Item 1A.Risk Factors

The risks described below may not be the only ones relating to our company. Additional risks that we currently believe are immaterial may also impair our business operations. Our business, financial conditions and future prospects and the trading price of our common stock could be harmed as a result of any of these risks. Investors should also refer to the other information contained or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our financial statements and related notes, and our other filings from time to time with the SEC.

Risk Factors Summary

Our business is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those risks discussed at length below. These risks include, among others, the brief bulleted list of our principal risk factors set forth below that make an investment in our company speculative or risky. You are encouraged to carefully review our full discussion of the material risk factors relevant to an investment in our business, which follows the brief bulleted list of our principal risk factors set forth below:

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Risks Related to Our Business:

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Risks Related to Government Regulation:

The summary risk factors described above should be read together with the text of the full risk factors below in this section entitled “Risk Factors” and the other information set forth in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes, as well as in other documents that we file with the SEC. The risks summarized above or described in full below are not the only risks that we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not precisely known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial may also materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and future growth prospects.

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Risks Related to Our Business

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Need for Additional Capital

We have a history of operating losses; we expect to continue to incur losses and we may never be profitable.

We are a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a transformational approach to treating cancer by harnessing the human immune system’s ability to recognize and destroy diverse cancer cells using therapies personalized for each patient. Until recently, we did not have products approved for commercial sale and have not generated significant revenue from operations. With the closing of the acquisition of the worldwide rights to Proleukin® in May 2023, we began to have commercial sales. As of December 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $2.0 billion. In addition, during the year ended December 31, 2023, we incurred a net loss of $444.0 million. While we are beginning the commercial launch of our product, AmtagviTM, we do not expect to generate any meaningful product sales until later in 2024. We expect to incur significant additional operating losses in the future as we expand our development and clinical trial activities in support of demonstrating the effectiveness of our products.

Our ability to achieve long-term profitability is dependent upon obtaining regulatory approvals for our products and successfully commercializing our products alone or with third parties. However, our operations may not be profitable even if any of our products under development are successfully developed and produced and thereafter commercialized.

We may need additional financing to fund our operations and complete the development of our various product candidates and commercialization of our products, and if we are unable to obtain such financing, we may be unable to complete the development of our product candidates and commercialization of our products. Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our existing stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates.

Our operations have consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception. From our inception to December 31, 2023, we have an accumulated deficit of $2.0 billion. In addition, our research and development and our operating costs have also been substantial and are expected to increase. For example, in October 2018, we closed an underwritten public offering of our common stock. The net proceeds from the offering, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by us, were $236.7 million. In June 2020, we closed another underwritten offering of our common stock. The net proceeds from the offering, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by us, were $567.0 million. In July 2023, we closed another underwritten offering of our common stock. The net proceeds from the offering, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by us, were $161.5 million. In February 2021, we entered into an open market sale agreement, or the 2021 Sale Agreement, with Jefferies LLC, or Jefferies, which provided for the sale of up to $350.0 million of our common stock from time to time, which was subsequently increased to $500.0 million in November 2022 upon the execution of an updated open market sale agreement, or the 2022 Sale Agreement, with Jefferies. In June 2023, we entered into a new open market sale agreement, or the 2023 Sale Agreement, with Jefferies, which superseded the 2022 Sale Agreement and provided for the sale of up to $450.0 million of our common stock from time to time. As of December 31, 2023, we had $346.3 million in cash, cash equivalents, investments, and restricted cash ($114.9 million of cash and cash equivalents, $165.0 million in short-term investments, and restricted cash of $66.4 million).

Accordingly, based on the funds we have available as of the date these consolidated financial statements are issued, which include estimated net proceeds (after deducting underwriting and other offering expenses) of approximately $197.1 million from the public offering of our common stock completed on February 22, 2024, we believe that we have sufficient capital to fund our anticipated operating expenses and capital expenditures as planned for at least the next twelve months following the issuance of our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. However, in order to complete the development of our current product candidates, and in order to effect our business plan, including establishing our own manufacturing facility, we anticipate that we will have to spend more than the funds currently available to us. Furthermore, changing circumstances may cause us to increase our spending significantly faster than we currently anticipate, and we may require additional capital for the further development of our product candidates and commercialization of our products and may need to raise additional funds sooner if we choose to expand more rapidly than we presently anticipate. Moreover, our fixed expenses such as rent, minimum payments to our contract manufacturers, and other contractual commitments, including those for our research collaborations, are substantial and are expected to increase in the future.

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We will need to obtain additional financing to fund our future operations, including completing the development of our product candidates and commercialization of our products. Our future funding requirements will depend on many factors, including, but not limited to:

●progress, timing, scope and costs of our clinical trials, including the ability to timely initiate clinical sites, enroll subjects and manufacture TIL for treatment for patients in our ongoing, planned and potential future clinical trials;

●time and cost necessary to obtain regulatory approvals that may be required by regulatory authorities to execute clinical trials or commercialize our product;

●our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates, if approved;

●our ability to have clinical and commercial product successfully manufactured consistent with FDA and European Medicines Agency, or EMA, regulations;

●amount of sales and other revenues from product candidates that we may commercialize, if any, including the selling prices for such potential products and the availability of adequate third-party coverage and reimbursement for patients;

●sales and marketing costs associated with commercializing our products, if approved, including the cost and timing of building our marketing and sales capabilities;

●cost of building, staffing and validating our own manufacturing facility in the U.S.;

●terms and timing of our current and any potential future collaborations, licensing or other arrangements that we have established or may establish;

●cash requirements of any future acquisitions or the development of other product candidates;

●costs of operating as a public company;

●time and cost necessary to respond to technological, regulatory, political and market developments;

●costs of filing, prosecuting, defending and enforcing any patent claims and other intellectual property rights; and

●costs associated with any potential business or product acquisitions (such as the acquisition of Proleukin®), strategic collaborations, licensing agreements or other arrangements that we may establish.

Unless and until we can generate a sufficient amount of revenue, we may finance future cash needs through public or private equity offerings, license agreements, debt financings, collaborations, strategic alliances and marketing or distribution arrangements. Additional funds may not be available when we need them on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all. We have no committed source of additional capital and if we are unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us, we may be required to delay or reduce the scope of or eliminate one or more of our research or development programs or our commercialization efforts. Our current license and collaboration agreements may also be terminated if we are unable to meet the payment obligations under those agreements. As a result, we may seek to access the public or private capital markets whenever conditions are favorable, even if we do not have an immediate need for additional capital at that time.

To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, your ownership interest will be diluted, and the terms may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a stockholder. The incurrence of indebtedness would result in increased fixed payment obligations and could involve certain restrictive covenants, such as limitations on our ability to incur additional debt, limitations on our ability to acquire or license intellectual property rights and other operating restrictions that could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. If we raise additional funds through strategic partnerships and alliances and licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies or product candidates, or grant licenses on terms unfavorable to us.

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Subject to various spending levels approved by our Board of Directors, our management will have broad discretion in the use of the net proceeds from our capital raises, including our July 2023, June 2020, October 2018 and January 2018 public offerings and the proceeds from sales pursuant to our “at-the-market” sale agreement with Jefferies LLC, and may not use them effectively.

Our management will have discretion in the application of the net proceeds from our capital raises, including our July 2023, June 2020, October 2018, and January 2018 public offerings, and the proceeds from sales pursuant to the 2023 Sale Agreement with Jefferies, which provides for the sale of up to $450.0 million of our common stock from time to time, and our stockholders will not have the opportunity as part of their investment decision to assess whether the net proceeds from our capital raises are being used appropriately. You may not agree with our decisions, and our use of the proceeds from our capital raises may not yield any return to stockholders. Because of the number and variability of factors that will determine our use of the net proceeds from our capital raises, their ultimate use may vary substantially from their currently intended use. Our failure to apply the net proceeds of our capital raises effectively could compromise our ability to pursue our growth strategy and we might not be able to yield a significant return, if any, on our investment of those net proceeds. Stockholders will not have the opportunity to influence our decisions on how to use our net proceeds from our capital raises. Pending their use, we may invest the net proceeds from our capital raises in interest and non-interest-bearing cash accounts, short-term, investment-grade, interest-bearing instruments and U.S. government securities. These temporary investments are not likely to yield a significant return.

The use of our net operating loss carryforwards and research tax credits may be limited.

Our net operating loss carryforwards and any future research and development tax credits may expire and not be used. As of December 31, 2023, we had U.S. federal net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $1.2 billion. Our net operating loss carryforwards arising in taxable years ending on or prior to December 31, 2017, will begin expiring in 2027 if we have not used them prior to that time. Net operating loss carryforwards arising in taxable years ending after December 31, 2017, are no longer subject to expiration under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code. Additionally, our ability to use any net operating loss and credit carryforwards to offset taxable income or tax, respectively, in the future will be limited under Sections 382 and 383 of the Code, respectively, if we have a cumulative change in ownership of more than 50% within a three-year period.

Prior to December 31, 2023, we experienced multiple ownership changes. As a result, the federal and state carryforwards associated with the net operating loss and credit deferred tax assets were reduced by the amount of tax attributes estimated to expire during their respective carryforward periods. In addition, since we will need to raise substantial additional funding to finance our operations, we may undergo further ownership changes in the future. Any such annual limitation may significantly reduce the utilization of the net operating loss carryforwards and research tax credits before they expire. Depending on our future tax position, limitation of our ability to use net operating loss carryforwards in states in which we are subject to income tax could have an adverse impact on our results of operations and financial condition.

Recently enacted tax reform legislation in the U.S., changes to existing tax laws, or challenges to our tax positions could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

In recent years, various tax legislations were signed into law. On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, or the Tax Act, was signed into law, making significant changes to the Internal Revenue Code.

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act, was enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain provisions of the CARES Act amend or suspend certain provisions of the Tax Act. For example, the tax relief measures under the CARES Act for businesses include a five-year net operating loss carryback, suspension of annual deduction limitation of 80% of taxable income from net operating losses generated in a tax year beginning after December 31, 2017, changes in the deductibility of interest, acceleration of alternative minimum tax credit refunds, payroll tax relief, and a technical correction to allow accelerated deductions for qualified improvement property. On June 15, 2020, Assembly Bill 85 was passed in California which suspended the use of net operating losses and limited the use of credits for certain corporations. Changes to existing federal and state tax laws could adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial position as the impact of recent tax legislation is uncertain.

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In addition, U.S. federal, state and local tax laws are extremely complex and subject to various interpretations. Although we believe that our tax estimates and positions are reasonable, including our decision to build the iCTC at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia in order to take advantage of the site’s designation as a Keystone Opportunity Zone, Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone, or Keystone Opportunity Improvement Zone, or collectively a KOZ, which allows incentives for business development, as well as certain other financial incentives provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, there can be no assurance that our tax positions will not be challenged by relevant tax authorities or that we would be successful in any such challenge. Further, challenges to the site's designation as a KOZ or broader challenges to Pennsylvania's KOZ program could result in the revocation of the site’s designation as a KOZ and the attendant tax advantages associated with such designation. If we are unsuccessful in such a challenge, or if the site’s status as a KOZ is revoked, the relevant tax authorities may assess additional taxes, which could result in adjustments to, or impact the timing or amount of, taxable income, deductions or other tax allocations, which may adversely affect our results of operations and financial position.

Risks Related to the Manufacturing and Commercialization of Our Products and Product Candidates

Even though our lead product AmtagviTM is approved and commercialized, we may not become profitable.

Our lead product, AmtagviTM, is initially targeting a small population of refractory patients that suffer from metastatic melanoma. Even with FDA approval of AmtagviTM, and even if we obtain significant market share, because the potential target population for AmtagviTM in refractory patients may be small, we may never achieve profitability without obtaining regulatory approval for additional indications. The FDA often approves new therapies initially only for use in patients with relapsed or refractory metastatic disease. We expect to initially seek approval of our product candidates in this setting and are currently conducting clinical trials on these patient populations. Since Proleukin® is an established product and there are competing products in development, the success of Proleukin® is closely tied to AmtagviTM and use with other cell therapies. An approval for a marketed product, such as Proleukin®, may be withdrawn by the FDA or another regulatory agency and disrupt both Proleukin® and AmtagviTM because of their codependency. Additionally, Proleukin® revenues are dependent upon continued use in manufacturing and clinical settings by Iovance and other cell therapy companies.

The manufacture of our products and product candidates is complex, and we may encounter difficulties in production, particularly with respect to process development, quality control, or scaling-up of our manufacturing capabilities. If we, or any of our third-party manufacturers encounter such difficulties, our ability to provide supply of our product candidates for clinical trials or our products for patients could be delayed or stopped, or we may be unable to maintain a commercially viable cost structure.

Our products and product candidates are biologics and the process of manufacturing our products is complex, highly regulated and subject to multiple risks. The manufacture of our products and product candidates involves complex processes, including harvesting tumor fragments from patients, isolating the T-cells from the tumor fragments, multiplying the T-cells to obtain the desired dose, and ultimately infusing the T-cells back into a patient. The complexities of manufacturing cell therapy products require extensive collaboration with treatment centers including the provision of patient tumor tissue for manufacture. Manufacturing is dependent on many factors including quality of the patient tumor tissue, treatment center training, and unique factors specific to autologous cell therapy manufacturing that can jeopardize the product approval, launch, scale, and capacity. As a result of the complexities, the cost to manufacture biologics is generally higher than traditional small molecule chemical compounds, and the manufacturing process is less reliable and is more difficult to reproduce. Our manufacturing process will be susceptible to product loss or failure due to logistical issues associated with the collection of tumor fragments, or starting material, from the patient, shipping such material to the manufacturing site, shipping the final product back to the patient, and infusing the patient with the product, manufacturing issues associated with the differences in patient starting material, interruptions in the manufacturing process, contamination, equipment failure, assay failures, improper installation or operation of equipment, vendor or operator error, inconsistency in cell growth, meeting pre-specified release criteria, and variability in product characteristics. Even minor deviations from normal manufacturing processes could result in reduced production yields, product defects, and other supply disruptions. If for any reason we lose a patient’s starting material, or later-developed product at any point in the process, or if any product does not meet the applicable specifications, the manufacturing process for that patient will need to be restarted, including resection of the proper amount of tumor fragment, and the resulting delay may adversely affect that patient’s outcome. If microbial, viral, environmental or other contaminations are discovered in our product candidates or in the manufacturing facilities in which our product candidates are made, such manufacturing facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination.

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Because our products and product candidates are manufactured specifically for each individual patient, we will be required to maintain a chain of identity and chain of custody with respect to the patient’s tumor as it moves from the patient to the manufacturing facility, through the manufacturing process, and back to the patient. Maintaining such chains of identity and chains of custody is difficult and complex, and failure to do so could result in adverse patient outcomes, loss of product, or regulatory action including withdrawal of our products from the market. Further, as product candidates are developed through preclinical studies to late-stage clinical trials towards approval and commercialization, it is common that various aspects of the development program, such as manufacturing methods, are altered along the way to optimize processes and results. Such changes carry the risk that they will not achieve these intended objectives, and any of these changes could cause our product candidates to perform differently and affect the results of planned clinical trials or other future clinical trials or otherwise necessitate the conduct of additional studies.

Currently, our products and product candidates are manufactured using processes developed or modified by us or by our third-party research institution collaborators that we may not intend to use for more advanced clinical trials or commercialization. Gen 2 is the FDA-approved, commercial manufacturing process for AmtagviTM and has been selected for all ongoing and future company-sponsored clinical trials. Although we believe Gen 2 is a commercially viable process, there are risks associated with scaling to the level required for advanced clinical trials or commercialization, including, among others, cost overruns, potential problems with process scale-up, process reproducibility, stability issues, lot consistency, and timely availability of raw materials. As a result of these challenges, we may experience delays in our clinical development and/or commercialization plans. Furthermore, we may ultimately be unable to reduce the cost of goods for our product candidates to levels that will allow for an attractive return on investment if and when those product candidates are commercialized.

In May 2019 we entered into a lease agreement to build a commercial-scale manufacturing facility, the iCTC, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for commercial and clinical production of autologous TIL products, including our product AmtagviTM. The iCTC is currently manufacturing TIL for our ongoing clinical trials and preparing to provide commercial supply upon potential BLA approval; as of the end of 2021, we had completed the commissioning activities at the iCTC and successfully initiated manufacturing of clinical batches of lifileucel and LN-145, representing our first internally manufactured TIL product, as we continue our launch readiness activities to supply commercial TIL upon potential BLA approval. We expect our manufacturing facility will provide us with enhanced control of material supply for both clinical trials and the commercial market, enable the more rapid implementation of process changes, and allow for better long-term margins. We have built capacity to potentially treat thousands of cancer patients annually. However, we may not be successful in finalizing the development of our own manufacturing facility or capability. We may establish multiple manufacturing facilities as we expand our commercial footprint to multiple geographies, which may lead to regulatory delays or prove costly. Even if we are successful, our manufacturing capabilities could be affected by cost-overruns, unexpected delays, equipment failures, labor shortages, natural disasters, power failures, and numerous other factors that could prevent us from realizing the intended benefits of our manufacturing strategy and have a material adverse effect on our business.

The manufacture of cell therapy products requires significant expertise and capital investment, including the development of advanced manufacturing techniques and process controls. Manufacturers of cell therapy products often encounter difficulties in production, particularly in scaling up initial production. These problems include difficulties with production costs and yields, quality control, including stability of the product candidate and quality assurance testing, shortages of qualified personnel, and compliance with strictly enforced federal, state, local and foreign regulations. The FDA may take a restrictive approach when regulating cell therapy manufacturing facilities that could result in delays, product release challenges, shortages, or capacity restraints.

Our current manufacturing strategy involves the use of CMOs in conjunction with the manufacturing capacity at the iCTC. Currently our products and product candidates are also manufactured by WuXi and previously by Moffitt. Additionally, we partner with American Red Cross, or ARC, to leverage their GMP approved facilities and operate our own facility to produce feeder cells for TIL manufacturing. The process for manufacturing TIL is heavily reliant on the supply of biological raw materials and maintaining a GMP facility capable of supplying our manufacturing facilities with quality cells to make the final product. There are only a limited number of these types of facilities and sources for the materials needed by TIL cell therapy manufacturers. The iCTC and our CMO are aseptic manufacturing facilities that operate clean rooms for the production of TIL cell therapies, which are subject to contamination, labor, occupational safety, regulatory, climate, and environmental risks that could interfere with production. Any problems or delays we or our CMOs experience in preparing for commercial scale manufacturing of a product, product candidate, or component thereof may result, in the case of product candidates, a delay in the FDA approval thereof or, in the case of products, may impair our ability to manufacture commercial quantities or such quantities at an acceptable cost, which could result in the delay, prevention, or impairment of clinical development of our product candidates and commercialization of our products and could adversely affect our business. Furthermore, if we or our commercial manufacturers fail to deliver the required commercial quantities of our product candidates on a timely basis and at reasonable costs, we would likely be unable to meet demand for our products and we would lose potential revenues.

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Moreover, should we continue to use CMOs, we may not succeed in maintaining our relationships with our current CMO or establishing relationships with additional or alternative CMOs. Our products and product candidates may compete with other products and product candidates for access to manufacturing facilities. There are a limited number of manufacturers that operate under cGMP regulations and that are both capable of manufacturing for us and willing to do so. If our CMOs should cease manufacturing for us, we would experience delays in obtaining sufficient quantities of our product candidates for clinical trials and, if approved, commercial supply. Further, our CMOs may breach, terminate, or not renew these agreements. If we were to need to find alternative manufacturing facilities it would significantly impact our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for or market our product candidates, if approved. The commercial terms of any new arrangement could be less favorable than our existing arrangements and the expenses relating to the transfer of necessary technology and processes could be significant.

Reliance on third-party manufacturers entails exposure to risks to which we would not be subject if we manufactured the product candidate ourselves, including:

●inability to negotiate manufacturing and quality agreements with third parties under commercially reasonable terms;

●reduced day-to-day control over the manufacturing process for our product candidates as a result of using third-party manufacturers for all aspects of manufacturing activities;

●reduced control over the protection of our trade secrets and know-how from misappropriation or inadvertent disclosure;

●termination or nonrenewal of manufacturing agreements with third parties in a manner or at a time that may be costly or damaging to us or result in delays in the development or commercialization of our products and/or product candidates;

●disruptions to the operations of our third-party manufacturers or suppliers caused by conditions unrelated to our business or operations, including the bankruptcy of the manufacturer or supplier.

●international or multi-national activities that are related to business activities outside of our scope, but may have an impact on a CMO’s ability to conduct business in a manner consistent with governmental or our regulatory and ethical standards; and

●our ability to synchronize operations and standards to ensure that all aspects of manufacturing are consistent without deviations across facilities.

In addition, the manufacturing process and facilities for any products that we may develop at the iCTC and or our CMOs is subject to FDA and foreign regulatory authority approval processes, and we or our CMOs will need to meet all applicable FDA and foreign regulatory authority requirements, including cGMP, on an ongoing basis. The cGMP requirements include quality control, quality assurance, and the maintenance of records and documentation. The FDA and other regulatory authorities enforce these requirements through facility inspections. Manufacturing facilities must submit to pre-approval inspections by the FDA that will be conducted after we submit our marketing applications, including our BLAs, to the FDA. Manufacturers are also subject to continuing regulatory oversight by FDA and other regulatory authorities, including inspections following marketing approval. Further, we, in cooperation with our CMOs, must supply all necessary chemistry, manufacturing, and control documentation for a pre-approval inspection in support of a BLA on a timely basis. There is no guarantee that we or our CMOs will be able to successfully pass all aspects of a pre-approval inspection by the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities.

Our manufacturing facilities or our CMOs’ manufacturing facilities may be unable to comply with our specifications, cGMP, and with other FDA, state, and foreign regulatory requirements. Poor control of production processes can lead to the introduction of adventitious agents or other contaminants, or to inadvertent changes in the properties or stability of product candidate that may not be detectable in final product testing. If we or our CMOs are unable to reliably produce products to specifications acceptable to the FDA or other regulatory authorities, or in accordance with the strict regulatory requirements, we may not obtain or maintain the approvals we need to commercialize such products. Even after obtaining regulatory approval, in the case of our products, and even if we obtain regulatory approval, in the case of our product candidates, there is no assurance that either we or our CMOs will be able to manufacture the approved product to specifications acceptable to the FDA or other regulatory authorities, to produce it in sufficient quantities to meet the requirements for the potential launch of the product, or to meet potential future demand. Deviations from manufacturing requirements may further require remedial measures that may be costly and/or time-consuming for us or a third party to implement and may include the temporary or permanent suspension of a clinical trial or commercial sales or the temporary or permanent closure of a facility. Any such remedial measures imposed upon us or third parties with whom we contract could materially harm our business.

Even to the extent we use and continue to use CMOs, we are ultimately responsible for the manufacture of our products and product candidates. A failure to comply with these requirements may result in regulatory enforcement actions against our manufacturers or us, including fines and civil and criminal penalties, which could result in imprisonment, suspension or restrictions of production,

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injunctions, delay or denial of product approval or supplements to approved products, clinical holds or termination of clinical trials, warning or untitled letters, regulatory authority communications warning the public about safety issues with the biologic, refusal to permit the import or export of the products, product seizure, detention, or recall, operating restrictions, suits under the civil False Claims Act, corporate integrity agreements, consent decrees, or withdrawal of product approval.

Any of these challenges could delay completion of clinical trials, require bridging clinical trials or the repetition of one or more clinical trials, increase clinical trial costs, delay approval of our product candidate, impair commercialization efforts, increase our cost of goods, and have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and growth prospects.

Cell-based therapies and biologics rely on the availability of biological raw materials (including live cells), chemicals and agents used for manufacturing, reagents, specialized equipment, and other specialty materials, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. For each of these we rely or may rely on treatment sites, limited manufacturers, sole source vendors or a limited number of vendors, which could impair our ability to manufacture and supply our products.

Manufacturing our products and product candidates requires live cells among other biological raw materials, chemicals and agents used for manufacturing. Many reagents, which are substances used in our manufacturing processes to bring about chemical or biological reactions, and other specialty materials and equipment, some of which are manufactured or supplied by small companies with limited resources and experience to support commercial biologics production. We currently depend on a limited number of vendors for certain materials and equipment used in the manufacture of our product candidates. Some of these suppliers may not have the capacity to support clinical trials and commercial products manufactured under cGMP by biopharmaceutical firms or may otherwise be ill-equipped to support our needs. We also do not have supply contracts with many of these suppliers and may not be able to obtain supply contracts with them on acceptable terms or at all. Accordingly, we may experience delays in receiving key materials and equipment to support clinical or commercial manufacturing.

For each of these biological raw materials (including live cells), chemicals and agents used for manufacturing, reagents, equipment, and materials, we rely and may in the future rely on treatment sites, limited manufacturers, sole source vendors or a limited number of vendors. An inability to continue to source product from any of these suppliers, which could be due to a number of issues, including regulatory actions or requirements affecting the supplier, adverse financial or other strategic developments experienced by a supplier, labor disputes or shortages, unexpected demands, or quality issues, could adversely affect our ability to satisfy demand for our product candidates, which could adversely and materially affect our product sales and operating results or our ability to conduct clinical trials, either of which could significantly harm our business.

As we continue to develop and scale our manufacturing process, we expect that we will need to obtain rights to and supplies of certain materials and equipment to be used as part of that process. We may not be able to obtain rights to such materials on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, and if we are unable to alter our process in a commercially viable manner to avoid the use of such materials or find a suitable substitute, it would have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are able to alter our process so as to use other materials or equipment, such a change may lead to a delay in our clinical development and/or commercialization plans. If such a change occurs for product candidate that is already in clinical testing, the change may require us to perform both ex vivo comparability studies and to collect additional data from patients prior to undertaking more advanced clinical trials.

Because our current products represent, and our other potential product candidates will represent novel approaches to the treatment of disease, there are many uncertainties regarding the development, the market acceptance, third-party reimbursement coverage and the commercial potential of our product candidates.

Human immunotherapy products are a new category of therapeutics. Because this is a relatively new and expanding area of novel therapeutic interventions, there are many uncertainties related to development, marketing, reimbursement, and the commercial potential for our product candidates. There can be no assurance as to the length of the clinical trial period, the number of patients the FDA will require to be enrolled in the clinical trials in order to establish the safety, efficacy, purity and potency of immunotherapy products, or that the data generated in these clinical trials will be acceptable to the FDA to support marketing approval. The FDA may take longer than usual to come to a decision on any BLA that we submit and may ultimately determine that there is not enough data, information, or experience with our product candidates to support an approval decision. The FDA may also require that we conduct additional post-marketing studies or implement risk management programs, such as REMS until more experience with our product candidates is obtained. Finally, after increased usage, we may find that our product candidates do not have the intended effect or have unanticipated side effects, potentially jeopardizing initial or continuing regulatory approval and commercial prospects.

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We may also find that the manufacture of our product candidates is more difficult than anticipated, resulting in an inability to produce a sufficient amount of our product candidates for our clinical trials or, if approved, commercial supply. Moreover, because of the complexity and novelty of our manufacturing process, there are only a limited number of manufacturers who have the capability of producing our product candidates. Should any of our contract manufacturers no longer produce our product candidates, it may take us significant time to find a replacement, if we are able to find a replacement at all.

There is no assurance that the approaches offered by our products will gain broad acceptance among doctors or patients or that governmental agencies or third-party medical insurers will be willing to provide reimbursement coverage for proposed product candidates. Moreover, we do not have verifiable internal marketing data regarding the potential size of the commercial market for our product candidates, nor have we obtained current independent marketing surveys to verify the potential size of the commercial markets for our current product candidates or any future product candidates. Since our current product candidates and any future product candidates will represent novel approaches to treating various conditions, it may be difficult, in any event, to accurately estimate the potential revenues from these product candidates. Accordingly, we may spend significant capital trying to obtain approval for product candidates that have an uncertain commercial market. The market for any products that we successfully develop will also depend on the cost of the product.

Cell based therapies may take longer to attain insurance coverage, and although we may apply for special government programs and prepare the market for product approval, there is no way to ensure that healthcare providers, insurance companies, or other third parties will reimburse our product at an expeditious rate. Even if we obtain insurance coverage for our product from payors, coverage at treatment centers will require payment for the total cost of care which involves surgery, conditioning chemotherapy, as well as other staffing and hospitalization needs. This will require coordination between authorized treatment centers and other payors including government payors that may only cover a portion of charges. If our treatment centers do not successfully obtain coverage in time, there may be a slow uptake or variable or limited access, if at all, to our therapies.

We do not yet have sufficient information to reliably estimate what it will cost to commercially manufacture our current product candidates, and the actual cost to manufacture these products could materially and adversely affect the commercial viability of these products. Our goal is to reduce the cost of manufacturing and providing our therapies. However, unless we can reduce those costs to an acceptable amount, we may never be able to develop a commercially viable product. If we do not successfully develop and commercialize products based upon our approach or find suitable and economical sources for materials used in the production of our products, we will not become profitable, which would materially and adversely affect the value of our common stock.

Our TIL cell therapies and our other therapies may be provided to patients in combination with other agents provided by third parties. The cost of such combination therapy may increase the overall cost of therapy and may result in issues regarding the allocation of reimbursements between our therapy and the other agents, all of which may affect our ability to obtain reimbursement coverage for the combination therapy from governmental or private third-party medical insurers.

No assurance can be given that the Gen 2 manufacturing process or other processes we have selected will be FDA-compliant or more efficient and will lower the cost to manufacture TIL products.

We have developed and are developing improved methods for generating and selecting autologous TILs, and methods for large-scale production of autologous TILs that are in accord with current cGMP procedures. We have developed a new and more efficient TIL manufacturing process that we believe can be more efficient and cost effective, and in a more automated manner than previous processes. The production and control of the physical and/or chemical attributes of our products in a cGMP facility is subject to many uncertainties and difficulties. As a novel therapy, TIL manufacturing and product release is complex and must evolve with both industry-wide autologous cell therapy challenges and new regulatory requirements that may result in delays and unexpected denials. We have never manufactured our adoptive cell therapy product candidate on a commercial scale, nor have our partners. As a result, we cannot give any assurance that the Gen 2 process or any future process that we select will be a manufacturing process that can produce our products in compliance with the applicable regulatory requirements, at a cost or in quantities necessary to make them commercially viable. Moreover, we and our third-party manufacturers will have to continually adhere to current cGMP regulations enforced by the FDA through its facilities inspection program. If our facilities or any of the facilities of these manufacturers cannot demonstrate adequate assurance of compliance with FDA standards during a pre-approval inspection, the FDA approval of our products will not be granted. In complying with cGMP and foreign regulatory requirements, we and any of our third-party manufacturers will be obligated to expend time, money and effort in production, record-keeping and quality control to assure that our products meet applicable specifications and other requirements. If we or any of our third-party manufacturers fail to comply with these requirements, we may be subject to regulatory action. No assurance can be given that we will be able to develop such a manufacturing process, or that our partners will thereafter be able to establish and operate such a production facility.

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Our business entails a significant risk of product liability. If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, whether or not meritorious, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit or halt commercialization of our products and/or product candidates.

We face an inherent risk of product liability as a result of the clinical testing and manufacture of our product candidates for human trials, and we currently face an even greater risk as we commercialize products and engage in the quality testing and release of products. For example, we may be sued if our products and/or product candidates cause, are perceived, or alleged to cause injury or are found to be otherwise unsuitable during clinical testing, manufacturing, marketing, or sale, whether or not trial participants or patients are predisposed to adverse outcomes. Furthermore, if physicians and/or hospitals are not sufficiently trained in the use of our products or therapies, whether clinical or commercialized, they may misuse or ineffectively use our products or related products for our therapies, which may result in unsatisfactory patient outcomes or patient injury. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, defects in quality control measures, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the product, negligence, strict liability, and/or a breach of warranties. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection acts. Large judgements have also been awarded in class action lawsuits based on therapeutics that had unanticipated side effects. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability claims, we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit or halt commercialization of our products and/or product candidates. Even a successful defense would require significant financial and management resources. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

●decreased or interrupted demand for our products and/or product candidates;

●injury to our reputation;

●withdrawal of clinical trial participants or sites and potential termination of clinical trial sites or entire clinical programs;

●initiation of investigations by regulators (including investigation of the safety and effectiveness of our products, our manufacturing processes and facilities, or our marketing programs), refusal to approve marketing applications or supplements, warnings, and withdrawal or other limitations on product approvals;

●costs to prepare for and defend the related litigation;

●a diversion of management’s time and our resources;

●substantial monetary awards to clinical trial participants or patients;

●product recalls, withdrawals, or restrictions on labeling, marketing, or promotions;

●loss of revenue;

●significant negative media attention;

●decrease in the price of our stock and overall value of our company;

●exhaustion of our available insurance coverage and our capital resources; and/or

●the delay or inability to commercialize our product candidates or achieve adequate revenue from our products.

Our inability to obtain sufficient product liability insurance at an acceptable cost and/or scope of coverage to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the commercialization of products we develop, alone or with corporate collaborators. Our insurance policies may also have various exclusions and/or deductibles, and we may be subject to a product liability or bodily injury claim for which we have no coverage or for which the insurance carrier disputes the scope of coverage. Furthermore, any product liability claim brought against us, with or without merit, could result in the increase of our product liability insurance rates or the inability to secure coverage in the future. Although we currently have product liability insurance that we believe is appropriate for our stage of development, we may need to obtain higher levels to cover marketing any of our approved products. In addition, we may have to pay amounts awarded by a court or negotiated in a settlement that exceed our coverage limitations or that are not covered by our insurance, and we may not have, or be able to obtain, sufficient capital to pay such amounts. We anticipate that we will need to increase our insurance coverage as we commence additional clinical trials and as we commercialize product candidates that have been or may be approved. If we determine that it is prudent to increase our product liability coverage, we may be unable to obtain such increased coverage on acceptable terms, or at all. The market for insurance coverage is increasingly expensive, and the costs of insurance coverage will increase as our clinical programs and commercialization efforts increase in size. Furthermore, even if our agreements with corporate collaborators entitle us to indemnification against product liability losses, such indemnification may not be available or adequate should any claim arise.

Any claims against us, regardless of their merit, could severely harm our financial condition, strain our management and other resources, adversely affect or eliminate the prospects for commercialization or sales of a product that is the subject of any such claim, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and growth prospects.

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We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and from non-profit institutions.

Competition in the field of cancer therapy is intense and is accentuated by the rapid pace of technological development. Research and discoveries by others may result in breakthroughs which may render our products obsolete even before they generate any revenue. There are products that are approved and currently under development by others that could compete with the products that we are developing. Many of our potential competitors have substantially greater research and development capabilities and approval, manufacturing, marketing, financial and managerial resources and experience than we do. Our competitors may:

●develop safer, more convenient or more effective immunotherapies and other therapeutic products;

●develop therapies that are less expensive or have better reimbursement from private or public payors;

●reach the market more rapidly, reducing the potential sales of our products; or

●establish superior proprietary positions.

Due to the promising clinical therapeutic effect of competitor therapies in clinical exploratory trials, we anticipate substantial direct competition from other organizations developing advanced T-cell therapies targeting patients who have received prior anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapies. In particular, we expect to compete with other new therapies for our lead indications developed by companies such as Agenus, BeyondSpring, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Nektar Therapeutics, Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, Daiichi Sankyo, Eisai, Exelixis, Moderna, OncoSec Medical, Replimune, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, and Genmab. We also may compete with other TIL cell therapies in development by companies such as Instil Bio, Achilles Therapeutics, KSQ Therapeutics, Obsidian Therapeutics, Immatics, TILT Biotherapeutics, WindMIL Therapeutics, GRIT Biotechnology, Lyell Immunopharma, Cellular Biomedicine Group, and others. We also may compete with therapies based on genetically engineered T-cell receptors rendered reactive against tumor-associated antigens prior to their administration to patients, as well as TIL cell therapies that are designed to be specific to neoantigens, including products developed by Adaptimmune Therapeutics, Alaunos Therapeutics, Intima Bioscience, Marker Therapeutics, Turnstone Biologics, Neogene, and others. To date, these technologies have been primarily applicable to hematologic malignancies, but their application in solid tumor indications may create competition with us. We may also face competition from immunotherapy treatments offered by companies such as Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Pfizer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Roche, and BioNTech. We may also face competition from novel IL-2 treatments in development by Alkermes, Werewolf, Nektar Therapeutics, Merck, Sanofi, Neoleukin Therapeutics and others. Many of these companies and our other current and potential competitors have substantially greater research and development capabilities and financial, scientific, regulatory, manufacturing, marketing, sales, human resources, and experience than we do. Many of our competitors have several therapeutic products that have already been developed, approved and successfully commercialized, or are in the process of obtaining regulatory approval for their therapeutic products in the U.S. and internationally. Our competitors may obtain regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market.

Universities and public and private research institutions in the U.S. and Europe are also potential competitors. For example, a Phase 3 M14TIL clinical trial comparing TIL to standard ipilimumab in patients with metastatic melanoma is currently being conducted in Europe by the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Copenhagen County Herlev University Hospital, and the University of Manchester. Results from the M14TIL clinical trial were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in September 2022. While these universities and public and private research institutions primarily have educational objectives, they may develop proprietary technologies that lead to other FDA approved therapies or that secure patent protection that we may need for the development of our technologies and products.

Our lead product AmtagviTM is an approved therapy for the treatment of metastatic melanoma and a candidate for the treatment of other cancers. Currently, there are numerous companies that are developing various alternate treatments for melanoma and other cancers, including patients that have progressed after prior treatment with checkpoint inhibitors and chemotherapy. Accordingly, AmtagviTM faces significant competition in the melanoma and other cancer treatment space from multiple companies. Even after obtaining regulatory approval for AmtagviTM, the availability and price of our competitors’ products could limit the demand and the price we are able to charge for our therapies. We may not be able to implement our business plan if the acceptance of our products is inhibited by price competition or the reluctance of physicians to switch from other methods of treatment to our product, or if physicians switch to other new therapies, drugs or biologic products or choose to reserve our product for use in limited circumstances.

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Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These third parties compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs.

Our projections regarding the market opportunities for our products and product candidates may not be accurate, and the actual market for our products and product candidates may be smaller than we estimate.

Our projections of both the number of people who have the advanced cancers we are targeting as well as the subset of people with metastatic or unresectable cancers and who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our products or product candidates are based on our beliefs and estimates. These estimates have been derived from a variety of sources, including scientific literature, surveys of clinics, patient foundations, or market research by third parties, and may prove to be incorrect. Further, new studies or approvals of new therapeutics may change the estimated incidence or prevalence of these cancers. The number of patients may turn out to be lower than expected. Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for our products and product candidates may be limited or may not be amenable to treatment with our products or product candidates and may also be limited by the cost of our treatments and the reimbursement of those treatment costs by third-party payors. For instance, we expect AmtagviTM to initially target a small patient population that suffers from metastatic melanoma. Even if we obtain significant market share for our products or product candidates, because the potential target populations are small, we may never achieve profitability without obtaining regulatory approval for additional indications.

We may be unable to establish effective marketing and sales capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to market and sell our products and product candidates, if they are approved, and as a result, we may be unable to generate significant product revenues.

We currently have a small commercial team focused on our commercial strategy, but we do not have a large commercial infrastructure for the marketing, sale, and distribution of biopharmaceutical products. In order to commercialize our products, we must build our marketing, sales, and distribution capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services, which will take time and require significant financial expenditures and we may not be successful in doing so. Even if we are able to effectively establish a sales force and develop a marketing and sales infrastructure, our sales force and marketing teams may not be successful in commercializing our current or future product candidates. To the extent we rely on third parties to commercialize any products for which we obtain regulatory approval, we would have less control over their sales efforts, and could be held liable if they failed to comply with applicable legal or regulatory requirements.

In addition to marketing our product, we will need to establish authorized treatment centers that will be able to obtain patients from the broader community and provide access to our therapies. Even if we are able to obtain approval for a product candidate, we may not be able to approve enough treatment centers for the provision of our product to a broad patient population. Additionally, certain areas do not have hospitals with the facilities to safely administer our therapy. Accordingly, we may only be able to launch our products with a limited number of treatment centers, which could ultimately reduce the uptake of our products. Although we have a team allocated to authorize and monitor our treatment centers, substantial resources and investment from us and each treatment center may be required. Additionally, the treatment center onboarding process can be complicated and requires extensive training, technical equipment, and coordination of processes. Once authorized, treatment centers will be required to ensure that their training, facilities, and treatment capabilities are adequately maintained.

We have limited prior experience in the marketing, sale, and distribution of biopharmaceutical products, and there are significant risks involved in the building and managing of a commercial infrastructure. The establishment and development of commercial capabilities, including a comprehensive healthcare compliance program, to market any products we may develop will be expensive and time consuming and could delay any product launch, and we may not be able to successfully develop this capability. We, or our collaborators, will have to compete with other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to recruit, hire, train, manage, and retain marketing, sales and commercial support personnel. In the event we are unable to develop a commercial infrastructure, we may not be able to commercialize our current or future product candidates, which would limit our ability to generate product revenues. Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our current or future products and product candidates and generate significant product revenues include:

●if the COVID-19 pandemic continues or reoccurs it may negatively impact our ability to establish commercial operations, educate and interact with healthcare professionals, and successfully launch our product on a timely basis;

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●the inability of sales personnel to obtain access to physicians or persuade adequate numbers of physicians to prescribe our current or future product candidates;

●our inability to effectively oversee a geographically dispersed sales and marketing team;

●the costs and time associated with the initial and ongoing training of sales and marketing personnel on legal and regulatory compliance matters and monitoring their actions;

●an inability to secure adequate coverage and reimbursement by government and private health plans;

●the clinical indications for which the products are approved and the claims that we may make for the products;

●limitations or warnings, including distribution or use restrictions, contained in the products’ approved labeling;

●any distribution and use restrictions imposed by the FDA or to which we agree as part of a mandatory REMS or voluntary risk management plan;

●liability for sales or marketing personnel who fail to comply with the applicable legal and regulatory requirements;

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

●unforeseen costs and expenses associated with creating an independent sales and marketing organization or engaging a contract sales organization.

If our products or product candidates do not achieve broad market acceptance, the revenues that we generate from their sales will be limited.

Until the closing of the Proleukin® acquisition in May 2023, we had never commercialized a product candidate for any indication. Even after our products and product candidates are approved by the appropriate regulatory authorities for marketing and sale, they may not gain acceptance among physicians, patients, third-party payors, and others in the medical community. If any product or product candidate for which we obtain regulatory approval does not gain an adequate level of market acceptance, we may not generate significant product revenues or become profitable. Market acceptance of our products and product candidates by the medical community, patients, and third-party payors will depend on a number of factors, some of which are beyond our control. For example, physicians are often reluctant to switch their patients and patients may be reluctant to switch from existing therapies even when new and potentially more effective or safer treatments enter the market.

Efforts to educate the medical community and third-party payors on the benefits of our products and product candidates may require significant resources and may not be successful. If any of our products or product candidates does not achieve an adequate level of market acceptance, we may not generate significant revenues and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of any of our products and product candidates will depend on a number of factors, including:

●the efficacy of our products and product candidates;

●the prevalence and severity of adverse events associated with such products or product candidates;

●the clinical indications for which the products are approved and the approved claims that we may make for the products;

●limitations or warnings contained in the approved product’s FDA-required labeling, including potential limitations or warnings for such products that may be more restrictive than other competitive products;

●changes in the standard of care for the targeted indications for such products and product candidates;

●the relative difficulty of administration of such products and product candidates;

●cost of treatment versus economic and clinical benefit in relation to alternative treatments or therapies;

●the availability of adequate coverage or reimbursement by third parties, such as insurance companies and other healthcare payors, and by government healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid;

●the extent and strength of our marketing and distribution of such products and product candidates;

●the safety, efficacy, and other potential advantages over, and availability of, alternative treatments already used or that may later be approved for any of our intended indications;

●distribution and use restrictions imposed by the FDA with respect to such products and product candidates or to which we agree as part of a mandatory risk evaluation and mitigation strategy or voluntary risk management plan;

●the timing of market introduction of such products and product candidates, as well as competitive products;

●our ability to offer such products and product candidates for sale at competitive prices;

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

●the extent and strength of our third-party manufacturer and supplier support;

●the approval of other new products for the same indications;

●adverse publicity about the product or favorable publicity about competitive products; and

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●potential product liability claims.

Our efforts to educate the medical community and third-party payors on the benefits of our products and product candidates may require significant resources and may never be successful. Even if the medical community accepts that our products and product candidates are safe and effective for their approved indications, physicians and patients may not immediately be receptive to such products or product candidates and may be slow to adopt them as an accepted treatment of the approved indications. If our current or future products and product candidates are approved but do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance among physicians, patients, and third-party payors, we may not generate meaningful revenues from our product candidates, and we may not become profitable.

Our products and product candidates may face competition sooner than anticipated.

The enactment of the BPCIA created an abbreviated pathway for the approval of biosimilar and interchangeable biological products. The abbreviated regulatory pathway establishes legal authority for the FDA to review and approve biosimilar biologics, including the possible designation of a biosimilar as “interchangeable” based on its similarity to an existing brand product. Under the BPCIA, the FDA cannot make an approval of an application for a biosimilar product effective until 12 years after the original branded product was approved under a BLA. Certain changes, however, and supplements to an approved BLA, and subsequent applications filed by the same sponsor, manufacturer, licensor, predecessor in interest, or other related entity do not qualify for the 12-year exclusivity period.

Our products and product candidates may qualify for the BPCIA’s 12-year period of exclusivity. However, there is a risk that the FDA will not consider our products andproduct candidates to be reference products for competing products, potentially creating the opportunity for biosimilar competition sooner than anticipated. Additionally, this period of regulatory exclusivity does not block companies pursuing regulatory approval via their own traditional BLA, rather than via the abbreviated pathway. Changes may also be made to this exclusivity period as a result of future legislation as there has been ongoing efforts to reduce the period of exclusivity. Even if we receive a period of BPCIA exclusivity for our first licensed product, if subsequent products do not include a modification to the structure of the product that impacts safety, purity, or potency, we may not receive additional periods of exclusivity for those products. Moreover, the extent to which a biosimilar, once approved, will be substituted for any one of our reference products in a way that is similar to traditional generic substitution for non-biological products is not yet clear, and will depend on a number of marketplace and regulatory factors that are still developing. Medicare Part B encourages use of biosimilars by paying the provider the same percentage of the reference product, average sale price, or ASP as a mark-up, regardless of which product is reimbursed. It is also possible that payors will give reimbursement preference to biosimilars even over reference biologics absent a determination of interchangeability.

We will need to obtain FDA approval of any proposed proprietary branded product names, and any failure or delay associated with such approval may adversely affect our business.

Any name we intend to use for our products and product candidates will require approval from the FDA regardless of whether we have secured a formal trademark registration from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO. The FDA typically conducts a review of proposed product names, including an evaluation of the potential for confusion with other product names. The FDA may also object to a product name if it believes the name inappropriately implies medical claims or contributes to an overstatement of efficacy. If the FDA objects to any of our proposed proprietary product names, we may be required to adopt alternative names for our products and/or product candidates. If we adopt alternative names, we would lose the benefit of any existing trademark applications for such product and/or product candidate and may be required to expend significant additional resources in an effort to identify a suitable product name that would qualify under applicable trademark laws, not infringe the existing rights of third parties, and be acceptable to the FDA. We may be unable to build a successful brand identity for a new trademark in a timely manner or at all, which would limit our ability to commercialize our products and product candidates.

As a condition of approval, the FDA may require that we implement various post-marketing requirements and conduct post-marketing studies, any of which would require a substantial investment of time, effort, and money, and which may limit our commercial prospects.

As a condition of biologic licensing, the FDA is authorized to require that sponsors of approved BLAs implement various post-market requirements, including REMS and Phase 4 studies. For example, we reached an agreement with the FDA regarding a confirmatory trial to support full approval of lifileucel in post-anti-PD-1 advanced melanoma, which we refer to as TILVANCE-301. We began startup activities for the randomized Phase 3 TILVANCE-301 trial in the fourth quarter of 2022. If we receive approval of our product candidates, the FDA may determine that similar or additional post-approval requirements are necessary to ensure that our product candidates are safe, pure, and potent. To the extent that we are required to establish and implement any post-approval

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requirements, we will likely need to invest a significant amount of time, effort, and money. Such post-approval requirements may also limit the commercial prospects of our products and product candidates.

We will need to grow the size and capabilities of our organization, and we may experience difficulties in managing this growth.

Our operations are dependent upon the services of our executives and our employees who are engaged in research and development. The loss of the services of our executive officers or senior research personnel could delay our product development programs and our research and development efforts. In order to develop our business in accordance with our business plan, we will have to hire additional qualified personnel, including in the areas of research, manufacturing, clinical trials management, regulatory affairs, and sales and marketing. We are continuing our efforts to recruit and hire the necessary employees to support our planned operations in the near term.

For example, we continue to recruit a new Chief Executive Officer. However, competition for qualified employees among companies in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industry is intense, and no assurance can be given that we will be able attract, hire, retain and motivate the highly skilled employees that we need. Future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, including:

●identifying, recruiting, integrating, maintaining, and motivating additional employees;

●managing our internal development efforts effectively, including the clinical and FDA review process for our product candidates, while complying with our contractual obligations to contractors and other third parties; and

●improving our operational, financial and management controls, reporting systems, and procedures.

Our future financial performance and our ability to commercialize our product candidates will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth, and our management may also have to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from day-to-day activities in order to devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities.

We currently rely, and for the foreseeable future will continue to rely, in substantial part on certain independent organizations, advisors and consultants to provide certain services. There can be no assurance that the services of these independent organizations, advisors and consultants will continue to be available to us on a timely basis when needed, or that we can find qualified replacements. In addition, if we are unable to effectively manage our outsourced activities or if the quality, compliance or accuracy of the services provided by consultants is compromised for any reason, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed, or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval of our product candidates or otherwise advance our business. There can be no assurance that we will be able to manage our existing consultants or find other competent outside contractors and consultants on economically reasonable terms, if at all.

If we are not able to effectively expand our organization by hiring new employees and expanding our groups of consultants and contractors, we may not be able to successfully implement the tasks necessary to further develop and commercialize our product candidates and, accordingly, may not achieve our research, development, and commercialization goals on a timely basis, or at all.

We may rely on third parties to perform many essential services for any products that we commercialize, including services related to distribution, government price reporting, customer service, accounts receivable management, cash collection, and adverse event reporting. If these third parties fail to perform as expected or to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, our ability to commercialize our current or future products will be significantly impacted and we may be subject to regulatory sanctions.

We may retain third-party service providers to perform a variety of functions related to the sale and distribution of our current or future products, key aspects of which will be out of our direct control. These service providers may provide key services related to distribution, customer service, accounts receivable management, and cash collection. If we retain a service provider, we would substantially rely on it as well as other third-party providers that perform services for us, including entrusting our inventories of products to their care and handling. If these third-party service providers fail to comply with applicable laws and regulations, fail to meet expected deadlines, or otherwise do not carry out their contractual duties to us, or encounter physical or natural damage at their facilities, our ability to deliver product to meet commercial demand would be significantly impaired and we may be subject to regulatory enforcement action.

In addition, we may engage third parties to perform various other services for us relating to adverse event reporting, safety database management, fulfillment of requests for medical information regarding our product candidates and related services. If the quality or accuracy of the data maintained by these service providers is insufficient, or these third parties otherwise fail to comply with regulatory requirements related to adverse event reporting, we could be subject to regulatory sanctions.

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Additionally, we may contract with a third-party to calculate and report pricing information mandated by various government programs. If a third party fails to timely report or adjust prices as required or errs in calculating government pricing information from transactional data in our financial records, it could impact our discount and rebate liability, and potentially subject us to regulatory sanctions or False Claims Act lawsuits.

We may be unable to successfully or sufficiently expand our manufacturing capacity to meet demand for our products.

As noted above, we have never manufactured our adoptive cell therapy product candidates on a commercial scale, nor have our partners. We anticipate expanding manufacturing capacity at our iCTC facility and/or at our contract manufacturer, WuXi. Scale-up of manufacturing may require additional validation studies, including capacity demonstration and/or comparability studies, each of which are subject to FDA review, potential inspection, and approval. Moreover, current geopolitical tensions with China may impact our ability to expand manufacturing capacity at our contract manufacturer, WuXi. Recently, the Biden administration has signed multiple executive orders regarding China. One particular executive order titled Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy signed on September 12, 2022 will likely impact the pharmaceutical industry to encourage U.S. domestic manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. Additionally, there have been Congressional legislative proposals, such as the recent bill titled the Biosecure Act, to discourage contracting with Chinese companies on the development or manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. Finally, in February 2024, the chair and ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Representatives Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, respectively, along with Senators Gary Peters and Bill Haggerty sent a letter to the Biden administration requesting that both WuXi AppTec Co., Ltd., WuXi’s parent company, and the affiliated WuXi Biologics be added to the Department of Defense’s Chinese Military Companies List (1260H list), the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List, and the Department of Treasury’s Non-SDN Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List. While the Biden administration has yet to take action on this letter, adding either or both previously mentioned WuXi entities on any or all of the aforementioned lists could materially impact our MSA with WuXi.

Regardless, any expansion of our manufacturing capability will also require us to invest substantial additional funds to hire and retain the technical personnel who have the necessary manufacturing experience. As a result, we may not be able to successfully or sufficiently increase the manufacturing capacity for our product candidates or modify our manufacturing processes. If we are unable to successfully increase the manufacturing capacity for a product candidate (as a result of lack of approval from, or capacity limitations imposed by, the FDA, or otherwise), the resulting capacity limitations could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition. In addition, if we are unable to successfully or sufficiently increase the manufacturing capacity at the iCTC facility to meet demand in a timely or economic manner, or at all, we may be dependent upon the performance and capacity of third-party manufacturers. Accordingly, we face risks of capacity limitations of, difficulties with, increased costs of, and interruptions in performance by third-party manufacturers, the occurrence of which could negatively impact the availability, launch, and/or sales of our products in the future, as well as on our results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Related to the Development of Our Product Candidates

We depend on the success of our product candidates and cannot guarantee that these product candidates will successfully complete development, receive regulatory approval, or be successfully commercialized.

We currently have two products approved for commercial sale. We have invested a significant portion of our efforts and financial resources in the development of our current product and/ or product candidates, including AmtagviTM, LN-145, IOV-4001, IOV-2001, and IOV-3001, and expect that we will continue to invest heavily in our current product candidates, as well as in any future product candidates we may develop. Our business depends on the successful development and commercialization of our product candidates. Our ability to generate revenues in the future is substantially dependent on our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for, and then successfully commercialize our product candidates. We currently generate no revenue from the sale of any products that are in development, and we may never be able to develop or commercialize these potential products.

Our product candidates will require additional clinical and non-clinical development, regulatory approval, commercial manufacturing arrangements, establishment of a commercial organization, significant marketing efforts, and further investment before we generate any revenue from product sales. We cannot assure you that we will meet our timelines for our current or future clinical trials, which may be delayed or not completed for a number of reasons, including the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the costs associated with development of cell therapy products may be significant due to the length of treatment and the supportive therapies provided to the patient during the treatment process. Supportive therapies may impact costs and patient viability and may potentially limit availability.

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We are not permitted to market or promote any of our product candidates before we receive regulatory approval from the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, and we may never receive such regulatory approval for many of our product candidates or regulatory approval that will allow us to successfully commercialize our product candidates. If we do not receive FDA approval with the necessary conditions to allow successful commercialization, and then successfully commercialize our product candidates, we will not be able to generate revenue from those product candidates in the U.S. in the foreseeable future, or at all. Any significant delays in obtaining approval for and commercializing our product candidates will have a material adverse impact on our business and financial condition.

Our products rely on coordination and collaboration with treatment centers that perform surgical procedures, obtain and provide lymphodepleting chemotherapy, and deliver other care to patients that are often in poor health as a result of the latter stages of cancer. This coordination of care is complicated in both the clinical trial setting and the commercial setting. Our treatment centers may not be able to obtain necessary supplies, such as lymphodepleting chemotherapy agents, because of shortages. If commercialized, our products will rely heavily on our ability to train centers and the centers’ ability to choose suitable patients and deliver a complex regimen. We may be reliant on physicians with limited experience with TIL products and the associated regimens. Although we will make efforts to train hospitals and provide processes that must be followed precisely, there is no way to ensure that all institutions will be able to perform at a high level in all aspects of the coordination of care. Patients may progress in the course of their disease or may experience serious adverse events from our products or supportive regimens while undergoing or awaiting treatment with our therapies.

Prior to our completion of a rolling BLA submission for lifileucel in March 2023 and its acceptance by the FDA in May 2023, we had not previously submitted a BLA to the FDA, or a similar marketing application to comparable foreign authorities, for any product candidate, and we cannot be certain that our current or any future product candidates will be successful in clinical trials or receive regulatory approval. Furthermore, although we have not submitted our BLA with comparisons to existing or more established therapies and likewise do not expect the FDA to base its determination with respect to product approval on such comparisons, the FDA may factor these comparisons into its decision whether to approve our TIL cell therapies. The FDA may also consider its approvals of competing products, which may alter the treatment landscape concurrently with their review of our BLA filings, and which may lead to changes in the FDA’s review requirements that have been previously communicated to us and our interpretation thereof, including changes to requirements for clinical data or clinical trial design. Such challenges and variabilities could delay approval or necessitate withdrawal of our BLA filings.

Our product candidates are susceptible to the risks of failure inherent at any stage of product development, including the appearance of unexpected adverse events or failure to achieve primary endpoints in clinical trials. Further, our product candidates may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in clinical trials.

If approved for marketing by applicable regulatory authorities, our ability to generate revenues from our product candidates will depend on our ability to:

● prepare a broad network of clinical sites for administration of our product;

● effectively commercialize our products;

● launch commercial sales of our product candidates;

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● achieve appropriate reimbursement for our product candidates;

● effectively compete with other therapies or competitors; and

Development of a product candidate intended for use in combination with an already approved product may present more or different challenges than development of a product candidate for use as a single agent.

We are currently developing lifileucel as part of a regimen which uses IL-2. We and our collaborators are also clinical trialing TIL cell therapy along with other products, such as pembrolizumab, ipilimumab and nivolumab. The development of product candidates for use in combination with another product may present challenges. For example, the FDA may require us to use more complex clinical trial designs, in order to evaluate the contribution of each product and product candidate to any observed effects. It is possible that the results of these clinical trials could show that any positive results are attributable to the already approved product. Moreover, following product approval, the FDA may require that products used in conjunction with each other be cross labeled for combined use. Additionally, the FDA review process can be more complicated for combination products, and may result in delays, particularly if complex therapeutics are involved. To the extent that we do not have rights to already approved products, this may require us to work with another company to satisfy such a requirement. Moreover, developments related to the already approved products may impact our clinical trials for the combination as well as our commercial prospects should we receive marketing approval. Such developments may include changes to the approved product’s safety or efficacy profile, changes to the availability of the approved product, and changes to the standard of care.

A Fast Track product designation, BTD, or other designation to facilitate product candidate development may not lead to faster development or a faster regulatory review or approval process, and it does not increase the likelihood that our product candidates will receive marketing approval.

We were granted Fast Track designation by the FDA for lifileucel in metastatic melanoma and metastatic cervical cancer, as well as for lifileucel in combination with pembrolizumab in advanced melanoma. We were granted BTD for lifileucel for metastatic cervical cancer and RMAT designation for lifileucel in advanced melanoma. We may seek Fast Track or Breakthrough designation for other of our current or future product candidates. Receipt of a designation to facilitate product candidate development is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe one of our product candidates meets the criteria for a designation, the FDA may disagree. In any event, the receipt of such a designation for a product candidate may not result in a faster development process, review, or approval compared to product candidates considered for approval under conventional the FDA procedures and does not assure ultimate marketing approval by the FDA. In addition, the FDA may later decide that the products no longer meet the designation conditions.

While lifileucel has received ODD for melanoma stages IIB-IV and for cervical cancer patients with tumors greater than 2 cm, there is no guarantee that we will be able to maintain this designation, receive these designations for any of our other product candidates, or receive or maintain any corresponding benefits, including periods of exclusivity.

We received ODD in the U.S. for lifileucel to treat malignant melanoma stages IIB-IV and cervical cancer patients with tumors greater than 2 cm. We may also seek ODD for our other product candidates, as appropriate. ODD, however, may be lost if the indication for which we develop our designated product candidates does not meet the orphan criteria. Moreover, following product approval, orphan exclusivity may be lost if the FDA determines, among other reasons, that the request for designation was materially defective or if the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient quantity of the product to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition. Even if we obtain orphan exclusivity, that exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from competition because different products can be approved for the same condition and the same product can be approved for different conditions. Even after an orphan product is approved, the FDA can subsequently approve a product containing the same principal molecular features for the same

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condition if the FDA concludes that the later product is clinically superior in that it is shown to be safer or more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care.

Moreover, the FDA may grant ODDs to multiple of the same products for the same indication. If another sponsor receives FDA approval for an ODD-designated product that is the same as our product candidates and intended for the same indication before we do, we would be prevented from launching our product in the U.S. for this indication for a period of at least 7 years. In response to a court decision regarding the plain meaning of the exclusivity provision of the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may undertake a reevaluation of aspects of its orphan drug regulations and policies. We do not know if, when, or how the FDA may change the orphan drug regulations and policies, and it is uncertain how any changes might affect our business. Depending on what changes the FDA may make to its orphan drug regulations and policies, our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects could be harmed.

Risks Related to Clinical Trials

We may face risks due to the need to rely on third parties, including clinical trial sites.

We are heavily reliant on third parties to conduct our clinical trials. We have a limited history of conducting clinical trials and have no experience as a company in filing and supporting the applications necessary to gain marketing approvals. Securing marketing approval requires the submission of extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to regulatory authorities for each therapeutic indication to establish the product candidate’s safety, purity, and potency for that indication. Securing marketing approval also requires the submission of information about the product manufacturing process to, and inspection of manufacturing facilities and clinical trial sites by, applicable regulatory authorities. Clinical testing is expensive and can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions and research sites that currently conduct clinical trials may not be able to return to normal clinical trial operations for some time or may no longer choose to participate in studies in the future. Furthermore, clinical trials may be delayed or otherwise may be more difficult to execute in the future.

We have recruited a team that has experience with clinical trials and in the development of preclinical assets for translation into clinical trials; however, we as a company have limited experience completing pivotal clinical trials for cell therapy products or developing preclinical immunotherapy products. In part because of this lack of experience, we cannot be certain that our ongoing pivotal clinical trials will be completed on time, if at all, will progress according to our plans or expectations, or that our planned clinical trials will be initiated or initiated in a timely manner, progress according to our plans or expectations, or be completed on time, if they are completed at all.

Large-scale clinical trials require significant financial and management resources, and reliance on third-party clinical investigators, CROs, CMOs, or consultants. Relying on third-party clinical investigators, CROs, or CMOs may force us to encounter delays and challenges that are outside of our control. In addition to manufacturing TIL at the iCTC, we rely on a CMO in the U.S. and Europe to manufacture TIL for use in our clinical trials and commercial use upon approval. We may not be able to demonstrate sufficient comparability between products manufactured at different facilities to allow for inclusion of the clinical results from patients treated with products from these different facilities, or with our own manufacturing facility, in our product registrations, or to allow for use of the iCTC at the time of launch. Further, our CMOs may not be able to manufacture TIL or otherwise fulfill their obligations to us because of interruptions to their business, including the loss of their key staff or interruptions to their raw material supply.

We rely on third party CROs and clinical trial sites to conduct, supervise, and monitor our clinical trials for our product candidates. We expect to continue to rely on third parties, such as CROs, clinical data management organizations, medical institutions, independent review organizations and clinical investigators, to conduct our clinical trials. While we have agreements governing their activities, we have limited influence over their actual performance and control only certain aspects of their activities. The failure of these third parties to successfully carry out their contractual duties or meet expected deadlines could substantially harm our business because we may be delayed in completing or unable to complete the clinical trials required to support future approval of our product candidates, or we may not obtain marketing approval for or commercialize our product candidates in a timely manner or at all. Moreover, these agreements might terminate for a variety of reasons, including a failure to perform by the third parties. If we need to enter into alternative arrangements, that could delay our product development activities and adversely affect our business.

Our reliance on these third parties for development activities will reduce our control over these activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory, and scientific standards and our reliance on the CROs, clinical trial sites, and other third parties do not relieve us of these oversight responsibilities. For example, we will remain responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the general

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investigational plan and protocols for the clinical trial and for ensuring that our preclinical studies are conducted in accordance with Good Laboratory Practices, or GLPs, as appropriate. Moreover, the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities require us to comply with Good Clinical Practices, or GCPs, for conducting, recording, and reporting the results of clinical trials to assure that data and reported results are credible and accurate and that the rights, integrity, and confidentiality of clinical trial participants are protected. Regulatory authorities enforce these requirements through periodic inspections (including pre-approval inspections upon completion of a BLA filing with the FDA) of clinical trial sponsors, clinical investigators, clinical trial sites and certain third parties including CMOs. If we, our CROs, clinical trial sites, or other third parties fail to comply with applicable GCPs, or other regulatory requirements, we or they may be subject to enforcement or other legal actions, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials. We cannot assure you that upon inspection by a given regulatory authority, such regulatory authority will determine that any of our clinical trials comply with GCP regulations.

In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with product candidates that were produced under cGMP. Our failure to comply or our CMOs’ failure to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process. We also are required to register certain clinical trials and post the results of certain completed clinical trials on a government sponsored database, ClinicalTrials.gov, within specified timeframes. Failure to do so could result in enforcement actions and adverse publicity.

Our CROs, clinical trial sites, and other third parties may also have relationships with other entities, some of which may be our competitors, for whom they may also be conducting clinical trials or other therapeutic development activities that could harm our competitive position. In addition, these third parties are not our employees, and except for remedies available to us under our agreements with them, we cannot control whether or not they devote sufficient time and resources to our ongoing clinical, non-clinical, and preclinical programs. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines or conduct our clinical trials in accordance with regulatory requirements or our stated protocols, if they need to be replaced or if the quality or accuracy of the data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our protocols, regulatory requirements or for other reasons, our clinical trials may be repeated, extended, delayed, or terminated and we may not be able to obtain, or may be delayed in obtaining, marketing approvals for our product candidates and will not be able to, or may be delayed in our efforts to, successfully commercialize our product candidates, or we or they may be subject to regulatory enforcement actions. As a result, our results of operations and the commercial prospects for our product candidates would be harmed, our costs could increase and our ability to generate revenues could be delayed. To the extent we are unable to successfully identify and manage the performance of third-party service providers in the future, our business may be materially and adversely affected.

If any of our relationships with these third parties terminate, we may not be able to enter into alternative arrangements or do so on commercially reasonable terms. Switching or adding additional contractors involves additional costs and requires management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new third party commences work. As a result, delays could occur, which could compromise our ability to meet our desired development timelines. Though we carefully manage our relationships with our third-party service providers, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter similar challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects or results of operations.

We also rely on other third parties to manufacture and ship our products for the clinical trials that we conduct. Any performance failure on the part of these third parties could delay clinical development or marketing approval of our product candidates or commercialization of our product candidates, if approved, producing additional losses and depriving us of potential product revenue.

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We may encounter substantial delays in our clinical trials or may not be able to conduct ourclinical trials on the timelines we expect, and we may be required to conduct additional clinical trials or modify current or future clinical trials based on feedback we receive from the FDA.

Clinical testing is expensive, time consuming, and subject to uncertainty. We cannot guarantee that any current or future clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all, or that any of our product candidates will receive regulatory approval. We initiated clinical trials in patients with metastatic melanoma, cervical, head and neck and non-small cell lung cancers, and in other indications in collaboration with third parties. We completed enrollment in the pivotal clinical trial for melanoma, C-144-01, and in June 2022, we announced that initial Cohort 4 data read by the independent review committee, or IRC, met the primary endpoint in this clinical trial. In March 2023, we completed submission of our BLA to the FDA for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic melanoma for approval, and the FDA accepted the BLA in May 2023. We obtained BLA approval on February 16, 2024. We plan to initiate clinical trials in new indications, and new cohorts in existing clinical trials. Even as these clinical trials progress, issues may arise that could require us to suspend or terminate such clinical trials or could cause the results of one cohort to differ from a prior cohort. For example, we may experience slower than anticipated enrollment in our additional pivotal clinical trials, which may consequently delay BLA submissions to the FDA or permit competitors to obtain approvals that may alter our BLA filing strategy. Additionally, temporary or permanent clinical holds could be placed on our clinical trials for a variety of reasons. For instance, on December 22, 2023, the FDA placed a clinical hold on the IOV-LUN-202 trial in response to a recently reported Grade 5 (fatal) serious adverse event potentially related to the non-myeloablative lymphodepletion pre-conditioning regimen, and we have paused enrollment and the LN-145 treatment regimen for new patients in IOV-LUN-202 during the clinical hold. A failure of one or more clinical trials can occur at any stage of testing, and our future clinical studies may not be successful. Events that may prevent successful or timely initiation or completion of clinical development, or product approval include:

●regulators or IRBs may not authorize us or our investigators to commence a clinical trial, conduct a clinical trial at a prospective clinical trial site, or amend clinical trial protocols, or regulators or IRBs may require that we modify or amend our clinical trial protocols;

●delays in reaching a consensus or inability to obtain agreement with regulatory agencies on clinical trial design;

●the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our intended indications, clinical trial design or our interpretation of data from preclinical studies and clinical trials or find that a product candidate’s benefits do not outweigh its safety risks;

●the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may not accept data from studies with clinical trial sites in foreign countries;

●the FDA may not allow us to use the clinical trial data from a research institution to support an IND if we cannot demonstrate the comparability of our product candidates with the product candidate used by the relevant research institution in its clinical trials;

●delays in or failure to reach an agreement on acceptable terms with prospective CROs and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and clinical trial sites;

●delays in obtaining required IRB approval at each clinical trial site;

●imposition of a temporary or permanent clinical hold, suspensions or terminations by regulatory agencies, IRBs, or us for various reasons, including noncompliance with regulatory requirements or a finding that the participants are being exposed to unacceptable health risks, undesirable side effects, or other unexpected characteristics of the product candidate, or due to findings of undesirable effects caused by a biologically or mechanistically similar therapeutic or therapeutic candidate;

●delays in recruiting suitable patients to participate in our clinical trials;

●delay in adding new investigators or clinical trial sites, or withdrawal of clinical trial sites from a clinical trial;

●delay or change in strategic direction for an indication resulting from differences in results between cohorts in a clinical trial, such as the previously disclosed preliminary results for the C-145-04 clinical trial and the final patient population and results, including differences in patient population, such as differences that might arise due to the impact of the existing immunotherapy treatment landscape, or from different interpretations of investigator results by IRC;

●failure by our CROs, clinical trial sites, patients, or other third parties, or us to adhere to clinical trial requirements, including regulatory, contractual or protocol requirements;

●failure to perform in accordance with the FDA’s cGCP requirements or applicable regulatory guidelines in other countries;

●the number of patients required for clinical trials of our product candidates may be larger than we anticipate or enrollment in these clinical trials may be slower than we anticipate, potentially affecting our timelines for approval of our product candidates;

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●patients that enroll in our studies may misrepresent their eligibility or may otherwise not comply with the clinical trial protocol, resulting in the need to drop such patients from the clinical trial, increase the needed enrollment size for the clinical trial or extend the clinical trial’s duration;

●patients dropping out of a clinical trial;

●occurrence of adverse events associated with the product candidate that are viewed to outweigh its potential benefits;

●changes in regulatory requirements and guidance that require amending or submitting new clinical protocols to regulatory authorities and IRBs, and which may cause delays in our development programs, or changes to regulatory review times;

●there may be regulatory questions or disagreements regarding interpretations of data and results, or new information may emerge regarding our product candidates;

●changes in the standard of care on which a clinical development plan was based, which may require new or additional clinical trials;

●the cost of clinical trials of our product candidates being greater than we anticipate, or we may have insufficient funds for a clinical trial or to pay the substantial user fees required by the FDA upon the filing of a BLA;

●clinical trials of our product candidates producing negative or inconclusive results may fail to provide sufficient data and information to support product approval, or our studies may fail to reach the necessary level of statistical or clinical significance, which may result in our deciding, or regulators requiring us, to conduct additional clinical trials studies, or preclinical studies, or abandon product development programs;

●early results from our clinical trials of our product candidates may be negatively affected by changes in efficacy measures such as overall response rate and duration of response as more patients are enrolled in our clinical trials or as new cohorts of our clinical trials are tested, and overall response rate and duration of response may be negatively affected by the inclusion of unconfirmed responses in preliminary results that we report if such responses are not later confirmed;

●we may not be able to demonstrate that a product candidate provides an advantage over current standards of care or current or future competitive therapies in development;

●there may be changes to the therapeutics or their regulatory status which we are administering in combination with our product candidates;

● delays in patient enrollment due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic;

●the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may fail to approve or subsequently find fault with the manufacturing processes or our manufacturing facilities for clinical and future commercial supplies;

●the FDA or comparable regulatory authorities may take longer than we anticipate making a decision on our product candidates;

●transfer of our manufacturing processes to our CMOs or other larger-scale facilities operated by a CMO or by us and delays or failures by our CMOs or us to make any necessary changes to such manufacturing process;

●our use of different manufacturing processes within our clinical trials, including our Gen 1 and Gen 2 manufacturing processes, and any effects that may result from the use of different processes on the clinical data that we have reported and will report in the future; and

●delays in manufacturing, testing, releasing, validating, or importing/exporting sufficient stable quantities of our product candidates for use in clinical trials or the inability to do any of the foregoing, including as a result of any quality issues associated with the contract manufacturer.

We also may conduct clinical and preclinical research in collaboration with other academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and biologics entities in which we combine our technologies with those of our collaborators. Such collaborations may be subject to additional delays because of the management of the clinical trials, contract negotiations, the need to obtain agreement from multiple parties, and the necessity of obtaining additional approvals for therapeutics used in the combination clinical trials. These combination therapies will require additional testing and clinical trials will require additional FDA regulatory approval and will increase our future cost of expenses.

Any inability to successfully complete preclinical and clinical development could result in additional costs to us or impair our ability to generate revenue. In addition, if we make manufacturing changes to our product candidates, we may be required to, or we may elect to, conduct additional studies to bridge our modified product candidates to earlier versions. These changes may require FDA approval or notification, may not have their desired effect, or the FDA may not accept data from prior versions of the product to support an application, delaying our clinical trials or programs or necessitating additional clinical trials or preclinical studies. For example, while our first BLA submission includes our Gen 2 manufacturing process, in the future we may seek to commercialize other manufacturing processes, such as our Gen 3 manufacturing process or our PD-1 selected TIL manufacturing process. We may find that commercialization of these manufacturing processes has unintended consequences that necessitate additional development and manufacturing work or additional clinical trials and preclinical studies, or results in non-approval of a BLA.

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Clinical trial delays could shorten any periods during which our products have patent protection and may allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do, which could impair our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.

Regulatory authorities have substantial discretion in the approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our data are insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other studies. The number and types of preclinical studies and clinical trials that will be required for regulatory approval also varies depending on the product candidate, the disease or condition that the product candidate is designed to address, and the regulations applicable to any particular product candidate. Approval policies, regulations or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. It is possible that any product candidates we may seek to develop in the future will never obtain the appropriate regulatory approvals necessary for us or any future collaborators to commence product sales. Any delay in completing development, obtaining or failure to obtain required approvals could also materially adversely affect our ability or that of any of our collaborators to generate revenue from any such product candidate, which likely would result in significant harm to our financial position and adversely impact our stock price.

It may take longer and cost more to complete our clinical trials than we project, or we may not be able to complete them at all.

For budgeting and planning purposes, we have projected the date for the commencement of future clinical trials, and continuation and completion of our ongoing clinical trials. However, a number of factors, including scheduling conflicts with participating clinicians and clinical institutions, difficulties in identifying and enrolling patients who meet clinical trial eligibility criteria, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, may cause significant delays. We may not commence or complete clinical trials involving any of our products as projected or may not conduct them successfully.

We are currently enrolling seven company-sponsored clinical trials to assess the overall safety and efficacy of Iovance TIL monotherapy and TIL combinations in patients with melanoma, cervical, head and neck and lung cancers across late-line and early treatment settings, as well as our genetically modified TIL cell therapy IOV-4001 and our peripheral blood lymphocyte, or PBL, technology for hematological malignancies. However, we may experience difficulties in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons. Our ability to enroll or treat patients in our other studies, or the duration or costs of those studies, could be affected by multiple factors, including, preliminary clinical results, which may include efficacy and safety results from our ongoing Phase 2 studies, but may not be reflected in the final analyses of these clinical trials.

For example, our current clinical trials utilize an “open-label” trial design. An open-label trial is one where both the patient and investigator know whether the patient is receiving the test article or either an existing approved drug or placebo, which has the potential to create selection bias in the investigators. In our Phase 2 open-label studies, the investigators have significant discretion over the selection of patient participants. Although preliminary data from certain clinical trials were generally positive, that data may not necessarily be representative of interim or final results, as new patients are cycled through the applicable treatment regimes. As the clinical trials continue, the investigators may prioritize patients with more progressed forms of cancer than the initial patient population, based on the success or perceived success of that initial population. Patients with more progressed forms of cancer may be less responsive to treatment, and accordingly, interim efficacy data may show a decline in patient response rate or other assessment metrics. As the trials continue, investigators may shift their approach to the patient population, which may ultimately result in a decline in both interim and final efficacy data from the preliminary data, or conversely, an increase in final efficacy data following a decline in the interim efficacy data, as patients with more progressed forms of cancer are cycled out of the clinical trials and replaced by patients with less advanced forms of cancer. This opportunity for investigator selection bias in our clinical trials as a result of open-label design may not be adequately handled and may cause a decline in or distortion of clinical trial data from our preliminary results. Depending on the outcome of our open-label studies, we may need to conduct one or more follow-up or supporting studies in order to successfully develop our products for FDA approval. Many companies in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device industries have suffered significant setbacks in late-stage clinical trials after achieving positive results in earlier development, and we cannot be certain that we will not face such setbacks.

Furthermore, the timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who remain in the clinical trial until its conclusion, including the ability of us or our collaborators to conduct clinical trials under the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, our clinical trials will compete with other clinical trials for product candidates that are in the same therapeutic areas as our product candidates, and this competition will reduce the number and types of patients available to us, because some patients who might have opted to enroll in our clinical trials may instead opt to enroll in a clinical trial being conducted by one of our competitors. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee that the clinical trial will progress as planned or as scheduled. Delays in patient enrollment may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or

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outcome of our ongoing clinical trial and planned clinical trials, which could prevent completion of these clinical trials and adversely affect our ability to advance the development of our product candidates.

We expect to rely on medical institutions, academic institutions, or CROs to conduct, supervise or monitor some or all aspects of clinical trials involving our products. We will have less control over the timing and other aspects of these clinical trials than if we conducted them entirely on our own. If we fail to commence or complete, or experience delays in, any of our planned clinical trials, our stock price and our ability to conduct our business as currently planned could be harmed.

We currently anticipate that we will have to rely on our CMO to supplement the manufacturing capacity at the iCTC in manufacturing our adoptive cell therapy and biologic products for clinical trials. If they fail to commence or complete, or experiences delays in, manufacturing our adoptive cell therapy and other biologic products, our planned clinical trials will be delayed, which will adversely affect our stock price and our ability to conduct our business as currently planned.

Clinical trials are expensive, time-consuming and difficult to design and implement, and our clinical trial costs may be higher than for more conventional therapeutic technologies or drug products.

Clinical trials are expensive and difficult to design and implement, in part because they are subject to rigorous regulatory requirements. Because our product candidates include candidates based on new cell therapy technologies and manufactured on a patient-by-patient basis, we expect that they will require extensive research and development and have substantial manufacturing costs. In addition, costs to treat patients with relapsed/refractory cancer and to treat potential side effects that may result from our product candidates can be significant. Some clinical trial sites may not bill, or obtain coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, or other third-party payors for some or all of these costs for patients enrolled in our clinical trials, and we may be required by those clinical trial sites to pay such costs. Accordingly, our clinical trial costs are likely to be significantly higher per patient than those of more conventional therapeutic technologies or drug products. In addition, our proposed personalized product candidates involve several complex and costly manufacturing and processing steps, the costs of which will be borne by us. We are also responsible for the manufacturing costs of products for patients that may have a tumor resection but ultimately do not receive an infusion. Depending on the number of patients that we ultimately screen and enroll in our clinical trials, and the number of clinical trials that we may need to conduct, our overall clinical trial costs may be higher than for more conventional treatments.

Our clinical trials may fail to demonstrate adequately the safety and efficacy of our product candidates, which would prevent or delay regulatory approval and commercialization.

The clinical trials of our product candidates are, and the manufacturing and marketing of our products will be, subject to extensive and rigorous review and regulation by numerous government authorities in the U.S. and in other countries where we intend to test and market our product candidates. Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of any of our product candidates, we must demonstrate through lengthy, complex and expensive preclinical testing and clinical trials that our product candidates are both safe and effective for use in each target indication. Because our product candidates are subject to regulation as biological drug products, we will need to demonstrate that they are safe, pure, and potent for use in their target indications. Each product candidate must demonstrate an adequate risk versus benefit profile in its intended patient population and for its intended use. The risk/benefit profile required for product licensure will vary depending on these factors and may include not only the ability to show tumor shrinkage, but also adequate duration of response, a delay in the progression of the disease, and/or an improvement in survival. For example, response rates from the use of our product candidates may not be sufficient to obtain regulatory approval unless we can also show an adequate duration of response. Regulatory authorities may ultimately disagree with our chosen endpoints or may find that our studies or clinical trial results do not support product approval. Clinical testing is expensive and can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process. The results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials of our product candidates with small patient populations may not be predictive of the results of later-stage clinical trials or the results once the applicable clinical trials are completed. Preliminary, single cohort, or top-line results from clinical trials may not be representative of the final clinical trial results. The results of studies in one set of patients or line of treatment may not be predictive of those obtained in another and the results in various human clinical trials reported in scientific and medical literature may not be indicative of results we obtain in our clinical trials. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials. Preclinical studies may also reveal unfavorable product candidate characteristics, including safety concerns.

We expect there may be greater variability in results for products processed and administered on a patient-by-patient basis, as anticipated for our product candidates, than for “off-the-shelf” products, like many other drugs. There is typically an extremely high rate of attrition from the failure of product candidates proceeding through clinical trials. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials

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may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy profile despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials. Many companies in the biopharmaceutical industry have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials due to lack of efficacy or unacceptable safety issues, notwithstanding promising results in earlier clinical trials. Most product candidates that begin clinical trials are never approved by regulatory authorities for commercialization.

In some instances, there can be significant variability in safety or efficacy results between different clinical trials of the same product candidate due to numerous factors, including changes in clinical trial procedures set forth in protocols, differences in the size and type of the patient populations, changes in and adherence to the clinical trial protocols and the rate of dropout among clinical trial participants. Our current and future clinical trial results may not be successful. Moreover, should there be a flaw in a clinical trial, it may not become apparent until the clinical trial is well advanced. Further, because we currently plan to test our product candidates for use with other oncology products, the design, implementation, and interpretation of the clinical trials necessary for marketing approval may be more complex than if we were developing our product candidates alone.

In addition, even if such clinical trials are successfully completed, we cannot guarantee that the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities will interpret the results as we do, and more clinical trials could be required before we submit our product candidates for approval. To the extent that the results of the clinical trials are not satisfactory to the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities for support of a marketing application, we may be required to expend significant resources, which may not be available to us, to conduct additional clinical trials in support of potential approval of our product candidates.

We have reported preliminary results for clinical trials of our product candidates, including TIL for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, cervical cancer, and head and neck cancers. These preliminary results, which include assessments of efficacy such as ORR, are subject to substantial risk of change due to small sample sizes and may change as patients are evaluated or as additional patients are enrolled in these clinical trials. These outcomes may be unfavorable, deviate from our earlier reports, and/or delay or prevent regulatory approval or commercialization of our product candidates, including candidates for which we have reported preliminary efficacy results. In clinical trials where a staged expansion is expected, such as studies using a Simon’s two stage design, these outcomes may result in the failure to meet an initial efficacy threshold for the first stage. Furthermore, other measures of efficacy for these clinical trials and product candidates may not be as favorable.

If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.

The timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients, or similar patients from a Phase 2 clinical trial to a pivotal program, who remain in the clinical trial until its conclusion. We may experience difficulties or delays in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including:

●the size and nature of the patient population;

●the severity of the disease under investigation;

●the patient eligibility criteria defined in the protocol;

●the size of the clinical trial population required for analysis of the clinical trial’s primary endpoints;

●the proximity of patients to clinical trial sites;

●the design of the clinical trial;

●our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience;

●the efforts to facilitate timely enrollment in clinical trials and the effectiveness of recruiting publicity;

●the patient referral practices of physicians;

●competing clinical trials for similar therapies or other new therapeutics not involving cell-based immunotherapy;

●clinicians’ and patients’ perceptions as to the potential advantages and side effects of the product candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new drugs or treatments that may be approved for the indications we are investigating;

●clinical investigators enrolling patients who do not meet the enrollment criteria, requiring the inclusion of additional patients in the clinical trial;

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●approval of new indications for existing therapies or approval of new therapies in general;

●our ability to obtain and maintain patient consents; and

●the risk that patients enrolled in clinical trials will not complete a clinical trial, return for post-treatment follow-up, or follow the required clinical trial procedures. For instance, patients, including patients in any control groups, may withdraw from the clinical trial if they are not experiencing improvement in their underlying disease or condition. Withdrawal of patients from our clinical trials may compromise the quality of our data.

In addition, our clinical trials will compete with other clinical trials for product candidates that are in the same therapeutic areas as our product candidates, and this competition will reduce the number and types of patients available to us, because some patients who might have opted to enroll in our clinical trials may instead opt to enroll in a trial being conducted by one of our competitors. Because the number of qualified clinical investigators is limited, we expect to conduct some of our clinical trials at the same clinical trial sites that some of our competitor’s use, which will reduce the number of patients who are available for our clinical trials at such clinical trial sites. Moreover, because our product candidates represent a departure from more commonly used methods for cancer treatment, potential patients and their doctors may be inclined to use conventional therapies, such as chemotherapy and approved immunotherapies, rather than enroll patients in any future clinical trial. In addition, potential enrollees may opt to participate in other clinical trials because of the length of time between the time that their tumor is resected and the TIL is infused back into the patient. Amendments to our clinical protocols may affect enrollment in, or results of, our trials, including amendments we have made to further define the patient population to be studied.

Even if we are able to enroll a sufficient number of patients in our clinical trials, delays in patient enrollment or small population size may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or outcome of the planned clinical trials, which could prevent completion of these clinical trials and adversely affect our ability to advance the development of our product candidates.

Our product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that could halt their clinical development, prevent their regulatory approval, limit their commercial potential, or result in significant negative consequences.

Results of our clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates could cause us, IRBs, DSMBs, or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Even if we were to receive product approval, such approval could be contingent on inclusion of unfavorable information in our product labeling, such as limitations on the indications for use for which the products may be marketed or distributed, a label with significant safety warnings, including boxed warnings, contraindications, and precautions, a label without statements necessary or desirable for successful commercialization, or requirements for costly post marketing testing and surveillance, or other requirements, including a Risk Evaluation and Mitigations Strategy or REMS, to monitor the safety or efficacy of the products, and in turn prevent us from commercializing and generating revenues from the sale of our current or future product candidates.

If unacceptable toxicities or side effects arise in the development of our product candidates, we, an IRB, DSMB or the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to cease clinical trials, order our clinical trials to be placed on clinical hold, or deny approval of our product candidates for any or all targeted indications. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may also require additional data, clinical, or preclinical studies should unacceptable toxicities arise. We may need to abandon development or limit development of that product candidate to certain uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk/benefit perspective. Toxicities associated with our clinical trials and products may also negatively impact our ability to conduct clinical trials using TIL cell therapy in larger patient populations, such as in patients that have not yet been treated with other therapies or have not yet progressed on other therapies.

Treatment-related side effects could also affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled subjects to complete our clinical trials or result in potential product liability claims. Such toxicities, which may arise from TIL cell therapy in general, including co-therapies, may include, for example, thrombocytopenia, chills, anemia, pyrexia, febrile neutropenia, diarrhea, neutropenia, vomiting, hypotension, and dyspnea. For example, the update in October 2018 from the C-144-01 clinical trial included two grade 5 treatment emergent adverse events. In addition, failure to manage toxicities, adverse events or side effects and to take recommended or other precautions may result in deaths or harm to patients. Furthermore, harm to patients may not be appropriately recognized or managed by the treating medical

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staff, because treatments related to personalized cell therapy are not normally encountered in the general patient population and by medical personnel. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

We will be unable to commercialize our products if our trials are not successful.

Our research and development programs are at various stages of clinical development, including several at an early stage. We must demonstrate our products’ safety and efficacy in humans through extensive clinical testing. We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, the testing process that could delay or prevent commercialization of our products, including but not limited to the following:

●safety and efficacy results in various human clinical trials reported in scientific and medical literature may not be indicative of results we obtain in our clinical trials;

●after reviewing test results, we or our collaborators may abandon projects that we might previously have believed to be promising;

●we, our collaborators or regulators, may suspend or terminate clinical trials if the participating subjects or patients are being exposed to unacceptable health risks;

●the effects our potential products have may not be the desired effects or may include undesirable side effects or other characteristics that preclude regulatory approval or limit their commercial use if approved;

●manufacturers may not meet the necessary standards for the production of the product candidates or may not be able to supply the product candidates in a sufficient quantity;

●regulatory authorities may find that our clinical trial design or conduct does not meet the applicable approval requirements; and

●our clinical trials, as well as clinical trials from our competitors, may diminish our anticipated revenues due to overlapping patient populations, costs and payor coverage, or patient needs.

Clinical testing is very expensive, can take many years, and the outcome is uncertain. It could take as much as 12 months or more before we learn the results from any clinical trial using our adoptive cell therapy with TIL. The data collected from our clinical trials may not be sufficient to support approval by the FDA of our TIL-based product candidates for the treatment of solid tumors. The clinical trials for our products under development may not be completed on schedule and the FDA may not ultimately approve any of our product candidates for commercial sale. If we fail to adequately demonstrate the safety and efficacy of any product candidate under development, we may not receive regulatory approval for those products, which would prevent us from generating revenues or achieving profitability.

Risks Related to Third Parties

We may not be able to license new technology from third parties.

An element of our intellectual property portfolio is to license additional rights and technologies from third parties, including the NIH and others. Our inability to license the rights and technologies that we have identified, or that we may in the future identify, could have a material adverse impact on our ability to complete the development of our products or to develop additional products. No assurance can be given that we will be successful in licensing any additional rights or technologies from third parties, including the NIH and others. Failure to obtain additional rights and licenses may detrimentally affect our planned development of additional product candidates and could increase the cost, and extend the timelines associated with our development of such other products.

We are required to pay substantial royalties and lump sum benchmark payments under our license or acquisition agreements with the NIH, Moffitt, Novartis, Clinigen and Cellectis, and we must meet certain milestones to maintain our license rights.

Under our license or acquisition agreements with the NIH, Moffitt, Novartis, Clinigen and Cellectis for our adoptive cell therapy and immunotherapy technologies, we are currently required to pay both substantial benchmark payments and royalties to each entity based on our revenues from sales of our products utilizing the licensed or acquired technologies. These payments could adversely affect the overall profitability for us of any products that we may seek to commercialize under these license agreements. In order to maintain our license rights under the NIH, Moffitt, Novartis, and Cellectis license agreements, we will need to meet certain specified milestones, subject to certain cure provisions, in the development of our product candidates, and a milestone payment is required to Clinigen upon the approval of lifileucel in melanoma. There is no assurance that we will be successful in meeting these milestones on a timely basis, or at all.

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We are dependent on third parties to support our research, development, and manufacturing activities and, therefore, are subject to the efforts of these parties and our ability to successfully collaborate with these third parties.

As a result of our current strategy to outsource most of our manufacturing, we rely very heavily on third parties to perform for us the manufacturing of our products and/or product candidates. We also license a portion of our technology from others. We intend to rely upon our contract manufacturers to produce large quantities of materials needed for clinical trials and product commercialization. Third party manufacturers may not be able to meet our needs with respect to timing, quantity, or quality. If we are unable to contract for a sufficient supply of needed materials on acceptable terms, or if we should encounter delays or difficulties in our relationships with manufacturers, our clinical testing and/or commercialization efforts may be delayed, thereby delaying the submission of products for regulatory approval or the market introduction and subsequent sales of our products. Any such delay may lower our revenues and potential profitability.

In addition, in order to supplement our own efforts to improve TIL manufacturing and develop TIL cell therapies in new indications in clinical trials, we currently work and collaborate with government and academic research institutions, medical institutions, and corporate partners such as the NCI, Moffitt, Cellectis, Yale University, and Novartis. We also intend to continue to enter into additional third-party collaborative agreements in the future. However, we may not be able to successfully negotiate any additional collaborative arrangements. If established, these relationships may not be scientifically or commercially successful, or may be unable to enroll patients, which has occurred in one of our prior collaborations. The success of these and future collaborations and joint development arrangements may be subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including the inability or unwillingness of our partners to perform in the manner, or to the extent anticipated, may also be subject to disagreements regarding the rights, interests, and performance of the counterparties under our licenses and development agreements. Disagreements between parties to a collaboration arrangement regarding clinical development and commercialization matters can lead to delays in the development process or commercialization of the applicable product and/or product candidate and, in some cases, termination of the collaboration arrangement. These disagreements can be difficult to resolve if neither of the parties has final decision-making authority under the collaboration agreement.

With regard to future collaboration efforts, we face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators. Our ability to reach a definitive agreement for collaboration will depend, among other things, upon our assessment of the collaborator’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and, an evaluation by the proposed collaborator of a number of similar or unique factors.

Collaborations with biopharmaceutical companies and other third parties often are terminated or allowed to expire by the other party. Any such termination or expiration would adversely affect us financially and could harm our business reputation. Any collaboration may pose a number of risks, including the following:

●collaborators may not perform their obligations as expected;

●collaborators may not pursue development of product candidates and/or commercialization of products that achieve regulatory approval or may elect not to continue or renew development or commercialization programs based on clinical trial results, changes in the collaborators’ strategic focus or available funding, or external factors, such as an acquisition, that divert resources or create competing priorities;

●collaborators may delay clinical trials, provide insufficient funding for a clinical trial program, stop a clinical trial or abandon a product candidate, repeat or conduct new clinical trials, or require a new formulation of a product candidate for clinical testing;

●collaborators could fail to make timely regulatory submissions for a product candidate;

●collaborators may not comply with all applicable regulatory requirements or may fail to report safety data in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements;

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

●products and/or product candidates discovered in collaboration with us may be viewed by our collaborators as competitive with their own products and/or product candidates, which may cause collaborators to cease to devote resources to the commercialization of our products and/or product candidates;

●a collaborator with marketing and distribution rights to one or more of our product candidates that achieve regulatory approval may not commit sufficient resources to the marketing and distribution of such product candidate or product;

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IOVA · 10-K · period ended 2023-12-31

Item 1A.Risk Factors

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IOVA · 10-K · period ended 2023-12-31

Item 1A.Risk Factors

IOVA US Equity