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SANA US Equity

Sana Biotechnology, Inc.Health Care · Biological Products, (No Diagnostic Substances) · CIK 1770121 · FY ends Dec 31
$4.10
+0.47 (+12.95%)
USD · as of 2026-08-19 · marketstack

SANA · 10-K · period ended 2021-12-31

← all SANA documents
filed 2022-03-16 · EDGAR original ↗

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Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Investing in shares of our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks and uncertainties, together with all of the other information contained in this Annual Report, including our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report, before making an investment decision. The risks described below are not the only ones facing us. Moreover, we may have already experienced the circumstances described in one or more of the risk factors described below. Many of the following risks and uncertainties are, and will continue to be, exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and any worsening of the global business and economic environment as a result. The occurrence of any of the following risks, or of additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, reputation, or results of operations. In such a case, the trading price of shares of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platforms are based on novel technologies that are unproven and may not result in approvable or marketable products. This uncertainty exposes us to unforeseen risks, makes it difficult for us to predict the time and cost that will be required for the development and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates and increases the risk that we may ultimately not be successful in our efforts to use and expand our technology platforms to build a pipeline of product candidates.

We are seeking to identify and develop a broad pipeline of product candidates using our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platforms. We have not commenced clinical trials for any product candidates developed with these platforms. The scientific research that forms the basis of our efforts to develop product candidates with our platforms is still ongoing. We are not aware of any United Stated Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved therapeutics that utilize fusogen technology or that are cell products derived from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs). Further, the scientific evidence that supports the feasibility of developing therapeutic treatments based on our platforms is both preliminary and limited. As a result, we are exposed to a number of unforeseen risks, and it is difficult to predict the types of challenges and risks that we may encounter during development of our product candidates. For example, we have not tested our cell engineering platforms on all pluripotent and differentiated cell types or in all microenvironments, so results from one cell type or microenvironment may not translate into other cell types or microenvironments. In addition, our current gene editing approaches rely on novel gene editing reagents that may have unanticipated or undesirable effects or prove to be less effective than we expect. Also, we have not tested any of the product candidates that we are developing using our cell engineering platforms in humans, and our current data is limited to animal models and preclinical cell lines, the results of which may not translate into humans. Further, relevant animal models and assays may not accurately predict the safety and efficacy of our product candidates in humans, and we may encounter significant challenges creating appropriate models and assays for demonstrating the safety and purity of our product candidates.

In addition, our fusogen and hypoimmune technologies have potential safety risks, including those related to genotoxicity associated with the delivery of genome-modifying payloads. For example, DNA sequences that randomly integrate into a cell’s DNA may increase risk for or cause certain cancers. Alternatively, gene-editing approaches may edit the genome at sites other than the intended DNA target or cause DNA rearrangements, each of which may have oncogenic or other adverse effects. PSC-derived cell products may have potential safety risks related to genomic variations that have been observed during passage (i.e., amplification) and differentiation of pluripotent cell lines. We cannot always predict the types and potential impact of these genomic changes, including whether certain changes are harmful. Accordingly, it may be difficult for us to conduct the level of testing and development of assays necessary to ensure the safety of our PSC-derived cell product candidates in humans. These risks related to genetic variation are also relevant to our product candidates created from donor-derived cells. Additionally, our stem cell-based product candidates have potential safety risks related to insufficient cell differentiation that may lead to oncogenic transformations or other adverse effects. As a result, it is possible that safety events or concerns could negatively affect the development of our product candidates, including by adversely affecting patient enrollment in future clinical trials of our product candidates among the patient populations that we intend to treat.

Given the novelty of our technologies, we intend to work closely with the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities to perform the requisite scientific analyses and evaluation of our methods to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates. However, due to a lack of experience with similar therapeutics, the regulatory pathway with the FDA and comparable regulatory authorities may be more complex, time-consuming, and unpredictable relative to more well-known therapeutics. Even if we obtain human data to support continued evaluation and approval of our product candidates, the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may lack experience in evaluating the safety and efficacy of therapeutics similar to our product candidates. For example, given that there are no approved PSC- or donor-derived cell products on the market, the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities have not established consistent standards by which to evaluate the safety of such products, and any such standards that they do establish may subsequently change. Moreover, the FDA has increased its focus in recent years on potential safety issues associated with gene and cell therapy products, including by placing clinical holds on certain product candidates pending further evaluation of genomic abnormalities detected in as few as a single patient following administration of such product candidates. We cannot be

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certain that the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authoritieswill determine that the potential safety risks associated with our PSC- or donor-derived cell product candidates outweigh the potential therapeutic benefits, and that they will allow us to commence clinical trials of such product candidates in a timely manner, or at all, or to continue such clinical trials once they have commenced.If we become subject to a clinical hold with respect to any of our product candidates due to a potential safety issue, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to provide the applicable regulatory authority with sufficient data or other evidence regarding the safety of such product candidate such that we can resume clinical development of such product candidates in a timely manner or at all. Thiscould delay clinical development of such product candidate or our other product candidates, increase our expected development costs, increase thelength of the regulatory review process, and delay or prevent commercialization of our product candidates. Moreover, even if we and the applicable regulatory authorities determine that our product candidates are safe in humans, and such products obtain approval, they may later prove to cause serious adverse side effectsin patients that we were unable to observe or predict during the clinical development of such product candidates, which may subject us to significant negative consequences, as described elsewhere in these Risk Factors. In addition, the evaluationprocess for our product candidates takes time and resources and may require independent third-party analyses, and our product candidates may not be accepted or approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. We cannot be certain that our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platformswill lead to the development of approvable or marketable products, either alone or in combination with other therapies.

Additionally, a key element of our strategy is to use and expand our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platforms to build a pipeline of product candidates and advance those product candidates through clinical development for the treatment of a variety of different types of diseases. Although our research and development efforts to date have been focused on identifying a pipeline of product candidates directed at various disease types, we may not be able to develop product candidates that are safe and effective. Even if we are successful in building our pipeline, the potential product candidates that we identify may not be suitable for clinical development, including if they are shown to have harmful side effects or other characteristics that indicate that they are unlikely to receive marketing approval and achieve market acceptance. If we do not successfully develop, obtain approval for, and commercialize any of our current or future product candidates, we will face difficulty in generating product revenue in future periods, which could result in significant harm to our financial position and adversely affect our share price.

If we are unable to successfully identify, develop, and commercialize any product candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business, financial condition, and results of operations will be materially adversely affected.

Our ability to generate revenue from sales of any of our product candidates, which we do not expect to occur for at least the next several years, if ever, will depend heavily on the timely and successful identification, development, regulatory approval, and eventual commercialization of any such product candidates, which may never occur. To date, we have not generated revenue from sales of any products, and we may never be able to develop, obtain regulatory approval for, or commercialize a marketable product. All of our current product candidates are in preclinical development, and, before we generate any revenue from product sales, will require that we manage preclinical, clinical, and manufacturing activities, undertake significant clinical development, obtain regulatory approval in multiple jurisdictions, establish manufacturing supply, including commercial manufacturing supply, and build a commercial organization, which will require a substantial investment and significant marketing efforts. We may never receive regulatory approval for any of our product candidates, which would prevent us from marketing or promoting any of our product candidates.

The successful development of our product candidates will depend on numerous factors, including the following:

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Additionally, clinical or regulatory setbacks experienced by other companies developing similar products or within adjacent fields, including allogeneic cell-based therapies and the fields of gene editing and gene therapy, may impact the clinical development of and regulatory pathway for our current or future product candidates or negatively impact the perceptions of value or risk of our technologies.

If we experience issues with or delays with respect to any one or more of these factors, we could experience significant delays or be unable to successfully develop and commercialize our product candidates, which would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

While we believe our pipeline will yield multiple INDs, we may not be able to submit INDs to commence clinical trials on the timelines we expect, and even if we are able to submit an IND, the FDA may not permit us to proceed with clinical trials.

We expect our pipeline to yield multiple Investigational New Drug applications (INDs) beginning as early as 2022, including INDs for our allogeneic CAR T cell product candidates from our ex vivo cell engineering platform and our fusosome CAR T product candidates from our in vivo cell engineering platform. We cannot be sure that, following our submission of an IND, the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities will allow our clinical trials to begin, or that, once begun, issues will not arise that require suspension or termination of such clinical trials. The manufacturing of our product candidates, including our CAR T ex vivo cell engineering product candidates, remains an emerging and evolving field. Accordingly, we expect topics relating to chemistry, manufacturing, and controls, including product specifications, will be a focus of IND reviews, which may delay the clearance of INDs that we submit. Additionally, even if applicable regulatory authorities agree with the design and implementation of the clinical trials set forth in an IND or comparable foreign submission, such regulatory authorities may change their requirements in the future, which could require us to make costly changes to and delay the conduct of our clinical trials or require suspension or termination of such trials entirely.

We may not realize the benefits of technologies that we have acquired, or will acquire in the future, or other strategic transactions that we have or will consummate.

Our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering technology represents an aggregation of years of innovation and technology from multiple academic institutions and companies, including our fusogen technology that we acquired from Cobalt, our ex vivo cell engineering programs focused on replacing damaged cells in the heart and certain brain disorders that we acquired from Cytocardia Inc. (Cytocardia) and Oscine Corp. (Oscine), respectively, hypoimmune technology that we licensed from Harvard and The Regents of the University of California (UCSF), and gene editing technology that we licensed from Beam Therapeutics Inc., among others. Further, a key component of our strategy is to acquire and in-license technologies to support our mission of using engineered cells as medicines. As such, we actively evaluate various strategic transactions on an ongoing basis. We may acquire other businesses, products, or technologies, as well as pursue joint ventures or investments in complementary businesses. The level of success of these strategic transactions, including any future strategic transactions, will depend on the risks and uncertainties involved, including:

• unanticipated liabilities related to acquired companies or joint ventures;

• difficulty retaining key employees, including of any acquired businesses;

• higher than expected collaboration, acquisition, or integration costs;

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In addition, foreign acquisitions and joint ventures are subject to additional risks, including those related to integration of operations across different cultures and languages, currency risks, potentially adverse tax consequences of overseas operations, and the particular economic, political, and regulatory risks associated with specific countries. The occurrence of any of these risks or uncertainties may preclude us from realizing the anticipated benefit of any acquisition or strategic transaction, and our financial condition may be harmed.

Additionally, we may not be successful in our efforts to acquire or obtain rights to certain technologies or products that are necessary for the success of our product candidates on acceptable terms or at all, including because we may be unable to successfully or timely negotiate the terms of an agreement with the third-party owner of such technology or products or because such third party may have determined to deprioritize such technology or products. If we are not able to acquire or obtain rights to certain technologies or products on which certain of our product candidates may depend, it may be necessary for us to curtail, reduce, or delay the development of such product candidates.

We may not realize the benefits of any collaborative or licensing arrangement, and if we fail to enter into new strategic relationships, our business, financial condition, commercialization prospects, and results of operations may be materially adversely affected.

Our product development programs and the potential commercialization of our product candidates will require substantial additional cash to fund expenses. In addition, our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platforms are attractive technologies for potential collaborations due to their breadth of application. Therefore, for certain of our product candidates, including product candidates that we may develop in the future, we may decide to form or seek strategic alliances, collaborations, or licensing arrangements with pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies that we believe will complement or augment our development and potential commercialization efforts with respect to such product candidates, including in territories outside the United States or for certain indications.

We face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators. Collaborations are complex and time-consuming to negotiate and document. We may not be successful in our efforts to establish a strategic partnership or other alternative arrangements for our product candidates on acceptable terms or at all, including because our product candidates may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaborative effort or third parties may not view our product candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy. Additionally, there have been a significant number of recent business combinations among large pharmaceutical companies that have reduced the number of potential future collaborators and changed the strategies of the resulting combined companies. In addition, under the terms of certain license agreements applicable to our product candidates, we may be restricted from entering into agreements on certain terms or at all with potential collaborators relating to those product candidates. If and when we collaborate with a third party for development and commercialization of a product candidate, we expect that we may have to relinquish some or all of the control over the future success of that product candidate to the third party. Our ability to reach a definitive agreement for a 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 the proposed collaborator’s evaluation of our technologies, product candidates, and market opportunities. The collaborator may also consider alternative product candidates or technologies for similar indications that may be available for collaboration and could determine that such other collaboration is more attractive than a collaboration with us for our product candidate.

In instances where we do enter into collaborations, we could be subject to the following risks, each of which may materially harm our business, commercialization prospects, and financial condition:

• collaborators may experience financial difficulties;

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If our strategic collaborations do not result in the successful development and commercialization of product candidates, or if one of our collaborators terminates its agreement with us, we may not receive any future research funding or milestone or royalty payments under the collaboration or the research, development, and commercialization product that is the subject of the collaboration may be delayed. Moreover, our estimates of the potential revenue we are eligible to receive under our strategic collaborations may include potential payments related to therapeutic programs for which our collaborators have discontinued development or may discontinue development in the future. If we are unable to enter into strategic collaborations, or if any of the other events described in this paragraph occur after we enter into a collaboration, we may have to curtail the development of a particular product candidate, reduce or delay its development program or one or more of our other development programs, delay its potential commercialization or reduce the scope of our sales or marketing activities, or increase our expenditures and undertake development or commercialization activities at our own expense. If we elect to increase our expenditures to fund development or commercialization activities on our own, we may need to obtain additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we do not have sufficient funds, we will not be able to bring our product candidates to market and generate product revenue.

If we license products or businesses, we may not be able to realize the benefit of such transactions if we are unable to successfully integrate them with our existing operations and company culture. In addition, the success of our collaborations or other transactions may be negatively affected, including as a result of delays in timelines, if the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic materially adversely impacts our or the counterparty’s operations. We also cannot be certain that, following execution of a strategic transaction, we will achieve the revenue or specific net income that justifies such a transaction or the other anticipated benefits that led us to enter into the arrangement.

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Our ability to develop our cell engineering platforms and product candidates and our future growth depends on retaining our key personnel and recruiting additional qualified personnel.

Our success depends upon the continued contributions of our key management, scientific, and technical personnel, many of whom have been instrumental for us and have substantial experience with our cell engineering platforms, underlying technologies, and related product candidates. Given the specialized nature of our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering and the fact that we are operating in novel and emerging fields, there is an inherent scarcity of personnel with the requisite experience to fill the roles across our organization. As we continue developing our product candidates and building our pipeline, we will require personnel with medical, scientific, or technical qualifications specific to each program. The loss of key managers and senior scientists could delay our research and development activities. Despite our efforts to retain valuable employees, members of our management, scientific, and development teams may terminate their employment with us at any time, sometimes on short notice. Although we have employment agreements with certain of our key employees, our employment relationship with all employees provides for at-will employment, which means that any of our employees could leave our employment at any time, with or without notice. If our retention efforts are unsuccessful now or in the future, it may be difficult for us to implement our business strategy, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Further, certain of our key employees, including Drs. Terry Fry, Steve Goldman and Chuck Murry, retain partial employment at academic institutions. Dr. Goldman currently devotes approximately 60% of his time to the University of Rochester and the University of Copenhagen, Dr. Murry currently devotes approximately 25% to his time to the University of Washington, and Dr. Fry currently devotes approximately 25% of his time to the University of Colorado. We may in the future have other employees that have similar employment arrangements. These arrangements may expose us to increased potential for these individuals to return to their academic positions full-time or devote less of their attention to us than is optimal, and potentially expose us to claims of intellectual property ownership or co-ownership by the respective academic institutions.

The competition for qualified personnel in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries is intense, and our future success depends upon our ability to attract, retain, and motivate highly skilled scientific, technical, and managerial employees. Specifically, the success of our research and development programs, clinical operations, manufacturing, and future sales and marketing efforts will depend on our ability to attract and retain highly-skilled scientists, engineers, clinical operations and manufacturing personnel, and sales professionals. We face competition for personnel from other companies, universities, public and private research institutions, and other organizations. We have from time to time experienced, and we expect to continue to experience, difficulty in hiring and retaining employees with appropriate qualifications on acceptable terms, or at all. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we do and may be able to provide prospective job candidates or our existing employees with more attractive roles, salaries, or benefits than we can provide. If we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees or we have breached legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources and, potentially, damages. In addition, job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the stock awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived benefits of our stock awards decline or are otherwise viewed unfavorably compared to those of companies with which we compete for talent, our ability to recruit and retain highly skilled employees could be harmed. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects would be harmed.

Though many of our personnel have significant experience with respect to manufacturing biopharmaceutical products, we, as a company, do not have experience in developing or maintaining a manufacturing facility. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to maintain a compliant facility and manufacture our product candidates as intended, given the complexity of manufacturing novel therapeutics. If we fail to successfully operate our facility and manufacture a sufficient and compliant supply of our product candidates, our clinical trials and the commercial viability of our product candidates could be adversely affected.

The manufacture of biopharmaceutical products is complex and requires significant expertise, including the development of advanced manufacturing techniques and process controls. Manufacturers of gene and cell therapy products often encounter difficulties in production, particularly in scaling up, scaling out, validating initial production, ensuring the absence of contamination, and ensuring process robustness after initial production. These include difficulties with production costs and yields, quality control, including stability of the product, quality assurance testing, operator error, and shortages of qualified personnel, as well as compliance with strictly enforced federal, state, and foreign regulations. As a result of the complexities involved in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, 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, and this is particularly true with respect to our product candidates. The application of new regulatory guidelines or parameters, such as those related to control strategy testing, may also adversely affect our ability to manufacture our product candidates in a compliant and cost-effective manner or at all.

We are investing early in building world class capabilities in key areas of manufacturing sciences and operations, including development of our ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering platforms, product characterization, and process analytics from the time candidates are in early research phases. Our investments also include scaled research solutions, scaled infrastructure, and novel technologies to improve efficiency, characterization, and scalability of manufacturing. However, we have limited experience in

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managing the manufacturing processes necessary for making cell and gene therapies. We cannot be sure that the manufacturing processes that we use, or the technologies that we incorporate into theseprocesses, will result in viable or scalable yields of ex vivoand in vivocell engineering product candidates that will be safe and effective and meet market demand.

A key part of our strategy is operating our own manufacturing facility. Accordingly, in July 2021, we entered into a long-term lease to establish and operate our own current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) manufacturing facility to support our late-stage clinical development and early commercial product candidates across our product portfolio, including with respect to the production of allogeneic CAR T cells, viral vectors, and PSC-derived products. We expect that it will take several years before we are able to begin manufacturing our product candidates at this facility, if we are able to do so at all. Designing and building out our manufacturing facility will be time-consuming and will require significant resources, including a reallocation of certain of our existing financial, human and other resources, including the time and attention of our senior management. In addition, given the volatility in the costs of building materials, building out our manufacturing facility may be more expensive than we expect. We do not have experience as a company in developing a manufacturing facility, and we may experience unexpected costs or delays or be unsuccessful in developing our internal manufacturing capability in time to support registration-enabling clinical trials of our product candidates or at all. In order to build out the facility, we will need to engage third-party service providers and obtain equipment and third-party technology necessary to manufacture our product candidates at the facility; however, we may not be able to negotiate agreements with third parties or access necessary technologies on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the industrial space that we are leasing to develop our manufacturing facility will not change ownership over the term of the lease or be subject to additional zoning or other restrictions, and that, in such an event, we will be able to continue to build or operate the facility without further delay or cost. In addition, operating our facility will require us to continue to hire and retain experienced scientific, quality control, quality assurance, and manufacturing personnel. As described elsewhere in these Risk Factors, competition for qualified personnel in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries is intense, and if we fail to attract qualified personnel or retain and motivate our current personnel, we will not be able to operate our facility, and our business and future growth prospects would be harmed.

Until we are able to begin manufacturing our product candidates at our facility, we will rely on third-party contract manufacturers to manufacture our product candidates for preclinical studies and clinical trials. Once we have completed the build-out of our manufacturing facility, we will be required to transition manufacturing processes and know-how of certain of our product candidates from our contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) to our facility. To date, we and our CDMOs have limited experience in the technology transfer of manufacturing processes from us to our CDMOs. Transferring manufacturing processes and know-how is complex and involves review and incorporation of both documented and undocumented processes that may have evolved over time. In addition, transferring production to our facility may require utilization of new or different processes to meet the requirements of our facility. Additional studies may also need to be conducted to support the transfer of certain manufacturing processes and process improvements. We will not know with certainty whether all relevant know-how and data has been adequately incorporated into the manufacturing process being conducted at our facility until the completion of studies and evaluations intended to demonstrate the comparability of material previously produced by our CDMOS with that generated by our facility.

Operating our manufacturing facility will require us to comply with complex regulations. Moreover, our manufacturing facility, and any future commercial manufacturing facilities we may operate, will require FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority approval, which we may not obtain in time to support registration-enabling clinical trials for our product candidates, if at all. Even if approved, we would be subject to ongoing periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, corresponding state agencies, and comparable foreign regulatory authorities to ensure strict compliance with cGMP, current good tissue practices (cGTPs), and other government regulations. We also may make changes to our manufacturing process at various points during development, and even after commercialization, for various reasons, such as to control costs, achieve scale, decrease processing time, increase manufacturing success rate, or for other reasons. Such changes carry the risk that they will not achieve their intended objectives, and any of these changes could cause our product candidates to perform differently and affect the results of any of our then-ongoing clinical trials or future clinical trials, or the performance of the product, once commercialized. In some circumstances, changes in the manufacturing process may require us to perform comparability studies and to collect additional data from patients prior to undertaking more advanced clinical trials. For instance, changes in our process during the course of clinical development may require us to show the comparability of the product used in earlier clinical phases or at earlier portions of a trial to the product used in later clinical phases or later portions of the trial. We may also make further changes to our manufacturing process before or after commercialization, and such changes may require us to show the comparability of the resulting product to the product used in the clinical trials using earlier processes. We may be required to collect additional clinical data from any modified process prior to obtaining marketing approval for the product candidate produced with such modified process. If clinical data are not ultimately comparable to that seen in the earlier trials in terms of safety or efficacy, we may be required to make further changes to our process or undertake additional clinical testing, either of which would significantly delay the clinical development or commercialization of the relevant product candidate.

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Furthermore, if contaminants are discovered in our supply of product candidates or in our manufacturing facility, or any future manufacturing facilities, such supply may have to be discarded and our manufacturing facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination. We cannot guarantee that any stability or other issues relating to the manufacture of our product candidates will not occur in the future. We may not be able to manufacture our product candidates as a result of not meeting regulatory requirements and may not be able to scale up or scale out our manufacturing to meet market demand. Any failure or delay in the development of our manufacturing capabilities could adversely impact the development and potential commercialization of our product candidates.

We may encounter difficulties in managing our growth as we continue to expand our development and regulatory capabilities, which could disrupt our operations.

We have experienced rapid growth since our inception in July 2018. As of December 31, 2021, we had 383 full-time employees and three part-time employees. We expect continued growth in the number of our employees and the scope of our operations, particularly as we advance our IND-enabling studies, establish regulatory, quality, and clinical operations, and continue to establish supply chain logistics and manufacturing. To manage our anticipated future growth, we plan to continue to implement and improve our managerial, operational, and financial systems, expand our facilities, and continue to recruit and train additional qualified personnel. Due to our limited financial resources and the complexity involved in managing a company with such anticipated growth, we may not be able to effectively manage the expansion of our operations or recruit and train additional qualified personnel. In addition, we have limited experience in managing the manufacturing processes necessary for making cell and gene therapies. The expansion of our operations will be costly and may divert our management and business development resources. For example, members of management will have significant added responsibilities in connection with effecting and managing our growth, including identifying, recruiting, integrating, maintaining, and motivating current and future employees, effectively managing our internal development efforts, including the clinical and regulatory (e.g., FDA) review process, while complying with our contractual obligations to third parties, and maintaining and improving our operational, financial, and management controls, reporting systems, and procedures. In addition, as we grow, we may be required to rely more heavily on third-party service providers, advisors, and consultants to provide certain services, including strategic, financial, business development, and research and development services, as well as with respect to certain aspects of our regulatory approval affairs and manufacturing activities. We cannot guarantee that such third parties will be available to us on a timely basis when needed, or that we will be able to find and engage qualified replacements if required. Our inability to successfully manage our growth could delay the execution of our business plans or disrupt our operations.

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

Because we have limited financial and managerial resources, we focus on research programs, therapeutic platforms, and product candidates that we identify for specific indications. Additionally, we have contractual commitments under our collaboration agreements to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop certain programs and, thus, do not have unilateral discretion to vary from such agreed upon efforts. In addition, we have contractual commitments to conduct certain development plans, and thus may not have discretion to modify such development plans, including clinical trial designs, without agreement from our collaboration partners. As a result, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other therapeutic platforms or product candidates or for other indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential. Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future research and development programs, therapeutic platforms, and product candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable products. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular product candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that product candidate through collaboration, licensing, or other royalty arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights.

The use of human stem cells exposes us to a number of risks in the development of our human stem cell-derived products, including an inability to obtain suitable donor material from eligible and qualified human donors, restrictions on the use of human stem cells, as well as ethical, legal, and social implications of research on the use of stem cells, any of which could prevent us from completing the development of or commercializing and gaining acceptance for our products derived from human stem cells.

We use human stem cells in our research and development, including induced PSCs (iPSCs) and embryonic stem cells (ESCs), and one or more of our ex vivo cell engineering product candidates may be derived from human stem cells. The use of such cells in our research, or as starting cell lines in the manufacture of one or more of our product candidates, exposes us to a number of risks. These risks include difficulties in securing sufficient and viable stem cells as starting material, recruiting patients for our future clinical trials, as well as managing a multitude of legal and regulatory restrictions on the sourcing and use of these cells. In particular, in some states, use of embryonic tissue as a source of stem cells is prohibited and many research institutions have adopted policies regarding the ethical use of human embryonic tissue. If these policies or restrictions have the effect of limiting the scope of research we can conduct using stem cells, our ability to develop our ex vivo cell engineering product candidates may be significantly impaired, which could

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have an adverse material effect on our business. Further, the use of stem cells generally, and embryonic stem cells in particular, has social, legal, and ethical implications. Certain political and religious groups continue to voice opposition to the use of human stem cells in drug research, development, and manufacture. Adverse publicity due to ethical and social controversies surrounding the use of stem cells could lead to negative public opinion, difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, increased regulation, and stricter policies regarding the use of such cells, which could harm our business and may limit market acceptance of any of our product candidates that may receive regulatory approval. In addition, clinical experience with stem cells, including iPSCs and ESCs, is limited. We are not aware of any products that utilize iPSCs or ESCs as a starting material that have received marketing approval from the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority. Therefore, patients in our clinical trials may experience unexpected side effects, and we may experience unexpected regulatory delays prior to or after regulatory approval, if approval were to be granted.

Furthermore, manufacturing and development of our ex vivo stem cell-derived and allogeneic T cell-derived product candidates will rely on our ability to obtain suitable donor material from eligible and qualified human donors. If we are unable to obtain sufficient quantities of suitable donor material, or if we are unable to obtain such material in a timely manner, we may experience delays in manufacturing our ex vivo product candidates, which would harm our ability to conduct future clinical trials for or to commercialize these product candidates. Moreover, if the consent, authorization, or process for the donation of those materials is not obtained or conducted in accordance with applicable legal, ethical, and regulatory requirements, we could face delays in the clinical testing and approval of these product candidates, or, potentially, we could face claims by such human donors, which could expose us to damages and reputational harm.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could materially and adversely affect our preclinical studies and development, our manufacturing capabilities, any clinical trials we may commence, and our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, or similar pandemics, and related “shelter in place” orders and other public health guidance measures, we have experienced and may in the future experience disruptions that could materially and adversely impact our preclinical studies and development, any clinical trials we may commence, and our business, financial condition, and results of operations. In response to the spread of COVID-19, we have limited operations in our executive offices, with our administrative employees primarily continuing their work outside of our offices, and have taken other precautionary measures, including the periodic testing of our on-site employees. We also established a cross-functional task force and implemented business continuity plans designed to address and mitigate the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on our business.

Potential disruptions to our preclinical development efforts resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may include the following:

In addition, we have experienced, and we and our service providers or vendors may continue to experience, delays in the procurement of, or an inability to procure, certain laboratory supplies required for the conduct of our research and preclinical activities, such as cell culture plasticware and single use containers, as a result of factors related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including increased demand due to ramp up of COVID-19 research and manufacturing, government-mandated allocation of materials for such research and manufacturing, insufficient manufacturing capacity, and delays by CDMOs in increasing manufacturing capacity to address increased demand. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may also adversely affect our manufacturing capabilities. For example, we may experience delays or otherwise experience difficulties in building out and operationalizing our internal manufacturing facility and obtaining key materials, consumables, and equipment necessary to manufacture our product candidates.

In addition, if and when we commence clinical trials for any of our product candidates, we may experience potential delays or disruptions of clinical trial-related activities as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including as a result of the following:

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The COVID-19 global pandemic continues to rapidly evolve. Although many countries, including certain countries in Europe and the United States, have re-opened, rises in new cases, including as the result of newly identified COVID-19 variants, have caused certain countries, states, and localities to re-initiate restrictions. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may affect our preclinical studies, future clinical trials, business, financial condition, and results of operations will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted at this time, such as the geographic spread of the disease, the duration of the pandemic, travel restrictions, actions to contain the pandemic or reduce its impact in the United States and other countries, such as required social distancing, quarantines, lock-downs, business closures, or business disruptions, and the effectiveness of actions taken in the United States and other countries to contain and treat the disease. Additionally, we are unable to predict if and when a different pandemic may occur, and if so, whether it would have similar or different impacts on our business, financial condition, or share price. Future developments in these and other areas present material uncertainty and risk with respect to our preclinical activities, clinical trials, business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Negative public opinion and increased regulatory scrutiny of research and therapies involving gene editing or other ex vivo or in vivo cell engineering technologies may damage public perception of our product candidates or adversely affect our ability to conduct our business or obtain regulatory approvals for our product candidates.

Certain aspects of our cell engineering platforms rely on the ability to edit genes. Public perception may be influenced by claims that gene editing is unsafe, and products incorporating gene editing may not gain the acceptance of the public or the medical community. In particular, our success will depend upon physicians specializing in diseases that our product candidates are designed to target prescribing our product candidates as treatments in lieu of, or in addition to, existing, more familiar treatments for which greater clinical data may be available. Any increase in negative perceptions of gene editing may result in fewer physicians prescribing our treatments or may reduce the willingness of patients to utilize our treatments or participate in clinical trials of our product candidates. In addition, given the novel nature of ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering technologies, governments may impose import, export, or other restrictions in order to retain control or limit the use of such technologies. Increased negative public opinion or more restrictive government regulations, either in the United States or internationally, would have a negative effect on our business or financial condition and may delay or impair the development and commercialization of our product candidates or demand for such product candidates.

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Risks Related to the Development and Clinical Testing of Our Product Candidates

We must successfully progress our product candidates through extensive preclinical studies and clinical trials in order to obtain regulatory approval to market and sell such product candidates. Even if we obtain positive results in preclinical studies of a product candidate, these results may not be predictive of the results of future preclinical studies or clinical trials.

To obtain the requisite regulatory approvals to market and sell any of our product candidates, we or any future collaborator for such product candidate must demonstrate through extensive preclinical studies and clinical trials that the product candidate is safe, pure, and potent in humans. Before an IND can be submitted to the FDA and become effective, which is a prerequisite for conducting clinical trials on human subjects, a product candidate must successfully progress through extensive preclinical studies, which include preclinical laboratory testing, animal studies, and formulation studies conducted in accordance with good laboratory practices (GLP).

Success in preclinical studies does not ensure that later preclinical studies or clinical trials will be successful. A number of companies in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries have suffered significant setbacks in clinical trials, even after positive results in preclinical studies. These setbacks have been caused by, among other things, preclinical findings made while clinical trials were underway and safety or efficacy observations made during the course of clinical trials, including previously unreported adverse events. The design of a clinical trial can determine whether its results will support approval of a product, and flaws in the design of a clinical trial may not become apparent until the clinical trial is well advanced. In addition, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses. Notwithstanding any potential promising results in earlier studies, we cannot be certain that we will not face similar setbacks. In addition, the results of our preclinical animal studies, including our non-human primate studies, may not be predictive of the results of subsequent clinical trials on human subjects. Product candidates may fail to show the desired pharmacological properties or safety and efficacy traits in clinical trials despite having successfully progressed through preclinical studies.

If we fail to obtain positive results in preclinical studies or clinical trials of any product candidate, the development timeline and regulatory approval and commercialization prospects for that product candidate, and, correspondingly, our business and financial prospects, would be negatively impacted.

All of our product candidates are in preclinical development, and none have commenced clinical development. Preclinical and clinical drug development is a lengthy and expensive process with uncertain timelines and uncertain outcomes. If preclinical studies or clinical trials of any of our product candidates are prolonged or delayed, we may be unable to obtain required regulatory approvals and commercialize such product candidates on a timely basis or at all.

Preclinical studies and clinical trials are expensive, can take many years to complete, and their outcomes are inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during preclinical or clinical development. Product candidates in later-stage clinical trials may fail to produce the same results as observed in earlier trials or fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical studies and earlier clinical trials. Our future clinical trials may not be successful.

Applicable laws and regulations require us to test our product candidates in animals before initiating clinical trials involving humans. We may experience delays or experience difficulty completing studies of our product candidates in animals for various reasons. For example, due to global supply chain issues caused by global geo-political, economic, and other factors beyond our control, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as described elsewhere in these Risk Factors, we have experienced and may continue to experience difficulty in accessing animal models, specifically non-human primate models, for the preclinical evaluation of our product candidates. In addition, animal testing activities have been the subject of controversy and adverse publicity. Animal rights groups and other organizations and individuals have attempted to stop animal testing activities by pressing for legislation and regulation in these areas and by disrupting these activities through protests and other means. To the extent the activities of these groups are successful, our research and development activities may be interrupted, delayed, or become more expensive.

We are required to submit an IND to the FDA with respect to each product candidate prior to commencing a clinical trial for such product candidate. While we plan to submit INDs for each of our product candidates, we may not be able to submit such INDs in accordance with our expected timelines for various reasons, including due to:

• delays with IND-enabling preclinical studies; or

Moreover, we cannot guarantee that submission of an IND for a product candidate will result in the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities allowing clinical trials of that product candidate to commence in accordance with our timelines or expectations

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or at all. For example, the FDA may accept an IND submission for a product candidate but place clinical trials of such product candidate on hold pending the results of additional testing or the development of additional assays. Additionally, even if regulatory authorities agree with the design and implementation of the clinical trials set forth in an IND, we cannot guarantee that such regulatory authorities will not change their requirements in the future.These considerations also apply to new clinical trials we may submit as amendments to existing INDs.

To date, we have not commenced any clinical trials. We do not know whether planned clinical trials will begin on time, need to be redesigned, enroll patients on time, or be completed on schedule, if at all. Clinical trials may be delayed, suspended, or terminated for a variety of reasons, including the following:

• delays in or failure to obtain regulatory authorization to commence a trial;

• delays in establishing the appropriate dosage levels in clinical trials;

• lower than anticipated retention rates of patients in clinical trials;

• clinical sites deviating from trial protocol or dropping out of a trial;

• delays caused by the addition of new investigators or clinical trial sites;

• changes in regulatory requirements, policies, and guidelines;

In addition, disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, to the extent it is still ongoing when we initiate our planned clinical trials, may increase the likelihood that we encounter difficulties or delays in initiating, enrolling, conducting, or completing such clinical trials, as described elsewhere in these Risk Factors.

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Additionally, some of our trials may be open-label trials in which both the patient and investigator know whether the patient is receiving the investigational product candidate or an existing approved therapy. Open-label clinical trials are subject to various limitations that may exaggerate any therapeutic effect, as patients in open-label clinical trials are aware when they are receiving treatment. In addition, open-label clinical trials may be subject to an “investigator bias,” where those assessing and reviewing the physiological outcomes of patients in the clinical trials are aware of which patients have received the experimental treatment and may interpret the information of this group more favorably given this knowledge. Therefore, it is possible that positive results observed in open-label trials will not be replicated in later placebo-controlled trials.

Clinical trials must be conducted in accordance with the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities’ legal requirements, regulations and guidelines and are subject to oversight by these governmental authorities and IRBs or Ethics Committees at the medical institutions where the clinical trials are conducted. We could encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the IRBs or Ethics Committees of the institutions at which such trial is being conducted, by the Data Review Committee or Data Safety Monitoring Board for such trial, or by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Such authorities may impose such a suspension or termination, including following an inspection of clinical trial operations or a clinical trial site, due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from use of the product candidate being tested, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions, or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. In addition, such authorities may impose a clinical hold on a product candidate due to unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects that may be associated with a therapeutic or therapeutic candidate being developed by us or a third party if regulators deem our product candidate to have the potential for comparable side effects or risks as such therapeutic or therapeutic candidate because of biologic, mechanistic, sourcing, or other similarities. If we experience delays in completing, or are required to terminate, any clinical trial of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of the relevant product candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenues from these product candidates will be delayed. In addition, any delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, delay our ability to obtain regulatory approval for the relevant product candidate, and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues. Significant clinical trial delays could also allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do or shorten any periods during which we have the exclusive right to commercialize our product candidates, which may impair our ability to commercialize our product candidates and harm our business and results of operations.

Furthermore, as described elsewhere in these Risk Factors, we will rely on CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure the proper and timely conduct of our clinical trials in compliance with good clinical practices (GCP) requirements. While we will enter into agreements governing their conduct, we will have limited influence over their actual performance. To the extent the CROs and clinical trial sites fail to timely and successfully enroll patients in our clinical trials, fail to conduct such clinical trials in accordance with GCP, or experience significant delays in the execution of trials, including delays in achieving full enrollment or clinical trial data collection and analysis, we may experience program delays, incur additional costs, or both, which may harm our business. In addition, we may experience delays and incur additional costs with respect to clinical trials that we conduct in countries outside the United States, including as a result of increased shipment and distribution costs, compliance with additional regulatory requirements, and the engagement of non-United States. CROs, and may also be exposed to risks associated with clinical investigators who are unknown to the FDA, and different standards of diagnosis, screening, and medical care.

Our future clinical trials may fail to demonstrate substantial evidence of the safety and efficacy of our product candidates, including any future product candidates, which would prevent, delay or limit the scope of regulatory approval and commercialization of such product candidates.

To obtain the requisite regulatory approvals to market and sell any of our product candidates and any other future product candidates, we must demonstrate through clinical trials that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in each targeted indication. 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 development process. Most product candidates that begin clinical trials are never approved by regulatory authorities for commercialization. We may be unable to establish clinical endpoints that applicable regulatory authorities would consider clinically meaningful.

Further, the process of obtaining regulatory approval is expensive, often takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials, and can vary substantially based upon the type, complexity, and novelty of the product candidates involved, as well as the target indications, patient population, and regulatory authority involved. Prior to obtaining approval to commercialize our current or future product candidates in the United States or abroad, we or our potential future collaborators must demonstrate with substantial evidence from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials, and to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, that such product candidates are safe and effective for their intended uses.

Clinical trials that we conduct may not demonstrate the efficacy and safety necessary to obtain regulatory approval to market our product candidates. 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 trial procedures set forth in protocols, differences in

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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. If the results of our clinical trials are inconclusive with respect to the efficacy of our product candidates, if we do not meet the clinical endpoints with statistical and clinically meaningful significance, or if there are safety concerns associated with our product candidates, we may experience delays in obtaining marketing approval, or we may not obtain approval at all. Additionally, any safety concerns observed in any one of our clinical trials for a product candidate in our targeted indications could limit the prospects for regulatory approval of such product candidate in those and other indications.

Even if we successfully complete any future clinical trials, clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses. We cannot guarantee that the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities will interpret the results as we do, and more trials could be required before we submit our product candidates for approval. Even if positive results are observed in clinical trials, we cannot guarantee that the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities will view our product candidates as having efficacy. Further, the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may not agree with our manufacturing strategy or may not find comparability between our clinical trial product candidates and proposed commercial product candidates, which may result in regulatory delays or a need to perform additional clinical studies. Moreover, clinical trial results that may be acceptable to support approval of a certain scope in one jurisdiction may be deemed inadequate to support regulatory approval, or may only be deemed sufficient to support a narrower scope of approval, in other jurisdictions. If the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities determine that our clinical trial results are not adequate to support approval of a marketing application, we may experience delays in obtaining, or fail to obtain, approval of our product candidates, or we may be required to expend significant additional resources, which may not be available to us, to conduct additional trials in support of potential approval of our product candidates. Even if regulatory approval is obtained for a product candidate, the terms of such approval may limit the scope and use of the specific product candidate, which may also limit its commercial potential.

Our product candidates may have serious adverse, undesirable, or unacceptable side effects or other properties that may delay or prevent marketing approval. If a product candidate receives regulatory approval, and such side effects are identified following such approval, the commercial profile of any approved label may be limited, or we may be subject to other significant negative consequences following such approval.

Our product candidates may cause undesirable side effects, which could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay, or halt our future clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or comparable foreign authorities. We have not commenced clinical trials for any of our product candidates, and we do not have any clinical data or other information that would enable us to fully anticipate their side effects. Accordingly, we may observe unexpected side effects or higher levels of known side effects in clinical trials of our product candidates, including adverse events known to occur in the same classes of therapeutics. These may include, among others, infusion reaction, cytokine release syndrome (CRS), graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), neurotoxicities, and certain cancers.

Results of our clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of these or other side effects associated with our product candidates. In such an event, clinical trials of such product candidates could be suspended or terminated, and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development of or deny approval of such product candidates for any or all targeted indications. The occurrence of such side effects could negatively affect our ability to recruit and enroll patients in our clinical trials, or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the clinical trials or result in product liability claims. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition, and prospects significantly.

Further, clinical trials by their nature utilize only a sample of the potential patient population. With a limited number of patients and limited duration of exposure to our product candidates, rare and severe side effects of our product candidates may not be apparent during early clinical trials and may only be uncovered once a significantly larger number of patients have been exposed to the product candidate, including during later-stage clinical trials or following commercialization.

In the event that any of our product candidates receives marketing approval and we or others later identify undesirable or unacceptable side effects caused by such products, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:

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• sales of the product may decrease significantly;

• we may be subject to litigation or product liability claims; and

• our reputation may suffer.

Any of these events could prevent us or our potential future partners from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the affected product or could substantially increase commercialization costs and expenses, which in turn could delay or prevent us from generating significant revenue from the sale of any products.

Interim, topline, or preliminary data from our preclinical studies or future clinical trials that we may announce or publish from time to time may change as more patient data become available or as we make changes to our manufacturing processes. These data are subject to audit and verification procedures that could result in material changes in the final data.

From time to time, we may publicly disclose interim, topline, or preliminary data from our preclinical studies or future clinical trials, which are based on a preliminary analysis of then-available data, and the results and related findings and conclusions are subject to change following a more comprehensive review of the data related to the particular study or trial. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations, and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, and we may not have received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data at the time of our initial disclosure of data. Further, modifications or improvements to our manufacturing processes for a product candidate may result in changes to its characteristics or behavior that could cause the product candidate to perform differently and affect the results of our ongoing clinical trials of such product candidate. As a result, the topline results that we report may differ from future results of the same studies, or different conclusions or considerations may qualify such results once additional data have been received and fully evaluated. Topline data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously disclosed. As a result, topline data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available. Similarly, preliminary or interim data from clinical trials are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. Adverse differences between preliminary or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business prospects. Additionally, disclosure of preliminary or interim data by us or our competitors, with respect to clinical trials of their product candidates, could result in volatility in the price of our common stock.

Further, others, including regulatory authorities, may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions, or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular product candidate, and our company in general. If the interim, topline, or preliminary data that we report differ from actual results, or if others, including regulatory authorities, disagree with the conclusions reached, our ability to obtain approval for and commercialize our potential product candidates may be harmed, which could harm our business, operating results, prospects, or financial condition.

The manufacture of our product candidates is complex. We or our third-party CDMOs may encounter difficulties in production, which could delay or entirely halt our or their ability to supply our product candidates for clinical trials or, if approved, for commercial sale.

Our product candidates are considered to be biologics, and the process of manufacturing biologics is complex and requires significant expertise and capital investment, including the development of advanced manufacturing techniques and process controls. In July 2021, we entered into a long-term lease to establish and operate our own cGMP manufacturing facility to support our late-stage clinical development and early commercial product candidates across our product portfolio. However, we expect that it will take several years before we are able to begin manufacturing our product candidates at this facility, if at all. We currently rely, and expect for some period of time to continue to rely, on third-party CDMOs for the manufacture of our product candidates for preclinical and clinical studies. To date, we and our CDMOs have limited experience in manufacturing of cGMP batches of our product candidates. Our CDMOs and, once we begin to operate our manufacturing facility, we, must comply with cGMPs and other regulations and guidelines applicable to the manufacturing of biologics for use in clinical trials and, if approved, commercial sale. To date, we have not scaled the manufacturing processes with respect to our product candidates for later-stage clinical trials and commercialization. Larger-scale manufacturing will require the development of new processes, including for the removal of impurities that are a normal byproduct of the manufacturing process. The nature of our product candidates requires the development of novel manufacturing

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processes and analytical technologies, which could cause delays in the scaling of manufacturing, as well as greater costs that could negatively impact the financial viability of our product candidates. We cannot be sure that the manufacturing processes employed by our CDMOs or the technologies that our CDMOs incorporate into our manufacturing processes will result in viable or scalable yields of ex vivo and in vivocell engineering product candidates that will be safe and effective and, if approved, meet market demand.

Once we have completed the build-out of our manufacturing facility, we will be required to transition manufacturing processes and know-how of certain of our product candidates from our CDMOs to our facility. To date, we and our CDMOs have limited experience in the technology transfer of manufacturing processes from us to our CDMOs. Transferring manufacturing processes and know-how is complex and involves review and incorporation of both documented and undocumented processes that may have evolved over time. In addition, transferring production to our facility may require utilization of new or different processes to meet the requirements of our facility. Additional studies may also need to be conducted to support the transfer of certain manufacturing processes and process improvements. We will not know with certainty whether all relevant know-how and data has been adequately incorporated into the manufacturing process being conducted at our facility until the completion of studies and evaluations intended to demonstrate the comparability of material previously produced by our CDMOs with that generated by our facility.

The process of manufacturing our biologic product candidates is extremely susceptible to product loss due to contamination, equipment failure, or improper installation or operation of equipment, vendor or operator error, inconsistency in yields, variability in product characteristics, and difficulties in scaling the production process. Even minor deviations from normal manufacturing processes could result in reduced production yields, product defects, and other supply disruptions. If microbial, viral, or other contaminations are discovered in our product candidates or in the manufacturing facilities in which our product candidates are made, this could lead to withdrawal of our products from clinical trials and, if approved, the market, and such manufacturing facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination. Moreover, if the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities determine that we or our CDMOs are not in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including those governing cGMPs, the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may not approve a BLA or comparable foreign marketing authorization until the deficiencies are corrected or we replace the manufacturer in our applications with a manufacturer that is in compliance. If we or our CDMOs fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, we may ultimately be unable to manufacture our product candidates.

Any adverse developments affecting manufacturing operations for any of our product candidates for which we may obtain approval, may result in shipment delays, inventory shortages, lot failures, product withdrawals or recalls, or other supply interruptions. We may also have to take inventory write-offs and incur other charges and expenses for products that fail to meet specifications as a result of defects or storage over an extended period of time, undertake costly remediation efforts, or seek more costly manufacturing alternatives. As part of our process development efforts, we also may make changes to our manufacturing processes at various points during development for various reasons, such as to control costs, achieve scale, decrease processing time, increase manufacturing success rate, or other reasons. Such changes may not achieve their intended objectives, and any of these changes could cause our product candidates to perform differently and affect the results of our future clinical trials. In some circumstances, changes in the manufacturing process for a product candidate may require us to perform comparability studies and collect additional data from patients prior to undertaking more advanced clinical trials.

Given the complexities associated with manufacturing our product candidates, our ability to successfully conduct clinical trials and ultimately commercialize our product candidates will depend in part on our ability to attract, motivate, and retain highly-skilled personnel with significant expertise in manufacturing biologics that can effectively and timely manage and conduct our manufacturing operations. We and our CDMOs face intense competition to attract, motivate, and retain qualified personnel. If we or our CDMOs are unable to attract, motivate, and retain qualified personnel to conduct and manage our manufacturing operations, we may experience delays in manufacturing our product candidates, which could materially harm our ability to conduct our clinical trials or commercialize our product candidates in a timely manner or at all and could harm our business.

We are exposed to a number of risks related to the supply chain for the materials required to manufacture our product candidates.

Manufacturing our product candidates is highly complex and requires sourcing of specialty materials. Many of the risks associated with the complexity of manufacturing our final product candidates are applicable to the manufacture and supply of the raw materials required to make such product candidates. In particular, these raw materials are subject to inconsistency in yields, variability in characteristics, contamination, difficulties in scaling the production process, and defects. Similar minor deviations in the manufacturing process for these raw materials could result in supply disruption and reduced production yields for our final product candidates. In addition, we rely on third parties for the supply of these materials, which, exposes us to risks associated with dependence on third parties, as described elsewhere in these Risk Factors.

We rely on obtaining suitable donor material from eligible and qualified donors for the manufacture of product candidates from our ex vivo cell engineering platform. We may not be able to obtain sufficient quantities donor material in a timely manner or at all, including due to an inability to find donors who meet the eligibility criteria or geo-political, economic, and other factors beyond our control, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, that may prevent individuals from donating blood. If we are unable to obtain

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sufficient quantities of suitable donor material, or if we are unable to obtain such material in a timely manner, we may experience delaysin manufacturing our ex vivo product candidates, which would harm our ability to conduct future clinical trials for or to commercialize these product candidates.

In addition, our manufacturing processes require many reagents, which are drug substance intermediates used in our manufacturing processes to bring about chemical or biological reactions, and other specialty materials, consumables, and equipment, some of which are manufactured or supplied by small companies with limited resources and experience with respect to supporting clinical or 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 manufacturing of products under cGMP or may otherwise be ill-equipped to support our needs. Reagents and other key materials from these suppliers may have inconsistent attributes and introduce variability into our manufactured product candidates, which may contribute to variable patient outcomes and possible adverse events. We also do not have supply contracts with many of these suppliers and may not be able to enter into 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 some of these reagents, materials, and equipment, we rely and may in the future rely on sole source vendors or a limited number of vendors. We may be unable to continue to source reagents, materials, or equipment from any of these suppliers for various reasons, including due to regulatory actions or requirements affecting a supplier, adverse financial or other strategic developments experienced by a supplier, labor disputes or shortages, unexpected demands, or quality issues. Additionally, due to global geo-political, economic, and other factors beyond our control, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there has been, and there may continue to be, a shortage of key materials and equipment that are necessary to manufacture our product candidates, including certain consumables such as bags, flasks, and pipette tips, which could affect our or our contract manufacturers’ ability to obtain the materials and equipment necessary to manufacture our product candidates. If any of the foregoing events were to occur, we may experience delays in manufacturing our product candidates, which would harm our ability to conduct future clinical trials and, if approved, commercialize our product candidates and generate product revenues in a timely manner or at all.

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

We will depend on timely and successful enrollment and retention of patients in our clinical trials for our product candidates. If we experience delays or difficulties enrolling or retaining patients in our clinical trials, our research and development efforts and business, financial condition, and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

Successful and timely initiation and completion of clinical trials will require that we enroll and retain a sufficient number of patients. Any clinical trials we conduct may be subject to delays for a variety of reasons, including as a result of patient enrollment taking longer than anticipated, patient withdrawal, or the occurrence of adverse events. These types of developments could cause us to delay the trial or halt further development of the relevant product candidate.

Our clinical trials will compete with other clinical trials that are in the same therapeutic areas as our product candidates, and this competition will reduce the number and types of patients available to participate in our trials, as some patients who might have opted to enroll in our trials may instead opt to enroll in a trial being conducted by one of our competitors. Moreover, enrolling patients in clinical trials for diseases in which there is an approved standard of care is challenging, as patients will first receive the applicable standard of care. Many patients who respond positively to the standard of care do not enroll in clinical trials. This may limit the number of eligible patients who have the potential to benefit from our product candidates and could extend development timelines or increase costs for our programs. Patients who fail to respond positively to the standard of care treatment would be eligible for clinical trials of our product candidates. However, treatment with prior regimens may render our product candidates less effective in clinical trials.

Because the number of qualified clinical investigators and clinical trial sites is limited, we expect to conduct at least some of our clinical trials at the same clinical trial sites that some of our competitors use, which will reduce the number of patients who are available for our clinical trials at such clinical trial sites.

Patient enrollment in clinical trials depends on many factors, including:

• the size and nature of the patient population;

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• the severity of the disease under investigation;

• eligibility criteria for the trial;

• the proximity of patients to clinical sites;

• the design of the clinical protocol;

• the ability to obtain and maintain patient consents;

• the availability of competing clinical trials;

• the availability of patients during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic;

These factors may make it difficult for us to enroll enough patients to complete our clinical trials in a timely and cost-effective manner. Delays in the completion of any clinical trial of our product candidates will increase our costs, slow down our product candidate development and approval process, and delay or potentially jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenue. In addition, some of the factors that may cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates.

We may become exposed to costly and damaging liability claims, either when testing our product candidates in clinical trials or at the commercial stage, and our product liability insurance may not cover all damages arising from such claims.

We are exposed to potential product liability and professional indemnity risks that are inherent in the research, development, manufacturing, marketing, and use of pharmaceutical products. While we currently have no product candidates for which we have commenced clinical trials or obtained approval for commercial sale, the future use of our product candidates in clinical trials, and the sale of any products for which we may obtain approval in the future, may expose us to liability claims. These claims might be made by patients that use the product, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, or others selling such products. Any claims against us, regardless of their merit, could be difficult and costly to defend and could materially adversely affect the market for our product candidates or any prospects for commercialization of our product candidates.

Although the clinical trial process is designed to identify and assess potential side effects, it is always possible that a drug, even after regulatory approval, may exhibit unforeseen side effects. Physicians and patients may not comply with any warnings that identify known potential adverse effects or patients who should not use our product candidates. If any of our product candidates were to cause adverse side effects during clinical trials or after approval, we may be exposed to substantial liabilities.

We would require significant financial and management resources to defend against any product liability claims, even if we are successful in such defense. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in decreased demand for our product candidates, negative publicity and injury to our reputation, withdrawal of clinical trial participants, initiation of investigations by regulatory authorities, costs to defend the related litigation, diversion of management’s time and our resources, substantial monetary awards to clinical trial participants or patients, product recalls, withdrawals, or labeling, marketing, or promotional restrictions, loss of revenue, exhaustion of any available insurance and our capital resources, inability to commercialize our product candidates, and a decline in our share price.

Although we maintain product liability insurance for our product candidates, it is possible that our liabilities could exceed our insurance coverage. We intend to expand our insurance coverage to include the sale of commercial products if we obtain marketing approval for any of our product candidates. However, we may be unable to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or obtain insurance coverage that will be adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise. If a successful product liability claim or series of claims is brought against us for uninsured liabilities or in excess of insured liabilities, our assets may not be sufficient to cover such claims, and our business operations could be impaired.

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Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties

We rely on, and expect to continue to expect to rely on, CDMOs to manufacture our product candidates, as well as materials used in the manufacturing of our product candidates. Any failure by a CDMO to produce acceptable materials or product candidates for us or any failure by us or such manufacturer to obtain authorization from the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities or otherwise satisfy regulatory requirements with respect to such manufacturing of our product candidates may delay or impair our ability to initiate or complete our clinical trials, obtain regulatory approvals, or commercialize approved products.

We do not currently own or operate any cGMP manufacturing facilities, nor do we have any in-house cGMP manufacturing capabilities. In July 2021, we entered into a long-term lease to establish and operate our own cGMP manufacturing facility to support our late-stage clinical development and early commercial activities across our product portfolio. Though we plan to begin building out this facility in the near future, we expect that it will take several years before we are able to begin manufacturing our product candidates at this facility, if at all. Until we are able to begin manufacturing our product candidates at our facility, we will rely on CDMOs to manufacture our product candidates for preclinical and clinical testing and will continue to rely on CDMOs to manufacture certain of our product candidates thereafter as part of our manufacturing strategy. A limited number of CDMOs specialize in or have the expertise required to manufacture our product candidates. Moreover, our CDMOs have limited capacity at their facilities and require commitments to secure availability well in advance of manufacturing any products. Additionally, we face competition from other biopharmaceutical companies to secure availability to manufacture our product candidates at these facilities. If the CDMOs on which we rely to manufacture our product candidates do not have sufficient availability at their facilities to manufacture our product candidates in accordance with our timelines or are not otherwise able to meet our expected deadlines, we will experience delays in manufacturing our product candidates. In addition, our CDMOs face intense competition to attract and retain qualified personnel. If our CDMOs are unable to attract, retain, and motivate qualified personnel, they may be unable to perform their obligations in a timely manner, or their performance may be substandard or may not meet our quality requirements, which could cause us to experience delays in manufacturing our product candidates. Any delays in manufacturing our product candidates could materially harm our ability to conduct our clinical trials or commercialize our product candidates in a timely manner or at all and could harm our business.

In addition, we rely on multiple CDMOs to produce sufficient quantities of materials required for the manufacture of our product candidates for preclinical testing and future clinical trials, and intend to continue to rely on such CDMOs for the commercial manufacture of certain of our products, if approved. If we are unable to arrange for such third-party manufacturing sources, or fail to do so on commercially reasonable terms, we may not be able to produce sufficient supply of product candidate or we may be delayed in doing so. Such failure or substantial delay could materially harm our business.

We rely on third parties for biological materials that are used in our discovery and development programs. These materials can be difficult to produce and occasionally have variability from our product specifications. If these materials do not comply with our product specifications, or in the event of any other disruption in the supply of these materials, our business could be materially adversely affected. Although we have control processes and screening procedures, biological materials are susceptible to damage and contamination and may contain active pathogens. We may also have low yield from certain manufacturing batches, which could increase our costs and slow our development timelines. Improper storage of these materials, by us or any third-party suppliers, may require us to destroy some of these materials or product candidates generated using such materials.

Reliance on CDMOs entails risks to which we would not be subject if we manufactured product candidates ourselves, including reliance on the CDMO for regulatory compliance and quality control and assurance, volume production, the possibility of breach of the manufacturing agreement by the CDMO due to factors beyond our control (including a failure to synthesize and manufacture our product candidates in accordance with our product specifications), and the possibility of termination or nonrenewal of the agreement by the CDMO at a time that is costly or damaging to us.

In addition, the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities require that our product candidates be manufactured according to cGMPs and similar foreign standards relating to methods, facilities, and controls used in the manufacturing, processing, and packing of the product candidate, which are intended to ensure that biological products are safe and that they consistently meet applicable requirements and specifications.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are required to register their facilities and products manufactured at the time of submission of the marketing application and then annually thereafter with the FDA and certain state and foreign agencies. If the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority does not approve our CDMO’s facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates or if it withdraws any such approval in the future, we may need to find alternative manufacturing facilities, which would significantly impact our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for, or market our product candidates, if approved, on a timely basis or at all. Any discovery of problems with a product, or a manufacturing or laboratory facility used by us or our strategic partners in connection with manufacturing of that product, may result in restrictions on the product or on the relevant facility, including marketed product recall, suspension of manufacturing, product seizure, or a voluntary withdrawal of the drug from the market. We may have little to no control regarding the occurrence of any such incidents at our CDMOs.

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If we were unable to timely find an adequate replacement for our CDMOs or another acceptable solution, our clinical trials could be delayed, or our commercial activities could be harmed. In addition, because we are dependent on our collaborators, our suppliers, and other third parties for the manufacture, filling, storage, and distribution of our product candidates, we have limited ability to prevent or control manufacturing defects in our products. The sale of products containing such defects could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Any failure by our CDMOs to comply with cGMP or failure to properly scale-up manufacturing processes for our product candidates, or any failure to deliver sufficient quantities of product candidates in a timely manner, could lead to a delay in, or failure to obtain, regulatory approval of any of our product candidates.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are also subject to extensive post-marketing oversight by the FDA and comparable regulatory authorities in the jurisdictions where a product is marketed, which includes periodic unannounced and announced inspections by the FDA to assess compliance with cGMP requirements. Any failure by one of our CDMOs to comply with cGMP or to provide adequate and timely corrective actions in response to deficiencies identified in a regulatory inspection could result in further enforcement action that could lead to a shortage of products and harm our business, including withdrawal of approvals previously granted, seizure, injunction, or other civil or criminal penalties. The failure of a CDMO to address any concerns raised by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could also lead to plant shutdown or the delay or withholding of product approval by the FDA in additional indications or by comparable foreign regulatory authorities in any indication. Certain countries may impose additional requirements on the manufacturing of drug products or drug substances, and on manufacturers, as part of the regulatory approval process for products in such countries. The failure by our CDMOs to satisfy such requirements could impact our ability to obtain or maintain approval of our products in such countries.

If we are unable to obtain sufficient raw and intermediate materials on a timely basis or if we experience other manufacturing or supply interruptions or difficulties, we may be unable to resume supply of such materials or other manufacturing activities within a reasonable time frame and at an acceptable cost or at all, which would adversely affect our business.

The manufacture of our product candidates requires the timely delivery of sufficient amounts of raw and intermediate materials. We purchase, and rely on our CDMOs to purchase, certain of these materials from third-party suppliers in order to produce our product candidates for our preclinical studies. There are a limited number of suppliers of these materials, and we may need to assess alternate suppliers to prevent possible disruption of manufacturing of our product candidates for our preclinical studies, our future clinical trials, and if ultimately approved, commercial sale. We intend to continue to rely on our CDMOs to purchase materials in order to produce product candidates for any clinical trials that we undertake; however, we do not have any control over the process or timing of the acquisition of these materials by our CDMOs. We work closely with our CDMOs and suppliers, as applicable, to ensure the continuity of supply, but cannot ensure that these efforts will always be successful. Further, while we strive to diversify our sources of raw and intermediate materials, in certain instances we acquire raw and intermediate materials from a sole supplier. We cannot be sure that these suppliers will remain in business, or that they will not be purchased by one of our competitors or another company that is not interested in continuing to supply these materials for our intended purpose. In addition, the lead time needed to establish a relationship with a new supplier can be lengthy, and we may experience delays in the event a new supplier must be used. The time and effort to qualify a new supplier could result in additional costs, diversion of resources, or reduced manufacturing yields, any of which would negatively impact our operating results. Although we generally would not begin a clinical trial unless we believe we have a sufficient supply of a product candidate to complete the clinical trial, any significant delay in the supply of a product candidate, or the raw or intermediate material components thereof, for an ongoing clinical trial due to the need to replace a third-party manufacturer could considerably delay completion of our clinical trials, product testing, and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates. While we believe that alternative sources of supply exist where we rely on sole supplier relationships, we cannot ensure that, if needed, we would be able to quickly establish additional or replacement sources for some materials. Moreover, we currently do not have any agreements for the commercial production of these raw or intermediate materials. If any of our product candidates receives regulatory approval and thereafter, we or our CDMOs are unable to purchase these raw or intermediate materials, the commercial launch of our product candidates could be delayed or there could be a shortage in supply of product, which would impair our ability to generate revenues from the sale of such approved product. A reduction or interruption in supply of raw or intermediate materials, and an inability to establish alternative sources for such supply, could adversely affect our ability to manufacture our product candidates or approved products in a timely or cost-effective manner.

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

We have relied upon and plan to continue to rely upon third parties, including independent clinical investigators and third-party CROs, to conduct or support our preclinical studies and clinical trials and to monitor and manage data for our ongoing preclinical and clinical programs. We rely or will rely on these parties for execution of our preclinical studies and clinical trials and control only certain aspects of their activities. Even then, we are only able to control such activities to the extent set forth under our contracts with the relevant third parties. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our preclinical and clinical studies and trials is

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conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol and legal, regulatory, and scientific standards and rules, and our reliance on these third parties does not relieve us of theseobligations. With respect to any of our product candidates that may enter clinical development, we and our third-party contractors and CROs are required to comply with GCP requirements, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Regulatory authorities enforce these GCPs through periodic inspections of clinical trial sponsors, principal investigators, and clinical trial sites. If we or any of our CROs,or any principal investigators or clinical trial sites involved in our trials, fail to comply with applicable GCPs, the clinical data generated from these clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. We cannot be certain 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 produced under cGMP regulations. Our failure to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process for the relevant product candidate.

Further, principal investigators, clinical trial sites and CROs are not our employees, and we are unable to control, other than by contract, the amount of resources, including time, that they devote to our product candidates and clinical trials. If our CROs are unable to attract, retain, and motivate qualified personnel, they may be unable to perform their obligations in a timely manner, or their performance may be substandard. If principal investigators, clinical trial sites or CROs fail to devote sufficient resources to the development of our product candidates, or if their performance is substandard or does not meet our quality requirements, it may delay or compromise the prospects for approval and commercialization of any such product candidates. In addition, in order for these third parties to perform under their contracts with us, we regularly disclose or plan to disclose to these third parties confidential or proprietary information, which increases the risk that this information will be misappropriated. Additionally, disruptions caused by global geo-political, economic, and other factors beyond our control, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, may increase the likelihood that these third parties encounter difficulties or delays in performing their obligations to us, including with respect to initiating, enrolling, conducting, or completing our planned clinical trials. In particular, we have experienced and may continue to experience difficulty in accessing animal models, specifically non-human primate models, for the preclinical evaluation of our product candidates. Delays caused by the inability to access these models may cause our development timelines to be extended beyond what we anticipate.

Third parties, including our CROs, generally have the right to terminate their agreements with us in the event of an uncured material breach by us. In addition, certain third parties may have the right to terminate their respective agreements with us under other circumstances, including if it can be reasonably demonstrated that the safety of the subjects participating in our clinical trials warrants such termination, if we make a general assignment for the benefit of our creditors, or if we are liquidated.

There is a limited number of third parties, including service providers and clinical trial sites, that specialize or have the expertise required to achieve our business objectives. If any of our relationships with these third-parties, including laboratories, CROs, or clinical trial sites, terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative third parties or to do so in a timely manner or on commercially reasonable terms. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines, if they need to be replaced, or if the quality or accuracy of the data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our preclinical or clinical protocols, regulatory requirements, or for other reasons, our preclinical or clinical trials may be extended, delayed, or terminated and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize our product candidates. 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. Switching from existing service providers or clinical trial sites, or adding additional service providers or clinical trial sites, involves additional cost and requires management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new service provider commences work. As a result, delays can occur, which may materially impact our ability to meet our desired development, including clinical development, timelines. Additionally, service providers may lack the capacity to absorb higher workloads or take on additional capacity to support our needs. Though we carefully manage our relationships with these service providers, including our contracted laboratories and CROs, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter these types of 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.

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

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Risks Related to Intellectual Property and Information Technology

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.

Patent rights are national or regional rights. The filing, prosecution, maintenance, and defense of patent rights on our platform technologies and product candidates worldwide would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States may have a different scope and strength than do those in the United States. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the United States. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our intellectual property rights in all countries outside the United States or from making, using, selling, or importing products made using our intellectual property rights in and into the United States or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained intellectual property rights, including patent protection, to develop their own products and may also export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have intellectual property rights, including patent protection, but enforcement rights are not as strong as those in the United States. These products may compete with our products and our patent or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or adequate to prevent them from competing.

Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets, and other intellectual property, particularly those relating to biopharmaceutical products, which could make it difficult in those jurisdictions for us to stop the infringement or misappropriation of our patents or other intellectual property rights, or the marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights. Proceedings to enforce our patent and other intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions are expensive, especially in jurisdictions where we have no local presence, and could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business. Furthermore, such proceedings could put our patents at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable, or interpreted narrowly, could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing, and could provoke third parties to assert claims of infringement or misappropriation against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Similarly, if our trade secrets are disclosed in a foreign jurisdiction, competitors worldwide could have access to our proprietary information, and we may be without satisfactory recourse. Such disclosure could have a material adverse effect on our business. Moreover, our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights may be adversely affected by unforeseen changes in foreign intellectual property laws. In addition, certain developing countries, including China and India, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to third parties. In those countries, we and our licensors may have limited remedies if patents are infringed or if we or our licensors are compelled to grant a license to a third-party, which could materially diminish the value of those patents. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against government agencies or government contractors. This could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.

Because of the expense and uncertainty of litigation, we may conclude that, even if a third party is infringing our issued patents, or any patents that may be issued as a result of our pending or future patent applications, or other intellectual property rights, the risk-adjusted cost of bringing and enforcing such a claim or action, which typically lasts for years before it is concluded, may be too high or not in the best interest of our company or our stockholders, or it may be otherwise impractical or undesirable to enforce our intellectual property against some third parties. Our competitors or other third parties may be able to sustain the costs of complex patent litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their greater financial resources and/or more mature and developed intellectual property portfolios. In such cases, we may decide that the monetary cost of such litigation and the diversion of the attention of our management and scientific personnel could outweigh any benefit we may receive as a result of the proceedings and that the more prudent course of action is to simply monitor the situation or initiate or seek some other non-litigious action or solution. In addition, the uncertainties associated with litigation could compromise our ability to raise the funds necessary to initiate or continue our future clinical trials, continue our internal research programs, in-license needed technology or other product candidates, or enter into development partnerships that would help us bring our product candidates to market.

We depend on intellectual property licensed from third parties, and our rights to develop and commercialize our product candidates are subject to, in part, the terms and conditions of the licenses granted to us by such third parties. If we breach our obligations under these agreements or if any of these agreements is terminated, we may be required to pay damages, lose our rights to such intellectual property and technology, or both, which would harm our business.

We depend on patents, know-how, and proprietary technology, both our own and those that we license from others to research, develop, and commercialize our product candidates. We are a party to a number of intellectual property license agreements and acquisition agreements pursuant to which we have acquired certain of our core intellectual property rights. Moreover, we rely upon licenses to certain intellectual property rights and proprietary technology from third parties that are important or necessary for the development of our technology and products, including technology related to our manufacturing processes and our product candidates. These licenses may not provide exclusive rights to use such intellectual property and technology in all relevant fields of use or in all territories in which we may wish to develop or commercialize our technology and products in the future. As a result, we may not be

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able to prevent competitors from developing and commercializing competitive products in such fields of use or territories. These licenses may also require us to grant back certain intellectual property rights to our licensors and to pay certain amounts relating to sublicensing patent and other rights.

In the future, we expect to enter into additional license agreements. For example, with respect to our ex vivo cell engineering platform relying on hypoimmune technology, we have licensed certain intellectual property from Harvard, UCSF, and Washington University. Additionally, we acquired our in vivo cell engineering platform, which is based on fusogen technology, from Cobalt, which included several license agreements and options-to-license, as well as our glial progenitor cell and cardiomyocyte programs from Oscine and Cytocardia, respectively, both of which came with in-licenses. These license and acquisition agreements impose, and we expect that future license and acquisition agreements will impose, various diligence, milestone, and royalty payment, and other obligations on us. If we fail to comply with our obligations under these agreements, we may be required to pay damages, and the licensor may have the right to terminate the agreement. Any termination of these licenses could result in the loss of significant rights and could harm our ability to develop or advance one of our cell engineering platforms, or develop, manufacture, or commercialize one of our product candidates. See the subsection titled “Business— Key Intellectual Property Agreements” in Part I, Item 1 of this Annual Report for additional information regarding these key agreements.

In addition, the agreements under which we license intellectual property or technology to or from third parties are complex, and certain provisions in such agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. Moreover, if disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on commercially acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates. Our business would also suffer if any current or future licensors fail to abide by the terms of the license, if such licensors fail to enforce licensed patents against infringing third parties, if the licensed patents or other rights are found to be invalid or unenforceable, or if we are unable to enter into necessary licenses on acceptable terms or at all. Moreover, our licensors may own or control intellectual property that has not been licensed to us and, as a result, we may be subject to claims, regardless of their merit, that we are infringing or otherwise violating the licensor’s rights.

In addition, while we cannot currently determine the amount of the royalty obligations we would be required to pay on sales of future products, if any, the amounts may be significant. The amount of our future royalty obligations will depend on the technology and intellectual property we use in product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize, if any. Therefore, even if we successfully develop and commercialize any product candidates, we may be unable to achieve or maintain profitability.

If we are unable to successfully maintain the existing intellectual property rights we have, we may have to abandon development of the relevant research programs or product candidates, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could suffer.

Licensing of intellectual property is of critical importance to our business, involves complex legal, business, and scientific issues and is complicated by the rapid pace of scientific discovery in our industry. Disputes may also arise between us and our licensors regarding intellectual property subject to a license agreement, including those relating to:

• the priority of invention of patented technology;

• the amount and timing of payments owed under license agreements; and

If disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates. We

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are generally also subject to all of the same risks with respect to protection of intellectual property that we license as we are for intellectual property that we own, which are described below. If we or our licensors fail to adequately protect this intellectual property, our ability to commercialize our products could suffer.

We depend, in part, on our licensors to file, prosecute, maintain, defend, and enforce certain patents and patent applications that are material to our business.

Certain patents relating to our product candidates are owned or controlled by certain of our licensors. Each of our licensors generally has rights to file, prosecute, maintain, and defend the patents we have licensed from such licensor in their name, generally with our right to comment on such filing, prosecution, maintenance, and defense, with some obligation for the licensor to consider or incorporate our comments, for our exclusively licensed patents. We generally have the first right to enforce our exclusively licensed patent rights against third parties, although our ability to settle such claims often requires the consent of the licensor. If our licensors, third parties from whom they license or have obtained the relevant patents, or any future licensees having rights to file, prosecute, maintain, and defend our patent rights fail, or have in the past failed, to properly and timely conduct these activities for patents or patent applications covering any of our product candidates, including due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our licensors’ or such third parties’ business operations, our ability to develop and commercialize those product candidates may be adversely affected and we may not be able to prevent competitors from making, using, or selling competing products. We cannot be certain that such activities have been or will be conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations or will result in valid and enforceable patents or other intellectual property rights. Pursuant to the terms of the license agreements with some of our licensors, these licensors may have the right to control enforcement of our licensed patents or defense of any claims asserting the invalidity of these patents and, even if we are permitted to pursue such enforcement or defense, we cannot ensure the cooperation of our licensors. We cannot be certain that our licensors will allocate sufficient resources or prioritize their or our enforcement of such patents or defense of such claims to protect our interests in the licensed patents. Even if we are not a party to these legal actions, an adverse outcome could harm our business because it could cause us to lose rights to intellectual property that we may need to operate our business or could cause us to lose the ability to exclude our competitors from using the intellectual property rights. In addition, even when we have the right to control patent prosecution of licensed patents and patent applications, enforcement of licensed patents, or defense of claims asserting the invalidity of those patents, we may still be adversely affected or prejudiced by actions or inactions of our licensors and their counsel that took place prior to or after our assuming control. In the event we breach any of our contractual obligations to our licensors related to such prosecution, we may incur significant liability to our licensors.

We may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining necessary rights to product candidates, product candidate components, or processes for our product development pipeline, which may require us to operate our business in a more costly or otherwise adverse manner than we anticipated. We may not be successful in obtaining or maintainingexclusive rights to owned and in-licensed patents or patent applications or future patents to the extent they are co-owned with third parties.

We own or license from third parties certain intellectual property rights necessary to develop our product candidates. The growth of our business will likely depend in part on our ability to acquire or in-license additional proprietary rights, including to advance our research or allow commercialization of our product candidates. If we are unable to do so, we may be required to expend considerable time and resources to develop or license replacement technology. For example, our programs may rely upon additional technologies or product candidates that require the use of additional proprietary rights held by third parties. Furthermore, other pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions may have filed or may plan to file patent applications potentially relevant to our business. In order to work effectively and efficiently, our product candidates may also require specific formulations or other technology, which may be covered by intellectual property rights held by others. From time to time, in order to avoid infringing third-party patents, we may be required to license technology from these third parties to further develop or commercialize our product candidates. We may be unable to acquire or in-license third-party intellectual property rights that we identify as necessary or important to our business operations, including those required to make, use, or sell our product candidates. We may fail to obtain any of these licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all, and, as a result, we may be unable to develop or commercialize the affected product candidates, which would harm our business. We may need to cease use of the compositions or methods covered by such third-party intellectual property rights. In addition, may need to seek to develop alternative approaches that do not infringe on such intellectual property rights, which, if we were successful in developing such alternatives, may entail additional costs and lead to delays in development. In certain cases, it may not be feasible for us to develop such alternatives. Even if we are able to obtain a license under such intellectual property rights, any such license may be non-exclusive, which may allow our competitors to access to the same technologies licensed to us.

Additionally, we sometimes collaborate with academic institutions to accelerate our preclinical research or development under written agreements with these institutions. Typically, these institutions provide us with an option to negotiate a license to any of the institution’s rights in technology resulting from the collaboration. Regardless of such option, we may be unable to negotiate a license within the specified timeframe or under terms that are acceptable to us. If we are unable to do so, the institution may license the intellectual property rights to other parties, potentially blocking our ability to pursue any of our programs to which such rights relate. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third-party intellectual property or to maintain the existing intellectual

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property rights we have, we may have to abandon development of one or more programs and our business and financial condition could suffer.

The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is competitive, and companies that may be more established, or have greater resources than we do, may also be pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider necessary or attractive in order to commercialize our product candidates. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their larger size and cash resources or greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully complete negotiations and ultimately license or acquire the rights to the intellectual property necessary or useful for the development of our product candidates.

Our product candidates may also require specific components to work effectively and efficiently, and rights to those components may be held by third parties. We may be unable to in-license any compositions, methods of use, processes, or other intellectual property rights from any such third parties that we identify, including because such licenses may not be available at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, which would harm our business. Even if we are able to obtain a license, it may be non-exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to develop or license replacement technology. Any delays in entering into new collaborations or strategic partnership agreements related to our product candidates could delay the development and commercialization of our product candidates in certain geographies, which could harm our business prospects, financial condition, and results of operations.

Moreover, some of our owned and in-licensed patents or patent applications or future patents are or may be co-owned with third parties. If we are unable to obtain an exclusive license to any such third-party co-owner’s interest in such patents or patent applications, such co-owner may be able to license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technologies. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owner in order to enforce such patents against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us. Furthermore, our owned and in-licensed patents may be subject to a reservation of rights by one or more third parties. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

We may depend on intellectual property licensed or sublicensed to us from, or for which development was funded or otherwise assisted by, government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, for development of our technology and product candidates.

Government agencies have provided and may in the future provide funding, facilities, personnel, or other assistance in connection with the development of the intellectual property rights owned by or licensed to us. Such government agencies may have retained rights in such intellectual property, including the right to grant or require us to grant mandatory licenses or sublicenses to such intellectual property to third parties under certain specified circumstances, including if it is necessary to meet health and safety needs that we are not reasonably satisfying or if it is necessary to meet requirements for public use specified by federal regulations, or to manufacture products in the United States. Any exercise of such rights, including with respect to any such required sublicense of these licenses, could result in the loss of significant rights and could harm our ability to commercialize or continue commercializing licensed products. For example, at least one of our in-licensed patent cases related to each of our ex vivo cell engineering and in vivo cell engineering platforms has been funded at least in part by the United States government. As a result, these patent cases are subject to certain federal regulations pursuant to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 (Bayh-Dole Act). In particular, the federal government retains a “nonexclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable, paid-up license” for its own benefit to inventions produced with its financial assistance. The Bayh-Dole Act also provides federal agencies with “march-in rights.” March-in rights allow the government, in specified circumstances, to require the contractors or successors in title to the patent to grant a “nonexclusive, partially exclusive, or exclusive license” to a “responsible applicant or applicants.” If the patent owner refuses to do so, the government may grant the license itself. Intellectual property rights discovered under government-funded programs are also subject to certain reporting requirements, compliance with which may require us or our licensors to expend substantial resources and failure to comply may lead to loss of rights. Such intellectual property is also subject to a preference for United States industry, which may limit our ability to contract with foreign product manufacturers for products covered by such intellectual property rights. Moreover, we sometimes collaborate with academic institutions to accelerate our preclinical research or development, and we cannot be sure that any co-developed intellectual property will be free from government rights pursuant to the Bayh-Dole Act. If, in the future, we co-own or in-license technology that is critical to our business and is developed in whole or in part with federal funds subject to the Bayh-Dole Act, our ability to enforce or otherwise exploit patents covering such technology may be adversely affected.

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If we are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient intellectual property protection for our platform technologies and product candidates, or if the scope of the intellectual property protection is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our products may be adversely affected.

We anticipate that we will file additional patent applications both in the United States and in other countries, as appropriate. However, we cannot predict:

• if and when any patents will issue;

Our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection in the United States and other countries with respect to our platform technologies and product candidates. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our novel discoveries and technologies that are important to our business.

Obtaining and enforcing patents is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to file, and we and our licensors may not be able to prosecute, all necessary or desirable patent applications or maintain, defend, or enforce patents that may issue based on our patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic impacting our or our licensors’ operations. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development results before it is too late to obtain patent protection or before another party files a patent application covering the relevant inventions. Although we enter into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties that have access to patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, contract research organizations, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors, and other third parties, any of these parties may breach these agreements and disclose such results before a patent application is filed, thereby jeopardizing our ability to seek patent protection.

Composition of matter patents for biological products such as ex vivo and in vivo cell engineering product candidates often provide a strong form of intellectual property protection for those types of products, as such patents provide protection without regard to any method of use. We cannot be certain, however, that the claims in our pending patent applications covering the composition of matter of our product candidates will be considered patentable by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), or by patent offices in foreign countries, or that the claims in any of our issued patents will be considered valid and enforceable by courts in the United States or foreign countries. Method of use patents protect the use of a product for the specified method. This type of patent does not prevent a competitor from making and marketing a product that is identical to our product for an indication that is outside the scope of the patented method. Moreover, even if competitors do not actively promote their products for our targeted indications, physicians may prescribe these products “off-label” for those uses that are covered by our method of use patents. Although off-label prescriptions may infringe or contribute to the infringement of method of use patents, the practice is common and such infringement may be difficult to prevent or prosecute.

One aspect of the determination of patentability of inventions depends on the scope and content of the “prior art,” which is information that was or is deemed available to a person of skill in the relevant art prior to the priority date of the claimed invention. There may be prior art of which we are not aware that may affect the patentability of our inventions or, if issued, affect the validity or enforceability of a patent claim. Further, we may not be aware of all third-party intellectual property rights potentially relating to our product candidates or their intended uses, and as a result, the impact of such third-party intellectual property rights on the patentability of our own patents and patent applications, as well as upon our freedom to operate, is highly uncertain. Because patent applications in the United States and most other countries are typically confidential for a period of 18 months after filing, or may not be published at all, we cannot be certain that we were the first to file any patent application related to our product candidates. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability, and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Furthermore, for United States patent applications in which all claims are entitled to a priority date before March 16, 2013, an interference proceeding can be provoked by a third party or instituted by the USPTO to determine who was the first to invent any of the subject matter covered by the patent claims of our applications. For United States patent applications containing a claim not entitled to priority before March 16, 2013, there is a greater level of uncertainty in the patent law in view of the passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (the Leahy-Smith Act),

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which introduced significant changes to the United States patent laws, including new procedures for challenging pending patent applications and issued patents.

The strength of patents in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field can be uncertain and evaluating the scope and validity of such patents involves complex legal, factual, and scientific analyses, which may vary based on the jurisdiction in which the analyses are performed. Patents have in recent years been the subject of much litigation in the United States and worldwide, resulting in court decisions, including United States Supreme Court decisions, that have increased uncertainties as to the patentability of certain inventions as well as the enforceability of patent rights in the future. The patent applications that we own or in-license may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our platform technologies or our product candidates or uses thereof in the United States or in other foreign countries. Even if the patents do successfully issue, third parties may challenge the patentability, validity, enforceability, or scope thereof, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated, revoked, or held unenforceable. In the event of litigation or administrative proceedings, we cannot be certain that the claims in any of our issued patents will be considered patentable by administrative bodies or valid by courts in either the United States or foreign countries. Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, our patents and patent applications may not adequately protect our intellectual property or prevent others from designing their products to avoid being covered by our claims. If the breadth or strength of protection provided by the patent filings we hold with respect to our platform technologies or our product candidates is threatened, this could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to develop, and could threaten our ability to successfully commercialize, our product candidates. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, or vice versa. Further, as patent rights are time limited, if we encounter delays in our clinical trials, the period of time during which we could market our product candidates under patent protection would be reduced.

We may not identify relevant third-party patents or may incorrectly interpret the relevance, scope, or expiration of a third-party patent, which might adversely affect our ability to develop and market our products.

We cannot guarantee that any of our patent searches or analyses, including the identification of relevant patents, the scope or validity of patent claims, or the expiration of relevant patents, are complete or thorough, nor can we be certain that we have identified each and every third-party patent and pending application worldwide, including in the United States, that is relevant to or necessary for the commercialization of our product candidates in any jurisdiction. The scope of a patent’s claims is determined by an interpretation of the laws of the country in which the patent has been granted, the written disclosure in the patent, and the patent’s prosecution history. Our interpretation of the relevance or the scope of a patent or a pending application may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to market our products. We may incorrectly determine that our products are not covered by a third-party patent or may incorrectly predict whether a third party’s pending application will issue with claims of relevant scope. Our determination of the expiration date of any patent worldwide, including in the United States, that we consider relevant may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to develop and market our product candidates. Our failure to identify and correctly interpret relevant patents may negatively impact our ability to develop and market our products.

Intellectual property rights do not necessarily protect us from all potential threats to our competitive advantage.

The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations and may not adequately protect our business or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. For example:

• our pending patent applications may not lead to issued patents;

• we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;

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Should any of these events occur, they could significantly harm our business, results of operations, and prospects.

Confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties may not prevent unauthorized disclosure of trade secrets and other proprietary information.

In addition to the protection afforded by patents, we rely on trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect proprietary know-how that is not patentable or that we elect not to patent, subject matter for which patents are difficult to enforce, and other elements of our product candidates, technology, and product discovery and development processes that involve proprietary know-how, information, or technology that we do not cover through patent protection. Any disclosure, either intentional or unintentional, by our employees, contractors, collaborators, or those of third parties, including those with whom we share our facilities and consultants and vendors that we engage to perform research, clinical trials, or manufacturing activities, or misappropriation by third parties (such as through a cybersecurity breach) of our trade secrets or proprietary or confidential information could enable competitors to duplicate or surpass our technological achievements, thus eroding our competitive position in our market. Because we expect to rely on third parties in the development and manufacture of our product candidates, we must, at times, share trade secrets with them, which increases the possibility that a competitor will discover them or that our trade secrets will be misappropriated or disclosed.

Source: SEC EDGAR (public domain) · 10-K for the period ended 2021-12-31, filed 2022-03-16 · accession 0001564590-22-010539

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