlier, the UMONS Agreement will remain in effect until the last to expire of the licensed patent rights on a licensed product-by-licensed product and country-by-country basis. UMONS may terminate the UMONS Agreement in the event of a material breach by us and our failure to cure such breach within a specified time period. We may voluntarily terminate the UMONS Agreement with prior notice to UMONS.
In connection with our entry into the UMONS Agreement, we paid UMONS an upfront payment of €50,000. We also agreed to make milestone payments to UMONS upon the achievement of specified development and regulatory milestones up to a maximum aggregate total of €400,000 for the first licensed product to achieve such milestones and up to a maximum aggregate total of €200,000 for each subsequent licensed product to achieve each such milestones, as well as a low single-digit percentage royalty on net sales of licensed products by us, our affiliates and sublicensees. These royalty obligations continue on a licensed product-by-licensed product and country-by-country basis until the expiration of the last licensed patent rights covering such licensed product in such country. In addition, if we sublicense rights under the UMONS Agreement, we are required to pay a low double-digit percentage of the sublicense revenue to UMONS. Additionally, if we choose to file, prosecute or maintain any patents included in the licensed patent rights under the UMONS Agreement, we will be required to bear the full cost and expenses of preparing, filing, prosecuting and maintaining any such patents.
Competition
The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries generally, and the muscle disease field specifically, are characterized by rapid evolution of technologies, sharp competition and strong defense of intellectual property. Any product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize will have to compete with existing therapies and new therapies that may become available in the future. While we believe that our technology, development experience and scientific knowledge in the field of muscle diseases, oligonucleotide therapeutics and manufacturing provide us with competitive advantages, we face potential competition from many different sources, including major pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic institutions and governmental agencies and public and private research institutions.
There are currently no approved therapies to treat the underlying cause of DM1. Product candidates currently in clinical development to treat DM1 include: tideglusib, a GSK3-ß inhibitor in late-stage clinical development by AMO Pharma Ltd. for children and adults with DM1; pitolisant, a selective histamine 3 receptor antagonist / inverse agonist being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial for non-muscular symptoms of DM1 by Harmony Biosciences Holdings, Inc.; Delpacibart etedesiran (formerly AOC-1001), an antibody linked siRNA being evaluated in a Phase 3 clinical trial by Avidity Biosciences, Inc., or Avidity; PGN-EDODM1, a peptide-linked PMO currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial by Pepgen, Inc.; ARO-DM1, a peptide-linked siRNA being evaluated in a Phase 1/2a clinical trial in Australia and New Zealand by Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; ATX-01, a lipophilic peptide conjugated anti-miR designed to target microRNA 23b currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial by ARTHEx Biotech S.L.; and VX-670, an endosomal escape vehicle technology with a CUG steric blocker
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oligonucleotide by Entrada Therapeutics, Inc. in collaboration with Vertex being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Australia.
Currently, patients with DMD are treated with corticosteroids to manage the inflammatory component of the disease. EMFLAZA (deflazacort) is an FDA-approved corticosteroid marketed by PTC Therapeutics, Inc., or PTC. A novel steroid, AGAMREE (vamorolone) was also recently approved by the FDA for treatment of DMD in patients 2 years of age and older and is marketed by Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Givinostat, an HDAC inhibitor, received FDA approval for treatment of DMD in patients 6 years of age and older and is marketed in the U.S. by ITF Therapeutics, LLC. In addition, there are four FDA-approved exon skipping drugs: EXONDYS 51 (eteplirsen), VYONDYS 53 (golodirsen) and AMONDYS 45 (casimersen), which are naked PMOs approved for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 51, exon 53 and exon 45 skipping, respectively, and are marketed by Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc., or Sarepta, and VILTEPSO (vitolarsen), a naked PMO approved for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 53 skipping, which is marketed by Nippon Shinyaku Co. Ltd. Additionally, there is one FDA-approved gene therapy for patients with a confirmed mutation in the dystrophin gene, ELEVIDYS (delandistrogene moxeparvovec-rokl), which is marketed by Sarepta. Companies focused on developing treatments for DMD that target dystrophin mechanisms, as does our DMD program, include Wave Life Sciences Ltd. with WVE-N531, a stereopure oligonucleotide being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial for patients amenable to exon 53 skipping; Entrada Therapeutics, Inc. with ENTR-601-44, an endosomal escape vehicle technology for the treatment of DMD patients amenable to exon 44 skipping currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial; Pepgen, Inc., with EDO51, a peptide-linked PMO for patients amenable to exon 51 skipping which is being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial; BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. with BMN 351, an oligonucleotide therapy that targets dystrophin production which is being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial and Avidity with AOC 1044, an antibody oligonucleotide conjugate that targets dystrophin production for patients amenable to exon 44 skipping being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial. In addition, several companies are developing gene therapies to treat DMD, including Milo Biotechnology (AAV1-FS344), Sarepta (SRP-9001 and Galgt2 gene therapy program), Solid Biosciences Inc. (SGT-003), REGENXBIO Inc. (RGX-202), Genethon (GNT-0004), and Insmed (INS1201). Gene editing treatments that are in preclinical development are also being pursued by Vertex and Sarepta. We are also aware of several companies targeting non-dystrophin mechanisms for the treatment of DMD.
There are currently no therapies approved to treat FSHD. Products currently in development for FSHD include: ARO-DUX4, an siRNA therapy being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial and licensed by Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to Sarepta; delpacibart braxlosiran(formerly AOC-1020), an antibody oligonucleotide conjugate being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial by Avidity and RO7204239, an anti-latent myostatin antibody by Roche Pharmaceuticals that is in a Phase 2 clinical trial. Additionally, satralizumab, an anti-IL-6 antibody, is being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial by the University Hospital of Nice and clenbuterol, a beta (2) agonist, is being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial by Springbok Analytics, Inc.
There are three currently approved medicines for Pompe disease, all of which are enzyme replacement therapies: Myozyme/Lumizyme (alglucosidase alfa) and Nexviazyme/Nexviadyme (avalglucosidase alfa) by Sanofi, and Pombiliti + Opfolda (cipaglucosidase alfa-atga in combination with miglustat) by Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. Beyond these marketed products, the Pompe clinical pipeline consists of early-stage product candidates that aim to address Pompe disease via alternative strategies. ACTUS-101, a gene therapy delivered to the liver for continuous, endogenous production of GAA currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial by AskBio, Inc. and AT-845, a muscle-targeted gene therapy currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial Astellas Pharma US, Inc. ABX-1100 by ARO Biotherapeutics Co. and MZE-001 by Maze Therapeutics, Inc. are substrate reduction therapies in Phase 1 clinical trials.
We also expect to compete more generally with other companies developing alternative scientific and technological approaches to the treatment of muscle diseases, including other companies working to develop conjugates with oligonucleotides for extra-hepatic delivery, including Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Aro Biotherapeutics, Inc., Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Avidity, Denali Therapeutics, Inc., Novo
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Nordisk A/S, DTx Pharma, Inc., Gennao Bio, Inc., Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Sarepta, as well as gene therapy and gene editing approaches.
Many of our competitors, either independently or with strategic partners, have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do. Accordingly, our competitors may be more successful than we are in research and development, manufacturing, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approval for treatments and achieving widespread market acceptance. Merger and acquisition activity in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries may result in resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. These companies also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel, establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials and acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies.
Our commercial opportunity could be substantially limited if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are more effective, safer, less toxic, more convenient or less expensive than products we may develop. In geographies that are critical to our commercial success, competitors may also obtain regulatory approvals before us, resulting in our competitors building a strong market position in advance of the entry of our products. In addition, our ability to compete may be affected in many cases by insurers or other third-party payers seeking to encourage the use of other drugs. The key competitive factors affecting the success of all any products we may develop are likely to be their efficacy, safety, convenience, price and availability of reimbursement.
Government regulation
Government authorities in the United States, at the federal, state and local level and in other countries and jurisdictions, including the European Union, extensively regulate, among other things, the research, development, testing, manufacture, pricing, reimbursement, sales, quality control, approval, packaging, storage, recordkeeping, labeling, advertising, promotion, distribution, marketing, post-approval monitoring and reporting and import and export of pharmaceutical products, including biological products. The processes for obtaining marketing approvals in the United States and in foreign countries and jurisdictions, along with subsequent compliance with applicable statutes and regulations and other regulatory authorities, require the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources. The regulatory
requirements applicable to product development, approval and marketing are subject to change, and
regulations and administrative guidance often are revised or reinterpreted by government agencies in
ways that may have a significant impact on our business.
Licensure and regulation of biologics in the United States
In the United States, any product candidates we may develop would be regulated as biological products, or biologics, under the Public Health Service Act, or PHSA, and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA, and their implementing regulations and guidance.
A company, institution, or organization which takes responsibility for the initiation and management of a clinical development program for such products is referred to as a sponsor. A sponsor seeking approval to market and distribute a new drug or biological product in the United States must typically secure the following:
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preclinical laboratory tests, animal studies and formulation studies all performed in accordance with the FDA’s Good Laboratory Practices, or GLP, regulations and other applicable requirements;
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completion of the manufacture, under current Good Manufacturing Practice, or cGMP conditions, of the drug substance and drug product that the sponsor intends to use in human clinical trials along with required analytical and stability testing;
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design of a clinical protocol and submission to the FDA of an IND application for human clinical testing, which must become effective before human clinical trials may begin;
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approval by an independent institutional review board, or IRB, representing each clinical site before each clinical trial may be initiated;
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performance of adequate and well-controlled human clinical trials to establish the safety, potency and purity of the product candidate for each proposed indication, in accordance with current Good Clinical Practices, or GCP;
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preparation and submission to the FDA of a biologics license application, or BLA, for a biologic product candidate requesting marketing for one or more proposed indications, including submission of detailed information on the chemistry, manufacture and controls, or CMC, for the product candidate in clinical development and proposed labeling;
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review of the product by an FDA advisory committee, where appropriate or if applicable;
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satisfactory completion of one or more FDA inspections of the manufacturing facility or facilities, including those of third parties, at which the product, or components thereof, are produced to assess compliance with current cGMP requirements and to assure that the facilities, methods and controls are adequate to preserve the product’s identity, strength, quality and purity;
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satisfactory completion of any FDA audits of the preclinical studies and clinical trial sites to assure compliance with GLP, as applicable, and GCP, and the integrity of clinical data in support of the BLA;
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payment of application and program fees under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA;
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securing FDA approval of the BLA and licensure of the new biologic product; and
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compliance with any post-approval requirements, including the potential requirement to implement a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS, and any post-approval studies or other post-marketing commitments required by the FDA.
Preclinical studies and investigational new drug application
Before testing any biologic product candidate in humans, including an antibody, the product candidate must undergo preclinical testing. Preclinical tests include laboratory evaluations of product chemistry, formulation and stability, as well as studies to evaluate the potential for efficacy and toxicity in animal studies. These studies are generally referred to as IND-enabling studies. The conduct of the preclinical tests and formulation of the compounds for testing must comply with federal regulations and requirements, including GLP regulations and standards and the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal Welfare Act, if applicable. The results of the preclinical tests, together with manufacturing information and analytical data, are submitted to the FDA as part of an IND application.
An IND is an exemption from the FDCA that allows an unapproved product candidate to be shipped in interstate commerce for use in an investigational clinical trial and a request for FDA authorization to administer such investigational product to humans. The IND automatically becomes effective 30 days after receipt by the FDA, unless before that time the FDA raises concerns or questions about the product or conduct of the proposed clinical trial, including concerns that human research subjects will be exposed to unreasonable health risks or concerns about the CMC for the product candidate. In that case, the IND sponsor and the FDA must resolve any outstanding FDA concerns before the clinical trials can begin or recommence.
As a result, submission of the IND may result in the FDA not allowing the trials to commence or allowing the trial to commence on the terms originally specified by the sponsor in the IND. If the FDA raises concerns or questions either during this initial 30-day period, or at any time following the clearance of an IND, it may choose to impose a partial or complete clinical hold on the trial. Clinical holds are imposed by the FDA whenever there is concern for patient safety, which may be a result of new data, findings, or developments in clinical, preclinical and/or CMC or where there is non-compliance with regulatory requirements. This order issued by the FDA would delay either a proposed clinical trial or cause suspension of an ongoing trial, until all outstanding concerns have been adequately addressed and the FDA has notified the company that investigations may proceed. This could cause significant delays or difficulties in completing our planned clinical trials or future clinical trials in a timely manner.
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Expanded access to an investigational drug for treatment use
Expanded access, sometimes called “compassionate use,” is the use of investigational products outside of clinical trials to treat patients with serious or immediately life-threatening diseases or conditions when there are no comparable or satisfactory alternative treatment options. The rules and regulations related to expanded access are intended to improve access to investigational products for patients who may benefit from investigational therapies. FDA regulations allow access to investigational products under an IND by the company or the treating physician for treatment purposes on a case-by-case basis for: individual patients (single-patient IND applications for treatment in emergency settings and non-emergency settings); intermediate-size patient populations; and larger populations for use of the investigational product under a treatment protocol or treatment IND application.
When considering an IND application for expanded access to an investigational product with the purpose of treating a patient or a group of patients, the sponsor and treating physicians or investigators will determine suitability when all of the following criteria apply: patient(s) have a serious or immediately life-threatening disease or condition, and there is no comparable or satisfactory alternative therapy to diagnose, monitor, or treat the disease or condition; the potential patient benefit justifies the potential risks of the treatment and the potential risks are not unreasonable in the context or condition to be treated; and the expanded use of the investigational drug for the requested treatment will not interfere with initiation, conduct, or completion of clinical investigations that could support marketing approval of the product or otherwise compromise the potential development of the product.
There is no obligation for a sponsor to make its drug products available for expanded access. Drug and biologic companies must, however, make publicly available their policies for expanded access for individual patient access to products intended for serious diseases. Sponsors are required to make such policies publicly available upon the earlier of initiation of a Phase 2 or Phase 3 trial; or 15 days after the investigational drug or biologic receives designation as a breakthrough therapy, Fast Track product, or regenerative medicine advanced therapy.
In addition, on May 30, 2018, the Right to Try Act was signed into law. The law, among other things, provides a federal framework for certain patients to access certain investigational products that have completed a Phase 1 clinical trial and that are undergoing investigation for FDA approval. Under certain circumstances, eligible patients can seek treatment without enrolling in clinical trials and without obtaining FDA permission under the FDA expanded access program. There is no obligation for a manufacturer to make its investigational products available to eligible patients as a result of the Right to Try Act.
Human clinical trials in support of a BLA
Clinical trials involve the administration of the investigational product candidate to healthy volunteers or patients with the disease or condition to be treated under the supervision of a qualified principal investigator in accordance with GCP requirements. Clinical trials are conducted under protocols detailing, among other things, the objectives of the trial, inclusion and exclusion criteria, the parameters to be used in monitoring safety, and the effectiveness criteria to be evaluated. A protocol for each clinical trial and any subsequent protocol amendments must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND.
Further, each clinical trial must be reviewed and approved by an IRB either centrally or individually at each institution at which the clinical trial will be conducted. The IRB will consider, among other things, clinical trial design, patient informed consent, ethical factors, the safety of human subjects, and the possible liability of the institution. An IRB must operate in compliance with FDA regulations. The FDA, IRB, or the clinical trial sponsor may suspend or discontinue a clinical trial at any time for various reasons, including a finding that the clinical trial is not being conducted in accordance with FDA requirements or that the participants are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk. Clinical testing also must satisfy extensive GCP rules and the requirements for informed consent.
Additionally, some clinical trials are overseen by an independent group of qualified experts organized by the clinical trial sponsor, known either as a data monitoring committee, or DMC. This group may
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recommend continuation of the trial as planned, changes in trial conduct, or cessation of the trial at designated check points based on certain available data from the trial to which only the DMC has access. Finally, research activities involving infectious agents, hazardous chemicals, recombinant DNA and genetically altered organisms and agents may be subject to review and approval of an Institutional Biosafety Committee, or IBC, in accordance with NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules.
Clinical trials typically are conducted in three sequential phases, but the phases may overlap or be combined. Additional studies may be required after approval.
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Phase 1 clinical trials are initially conducted in a limited population to test the product candidate for safety, including adverse effects, dose tolerance, absorption, metabolism, distribution, excretion and pharmacodynamics in healthy subjects or patients.
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Phase 2 clinical trials are generally conducted in a limited patient population to identify possible adverse effects and safety risks, evaluate the efficacy of the product candidate for specific targeted indications and determine dose tolerance and optimal dosage. Multiple Phase 2 clinical trials may be conducted by the sponsor to obtain information prior to beginning larger and more costly Phase 3 clinical trials.
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Phase 3 clinical trials proceed if the Phase 2 clinical trials demonstrate that a dose range of the product candidate is potentially effective and has an acceptable safety profile. Phase 3 clinical trials are undertaken within an expanded patient population to further evaluate dosage, provide substantial evidence of clinical efficacy and further test for safety in an expanded and diverse patient population at multiple, geographically dispersed clinical trial sites. A well-controlled, statistically robust Phase 3 trial may be designed to deliver the data that regulatory authorities will use to decide whether or not to approve, and, if approved, how to appropriately label a biologic; such Phase 3 studies are referred to as “pivotal.”
In some cases, the FDA may approve a BLA for a product but require the sponsor to conduct additional clinical trials to further assess the product’s safety and effectiveness after approval. Such trials are typically referred to as post-approval clinical trials. These studies are used to gain additional experience from the treatment of patients in the intended therapeutic indication and to document a clinical benefit in the case of biologics approved under accelerated approval regulations. If the FDA approves a product while a company has ongoing clinical trials that were not necessary for approval, a company may be able to use the data from these clinical trials to meet all or part of any post-approval clinical trial requirement or to request a change in the product labeling. The failure to exercise due diligence with regard to conducting post-approval clinical trials could result in withdrawal of approval for products.
A clinical trial may combine the elements of more than one phase and the FDA often requires more than one Phase 3 trial to support marketing approval of a product candidate. A company’s designation of a clinical trial as being of a particular phase is not necessarily indicative that the study will be sufficient to satisfy the FDA requirements of that phase because this determination cannot be made until the protocol and data have been submitted to and reviewed by the FDA. Moreover, as noted above, a pivotal trial is a clinical trial that is believed to satisfy FDA requirements for the evaluation of a product candidate’s safety and efficacy such that it can be used, alone or with other pivotal or non-pivotal trials, to support regulatory approval. Generally, pivotal trials are Phase 3 trials, but they may be Phase 2 trials if the design provides a well-controlled and reliable assessment of clinical benefit, particularly in an area of unmet medical need.
In December 2022, with the passage of Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act, or FDORA, Congress required sponsors to develop and submit a diversity action plan for each Phase 3 clinical trial or any other “pivotal study” of a new drug or biological product. These diversity action plans are meant to encourage the enrollment of more diverse patient populations in late-stage clinical trials of FDA-regulated products. Specifically, diversity action plans must include the sponsor’s goals for enrollment, the underlying rationale for those goals, and an explanation of how the sponsor intends to meet them. In June 2024, as mandated by FDORA, the FDA issued draft guidance outlining the general requirements for Diversity Action Plans, or DAPs. Unlike most guidance documents issued by the FDA, the DAP guidance when
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finalized will have the force of law because FDORA specifically dictates that the form and manner for submission of DAPs are specified in FDA guidance. On January 27, 2025, in response to an Executive Order issued by President Trump on January 21, 2025, on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, the FDA removed this draft guidance from its website. The implications of this action are not yet known.
Additionally, in June 2023, the FDA issued draft guidance with updated recommendations for GCPs aimed at modernizing the design and conduct of clinical trials. The updates are intended to help pave the way for more efficient clinical trials to facilitate the development of medical products. The draft guidance is adopted from the International Council for Harmonisation’s recently updated E6(R3) draft guideline that was developed to enable the incorporation of rapidly developing technological and methodological innovations into the clinical trial enterprise. In addition, the FDA issued draft guidance outlining recommendations for the implementation of decentralized clinical trials.
Finally, sponsors of clinical trials are required to register and disclose certain clinical trial information on a public registry (clinicaltrials.gov) maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, or NIH. In particular, information related to the product, patient population, phase of investigation, study sites and investigators and other aspects of the clinical trial is made public as part of the registration of the clinical trial. The NIH’s Final Rule on registration and reporting requirements for clinical trials became effective in 2017. Although the FDA has historically not enforced these reporting requirements due to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’, or HHS, long delay in issuing final implementing regulations, the FDA, as of December 2024, has issued six notices of non-compliance, thereby signaling the government's willingness to begin enforcing these requirements against non-compliant clinical trial sponsors. While these notices of non-compliance did not result in civil monetary penalties, the failure to submit clinical trial information to clinicaltrials.gov, as required, is a prohibited act under the FDCA with violations subject to potential civil monetary penalties of up to $10,000 for each day the violation continues. Violations may also result in injunctions and/or criminal prosecution or disqualification from federal grants.
Interactions with the FDA During the Clinical Development Program
During all phases of clinical development, regulatory agencies require extensive monitoring and auditing of all clinical activities, clinical data and clinical trial investigators. Written IND safety reports must be promptly submitted to the FDA, the IRB and the investigators for serious and unexpected adverse events, any findings from other trials, in vivo laboratory tests or in vitro testing that suggest a significant risk for human subjects, or any clinically important increase in the rate of a serious suspected adverse reaction over that listed in the protocol or investigator brochure. The sponsor must submit an IND safety report within 15 calendar days after the sponsor determines that the information qualifies for reporting. The sponsor also must notify the FDA of any unexpected fatal or life-threatening suspected adverse reaction within seven calendar days after the sponsor’s initial receipt of the information. A development safety report detailing the results of the clinical trials must be submitted to the FDA on an annual basis.
In addition, sponsors are given opportunities to meet with the FDA at certain points in the clinical development program. Specifically, sponsors may meet with the FDA prior to the submission of an IND, or pre-IND application meeting, at the end of a Phase II clinical trial, or EOP2 meeting, and before a BLA is submitted, or pre-BLA meeting. Meetings at other times may also be requested. There are five types of meetings that occur between sponsors and the FDA. Type A meetings are those that are necessary for an otherwise stalled product development program to proceed or to address an important safety issue. Type B meetings include pre-IND application and pre-BLA meetings, as well as Type B end of phase meetings, such as EOP2 meetings. A Type C meeting is any meeting other than a Type A or Type B meeting regarding the development and review of a product. A Type D meeting is focused on a narrow set of issues (should be limited to no more than two focused topics) and should not require input from more than three disciplines or divisions. Finally, INTERACT meetings are intended for novel products and development programs that present unique challenges in the early development of an investigational product.
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Clinical Studies Outside the United States in Support of FDA Approval
In connection with our clinical development program, we are conducting trials, and may conduct trials in the future, at sites outside the United States. When a foreign clinical study is conducted under an IND, all IND requirements must be met unless waived. When a foreign clinical study is not conducted under an IND, the sponsor must ensure that the study complies with certain regulatory requirements of the FDA in order to use the study as support for an IND or application for marketing approval. Specifically, the studies must be conducted in accordance with GCP, including undergoing review and receiving approval by an independent ethics committee, or IEC, and seeking and receiving informed consent from subjects. GCP requirements encompass both ethical and data integrity standards for clinical studies. The FDA’s regulations are intended to help ensure the protection of human subjects enrolled in non-IND foreign clinical studies, as well as the quality and integrity of the resulting data. They further help ensure that non-IND foreign studies are conducted in a manner comparable to that required for IND studies.
The acceptance by the FDA of study data from clinical trials conducted outside the United States in support of US approval may be subject to certain conditions or may not be accepted at all. In cases where data from foreign clinical trials are intended to serve as the sole basis for marketing approval in the United States, the FDA will generally not approve the application on the basis of foreign data alone unless (i) the data are applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice; (ii) the trials were performed by clinical investigators of recognized competence and pursuant to GCP regulations; and (iii) the data may be considered valid without the need for an on-site inspection by the FDA, or if the FDA considers such inspection to be necessary, the FDA is able to validate the data through an on-site inspection or other appropriate means.
In addition, even where the foreign study data are not intended to serve as the sole basis for approval, the FDA will not accept the data as support for an application for marketing approval unless the study is well-designed and well-conducted in accordance with GCP requirements and the FDA is able to validate the data from the study through an onsite inspection if deemed necessary. Many foreign regulatory authorities have similar approval requirements. In addition, such foreign trials are subject to the applicable local laws of the foreign jurisdictions where the trials are conducted.
Pediatric Studies
Under the Pediatric Research Equity Act of 2003, a BLA or supplement thereto must contain data that are adequate to assess the safety and effectiveness of the product for the claimed indications in all relevant pediatric subpopulations, and to support dosing and administration for each pediatric subpopulation for which the product is safe and effective. Sponsors must also submit pediatric study plans prior to the assessment data. Those plans must contain an outline of the proposed pediatric study or studies the sponsor plans to conduct, including study objectives and design, any deferral or waiver requests, and other information required by regulation. The sponsor, the FDA, and the FDA’s internal review committee must then review the information submitted, consult with each other, and agree upon a final plan. The FDA or the sponsor may request an amendment to the plan at any time.
For products intended to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, the FDA must, upon the request of a sponsor, meet to discuss preparation of the initial pediatric study plan or to discuss deferral or waiver of pediatric assessments. In addition, FDA will meet early in the development process to discuss pediatric study plans with sponsors and FDA must meet with sponsors by no later than the end-of-phase 1 meeting for serious or life-threatening diseases and by no later than 90 days after FDA’s receipt of the study plan.
The FDA may, on its own initiative or at the request of the sponsor, grant deferrals for submission of some or all pediatric data until after approval of the product for use in adults, or full or partial waivers from the pediatric data requirements. A deferral may be granted for several reasons, including a finding that the product or therapeutic candidate is ready for approval for use in adults before pediatric trials are complete or that additional safety or effectiveness data needs to be collected before the pediatric trials begin. The law now requires the FDA to send a PREA Non-Compliance letter to sponsors who have failed
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to submit their pediatric assessments required under PREA, have failed to seek or obtain a deferral or deferral extension or have failed to request approval for a required pediatric formulation. It further requires the FDA to publicly post the PREA Non-Compliance letter and sponsor’s response. Unless otherwise required by regulation, the pediatric data requirements do not apply to products with orphan designation, although FDA has recently taken steps to limit what it considers abuse of this statutory exemption. In May 2023, the FDA issued new draft guidance that further describes the pediatric study requirements under PREA.
Manufacturing and Compliance with cGMP requirements
Concurrent with clinical trials, companies usually complete additional preclinical studies and must also develop additional information about the physical characteristics of the biologic product candidate as well as finalize a process for manufacturing the product candidate in commercial quantities in accordance with cGMP requirements. To help reduce the risk of introduction of adventitious agents or of causing other adverse events with the use of biologic products, the PHSA emphasizes the importance of manufacturing control for products whose attributes cannot be precisely defined. The manufacturing process must be capable of consistently producing quality batches of the product candidate and, among other requirements, the sponsor must develop methods for testing the identity, strength, quality, potency and purity of the final biologic product. Additionally, appropriate packaging must be selected and tested, and stability studies must be conducted to demonstrate that the biologic product candidate does not undergo unacceptable deterioration over its shelf life.
Manufacturers and others involved in the manufacture and distribution of products must also register their establishments with the FDA and certain state agencies. Both domestic and foreign manufacturing establishments must register and provide additional information to the FDA upon their initial participation in the manufacturing process. Any product manufactured by or imported from a facility that has not registered, whether foreign or domestic, is deemed misbranded under the FDCA. Establishments may be subject to periodic unannounced inspections by government authorities to ensure compliance with cGMPs and other laws. Inspections must follow a “risk-based schedule” that may result in certain establishments being inspected more frequently. Manufacturers may also have to provide, on request, electronic or physical records regarding their establishments. Delaying, denying, limiting, or refusing inspection by the FDA may lead to a product being deemed to be adulterated.
The PREVENT Pandemics Act, enacted in December 2022, clarifies that foreign drug manufacturing establishments are subject to registration and listing requirements even if a drug or biologic undergoes further manufacture, preparation, propagation, compounding or processing at a separate establishment outside the United States prior to being imported or offered for import into the United States.
Submission and filing of a BLA
The results of product candidate development, preclinical testing and clinical trials, including negative or ambiguous results as well as positive findings, are submitted to the FDA as part of a BLA requesting license to market the product. The BLA must contain extensive manufacturing information and detailed information on the composition of the product and proposed labeling as well as payment of a user fee. Under federal law, the submission of most BLAs is subject to an application user fee, which for federal fiscal year 2025 is $4.3 million for an application requiring clinical data. The sponsor of a licensed BLA is also subject to an annual program fee, which for federal fiscal year 2025 is approximately $403,889. Certain exceptions and waivers are available for some of these fees, such as an exception from the application fee for products with orphan designation and a waiver for certain small businesses.
The FDA conducts a preliminary review of all applications within 60 days of receipt and must inform the sponsor at that time or before whether an application is sufficiently complete to permit substantive review. In pertinent part, FDA’s regulations state that an application “shall not be considered as filed until all pertinent information and data have been received” by the FDA. In the event that FDA determines that an application does not satisfy this standard, it will issue a Refuse to File, or RTF, determination to the sponsor. The FDA may request additional information rather than accept an application for filing. In this
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event, the application must be resubmitted with the additional information. The resubmitted application is also subject to review before the FDA accepts it for filing.
Review and approval of a filed BLA
Once the submission of the BLA has been accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth review of the application. Under the goals and policies agreed to by the FDA under the PDUFA, the FDA has ten months in which to complete its initial review of a standard application and respond to the sponsor, and six months for a priority review of the application. The FDA does not always meet its PDUFA goal dates for standard and priority BLAs. The review process may often be significantly extended by FDA requests for additional information or clarification. The review process and the PDUFA goal date may be extended by three months if the FDA requests or if the sponsor otherwise provides additional information or clarification regarding information already provided in the submission within the last three months before the PDUFA goal date.
In connection with its review of an application, the FDA typically will inspect the facility or facilities where the product candidate is manufactured. The FDA will not approve an application unless it determines that the manufacturing processes and facilities are in full compliance with cGMP requirements and adequate to assure consistent production of the product within required specifications. The PHSA emphasizes the importance of manufacturing control for products like biologics whose attributes cannot be precisely defined. Additionally, before approving an application, the FDA will typically inspect one or more clinical sites to assure compliance with GCP. With passage of FDORA, Congress clarified the FDA’s authority to conduct inspections by expressly permitting inspection of facilities involved in the preparation, conduct, or analysis of clinical and non-clinical studies submitted to the FDA as well as other persons holding study records or involved in the study process.
Moreover, the FDA will review a sponsor’s financial relationship with the principal investigators who conducted the clinical trials in support of the BLA. That is because, under certain circumstances, principal investigators at a clinical trial site may also serve as scientific advisors or consultants to a sponsor and receive compensation in connection with such services. Depending on the level of that compensation and any other financial interest a principal investigator may have in a sponsor, the sponsor may be required to report these relationships to the FDA. The FDA will then evaluate that financial relationship and determine whether it creates a conflict of interest or otherwise affects the interpretation of the trial or the integrity of the data generated at the principal investigator’s clinical trial site. If so, the FDA may exclude data from the clinical trial site in connection with its determination of safety and efficacy of the investigational product.
Under the PHSA, the FDA may approve a BLA if it determines that the product is safe, pure and potent, and the facility where the product will be manufactured meets standards designed to ensure that it continues to be safe, pure and potent. To reach this determination, the FDA must also conclude that the investigational product is effective and that its expected benefits outweigh its potential risks to patients. This “benefit-risk” assessment is informed by the extensive body of evidence about the product’s safety, purity and potency in the BLA. This assessment is also informed by other factors, including: the severity of the underlying condition and how well patients’ medical needs are addressed by currently available therapies; uncertainty about how the premarket clinical trial evidence will extrapolate to real-world use of the product in the post-market setting; and whether risk management tools are necessary to manage those specific risks.
On the basis of the FDA’s evaluation of the application and accompanying information, including the results of the inspection of the manufacturing facilities and any FDA audits of preclinical and clinical trial sites to assure compliance with GCPs, the FDA may issue an approval letter or a complete response letter. An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the product with specific prescribing information for specific indications. If the application is not approved, the FDA will issue a complete response letter, which will contain the conditions that must be met in order to secure final approval of the application, and when possible, will outline recommended actions the sponsor might take to obtain approval of the application. Sponsors that receive a complete response letter may submit to the FDA
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information that represents a complete response to the issues identified by the FDA. Such resubmissions are classified under PDUFA as either Class 1 or Class 2. The classification of a resubmission is based on the information submitted by a sponsor in response to an action letter. Under the goals and policies agreed to by the FDA under PDUFA, the FDA has two months to review a Class 1 resubmission and six months to review a Class 2 resubmission. The FDA will not approve an application until issues identified in the complete response letter have been addressed.
The FDA may also refer the application to an advisory committee for review, evaluation and recommendation as to whether the application should be approved. In particular, the FDA may refer applications for novel biologic products or biologic products that present difficult questions of safety or efficacy to an advisory committee.
Typically, an advisory committee is a panel of independent experts, including clinicians and other scientific experts, that reviews, evaluates and provides a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions. The FDA is not bound by the recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations carefully when making decisions.
If the FDA approves a new product, it may limit the approved indication(s) for use of the product. It may also require that contraindications, warnings, or precautions be included in the product labeling. In addition, the FDA may call for post-approval studies, including post-approval clinical trials, to further assess the product’s efficacy and/or safety after approval. The agency may also require testing and surveillance programs to monitor the product after commercialization, or impose other conditions, including distribution restrictions or other risk management mechanisms, including REMS, to help ensure that the benefits of the product outweigh the potential risks. REMS can include medication guides, communication plans for healthcare professionals and elements to assure safe use, or ETASU. ETASU can include, but are not limited to, special training or certification for prescribing or dispensing, dispensing only under certain circumstances, special monitoring and the use of patent registries. The FDA may prevent or limit further marketing of a product based on the results of post-market studies or surveillance programs. After approval, many types of changes to the approved product, such as adding new indications, manufacturing changes and additional labeling claims, are subject to further testing requirements and FDA review and approval.
Fast Track, breakthrough therapy, priority review and regenerative medicine advanced therapy designations
The FDA is authorized to designate certain products for expedited review if they are intended to address an unmet medical need in the treatment of a serious or life-threatening disease or condition. These programs are referred to as Fast Track designation, breakthrough therapy designation, priority review designation and regenerative medicine advanced therapy, or RMAT, designation. These designations are not mutually exclusive, and a product candidate may qualify for one or more of these programs. While these programs are intended to expedite product development and approval, they do not alter the standards for FDA approval.
Specifically, the FDA may designate a product for fast-track review if it is intended, whether alone or in combination with one or more other products, for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and it demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for such a disease or condition. For fast-track products, sponsors may have greater interactions with the FDA and the FDA may initiate review of sections of a fast-track product’s application before the application is complete. This rolling review may be available if the FDA determines, after preliminary evaluation of clinical data submitted by the sponsor, that a fast-track product may be effective. The sponsor must also provide, and the FDA must approve, a schedule for the submission of the remaining information and the sponsor must pay applicable user fees. However, the FDA’s time period goal for reviewing a fast-track application does not begin until the last section of the application is submitted. In addition, the Fast Track designation may be withdrawn by the FDA if the FDA believes that the designation is no longer supported by data emerging in the clinical trial process.
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Second, in 2012, Congress enacted the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. This law established a new regulatory scheme allowing for expedited review of products designated as “breakthrough therapies.” A product may be designated as a breakthrough therapy if it is intended, either alone or in combination with one or more other products, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product may demonstrate substantial improvement over existing therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. The FDA may take certain actions with respect to breakthrough therapies, including holding meetings with the sponsor throughout the development process; providing timely advice to the product sponsor regarding development and approval; involving more senior staff in the review process; assigning a cross-disciplinary project lead for the review team; and taking other steps to design the clinical trials in an efficient manner. Breakthrough designation may be rescinded if a product no longer meets the qualifying criteria.
Third, the FDA may designate a product for priority review if it is a product that treats a serious condition and, if approved, would provide a significant improvement in safety or effectiveness. The FDA determines, on a case-by-case basis, whether the proposed product represents a significant improvement when compared with other available therapies. Significant improvement may be illustrated by evidence of increased effectiveness in the treatment of a condition, elimination or substantial reduction of a treatment-limiting product reaction, documented enhancement of patient compliance that may lead to improvement in serious outcomes, and evidence of safety and effectiveness in a new subpopulation. A priority designation is intended to direct overall attention and resources to the evaluation of such applications, and to shorten the FDA’s goal for taking action on a marketing application from ten months to six months. Priority designation may be rescinded if a product no longer meets the qualifying criteria.
With passage of the Cures Act in December 2016, Congress authorized the FDA to accelerate review and approval of products designated as regenerative medicine advanced therapies. A product is eligible for RMAT designation if it is a regenerative medicine therapy that is intended to treat, modify, reverse or cure a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product has the potential to address unmet medical needs for such disease or condition. The benefits of a regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation include early interactions with FDA to expedite development and review, benefits available to breakthrough therapies, potential eligibility for priority review, and accelerated approval based on surrogate or intermediate endpoints. RMAT designation may be rescinded if a product no longer meets the qualifying criteria.
Accelerated approval pathway
The FDA may grant accelerated approval to a product for a serious or life-threatening condition that provides meaningful therapeutic advantage to patients over existing treatments based upon a determination that the product has an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. The FDA may also grant accelerated approval for such a condition when the product has an effect on an intermediate clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than an effect on irreversible morbidity or mortality, or IMM, and that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on IMM or other clinical benefit, taking into account the severity, rarity or prevalence of the condition and the availability or lack of alternative treatments. Products granted accelerated approval must meet the same statutory standards for safety and effectiveness as those granted traditional approval.
For the purposes of accelerated approval, a surrogate endpoint is a marker, such as a laboratory measurement, radiographic image, physical sign, or other measure that is thought to predict clinical benefit but is not itself a measure of clinical benefit. Surrogate endpoints can often be measured more easily or more rapidly than clinical endpoints. An intermediate clinical endpoint is a measurement of a therapeutic effect that is considered reasonably likely to predict the clinical benefit of a product, such as an effect on IMM. The FDA has limited experience with accelerated approvals based on intermediate clinical endpoints but has indicated that such endpoints generally may support accelerated approval where the therapeutic effect measured by the endpoint is not itself a clinical benefit and basis for traditional approval, if there is a basis for concluding that the therapeutic effect is reasonably likely to predict the ultimate clinical benefit of a product.
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The accelerated approval pathway is most often used in settings in which the course of a disease is long and an extended period of time is required to measure the intended clinical benefit of a product, even if the effect on the surrogate or intermediate clinical endpoint occurs rapidly. Thus, accelerated approval has been used extensively in the development and approval of products for treatment of a variety of cancers in which the goal of therapy is generally to improve survival or decrease morbidity and the duration of the typical disease course requires lengthy and sometimes large trials to demonstrate a clinical or survival benefit.
The accelerated approval pathway is usually contingent on a sponsor’s agreement to conduct, in a diligent manner, additional post-approval confirmatory studies to verify and describe the product’s clinical benefit. As a result, a product candidate approved on this basis is subject to rigorous post-marketing compliance requirements, including the completion of Phase 4 or post-approval clinical trials to confirm the effect on the clinical endpoint. Failure to conduct required post-approval studies, confirm a clinical benefit during post-marketing studies or dissemination of false or misleading promotional materials would allow the FDA to withdraw the product from the market on an expedited basis. All promotional materials for product candidates approved under accelerated regulations are subject to prior review by the FDA.
With passage of FDORA in December 2022, Congress modified certain provisions governing accelerated approval of drug and biologic products. Specifically, the new legislation authorized the FDA to: require a sponsor to have its confirmatory clinical trial underway before accelerated approval is awarded, require a sponsor of a product granted accelerated approval to submit progress reports on its post-approval studies to the FDA every six months (until the study is completed); and use expedited procedures to withdraw accelerated approval of an NDA or BLA after the confirmatory trial fails to verify the product’s clinical benefit. Further, FDORA requires the FDA to publish on its website “the rationale for why a post-approval study is not appropriate or necessary” whenever it decides not to require such a study upon granting accelerated approval.
In March 2023, the FDA issued draft guidance that outlines its current thinking and approach to accelerated approval. The FDA indicated that the accelerated approval pathway is commonly used for approval of oncology drugs due to the serious and life-threatening nature of cancer. Although single-arm trials have been commonly used to support accelerated approval, a randomized controlled trial is the preferred approach as it provides a more robust efficacy and safety assessment and allows for direct comparisons to an available therapy. Subsequently, in December 2024 and January 2025, the FDA issued additional draft guidance relating to accelerated approval. This guidance describes FDA’s latest thinking on what it means to conduct a confirmatory trial with due diligence and how the FDA plans to interpret whether such a study needs to be underway at the time of approval. While this guidance currently only in draft form and will ultimately not be legally binding even when finalized, sponsors typically observe the FDA’s guidance closely to ensure that their investigational products qualify for accelerated approval.
Post-approval regulation
If regulatory approval for marketing of a product or new indication for an existing product is obtained, the sponsor will be required to comply with all regular post-approval regulatory requirements as well as any post-approval requirements that the FDA have imposed as part of the approval process. The sponsor will be required to report certain adverse reactions and production problems to the FDA, provide updated safety, potency and purity information and comply with requirements concerning advertising and promotional labeling requirements. Manufacturers and certain of their subcontractors are required to register their establishments with the FDA and certain state agencies and are subject to periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA and certain state agencies for compliance with ongoing regulatory requirements, including cGMP regulations, which impose certain procedural and documentation requirements upon manufacturers. Accordingly, the sponsor and its third-party manufacturers must continue to expend time, money and effort in the areas of production and quality control to maintain compliance with cGMP regulations and other regulatory requirements.
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A product may also be subject to official lot release, meaning that the manufacturer is required to perform certain tests on each lot of the product before it is released for distribution. If the product is subject to official lot release, the manufacturer must submit samples of each lot, together with a release protocol showing a summary of the history of manufacture of the lot and the results of all of the manufacturer’s tests performed on the lot, to the FDA. The FDA may in addition perform certain confirmatory tests on lots of some products before releasing the lots for distribution. Finally, the FDA will conduct laboratory research related to the safety, purity, potency and effectiveness of pharmaceutical products.
Once an approval is granted, the FDA may withdraw the approval if compliance with regulatory requirements and standards is not maintained or if problems occur after the product reaches the market. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with a product, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information; imposition of post- market studies or clinical trials to assess new safety risks; or imposition of distribution or other restrictions under a REMS program. Other potential consequences include, among other things:
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restrictions on the marketing or manufacturing of the product, complete withdrawal of the product from the market or product recalls;
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fines, warning letters or holds on post-approval clinical trials;
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refusal of the FDA to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications, or suspension or revocation of product license approvals;
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product recall, seizure or detention, or refusal to permit the import or export of products; or
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injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties.