Item 1A. Risk Factors
RISK FACTORS
The following information sets forth risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements we have made in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and those we may make from time to time. You should carefully consider the risks described below, in addition to the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other public filings. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be harmed by any of these risks. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks not presently known to us or other factors not perceived by us to present significant risks to our business at this time also may impair our business operations.
Risks Associated with Our Business
Our business is subject to a number of risks of which you should be aware before making a decision to invest in our common stock. These risks are more fully described in this “Risk Factors” section, including the following:
•We have incurred significant losses since our inception. We expect to incur losses over the next several years and may never achieve or maintain profitability.
•We have a limited operating history and no history of completing any clinical trial or commercializing products, which may make it difficult for an investor to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability.
•We will need substantial additional funding to meet our financial obligations and to pursue our business objectives. If we are unable to raise capital when needed, we could be forced to delay further development of our technologies or product candidates or to curtail our planned operations and the pursuit of our growth strategy.
•All of our product candidates are currently in preclinical development and potential investigator-initiated clinical stage. If we are unable to successfully develop, receive regulatory approval for and commercialize our product candidates for the indications we seek, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be harmed.
•Because our Collaboration Product and any future product candidates developed from our CoStAR platform represent novel approaches to the treatment of disease, there are many uncertainties regarding the development, market acceptance, third-party reimbursement coverage and commercial potential of our product candidates.
•We do not currently have any active clinical trials. We may derive results for our Collaboration Product from open-label investigator-initiated trials led by our collaborator in China. IITs are conducted by principal investigators; our role in the trials and access to the clinical results and data are limited and there is no assurance that the clinical data from our collaborator-led IITs will be accepted or considered by the FDA, or other comparable regulatory authorities.
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•The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, MHRA, EMA, and comparable foreign authorities are lengthy, time consuming and inherently unpredictable. If we are not able to obtain required regulatory approval for our product candidates, our business will be substantially harmed.
•Success in preclinical studies or earlier clinical trials may not be indicative of results in future clinical trials. Our product candidates may not have favorable results in clinical trials, if any, or receive regulatory approval.
•Negative public opinion of TIL therapies, the dynamically evolving competitive landscape for our target indications or increased regulatory scrutiny of cell therapy using TILs may adversely impact the development of and commercial strategy for our product candidates, our plans for investing in manufacturing readiness for regulatory filings and the success of our current and future product candidates.
•As an organization, we are early in the process of potentially conducting our first collaborator-led IITs and have no prior experience in a similar collaboration, in conducting IITs in China, or in completing clinical trials, and may be unable to complete clinical trials for any product candidates we may develop, including our Collaboration Product.
•We may not be successful in our efforts to build a pipeline of additional product candidates either internally or by identifying and licensing-in or otherwise acquiring novel product candidates on commercially attractive terms.
•Biologics are complex and difficult to manufacture. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, manufacturing problems that result in delays in the development or commercialization of our product candidates or otherwise harm our business. We may experience new manufacturing challenges by relying on collaborators or other third parties for manufacturing capabilities and expertise.
•The treatable populations for our product candidates may be smaller than we or third parties currently project, which may affect the addressable markets for our product candidates.
•We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and from non-profit institutions, and our operating results will suffer if we fail to compete effectively.
•If we are unable to obtain or protect intellectual property rights related to any of our product candidates, we may not be able to compete effectively in our market.
•Third parties may initiate legal proceedings alleging that we are infringing their intellectual property rights, the outcome of which would be uncertain.
•We are subject to a variety of stringent and evolving U.S. and foreign laws, regulations, rules, contractual obligations, policies and other obligations related to data privacy and data security, and our actual or perceived failure to comply with them could lead to regulatory investigations or actions; litigation; fines and penalties; disruptions of our business operations; reputational harm; loss of revenue or profits and other adverse business consequences.
Risks Related to our Financial Position and Capital Needs
We have incurred significant losses since our inception. We expect to incur losses over the next several years and may never achieve or maintain profitability.
Since our inception, we have incurred significant net losses, and we expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses for the foreseeable future. Our net losses were $156.1 million and $223.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. As of December 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $581.0 million. We have financed our operations with $719.0 million in net proceeds raised in our initial public offering and private placements of convertible preferred stock to date, as well as $82.8 million from our construction loan. We have no products approved for commercialization and have never generated any revenue from product sales.
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All of our product candidates are in preclinical development and potential investigator-initiated clinical stage. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses over the next several years. We expect that it could be several years, if ever, before we have a commercialized product. Our net losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year. We anticipate that our expenses will continue to be significant as we:
•pursue our collaboration and seek to potentially license-in or otherwise acquire new product candidates, as well as potentially initiate and complete clinical trials of product candidates;
•continue to advance the preclinical and clinical development of product candidates and our preclinical and discovery programs, including in our CoStAR platform;
•seek regulatory approval for any product candidates that successfully complete clinical trials;
•continue to develop our product candidate pipeline;
•scale up our clinical and regulatory capabilities;
•rely on collaborators or other third parties to manufacture current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, material for clinical trials or potential commercial sales;
•establish a commercialization infrastructure and scale up internal and external manufacturing and distribution capabilities to commercialize any product candidates for which we may obtain regulatory approval;
•adapt our regulatory compliance efforts to incorporate requirements applicable to marketed products;
•maintain, expand and protect our intellectual property portfolio;
•hire clinical, manufacturing quality control, regulatory, manufacturing and scientific and administrative personnel;
•add operational, financial and management information systems and personnel, including personnel to support our product development and planned future commercialization efforts; and
•incur legal, accounting and other expenses in operating as a public company.
To date, we have not generated any revenue from product sales. To become and remain profitable, we must succeed in developing and eventually commercializing product candidates that generate significant revenue. This will require us to be successful in a range of challenging activities, including completing preclinical testing and clinical trials of our product candidates, obtaining regulatory approval, and manufacturing, marketing and selling any product candidates for which we may obtain regulatory approval, as well as discovering and developing additional product candidates. We are only in the preliminary stages of most of these activities and all of our product candidates are in early stage development. We may never succeed in these activities and, even if we do, may never generate any revenue or revenue that is significant enough to achieve profitability.
Even if we achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to become and remain profitable would depress the value of our company and could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business, maintain our development efforts, obtain product approvals, diversify our offerings or continue our operations. A decline in the value of our company could also cause you to lose all or part of your investment.
We have a limited operating history and no history of completing any clinical trial or commercializing products, which may make it difficult for an investor to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability.
We are a biopharmaceutical company with a limited operating history. We commenced operations in 2019, and our operations to date have been largely focused on organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, acquiring our technology and product candidates, acquiring our facilities in Tarzana, California, developing manufacturing capabilities and developing product candidates, including undertaking preclinical studies and
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initiating clinical trials which were subsequently discontinued. To date, we have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete any clinical trials, obtain regulatory approvals, manufacture a product on a commercial scale, or arrange for a third party to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful commercialization. Consequently, any predictions you make about our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history or a history of successfully developing and commercializing products.
We may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other known or unknown factors in achieving our business objectives. For example, we implemented several strategic reprioritizations of our preclinical and clinical development programs and elected to discontinue our ITIL-168 development program and our ITIL-168 and ITIL-306 clinical trials. As part of these various restructurings, we reduced our U.S. workforce to a team of approximately 15 to lead global business operations, and are in the process of reducing our UK workforce by approximately 61%. We may experience unforeseen delays or other challenges in implementing our most recent restructuring, which could adversely impact our timelines and operations and, ultimately, our ability to develop product candidates for potential commercialization. We will need to develop clinical, manufacturing, regulatory and commercial capabilities, and we may not be successful in doing so.
We will need substantial additional funding to meet our financial obligations and to pursue our business objectives. If we are unable to raise capital when needed, we could be forced to delay further development of our technologies or product candidates or curtail our planned operations and the pursuit of our growth strategy.
Our operations have consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception. Identifying and acquiring potential new product candidates, conducting preclinical testing and clinical trials and developing manufacturing operations for our product candidates is a time-consuming, expensive and uncertain process that takes years to complete, and we may never generate the necessary data or results required to obtain regulatory approval and achieve product sales. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses over the next several years as we conduct clinical trials of our product candidates, initiate future clinical trials of our product candidates, advance our preclinical programs, build our manufacturing capabilities, seek marketing approval for any product candidates that successfully complete clinical trials and advance any of our other product candidates we may develop or otherwise acquire. In addition, our product candidates, if approved, may not achieve commercial success. Our revenue, if any, will be derived from sales of products that we do not expect to be commercially available for a number of years, if at all. If we obtain marketing approval for any product candidates that we develop or otherwise acquire, we expect to incur significant commercialization expenses related to product sales, marketing, distribution and manufacturing. We also expect to continue to incur significant expenses associated with operating as a public company. Accordingly, we will need to obtain substantial additional funding in order to continue our operations.
As of December 31, 2023, we had cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and marketable securities of $175.0 million, which consists of $9.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, $1.5 million in restricted cash, $141.2 million in marketable securities and $23.2 million in long-term investments. We believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, marketable securities and long-term investments will be sufficient to fund our operating expenses and capital requirements beyond 2026. This estimate is based on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could use our available capital resources sooner than we expect. For instance, we may not achieve all the expected cost savings of our current strategic restructuring plan, and we may expend more capital than expected in connection with the 2024 closure of our UK manufacturing and clinical trial operations. Changes may occur beyond our control that would cause us to consume our available capital before that time, including changes in and progress of our development activities, acquisitions of additional product candidates, and changes in regulation. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including:
•the scope, progress, costs and results of our collaborator-led investigator-initiated trials, or IITs, and discovery, preclinical development, laboratory testing and related activities for our product candidates;
•the extent to which we develop, in-license or otherwise acquire other product candidates and technologies for our product candidate pipeline;
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•our ability to achieve efficiencies and expected cost reductions in connection with our recent strategic restructuring plans;
•the costs and timing of process development and manufacturing scale-up activities associated with our product candidates and other programs as we advance them through preclinical and clinical development;
•the number and development requirements of product candidates that we may pursue;
•our ability to complete a potential sale or lease of our Tarzana, California facility, as well as subleases of other facilities under lease;
•the costs, timing and outcome of regulatory review of our product candidates;
•our cost of human capital as we expand our research and development capabilities and establish a commercial infrastructure;
•the costs and timing of future commercialization activities, including product manufacturing, marketing, sales, and distribution, for any of our product candidates for which we receive marketing approval;
•the costs and timing of preparing, filing and prosecuting patent applications, maintaining and enforcing our intellectual property rights and defending any intellectual property-related claims;
•the revenue, if any, received from commercial sales of our product candidates for which we receive marketing approval; and
•the costs of operating as a public company.
We will require additional capital to achieve our business objectives. Additional funds may not be available on a timely basis, on favorable terms, or at all, and such funds, if raised, may not be sufficient to enable us to continue to implement our long-term business strategy. Further, our ability to raise additional capital may be adversely impacted by worsening global economic conditions and the disruptions to and volatility in the credit and financial markets in the United States and worldwide, including those resulting from the ongoing armed conflicts in Ukraine, and in the Middle East, U.S.-China trade and political tensions, heightened inflation and interest rate increases, recent and potential future bank failures and supply chain disruptions, among other geopolitical and macroeconomic factors. If we are unable to raise sufficient additional capital, we could be forced to delay further development of our technologies or product candidates or curtail our planned operations and the pursuit of our growth strategy.
Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to technologies or product candidates.
Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial revenue, we may finance our cash needs through a combination of equity offerings, government or private party grants, debt financings or license and collaboration agreements. Other than our construction loans for the construction and development of our manufacturing facility in Tarzana, California, we do not currently have any other committed external source of funds. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, your ownership interest will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a common stockholder. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. For example, the agreements governing our construction loans contain certain affirmative and negative covenants, including maintaining a specified minimum net worth and amount of liquid assets, which could limit our operations.
If we raise additional funds through collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may be required to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies, future revenue streams or product candidates, grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us or commit to future payment streams. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings when needed, we may be
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required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market product candidates that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.
We have suffered and in the future could suffer additional losses due to impairment charges, including as a result of being unsuccessful in completing a sale or lease of our Tarzana, California manufacturing facility, or, if we are successful, the assets being sold for less than our carrying value.
To date, we have recorded significant impairment losses on long-lived assets associated with a sustained decrease in our stock price and the restructuring plan implemented in December 2022 and an extended restructuring plan executed in the first quarter of 2023, for a strategic prioritization of our preclinical and clinical development programs. In addition, during year ended December 31, 2023, due to downward revisions in our internal forecasts made during the year, including future expected cash flows, we determined there were indicators of impairment on our buildings and construction work-in-progress asset groups. As a result, in the year ended December 31, 2023, we recorded aggregate restructuring and impairment charges of approximately $72.0 million related to contract termination, asset impairments, severance payments and other employee-related costs. This amount includes our Tarzana, California manufacturing facility that we identified and classified as held for sale, which is reflected at the lower of carrying value or fair value less costs to sell, which resulted in $16.3 million in impairment charges. We also determined that right-of-use assets were impaired, as the restructuring plan has resulted in a cessation of use for several of our locations under lease, and we recognized an impairment loss of $7.7 million. We currently estimate that we will incur additional charges of up to $6.1 million in connection with the 2024 Plan (as defined and discussed in Note 12 to the financial statements included elsewhere in this Form 10-K), although this estimated amount does not include any non-cash charges associated with stock-based compensation or any charges or costs associated with any potential sale of our Tarzana, California facility and asset impairments, if any. The charges that we currently estimate incurring in connection with the restructuring plan are estimates only and are subject to a number of assumptions, and actual results may differ materially, and we may incur additional costs associated with the restructuring plan.
We are evaluating opportunities for a potential sale or lease of our Tarzana, California manufacturing site, as well as subleases of other facilities currently under lease; however, we can provide no assurances that we will successfully sell or lease our Tarzana facility or enter into subleases of our other facilities, that we will do so in accordance with our expected timeline or that we will recover their carrying value. The process of pursuing the plan to sell, lease or sublease these facilities may be time consuming and disruptive to our business operations, and if we are unable to effectively manage the process, our businesses, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected and may result in additional non-cash impairment charges. Any potential transactions, and the related valuations, would be dependent upon various external factors beyond our control, including, among others, market conditions, industry trends, interest of third parties, and the availability of financing to potential buyer(s) on reasonable terms. Such impairments or losses have in the past and could in the future materially affect our reported net earnings, business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows or stock price.
Risks Related to the Development of our Product Candidates
All of our product candidates are currently in preclinical development and potential investigator-initiated clinical stage. If we are unable to successfully develop, receive regulatory approval for and commercialize our product candidates for the indications we seek, or successfully develop any other product candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be harmed.
We currently have no products approved for commercial sale, and all of our product candidates are currently in early-stage development. As an organization, we have no prior experience completing any clinical trials or working in a collaborator-led IIT; we have limited experience in preparing, submitting and prosecuting regulatory filings and have not previously submitted a biologics license application, or BLA, for any product candidate. Each of our programs and product candidates will require additional preclinical and/or clinical development, regulatory approval, obtaining manufacturing supply, capacity and expertise, building a commercial organization or successfully outsourcing commercialization, substantial investment and significant marketing efforts before we generate any revenue from product sales. We do not have any products that are approved for commercial sale, and we may never be able to develop or commercialize marketable products.
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Our ability to generate revenue from our product candidates, which we do not expect will occur for several years, if ever, will depend heavily on the successful development, regulatory approval and eventual commercialization of our product candidates. The success of any product candidates that we develop or otherwise may acquire will depend on several factors, including:
•timely and successful completion of preclinical studies and clinical trials;
•effective INDs from the FDA or comparable foreign applications that allow commencement of our planned clinical trials or future clinical trials for our product candidates;
•sufficiency of our financial and other resources to complete the necessary preclinical studies and clinical trials;
•successful enrollment and completion of clinical trials, including under the FDA’s current Good Clinical Practices, or GCPs, and current Good Laboratory Practices;
•successful development of, or making arrangements with third-party manufacturers for, our commercial manufacturing processes for any of our product candidates that receive regulatory approval;
•receipt of timely marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities;
•launching commercial sales of products, if approved, whether alone or in collaboration with others;
•acceptance of the benefits and use of our products, including method of administration, if approved, by patients, the medical community and third-party payors, for their approved indications;
•the prevalence and severity of adverse events experienced with any product candidates;
•the availability, perceived advantages, cost, safety and efficacy of alternative therapies for any product candidate, and any indications for such product candidate, that we develop;
•our ability to produce any product candidates we develop on a commercial scale;
•obtaining and maintaining patent, trademark and trade secret protection and regulatory exclusivity for our product candidates and otherwise protecting our rights in our intellectual property portfolio;
•maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements, including cGMPs, and complying effectively with other procedures;
•obtaining and maintaining third-party coverage and adequate reimbursement and patients’ willingness to pay out-of-pocket in the absence of such coverage and adequate reimbursement; and
•maintaining a continued acceptable safety, tolerability and efficacy profile of the products following approval.
If we are not successful with respect to one or more of these factors in a timely manner or at all, we could experience significant delays or an inability to successfully commercialize the product candidates we develop, which would materially harm our business. If we do not receive marketing approvals for any product candidate we develop, we may not be able to continue our operations. At any time, we may decide to discontinue the development of, or not to commercialize, a product candidate, such as our decision to discontinue our ITIL-168 development program. If we terminate a program in which we have invested significant resources, we will not receive any return on our investment and we will have missed the opportunity to allocate those resources to potentially more productive uses.
Because our Collaboration Product and any future product candidates developed from our CoStAR platform represent novel approaches to the treatment of disease, there are many uncertainties regarding the development, market acceptance, third-party reimbursement coverage and commercial potential of our product candidates.
Human immunotherapy products are a new category of therapeutics, and to date, no TIL therapies have been approved by the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Because this is a relatively
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new and expanding area of novel therapeutic interventions, there are many uncertainties related to development, marketing, reimbursement and the commercial potential for our product candidates. There can be no assurance as to the length of the trial period, the number of patients the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other regulatory authorities will require to be enrolled in the trials in order to establish the safety, efficacy, purity and potency of immunotherapy products or that the data generated in these trials will be acceptable to such authorities to support marketing approval. Regulatory authorities may take longer than usual to come to a decision on any BLA or other comparable application that we submit and may ultimately determine that there is not enough data, information, or experience with our product candidates to support an approval decision. Regulatory agencies may also require that we conduct additional post-marketing studies or implement risk management programs, such as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies, or REMS, until more experience with our product candidates is obtained. Finally, after increased usage, we may find that our product candidates do not have the intended effect or have unanticipated side effects, potentially jeopardizing initial or continuing regulatory approval and commercial prospects.
The success of our business depends in part upon our ability to develop engineered TIL therapies using our CoStAR platform, in particular following our recent reprioritization of clinical programs. The CoStAR platform is novel and we have not completed a clinical trial of any product candidate developed using the CoStAR platform. The platform may fail to deliver TIL therapies that are effective in the treatment of cancer. Even if we are able to identify and develop TIL therapies using the CoStAR platform, we cannot assure that such product candidates will achieve marketing approval to safely and effectively treat cancer.
If we uncover any previously unknown risks related to our CoStAR platform, or if we experience unanticipated problems or delays in developing our CoStAR product candidates, we may be unable to achieve our strategy of building a pipeline of TIL therapies.
We may also find that the manufacture of our product candidates is more difficult than anticipated, resulting in an inability to produce a sufficient amount of our product candidates for our clinical trials or, if approved, commercial supply. For example, in October 2022 we paused enrollment in our then ongoing clinical trials to conduct manufacturing analysis and implement corrective and preventative actions and we subsequently discontinued our clinical trials.
There is no assurance that the approaches offered by our products will gain broad acceptance among doctors or patients or that governmental agencies or third-party medical insurers will be willing to provide reimbursement coverage for proposed product candidates. Since our current and future product candidates will represent novel approaches to treating various conditions, it may be difficult, in any event, to accurately estimate the potential revenues from these product candidates. Accordingly, we may spend significant capital trying to obtain approval for product candidates that have an uncertain commercial market. The market for any products that we successfully develop will also depend on the cost of the product. We do not yet have sufficient information to reliably estimate what it will cost to commercially manufacture our current or future product candidates, and the actual cost to manufacture these products could materially and adversely affect the commercial viability of these products. Our goal is to reduce the cost of manufacturing and providing our product candidates. However, unless we can reduce those costs to an acceptable amount, we may never be able to develop a commercially viable product. If we do not successfully develop and commercialize products based upon our approach or find suitable and economical sources for materials used in the production of our products, we will not become profitable, which would materially and adversely affect the value of our common stock.
Our therapies may be provided to patients in combination with other agents provided by third parties. The cost of such combination therapy may increase the overall cost of therapy and may result in issues regarding the allocation of reimbursements between our therapy and the other agents, all of which may affect our ability to obtain reimbursement coverage for the combination therapy from governmental or private third party medical insurers.
We do not currently have any active clinical trials. We may derive results for our Collaboration Product from open-label investigator-initiated trials led by our collaborator in China. IITs are conducted by principal investigators; our role in the trial and access to the clinical results and data are limited and there is no assurance that the clinical data from our collaborator-led IITs will be accepted or considered by the FDA, or other comparable regulatory authorities.
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We are early in the process of potentially conducting our first collaborator-led IITs in China. While investigator-initiated trials may provide us with clinical data that can inform our future development strategy, we do not have control over the protocols, administration, or conduct of the trials and the compliance of the extensive regulatory requirements that the trials are subject to, especially with respect to portion that needs to be performed by third parties. As a result, we are subject to risks associated with the way investigator-initiated trials are conducted. Third parties in such investigator-initiated trials may not perform their responsibilities on our anticipated schedule or consistent with clinical trial protocols or applicable regulations. Furthermore, any data integrity issues or patient safety issues arising out of any of these trials would be beyond our control, yet could adversely affect our reputation and damage the clinical and commercial prospects for our product candidates. Additional risks include difficulties or delays in communicating with investigators or administrators, procedural delays and other timing issues, and difficulties or differences in interpreting data. As a result, our minimal control over the conduct and timing of, and communications with the FDA, the NMPA and other comparable regulatory authorities regarding investigator-initiated trials expose us to additional risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside our control, and the occurrence of which could adversely affect the prospects for our product candidates.
Preclinical studies and clinical trials, including investigator-initiated trials, are expensive, time-consuming, difficult to design and implement and involve an uncertain outcome. Further, we may encounter substantial delays in completing the development of our product candidates.
All of our product candidates are in early-stage development and their risk of failure is high. We ultimately ceased our clinical trials of ITIL-306 after a strategic pivot to the UK. In 2022, we determined not to resume the clinical trial of our former product candidate ITIL-168 after a voluntary pause following the observation of decreased rates of successful manufacturing; there can be no assurance that we will not in the future observe decreased rates of successful manufacture of drug product for our product candidates or other manufacturing issues, which may lead to further delays or failure in the development of our product candidates, greater than expected expenses, or the redesign or restart of our clinical trials. We have not successfully completed a clinical trial and currently have no active clinical trial. The clinical trials and manufacturing of our product candidates are, and the manufacturing and marketing of our products, if approved, will be, subject to extensive and rigorous review and regulation by numerous government authorities in the United States and in other countries where we intend to test and market our product candidates. Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of any of our product candidates, we must demonstrate through lengthy, complex and expensive preclinical testing and clinical trials that our product candidates are both safe and effective for use in each target indication. In particular, because our product candidates are subject to regulation as biological products, we will need to demonstrate that they are safe, pure and potent for use in their target indications. Each product candidate must demonstrate an adequate risk versus benefit profile in its intended patient population and for its intended use.
Clinical trials are expensive and can take many years to complete, and their outcomes are inherently uncertain. We cannot guarantee that our clinical trials, including our potential collaborator-led IIT, will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process. Even if our clinical trials are completed as planned, we cannot be certain that their results will support the safety and effectiveness of our product candidates for their targeted indications or support continued clinical development of such product candidates. Our clinical trials may not be successful.
For example, in October 2022 we notified the FDA and other regulatory agencies that an unplanned review of the data for the initial patients that had been dosed with ITIL-168 in the DELTA-1 trial was conducted in order to review risk-benefit.This review was inconclusive because the response data were not mature. Subsequently, the Data Safety Monitoring Board’s prespecified review found no safety concerns. We voluntarily paused our clinical trials to conduct an end-to-end analysis of our manufacturing processes, and after an analysis of the potential scenarios to restart and complete a registration-enabling cohort in advanced melanoma in DELTA-1, we determined to discontinue our ITIL-168 clinical development program.
In addition, even if we successfully complete clinical trials, we cannot guarantee that the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other 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. Moreover, results acceptable to support approval in
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one jurisdiction may be deemed inadequate by another regulatory authority to support regulatory approval in that other jurisdiction. To the extent that the results of the trials are not satisfactory to the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities for support of a marketing application, we may be required to expend significant resources, which may not be available to us, to conduct additional trials in support of potential approval of our product candidates.
To date, we have not completed any clinical trials required for the approval of any product candidate. We may experience delays in conducting any clinical trials and we do not know whether our clinical trials will begin on time, need to be redesigned, recruit and enroll patients on time or be completed on schedule, or at all. Clinical trials can be delayed suspended or terminated for a variety of reasons, including in connection with:
•inability to generate sufficient preclinical, toxicology, or other in vivo or in vitro data to support the initiation of clinical trials;
•delays in sufficiently developing, characterizing or controlling a manufacturing process suitable for advanced clinical trials, such as our October 2022 voluntary pause in our clinical trials and the related investigation into our manufacturing processes;
•delays in developing suitable assays for screening patients for eligibility for trials with respect to certain product candidates;
•delays in reaching agreement with the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other regulatory authorities as to the design or implementation of our clinical trials;
•obtaining regulatory authorization to commence a clinical trial;
•reaching an agreement on acceptable terms with clinical trial sites or prospective contract research organizations, or CROs, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different clinical trial sites;
•obtaining institutional review board, or IRB, approval at each trial site;
•recruiting suitable patients to participate in a clinical trial;
•having patients complete a clinical trial or return for post-treatment follow-up;
•inspections of clinical trial sites or operations by applicable regulatory authorities, or the imposition of a clinical hold;
•clinical sites, CROs or other third parties deviating from trial protocol or dropping out of a trial;
•failure to perform in accordance with the applicable regulatory requirements, including FDA’s GCP requirements, or applicable regulatory requirements in other countries;
•addressing patient safety concerns that arise during the course of a trial, including occurrence of adverse events associated with the product candidate that are viewed to outweigh its potential benefits;
•adding a sufficient number of clinical trial sites;
•manufacturing sufficient quantities of product candidate for use in clinical trials; or
•suspensions or terminations by IRBs of the institutions at which such trials are being conducted, by the Data Safety Monitoring Board, or DSMB, for such trial or by the FDA or other regulatory authorities due to a number of factors, including those described above.
We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates or significantly increase the cost of such trials, including:
•we may experience changes in regulatory requirements or guidance, or receive feedback from regulatory authorities that requires us to modify the design of our clinical trials;
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•clinical trials of our product candidates may produce negative or inconclusive results, and we may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical trials or abandon development programs;
•the number of patients required for clinical trials of our product candidates may be larger than we anticipate, enrollment in these clinical trials may be slower than we anticipate or participants may drop out of these clinical trials at a higher rate than we anticipate;
•our third-party contractors and collaborators may fail to comply with regulatory requirements or meet their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner, or at all;
•we or investigators might have to suspend or terminate clinical trials of our product candidates for various reasons, including non-compliance with regulatory requirements, a finding that our product candidates have undesirable side effects or other unexpected characteristics, or a finding that the participants are being exposed to unacceptable health risks;
•the cost of clinical trials of our product candidates may be greater than we anticipate and we may not have funds to cover the costs;
•the supply or quality of our product candidates or other materials necessary to conduct clinical trials of our product candidates may be insufficient or inadequate;
•regulators may revise the requirements for approving our product candidates, or such requirements may not be as we anticipate; and
•any future collaborators that conduct clinical trials may face any of the above issues, and may conduct clinical trials in ways they view as advantageous to them but that are suboptimal for us.
If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials or other testing of our product candidates beyond those that we currently contemplate, if we are unable to successfully complete clinical trials of our product candidates or other testing, if the results of these trials or tests are not positive or are only modestly positive or if there are safety concerns, we may:
•incur unplanned costs;
•be delayed in obtaining marketing approval for our product candidates or not obtain marketing approval at all;
•obtain marketing approval in some countries and not in others;
•obtain marketing approval for indications or patient populations that are not as broad as intended or desired;
•obtain marketing approval with labeling that includes significant use or distribution restrictions or safety warnings, including boxed warnings or REMS;
•be subject to additional post-marketing testing requirements;
•be subject to changes in the way the product is administered; or
•have regulatory authorities withdraw or suspend their approval of the product or impose restrictions on its distribution after obtaining marketing approval.
We could encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the IRBs of the institutions in which such trials are being conducted, by the DSMB for such trial or by the FDA or other regulatory authorities. Such authorities may impose such a suspension or termination due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA or other regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a drug, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial.
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All of our product candidates will require extensive clinical testing before we are prepared to submit a BLA or marketing authorization application, or MAA, for regulatory approval. We cannot predict with any certainty if or when we might complete the clinical development for our product candidates and submit a BLA or MAA for regulatory approval of any of our product candidates or whether any such BLA or MAA will be approved. We may also seek feedback from the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other regulatory authorities on our clinical development program, and such regulatory authorities may not provide such feedback on a timely basis, or such feedback may not be favorable, which could further delay our development programs.
We cannot predict with any certainty whether or when we might complete a given clinical trial. If we experience delays in the commencement or completion of our clinical trials, or if we terminate a clinical trial prior to completion, the commercial prospects of our product candidates could be harmed, and our ability to generate revenues from our product candidates may be delayed or lost. In addition, any delays in our clinical trials could increase our costs, slow down the development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, many of the factors that 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 seek Fast Track designation for our product candidates, and we may be unsuccessful. Even if received, Fast Track designation may not actually lead to a faster review or approval process and does not increase the likelihood that our product candidates will receive marketing approval.
We may seek Fast Track designation for our product candidates, and we may be unsuccessful. If a drug or biologic is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition and the product demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for this condition, the sponsor may apply for FDA Fast Track designation for a particular indication. There is no assurance that the FDA will grant this status to any of our product candidates. If granted, Fast Track designation makes a product eligible for more frequent interactions with FDA to discuss the development plan and clinical trial design, as well as rolling review of the application, which means that the company can submit completed sections of its marketing application for review prior to completion of the entire submission. Marketing applications of product candidates with Fast Track designation may qualify for priority review under the policies and procedures offered by the FDA, but the Fast Track designation does not assure any such qualification or ultimate marketing approval by the FDA. The FDA has broad discretion whether or not to grant Fast Track designation, so even if we believe a particular product candidate is eligible for this designation, there can be no assurance that the FDA would decide to grant it. Even if we do receive Fast Track designation, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures, and receiving a Fast Track designation does not provide any assurance of ultimate FDA approval. In addition, the FDA may withdraw Fast Track designation at any time if it believes that the designation is no longer supported by data from our clinical development program.
The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, MHRA, EMA and comparable foreign authorities are lengthy, time consuming and inherently unpredictable. If we are not able to obtain required regulatory approval for our product candidates, our business will be substantially harmed.
The time required to obtain approval or other marketing authorizations by the FDA, MHRA, EMA and comparable foreign authorities is unpredictable, and it typically takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. In addition, approval policies, regulations, and the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. We have not obtained regulatory approval for any product candidate, and it is possible that we may never obtain regulatory approval for any product candidates we may seek to develop in the future. Neither we nor any current or future collaborator is permitted to market any drug product candidates in the United States until we receive regulatory approval of a BLA from the FDA, and we cannot market them in the European Union until we receive approval for a MAA from the EMA, or in other foreign countries until we receive the required regulatory approval in such other countries. To date, we have had only limited discussions with the FDA, MHRA, and EMA regarding clinical development programs or regulatory approval for any product candidate within the United States, European Union
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and United Kingdom, respectively. In addition, we have had no discussions with other comparable foreign authorities, regarding clinical development programs or regulatory approval for any product candidate outside of those jurisdictions.
Prior to obtaining approval to commercialize any drug product candidate in the United States or abroad, we must demonstrate with substantial evidence from well-controlled clinical trials, and to the satisfaction of the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory agencies, that such product candidates are safe, pure and effective for their intended uses. Results from preclinical studies and clinical trials can be interpreted in different ways. Even if we believe the preclinical or clinical data for our product candidates are promising, such data may not be sufficient to support approval by the FDA and other regulatory authorities. The FDA, MHRA, EMA or other regulatory agency may also require us to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials for our product candidates either prior to or after approval, or it may object to elements of our clinical development programs.
Our product candidates could fail to receive regulatory approval for many reasons, including the following:
•the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with the design or implementation of our clinical trials;
•we may be unable to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities that a product candidate is safe and effective for its proposed indication;
•the results of clinical trials may not meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities for approval;
•we may be unable to demonstrate that a product candidate’s clinical and other benefits outweigh its safety risks;
•the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may fail to approve the manufacturing processes or facilities of third-party manufacturers with which we contract for clinical and commercial supplies; and
•the approval policies or regulations of the FDA or comparable foreign authorities may significantly change in a manner rendering our clinical data insufficient for approval.
Of the large number of products in development, only a small percentage successfully complete the FDA or foreign regulatory approval processes and are commercialized. The lengthy approval and marketing authorization process as well as the unpredictability of future clinical trial results may result in our failing to obtain regulatory approval and marketing authorization to market our product candidates, which would significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We have invested a significant portion of our time and financial resources in the development of our clinical and preclinical product candidates. Our business is dependent on our ability to successfully complete preclinical and clinical development of, obtain regulatory approval for, and, if approved, successfully commercialize product candidates in a timely manner.
Even if we eventually complete clinical testing and receive approval of a BLA or foreign marketing application for any product candidates, the FDA, MHRA, EMA or the applicable foreign regulatory agency may grant approval or other marketing authorization contingent on the performance of costly additional clinical trials, including post-marketing clinical trials. The FDA, MHRA, EMA or the applicable foreign regulatory agency also may approve or authorize for marketing a product candidate for a more limited indication or patient population than we originally request, and the FDA, MHRA, EMA or applicable foreign regulatory agency may not approve or authorize the labeling that we believe is necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of a product candidate. Any delay in obtaining, or inability to obtain, applicable regulatory approval or other marketing authorization would delay or prevent commercialization of that product candidate and would materially adversely impact our business and prospects.
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In addition, the FDA, MHRA, EMA and other regulatory authorities may change their policies, issue additional regulations or revise existing regulations, or take other actions, which may prevent or delay approval of our future products under development on a timely basis. Such policy or regulatory changes could impose additional requirements upon us that could delay our ability to obtain approvals, increase the costs of compliance or restrict our ability to maintain any marketing authorizations we may have obtained.
Success in preclinical studies or earlier clinical trials may not be indicative of results in future clinical trials. Our product candidates may not have favorable results in later clinical trials, if any, or receive regulatory approval.
Success in preclinical testing and any early investigator-initiated clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials will generate the same results or otherwise provide adequate data to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of a product candidate. Preclinical tests and Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials are primarily designed to test safety, to study pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics and to understand the side effects of product candidates at various doses and schedules. Success in preclinical or animal studies and early clinical trials does not ensure that later large-scale efficacy trials will be successful nor does it predict final results. For example, we may be unable to identify suitable animal disease models for our product candidates, which could delay or frustrate our ability to proceed into clinical trials or obtain marketing approval. Our product candidates may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy in clinical development despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials.
Many companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in late-stage clinical trials even after achieving promising results in preclinical testing and earlier-stage clinical trials. Data obtained from preclinical and clinical activities are subject to varying interpretations, which may delay, limit or prevent regulatory approval. In addition, we may experience regulatory delays or rejections as a result of many factors, including changes in regulatory policy during the period of our product candidate development. Any such delays could negatively impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Interim, “top-line” and preliminary results from our clinical trials that we announce or publish from time to time may change as more data become available and are subject to audit and verification procedures that could result in material changes in the final data.
From time to time, we may publish interim, top-line or preliminary results from our clinical trials. Interim results from clinical trials that we may complete are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. Preliminary or top-line results also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, interim and preliminary data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available. Differences between preliminary, top-line or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business prospects and may cause the trading price of our common stock to fluctuate significantly. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, and we may not have received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data. As a result, the top-line 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.
Further, others, including regulatory agencies may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular development program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular product candidate or product and our company in general. In addition, the information we choose to publicly disclose regarding a particular study or clinical trial is based on what is typically extensive information, and you or others may not agree with what we determine is the material or otherwise appropriate information to include in our disclosure. Any information we determine not to disclose may ultimately be deemed meaningful by you or others with respect to future decisions, conclusions, views, activities or otherwise regarding a particular product candidate or our business. If the interim, top-line 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, product candidates may be harmed, which could significantly harm our business prospects.
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Our preclinical studies and clinical trials may fail to demonstrate substantial evidence of the safety and efficacy of our product candidates, or serious adverse or unacceptable side effects may be identified during the development of our product candidates, which could prevent, delay or limit the scope of regulatory approval of our product candidates, limit their commercialization, increase our costs or necessitate the abandonment or limitation of the development of some of our product candidates.
To obtain the requisite regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of our product candidates, we must demonstrate through lengthy, complex and expensive preclinical testing and clinical trials that our product candidates are safe, pure and potent for use in each target indication. These trials are expensive and time consuming, and their outcomes are inherently uncertain. Failures can occur at any time during the development process. Preclinical studies and clinical trials often fail to demonstrate safety or efficacy of the product candidate studied for the target indication, and most product candidates that begin clinical trials are never approved.
We may fail to demonstrate with substantial evidence from adequate and well-controlled trials, and to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, that our product candidates are safe and potent for their intended uses.
Possible adverse side effects that could occur with treatment with cell therapy products include thrombocytopenia, chills, anemia, pyrexia, febrile neutropenia, diarrhea, neutropenia, vomiting, hypotension, dyspnea, cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity. If our product candidates are associated with undesirable effects in preclinical studies or clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may decide or be required to perform additional preclinical studies or to halt or delay further clinical development of our product candidates or to limit their development to more narrow uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe, or more acceptable from a risk-benefit perspective, which may limit the commercial expectations for the product candidate, if approved. These side effects may not be appropriately recognized or managed by the treating medical staff, as toxicities resulting from personalized cell therapy, as with our TIL product candidates, are not normally encountered in the general patient population and by medical personnel.
If any such adverse events occur, our clinical trials could be suspended or terminated. If we cannot demonstrate that any adverse events were not caused by the drug, the FDA, MHRA, EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development of, or deny approval of, our product candidates for any or all targeted indications. Even if we are able to demonstrate that all future serious adverse events are not product-related, such occurrences could affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the trial. Moreover, if we elect, or are required, to not initiate, delay, suspend or terminate any future clinical trial of any of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of such product candidates may be harmed and our ability to generate product revenues from any of these product candidates may be delayed or eliminated. Any of these occurrences may harm our ability to develop other product candidates, and may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.
If our product candidates are associated with side effects in clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may need to abandon their development or limit development to more narrow uses in which the side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk-benefit perspective. The FDA, MHRA, EMA, comparable foreign regulatory authorities or an IRB may also require that we suspend, discontinue, or limit our clinical trials based on safety information, or that we conduct additional animal or human studies regarding the safety and efficacy of our product candidates which we have not planned or anticipated. Such findings could further result in regulatory authorities failing to provide marketing authorization for our product candidates or limiting the scope of the approved indication, if approved. Many product candidates that initially showed promise in early stage testing have later been found to cause side effects that prevented further development of the product candidate.
Additionally, if one or more of our product candidates receives marketing approval, and we or others identify undesirable side effects caused by such products, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:
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•regulatory authorities may suspend, withdraw or limit approvals of such product, or seek an injunction against its manufacture or distribution;
•regulatory authorities may require additional warnings on the label;
•we may be required to create a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to patients or other requirements subject to a REMS;
•we may be required to change the way a product is administered or conduct additional trials;
•we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients;
•we may decide to remove the product from the market;
•we may not be able to achieve or maintain third-party payor coverage and adequate reimbursement;
•we may be subject to fines, injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties; and
•our reputation and physician or patient acceptance of our products may suffer.
There can be no assurance that we will resolve any issues related to any product-related adverse events to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory agency in a timely manner or at all. Moreover, any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular product candidate, if approved, and could significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.
Negative public opinion of TIL therapies, the dynamically evolving competitive landscape for our target indications or increased regulatory scrutiny of cell therapy using TILs may adversely impact the development of and commercial strategy for our product candidates, our plans for investing in manufacturing readiness for regulatory filings, and the success of our current and future product candidates.
The clinical and commercial success of our TIL therapies will depend in part on public acceptance of the use of cell therapy using TILs. Any adverse public attitudes about the use of TIL therapies may adversely impact our ability to enroll clinical trials. Moreover, our success will depend upon physicians prescribing, and their patients being willing to receive, treatments that involve the use of product candidates we may develop in lieu of, or in addition to, existing treatments with which they are already familiar and for which greater clinical data may be available.
More restrictive government regulations or negative public opinion 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 any products once approved. Adverse events in our or others’ clinical trials, even if not ultimately attributable to our product candidates, and the resulting publicity could result in increased governmental regulation, unfavorable public perception, potential regulatory delays in the testing or approval of our product candidates, stricter labeling requirements for those product candidates that are approved and a decrease in demand for any such product candidates, all of which would have a negative impact on our business and operations.
Further, increased government regulation or negative public opinion of TIL therapies, as well as increased competition in the development of treatments and therapeutics in the indications we are targeting or may target in the future, may force us to revise our business strategy for our product candidates, including our plans for making investments in our manufacturing capabilities necessary to prepare for required regulatory filings. We may be forced to significantly curtail or abandon our current strategy and may never be able to realize our current business strategy and commercialize our product candidates.
As an organization, we are early in the process of potentially conducting our first collaborator-led IITs and have no prior experience in a similar collaboration, in conducting IITs in China, or in completing clinical trials, and may be unable to complete clinical trials for any product candidates we may develop, including our Collaboration Product.
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We are early in our development efforts for our product candidates and will need to successfully complete clinical trials, including pivotal clinical trials, in order to obtain FDA, MHRA, EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities’ approval to market any of our product candidates. Carrying out clinical trials and the submission of a successful BLA or MAA is a complicated process. As an organization, we are early in the process of potentially conducting our first collaborator-led IITs in China, and have no prior experience in China or a similar collaboration, or in completing any clinical trial, have limited experience in preparing regulatory submissions and have not previously submitted a BLA or MAA for any product candidate. We also do not have a clinical development team. We have only previously treated patients with our TIL product in a compassionate use program in the United Kingdom with a TIL product that was manufactured using a prior version of the ITIL-168 manufacturing process, and dosed one patient in our prior clinical trial for ITIL-306. In addition, we have had limited interactions with the FDA and cannot be certain how many clinical trials of our product candidates will be required or how such trials should be designed. Consequently, we may be unsuccessful in our collaboration and may be unable to successfully and efficiently execute and complete necessary clinical trials in a way that leads to submission of the applicable regulatory applications and approval of any product candidate. We may require more time and incur greater costs than our competitors and may not succeed in obtaining regulatory approvals of product candidates that we develop. Failure to commence or complete, or delays in, our collaboration or planned clinical trials, could prevent us from or delay us in commercializing our product candidates. In addition, Collaboration Product for the potential IITs in China will be manufactured by our collaborator using its manufacturing process; we do not currently have rights to use any proprietary aspects of our collaborator’s manufacturing process for any future clinical trial by us of Collaboration Product in the United States or elsewhere.
We may experience delays or difficulties in the enrollment and/or retention of patients in clinical trials, which could delay or prevent our receipt of necessary regulatory approvals.
Successful and timely completion of clinical trials will require that we enroll a sufficient number of patients. Patient enrollment, a significant factor in the timing of clinical trials, is affected by many factors, including the size and nature of the patient population and competition for patients eligible for our clinical trials with competitors which may have ongoing clinical trials for product candidates that are under development to treat the same indications as one or more of our product candidates, or approved products for the conditions for which we are developing our product candidates.
Trials may be subject to delays as a result of patient enrollment taking longer than anticipated or patient withdrawal. We may not be able to initiate or continue clinical trials for our product candidates if we are unable to locate and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials as required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. We cannot predict how successful we will be at enrolling subjects in future clinical trials. Subject enrollment is affected by other factors including:
•the severity and difficulty of diagnosing the disease under investigation;
•the eligibility and exclusion criteria for the trial in question;
•the size of the patient population and process for identifying patients;
•our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience;
•the design of the trial protocol;
•the perceived risks and benefits of the product candidate in the trial, including relating to cell therapy approaches;
•the availability of competing commercially available therapies and other competing therapeutic candidates’ clinical trials for the disease or condition under investigation;
•the willingness of patients to be enrolled in our clinical trials;
•the efforts to facilitate timely enrollment in clinical trials;
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•potential disruptions caused by disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, including difficulties in initiating clinical sites, enrolling and retaining participants, diversion of healthcare resources away from clinical trials, travel or quarantine policies that may be implemented, and other factors;
•the patient referral practices of physicians;
•the ability to monitor patients adequately during and after treatment; and
•the proximity and availability of clinical trial sites for prospective patients.
Our inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients for clinical trials would result in significant delays and could require us to abandon one or more clinical trials altogether. Enrollment delays in these clinical trials may result in increased development costs for our product candidates, which would cause the value of our company to decline and limit our ability to obtain additional financing. Furthermore, we expect to rely on CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure the proper and timely conduct of our clinical trials and we will have limited influence over their performance.
Furthermore, even if we are able to enroll a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials, we may have difficulty maintaining enrollment of such patients in our clinical trials.
We may seek orphan drug designation for some of our product candidates, and we may be unsuccessful, or may be unable to maintain the benefits associated with orphan drug designation, including the potential for market exclusivity, for product candidates for which we obtain orphan drug designation.
We may seek orphan drug designation for some or all of our product candidates in specific orphan indications in which there is a medically plausible basis for the use of these product candidates. Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may grant orphan drug designation to a drug or biologic intended to treat a rare disease or condition, defined as a patient population of fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States, or a patient population of 200,000 or more in the United States where there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making available the drug or biologic will be recovered from sales in the United States. Orphan drug designation must be requested before submitting a BLA. Although we may seek orphan drug designation for some or all of our product candidates, we may never receive such designations.
In the United States, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as tax advantages and user fee waivers. Opportunities for grant funding toward clinical trial costs may also be available for clinical trials of drugs or biologics for rare diseases, regardless of whether the drugs or biologics are designated for the orphan use.
In addition, if a drug or biologic with an orphan drug designation subsequently receives the first marketing approval for a particular active ingredient or principal molecular structural features for the indication for which it has such designation, the product is entitled to a seven year period of marketing exclusivity, which precludes the FDA from approving another marketing application for the same drug and indication for that time period, except in limited circumstances such as a showing of clinical superiority to the product with orphan drug exclusivity or if the FDA finds that the holder of the orphan drug exclusivity has not shown that it can ensure the availability of sufficient quantities of the orphan product to meet the needs of patients with the disease or condition for which the drug was designated. Even if we obtain orphan drug designation for a product candidate, we may not be the first to obtain marketing approval for any particular orphan indication due to the uncertainties associated with developing biological products. If we seek orphan drug designation, we may be unsuccessful in obtaining such orphan drug designation for our product candidates. Even if we obtain orphan drug exclusivity for any of our product candidates, we may be unable to maintain the benefits associated with orphan drug designation, or such orphan drug exclusivity may not effectively protect those product candidates from competition because different drugs can be approved for the same condition, and orphan drug exclusivity does not prevent the FDA from approving the same or a different drug in another indication. Even after an orphan drug is granted orphan drug exclusivity and approved, the FDA can subsequently approve a later application for the same drug for the same condition before the expiration of the seven-year exclusivity period if the FDA concludes that the later drug is clinically superior in that it is shown to be safer in a substantial portion of the target populations, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care. In addition, a designated orphan drug may not receive orphan drug exclusivity if it is approved for a use that is broader than the indication for which it received orphan drug designation. Moreover, orphan drug-exclusive marketing rights
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in the United States may be lost if the FDA later determines that the request for designation was materially defective or that we are unable to manufacture sufficient quantities of the product to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition. Orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug nor gives the drug any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process.
Breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA for any product candidate may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process, and it does not increase the likelihood that the product candidate will receive marketing approval.
We may, in the future, apply for breakthrough therapy designation, or the equivalent thereof in foreign jurisdictions (where available), for our product candidates. A breakthrough therapy is defined as a product candidate that is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product candidate may demonstrate substantial improvement over existing therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. For product candidates that have been designated as breakthrough therapies, interaction and communication between the FDA and the sponsor of the trial can help to identify the most efficient path for clinical development while minimizing the number of patients placed in ineffective control regimens. Product candidates designated as breakthrough therapies by the FDA are also eligible for priority review if supported by clinical data at the time of the submission of the BLA.
Designation as a breakthrough therapy is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe that one of our product candidates meets the criteria for designation as a breakthrough therapy, the FDA may disagree and instead determine not to make such designation. In any event, the receipt of a breakthrough therapy designation for a product candidate may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to product candidates considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures and it would not assure ultimate approval by the FDA. In addition, even if one or more of our product candidates qualify as breakthrough therapies, the FDA may later decide that the product candidate no longer meets the conditions for qualification or it may decide that the time period for FDA review or approval will not be shortened.
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 management resources, we must focus on development programs and product candidates that we identify for specific indications. As such, we are currently primarily focused on our potential Collaboration Product for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer and potentially licensing-in or otherwise acquiring a new product candidate. As a result, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other product candidates or for other indications for these product candidates 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 development programs and product candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable products. For example, before prioritizing development of our Collaboration Product, our strategy focused primarily on the development of ITIL-306, which we recently discontinued, and prior to that, ITIL-168 for the treatment of PD-1 inhibitor-relapsed or refractory advanced cutaneous melanoma, which we discontinued in 2022. Further, 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 to such product candidate.
We plan to conduct clinical trials for our product candidates outside the United States, and the FDA and similar foreign regulatory authorities may not accept data from such trials conducted in locations outside of their jurisdiction.
We are party to a collaboration in China designed to facilitate more expedited patient enrollment in a Phase 1 IIT with the goal of generating early clinical data for our Collaboration Product from patients with NSCLC in China. In addition, we may choose to conduct other clinical trials outside the United States, including in the United
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Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Europe or other foreign jurisdictions. The acceptance by the FDA of data from an IIT trial conducted in China or any other clinical trial outside the United States may be subject to certain conditions or may not be accepted at all. In cases where data from clinical trials conducted outside the United States are intended to serve as the sole basis for marketing approval in the United States, the FDA will generally not approve the application on the basis of foreign data alone unless (i) the data are applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice; (ii) the trials were performed by clinical investigators of recognized competence and (iii) the data may be considered valid without the need for an on-site inspection by the FDA or, if the FDA considers such an inspection to be necessary, the FDA is able to validate the data through an on-site inspection or other appropriate means. For example, in February 2022, the FDA publicly rebuked an oncology product sponsor for submitting a marketing application with Phase 3 clinical data solely from China and since that time, it has declined to approve other applications that contained primarily China-generated clinical data. Additionally, the FDA’s clinical trial requirements, including sufficient size of patient populations and statistical powering, must be met. Many foreign regulatory bodies have similar approval requirements. In addition, such foreign trials would be subject to the applicable local laws of the foreign jurisdictions where the trials are conducted. There can be no assurance that the FDA or any similar foreign regulatory authority will accept data from trials conducted outside of the United States, including China, or the applicable jurisdiction. If the FDA or any similar foreign regulatory authority does not accept such data, it would result in the need for additional trials, which would be costly and time-consuming and delay aspects of our business plan, and which may result in our product candidates not receiving approval or clearance for commercialization in the applicable jurisdiction.
We may not be successful in our efforts to build a pipeline of additional product candidates either internally or by identifying and licensing-in or otherwise acquiring novel product candidates on commercially attractive terms.
Our strategy involves in-licensing/acquiring and developing therapeutic assets for diseases with significant unmet medical need. We may not be able to continue to identify, in-license or otherwise acquire, and subsequently develop, new product candidates in addition to our current pipeline. The licensing or acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and several more established companies may pursue strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights or assets that we may consider attractive for further development. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, capital resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us, and companies that do not perceive us to be competitor may be reluctant to consider licensing to us given our lack of experience beyond TILs. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment or at all. Even if we are successful in continuing to build our pipeline, either through internal research and development or through in-licensing or other asset acquisitions, the potential product candidates that we identify may not be suitable for clinical development. For example, product candidates may be shown to have harmful side effects or other characteristics that indicate that they are unlikely to be successfully developed, much less receive marketing approval and achieve market acceptance. If we do not successfully develop and commercialize product candidates based upon our approach, we will not be able to obtain product revenue in future periods, which likely would result in significant harm to our financial position and adversely affect our stock price.
If we do not achieve our plans and projected development goals in the time frames we announce and expect, the commercialization of our products may be delayed.
From time to time, we may estimate the timing of the accomplishment of various scientific, clinical, regulatory, manufacturing and other product development goals, which we sometimes refer to as milestones, including in connection with our collaboration. These milestones may include the commencement or completion of, and availability of data from, preclinical studies and clinical trials and the submission of regulatory filings. From time to time, we may publicly announce the expected timing of some of these milestones. All of these milestones are, and will be, based on a variety of assumptions. The actual timing of these milestones can vary significantly compared to our estimates, in some cases for reasons beyond our control. We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of our current clinical trials or any future clinical trials that we conduct, such as the
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observed decrease in 2022 of rates of successful manufacturing of ITIL-168 that resulted in the decision to voluntarily pause our clinical trials and contributed in part to our decision to ultimately discontinue our ITIL-168 development program, that could delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates.
The market opportunities for any current or future product candidate we develop, if approved, may be limited to those patients who are ineligible for established therapies or for whom prior therapies have failed, and may be small.
Any revenue we are able to generate in the future from product sales will be dependent, in part, upon the size of the market in the United States and any other jurisdiction for which we gain regulatory approval and have commercial rights. If the markets or patient subsets that we are targeting are not as significant as we estimate, we may not generate significant revenues from sales of such products, even if approved.
Cancer therapies are sometimes characterized as first-line, second-line or third-line, and the FDA often approves new therapies initially only for third-line use. When cancer is detected early enough, first-line therapy, usually chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, radiation therapy or a combination of these, is sometimes adequate to cure the cancer or prolong life without a cure. Second- and third-line therapies are administered to patients when prior therapy is not effective. We may initially seek approval for ITIL-306 and any other product candidates we develop as a therapy for patients who have received one or more prior treatments. If we do so, for those products that prove to be sufficiently beneficial, if any, we would expect to seek approval potentially as a first-line therapy, but there is no guarantee that any product candidate we develop, even if approved, would be approved for first-line therapy, and, prior to any such approvals, we may have to conduct additional clinical trials.
The number of patients who have the types of cancer we are targeting may turn out to be lower than expected. Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for our current or future product candidates may be limited, if and when approved. Further, even if any of our product candidates are approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulators, their approved indications may be limited to a subset of the indications that we targeted. Even if we obtain significant market share for any product candidate, if and when approved, if the potential target populations are small, we may never achieve profitability without obtaining marketing approval for additional indications, including to be used as first- or second-line therapy.
We may develop our Collaboration Product and future product candidates for use in combination with other therapies or third-party product candidates, which exposes us to additional regulatory risks.
We may develop our Collaboration Product and future product candidates for use in combination with one or more currently approved cancer therapies. Even if any product candidate we develop were to receive marketing approval or be commercialized for use in combination with other existing therapies, we would continue to be subject to the risk that the FDA, MHRA, EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could revoke approval of the therapy used in combination with our product candidate or that safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues could arise with these existing therapies. This could result in our own products being removed from the market or being less successful commercially. Combination therapies are commonly used for the treatment of cancer, and we would be subject to similar risks if we develop any of our product candidates for use in combination with other drugs or for indications other than cancer.
We may also evaluate product candidates in combination with one or more other third-party product candidates that have not yet been approved for marketing by the FDA, MHRA, EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. If so, we will not be able to market and sell any product candidate we develop in combination with any such unapproved cancer therapies that do not ultimately obtain marketing approval.
If the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities do not approve these other biological products or revoke their approval of, or if safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues arise with, the biologics we choose to evaluate in combination with any product candidate we develop, we may be unable to obtain approval of or market any such product candidate.
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The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union may have a negative effect on global economic conditions, financial markets and our business.
Following the result of a referendum in 2016, the United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31, 2020, commonly referred to as Brexit. Pursuant to the formal withdrawal arrangements agreed to by the United Kingdom and the European Union, as of January 1, 2021, the United Kingdom is no longer subject to the transition period, or the Transition Period, during which European Union rules continued to apply. A trade and cooperation agreement, or the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which outlines the post-Transition Period trading relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union was agreed to in December 2020 and formally entered into force on May 1, 2021.
We have research labs located in Manchester, United Kingdom. Further, since a significant proportion of the regulatory framework in the United Kingdom that is applicable to our business and our product candidates is derived from European Union directives and regulations, Brexit has had, and will continue to have, a material impact on the regulatory regime with respect to the importation, approval and commercialization of our product candidates in the United Kingdom or the European Union. For example, Great Britain is no longer covered by the centralized procedures for obtaining EU-wide marketing authorizations from the EMA, and a separate marketing authorization will be required to market our product candidates in Great Britain. Any delay in obtaining, or an inability to obtain, any marketing approvals, as a result of Brexit or otherwise, would delay or prevent us from commercializing our product candidates in the United Kingdom and limit our ability to generate revenue and achieve and sustain profitability. While the Trade and Cooperation Agreement provides for the tariff-free trade of medicinal products between the United Kingdom and the European Union, there are additional non-tariff costs to such trade that did not exist prior to the end of the Transition Period and frequent delays in the transit of goods between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Further, should the United Kingdom diverge from the European Union from a regulatory perspective in relation to medicinal products, tariffs could be put into place in the future, and we may incur expenses in establishing a manufacturing facility in the European Union in order to circumvent such hurdles or incur significant additional expenses to operate our business, which could significantly and materially harm or delay our ability to generate revenues or achieve profitability of our business. Any further changes in international trade, tariff and import/export regulations as a result of Brexit or otherwise may impose unexpected duty costs or other non-tariff barriers on us. These developments, or the perception that any of them could occur, may significantly reduce global trade and, in particular, trade between the impacted nations and the United Kingdom. It is also possible that Brexit may negatively affect our ability to attract and retain employees, particularly those from the European Union.
Risks Related to the Manufacturing of our Product Candidates
Biologics are complex and difficult to manufacture. We have experienced, and may in the future experience, manufacturing problems that result in delays in the development or commercialization of our product candidates or otherwise harm our business. We may experience new manufacturing challenges by relying on collaborators or other third parties for manufacturing capabilities and expertise.
The manufacture of biologic products, particularly cell therapy products, is technically complex and necessitates substantial expertise and capital investment. Production difficulties caused by unforeseen events may delay the availability of material for our clinical studies.
The manufacturers of pharmaceutical products must comply with strictly enforced cGMP requirements, state and federal regulations, as well as foreign requirements when applicable. Any failure of us or our contract manufacturing organizations to adhere to or document compliance to such regulatory requirements could lead to a delay or interruption in the availability of our program materials for clinical trials or enforcement action from the FDA, MHRA, EMA or comparable regulatory authorities. If we or our manufacturers were to fail to comply with the requirements of the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other regulatory authority, it could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including clinical holds, fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of product candidates or products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect supplies of our product candidates. Our potential
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future dependence upon others for the manufacture of our product candidates may also adversely affect our future profit margins and our ability to commercialize any product candidates that receive regulatory approval on a timely and competitive basis.
Biological products, particularly cell therapy products, are inherently difficult to manufacture. Our program materials are manufactured using technically complex processes requiring specialized equipment and facilities, highly specific raw materials, cells, and reagents, and other production constraints. Our production process requires a number of highly specific raw materials, cells and reagents with limited suppliers. Even though we aim to have backup supplies of raw materials, cells and reagents whenever possible, we cannot be certain they will be sufficient if our primary sources are unavailable. A shortage of a critical raw material, cell line, or reagent, or a technical issue during manufacturing may lead to delays in clinical development or commercialization plans. Any changes in the manufacturing of components of the raw materials we use could result in unanticipated or unfavorable effects in our manufacturing processes, resulting in delays.
Delays or failures in the manufacture of cell therapies (whether by us, any collaborator or our third party contract manufacturers) can result in a patient being unable to receive their cell therapy or a requirement to re-manufacture which itself then causes delays in manufacture for other patients. Any delay or failure or inability to manufacture on a timely basis can adversely affect a patient’s outcomes and delay the timelines for our clinical trials. Such delays or failure or inability to manufacture can result from:
•a failure in the manufacturing process itself, for example by an error in manufacturing process (whether by us or our third party CMO), equipment or reagent failure, failure in any step of the manufacturing process, failure to maintain a cGMP environment or failure in quality systems applicable to manufacture, sterility failures, contamination during process;
•product loss or failure due to logistical issues associated with the collection of a patient’s tumor or other samples, shipping that material to analytical laboratories, and shipping the final product back to the location using cold chain distribution where it will be administered to the patient, manufacturing issues associated with the differences in patient starting materials, inconsistency in cell growth and variability in product characteristics;
•a lack of reliability or reproducibility in the manufacturing process itself leading to variability in end manufacture of cell therapy, which may lead to regulatory authorities placing a hold on a clinical trial or requesting further information on the process which could in turn result in delays to the clinical trials;
•variations in patient starting material or apheresis product resulting in less product than expected or product that is not viable, or that cannot be used to successfully manufacture a cell therapy;
•product loss or failure due to logistical issues including issues associated with the differences between patients’ white blood cells or characteristics, interruptions to process, contamination, failure to supply patient apheresis material within required timescales (for example, as a result of an import or export hold-up) or supplier error;
•inability to obtain viral vector manufacturing slots from CMOs or to have enough manufacturing slots to manufacture cell therapies for patients as and when those patients require manufacture;
•inability to procure starting materials or to manufacture starting materials;
•loss of or close-down of any manufacturing facility used in the manufacture of our cell therapies, or the inability to find alternative manufacturing capability in a timely fashion;
•loss or contamination of patient starting material, requiring the starting material to be obtained again from the patient or the manufacturing process to be re-started; and
•a requirement to modify or make changes to any manufacturing process, which may also require comparability testing that delays our ability to make the required modifications or perform any required comparability testing in a timely fashion, require further regulatory approval or require successful tech transfer to CMOs to continue manufacturing.
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Manufacturing problems may result in a delay in the timelines for our clinical trials. For example, in October 2022 we voluntarily paused enrollment in our clinical trials for ITIL-168 following a decrease in the rate of successful manufacturing of ITIL-168, resulting in the inability to dose some patients, and also voluntarily paused enrollment in our Phase 1 trial of ITIL-306, although no manufacturing failures were observed in this trial. We thereafter resumed our clinical trial for ITIL-306 prior to our discontinuation of our ITIL-306 development program. We informed all applicable regulatory agencies of our voluntary pause and no regulatory agency, including the FDA, issued a clinical hold on any of our prior clinical trials, although there can be no assurance that we will not be subject to a clinical hold in the future. We completed an end-to-end analysis of our manufacturing processes and have taken corrective actions to improve the rate of manufacturing success, but there can be no assurance that these actions will be effective or that we will not experience other manufacturing issues in the future.
We currently rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third party manufacturers, including our collaborator for the potential IITs in China, to manufacture and to perform quality testing. Reliance on third parties exposes us to risks associated with having reduced control over manufacturing activities, and any disruptions to the operations of our third-party manufacturers, including those caused by conditions unrelated to our business or operations such as bankruptcy of the manufacturer, could materially and adversely affect our business.
The manufacture of our TIL product candidates is difficult and complex and we may encounter difficulties in production, particularly with respect to process development or scaling-out of our manufacturing capabilities. If we encounter such difficulties, our ability to provide supply of our product candidates for clinical trials or any approved products could be delayed or stopped.
All entities involved in the preparation of therapeutics for clinical trials or commercial sale, including our existing contract manufacturers for components of our product candidates, are subject to extensive regulation. Components of a finished therapeutic product approved for commercial sale or used in late-stage clinical trials in the European Union must be manufactured in accordance with cGMP. These regulations govern manufacturing processes and procedures (including record keeping) and the implementation and operation of quality systems to control and assure the quality of investigational products and products approved for sale. Poor control of production processes can lead to the introduction of adventitious agents or other contaminants, or to inadvertent changes in the properties or stability of our product candidates that may not be detectable in final product testing. We or our contract manufacturers must supply all necessary documentation in support of a BLA or MAA on a timely basis. Our facilities and quality systems and the facilities and quality systems of some or all of our third-party contractors must pass a pre-approval inspection for compliance with the applicable regulations as a condition of regulatory approval of our product candidates or any of our other potential products. In addition, the regulatory authorities may, at any time, audit or inspect a manufacturing facility involved with the preparation of our product candidates or our other potential products or the associated quality systems for compliance with the regulations applicable to the activities being conducted, and they could put a hold on one or more of our clinical trials if the facilities of our contract development and manufacturing organizations do not pass such audit or inspections. If these facilities do not pass a pre-approval plant inspection, FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities’ approval of the products will not be granted.
The regulatory authorities also may, at any time following approval of a product for sale, inspect or audit our manufacturing facilities or those of our third-party contractors. If any such inspection or audit identifies a failure to comply with applicable regulations or if a violation of our product specifications or applicable regulations occurs independent of such an inspection or audit, we or the relevant regulatory authority may require remedial measures that may be costly and/or time-consuming for us or a third party to implement and that may include the temporary or permanent suspension of a clinical trial or commercial sales or the temporary or permanent closure of a facility. Any such remedial measures imposed upon us or third parties with whom we contract could harm our business. If we or any of our third-party manufacturers fail to maintain regulatory compliance, the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities’ can impose regulatory sanctions including, among other things, refusal to approve a pending application for a new drug product or biologic product, or revocation of a pre-existing approval. As a result, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be harmed. Additionally, if supply from one approved manufacturer is interrupted, there could be a significant disruption in commercial supply. An alternative
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manufacturer would need to be qualified through a BLA and/or MAA supplement which could result in further delay. The regulatory agencies may also require additional studies if a new manufacturer is relied upon for commercial production. Switching manufacturers may involve substantial costs and is likely to result in a delay in our desired clinical and commercial timelines.
These factors could cause the delay of clinical trials, regulatory submissions, required approvals or commercialization of our product candidates, cause us to incur higher costs and prevent us from commercializing our products successfully, if approved. Furthermore, if our suppliers fail to meet contractual requirements, and we are unable to secure one or more replacement suppliers capable of production at a substantially equivalent cost, our clinical trials may be delayed or we could lose potential revenue.
We rely on our collaborator to manufacture our Collaboration Product and intend to utilize third parties to manufacture our future product candidates. Therefore, we are subject to the risk that such third parties may not perform satisfactorily.
We rely on our collaboration partner to manufacture our Collaboration Product and intend to rely on outside vendors to manufacture clinical supply of our future product candidates and intend to evaluate potential third-party manufacturing capabilities if necessary to meet further clinical and commercial demand. In the event that we engage third-party manufacturers and they do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines or manufacture our product candidates in accordance with regulatory requirements or if there are disagreements between us and any third-party manufacturer, we may be delayed in producing sufficient clinical and commercial supply of our product candidates. In such instances, we may need to locate an appropriate replacement third-party relationship, which may not be readily available or on acceptable terms, which would cause additional delay or increased expense and would thereby have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Reliance on collaborators and third-party providers may expose us to more risk than if we were to manufacture product candidates ourselves. The facilities used by our contract manufacturers to manufacture our product candidates must be approved by the FDA pursuant to inspections that will be conducted after we submit our BLA to the FDA. We do not control the manufacturing process of, and are completely dependent on, our contract manufacturing partners for compliance with the regulatory requirements, known as cGMPs for the manufacture of our product candidates. If our contract manufacturers cannot successfully manufacture material that conforms to our specifications and the strict regulatory requirements of the FDA or others, they will not be able to secure and/or maintain regulatory approval for their manufacturing facilities. In addition, we have no control over the ability of our contract manufacturers to maintain adequate quality control, quality assurance and qualified personnel. If the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority does not approve these facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates or if it withdraws any such approval in the future, we may need to find alternative manufacturing facilities, which would significantly impact our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for or market our product candidates, if approved. In addition, any failure to achieve and maintain compliance with these laws, regulations and standards could subject us to the risk that we may have to suspend the manufacturing of our product candidates or that obtained approvals could be revoked, which would adversely affect our business and reputation. Furthermore, third-party providers may breach existing agreements they have with us because of factors beyond our control. They may also terminate or refuse to renew their agreement because of their own financial difficulties or business priorities, at a time that is costly or otherwise inconvenient for us. If we were unable to find adequate replacement or another acceptable solution in time, our clinical trials could be delayed or our commercial activities could be harmed.
We currently rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties to manufacture ingredients of our product candidates and to perform quality testing and we intend to maintain third-party manufacturers for these ingredients, as well as to serve as additional sources of our product candidates, which will expose us to risks including:
•reduced control for certain aspects of manufacturing activities;
•termination or nonrenewal of manufacturing and service agreements with third parties in a manner or at a time that is costly or damaging to us; and
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•disruptions to the operations of our third-party manufacturers and service providers caused by conditions unrelated to our business or operations, including the bankruptcy of the manufacturer or service provider.
Any of these events could lead to clinical trial delays or failure to obtain regulatory approval, or impact our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates. Some of these events could be the basis for FDA action, including injunction, recall, seizure or total or partial suspension of product manufacture.
We depend on third-party suppliers for materials that are necessary for the conduct of preclinical studies and expect to rely on third parties for the manufacture of our product candidates for any future clinical trials, and the loss of these third-party suppliers or their inability to supply us with sufficient quantities of adequate materials, or to do so at acceptable quality levels and on a timely basis, could harm our business.
Manufacturing our product candidates requires many reagents, which are substances used in our manufacturing processes to bring about chemical or biological reactions, and other specialty materials and equipment, some of which are manufactured or supplied by small companies with limited resources and experience to support commercial biologics production. We currently depend on a limited number of vendors for certain materials and equipment used in the manufacture of our product candidates. For example, we currently use facilities and equipment at external contract manufacturing organizations, or CMOs, as well as supply sources internal to the collaboration for vector supply. Our use of CMOs increases the risk of delays in production or insufficient supplies as we transfer our manufacturing technology to these CMOs and as they gain experience with our supply requirements. Some of these suppliers may not have the capacity to support clinical trials and commercial products manufactured under cGMP by biopharmaceutical firms or may otherwise be ill-equipped to support our needs. We also do not have supply contracts with many of these suppliers and may not be able to obtain supply contracts with them on acceptable terms or at all. Accordingly, we may experience delays in receiving key materials and equipment to support clinical or commercial manufacturing.
For some of these reagents, equipment, and materials, we rely and may in the future rely on sole source vendors or a limited number of vendors. The supply of the reagents and other specialty materials and equipment that are necessary to produce our product candidates could be reduced or interrupted at any time. In such case, identifying and engaging an alternative supplier or manufacturer could result in delay, and we may not be able to find other acceptable suppliers or manufacturers on acceptable terms, or at all. Switching suppliers or manufacturers may involve substantial costs and is likely to result in a delay in our desired clinical and commercial timelines. If we change suppliers or manufacturers for commercial production, applicable regulatory agencies may require us to conduct additional studies or trials. If key suppliers or manufacturers are lost, or if the supply of the materials is diminished or discontinued, we may not be able to develop, manufacture and market our product candidates in a timely and competitive manner, or at all. An inability to continue to source product from any of these suppliers, which could be due to a number of issues, including regulatory actions or requirements affecting the supplier, adverse financial or other strategic developments experienced by a supplier, labor disputes or shortages, unexpected demands or quality issues, could adversely affect our ability to satisfy demand for our product candidates, which could adversely and materially affect our product sales and operating results or our ability to conduct clinical trials, either of which could significantly harm our business.
As we continue to develop and scale our manufacturing process, we expect that we will need to obtain rights to and supplies of certain materials and equipment to be used as part of that process. We may not be able to obtain rights to such materials on commercially reasonable terms, or at all, and if we are unable to alter our process in a commercially viable manner to avoid the use of such materials or find a suitable substitute, it would have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are able to alter our process so as to use other materials or equipment, such a change may lead to a delay in our clinical development and/or commercialization plans. If such a change occurs for a product candidate that is already in clinical testing, the change may require us to perform both ex vivo comparability studies and to collect additional data from patients prior to undertaking more advanced clinical trials. These factors could cause the delay of studies or trials, regulatory submissions, required approvals or commercialization of product candidates that we develop, cause us to incur higher costs and prevent us from commercializing our product candidates successfully.
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Any contamination or interruption in our manufacturing process, shortages of raw materials or failure of our suppliers of reagents to deliver necessary components could result in delays in our clinical development or marketing schedules.
Given the nature of cell therapy manufacturing, there is a risk of contamination. Any contamination could adversely affect our ability to produce product candidates on schedule and could, therefore, harm our results of operations and cause reputational damage. Some of the raw materials required in our manufacturing process are derived from biologic sources. Such raw materials are difficult to procure and may be subject to contamination or recall. A material shortage, contamination, recall or restriction on the use of biologically derived substances in the manufacture of our product candidates could adversely impact or disrupt the commercial manufacturing or the production of clinical material, which could adversely affect our development timelines and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. For example, the 2022 investigation of our manufacturing failures identified a central source of contamination in the cell media. Although we have completed an end-to-end analysis of our manufacturing process and implemented corrective actions to improve our manufacturing process, there can be no assurance that such actions will be effective or that we will not in the future experience contamination issues in our manufacturing process.
Changes in methods of product candidate manufacturing or formulation may result in additional costs or delay.
As product candidates proceed through preclinical studies to late-stage clinical trials towards potential approval and commercialization, it is common that various aspects of the development program, such as manufacturing methods and formulation, are altered along the way in an effort to optimize processes and product characteristics. Such changes carry the risk that they will not achieve our intended objectives. Any such changes could cause our product candidates to perform differently and affect the results of planned clinical trials or other future clinical trials conducted with the materials manufactured using altered processes. Such changes may also require additional testing, FDA notification or FDA approval. This could delay completion of clinical trials, require the conduct of bridging clinical trials or the repetition of one or more clinical trials, increase clinical trial costs, delay approval of our product candidates and jeopardize our ability to commence sales and generate revenue. In addition, we may be required to make significant changes to our upstream and downstream processes across our pipeline, which could delay the development of our future product candidates.
Risks Related to the Commercialization of our Product Candidates
Even if any of our product candidates receive marketing approval, they may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.
If any of our product candidates receive marketing approval, they may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. If our product candidates do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant revenue and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including:
•the efficacy, safety and potential advantages compared to alternative treatments;
•our ability to offer our products for sale at competitive prices;
•the convenience and ease of administration compared to alternative treatments;
•product labeling or product insert requirements of the FDA, MHRA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities, including any limitations or warnings contained in a product’s approved labeling, including any black box warning or REMS;
•the willingness of the target patient population to try new treatments and of physicians to prescribe these treatments;
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•our ability to hire and retain a sales force;
•the strength of marketing and distribution support;
•the availability of third-party coverage and adequate reimbursement for ITIL-306 and any other product candidates, once approved;
•the prevalence and severity of any side effects; and
•any restrictions on the use of our products together with other medications.
If we are unable to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities for any product candidate that may receive regulatory approval, we may not be successful in commercializing those product candidates if and when they are approved.
We do not have sales or marketing infrastructure. To achieve commercial success for any product candidate for which we may obtain marketing approval, we will need to establish a sales and marketing organization. In the future, we expect to build a focused sales and marketing infrastructure to market our product candidates in the United States, if they are approved. There are risks involved with establishing our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities. For example, recruiting and training a sales force is expensive and time consuming and could delay any product launch. If the commercial launch of a product candidate for which we recruit a sales force and establish marketing capabilities is delayed or does not occur for any reason, we would have prematurely or unnecessarily incurred these commercialization expenses. This may be costly, and our investment would be lost if we cannot retain or reposition our sales and marketing personnel.
Factors that may inhibit our efforts to market our products on our own include:
•our inability to recruit, train and retain adequate numbers of effective sales and marketing personnel;
•the inability of sales personnel to obtain access to physicians in order to educate physicians about our product candidates, once approved;
•the lack of complementary products to be offered by sales personnel, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to companies with more extensive product lines; and
•unforeseen costs and expenses associated with creating an independent sales and marketing organization.
If we are unable to establish our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities and are forced to enter into arrangements with, and rely on, third parties to perform these services, our revenue and our profitability, if any, are likely to be lower than if we had developed such capabilities ourselves. In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to sell, market and distribute our product candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. We likely will have little control over such third parties, and any of them may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our products effectively. If we do not establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities successfully, either on our own or in collaboration with third parties, we will not be successful in commercializing our product candidates.
The treatable populations for our product candidates may be smaller than we or third parties currently project, which may affect the addressable markets for our product candidates.
Our projections of the number of people who have the diseases we are seeking to treat, as well as the subset of people with these diseases who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our product candidates, are estimates based on our knowledge and understanding of these diseases. These estimates may prove to be incorrect and new studies may report lower incidence or prevalence estimates of these diseases. The number of patients in the United States, the European Union and elsewhere may turn out to be lower than expected, may not be otherwise amenable to treatment with our product candidates or patients may become increasingly difficult to identify and access, all of which would adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Further, even if we obtain approval for our product candidates, the FDA or other regulators may limit their approved
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indications to more narrow uses or subpopulations within the populations for which we are targeting development of our product candidates.
The total addressable market opportunity for our product candidates will ultimately depend upon a number of factors including the diagnosis and treatment criteria included in the final label, if approved for sale in specified indications, acceptance by the medical community, patient access and product pricing and reimbursement. Incidence and prevalence estimates are frequently based on information and assumptions that are not exact and may not be appropriate, and the methodology is forward-looking and speculative. The process we have used in developing an estimated incidence and prevalence range for the indications we are targeting has involved collating limited data from multiple sources. Accordingly, the incidence and prevalence estimates included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, should be viewed with caution. Further, the data and statistical information used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or our other filings with the SEC, including estimates derived from them, may differ from information and estimates made by our competitors or from current or future studies conducted by independent sources.
Off-label use or misuse of our products may harm our reputation in the marketplace, result in injuries that lead to costly product liability suits, and/or subject us to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or experience unanticipated problems with any product.
If our product candidates are approved by the FDA, we may only promote or market our product candidates for their specifically approved indications. We will train our marketing and sales force against promoting our product candidates for uses outside of the approved indications for use, known as “off-label uses.” We cannot, however, prevent a physician from using our products off-label, when in the physician’s independent professional medical judgment he or she deems it appropriate. Furthermore, the use of our products for indications other than those approved by the FDA may not effectively treat such conditions. Any such off-label use of our product candidates could harm our reputation in the marketplace among physicians and patients. There may also be increased risk of injury to patients if physicians attempt to use our products for these uses for which they are not approved, which could lead to product liability suits that that might require significant financial and management resources and that could harm our reputation.
Advertising and promotion of any product candidate that obtains approval in the United States will be heavily scrutinized by the FDA, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, or the DOJ, the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, state attorneys general, members of the U.S. Congress, and the public. Additionally, advertising and promotion of any product candidate that obtains approval outside of the United States will be heavily scrutinized by comparable foreign entities and stakeholders. Violations, including actual or alleged promotion of our products for unapproved or off-label uses, are subject to enforcement letters, inquiries, and investigations, and civil and criminal sanctions by the FDA, DOJ, or comparable foreign bodies. Any actual or alleged failure to comply with labeling and promotion requirements may result in fines, warning letters, mandates to corrective information to healthcare practitioners, injunctions, or civil or criminal penalties.
We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and from non-profit institutions, and our operating results will suffer if we fail to compete effectively.
Drug development is highly competitive and subject to rapid and significant technological advancements. There are several large and small pharmaceutical companies focused on delivering therapeutics for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer, and renal cell carcinoma and other oncology indications we might target in the future. Further, it is likely that additional drugs will become available in the future for the treatment of our target indications.
We face competition from segments of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other related markets that pursue the development of TIL or other cell therapies for the treatment of solid tumors. Achilles Therapeutics, Ltd., AstraZeneca plc (Neogene Therapeutics, B.V.), Intima Bioscience, Inc., Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc., KSQ Therapeutics, Inc., Lyell Immunopharma, Inc., Obsidian Therapeutics, Inc. and Turnstone Biologics Corp. In addition, we may face competition from companies focused on CAR-T and TCR-T cell therapies, such as Bristol-
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Myers Squibb, Inc. (Juno Therapeutics, Inc.), Gilead, Inc. (Kite Pharma, Inc.), Immatics N.V., and Poseida Therapeutics, Inc. There are also companies utilizing other cell-based approaches that may be competitive to our product candidates.
Universities and public and private research institutions in the United States and Europe are also potential competitors. For example, a Phase 3 M14TIL trial comparing TIL to standard ipilimumab in patients with metastatic melanoma is currently being conducted in Europe by the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Copenhagen County Herlev University Hospital, and the University of Manchester. Results from the M14TIL trial were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in September 2022. While these universities and public and private research institutions primarily have educational objectives, they may develop proprietary technologies that lead to FDA-approved therapies or secure patent protection that we may need for the development of our technologies and product candidates.
Many of our existing or potential competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do and significantly greater experience in the discovery and development of product candidates, as well as in obtaining regulatory approvals of those product candidates in the United States and in foreign countries. Our current and potential future competitors may also have significantly more experience commercializing drugs, particularly cell therapy and other biological products, that have been approved for marketing. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries could result in even more resources being concentrated among a small number of our competitors.
We will face competition from other drugs or from other non-drug products currently approved or that will be approved in the future in the oncology field, including for the treatment of diseases and disorders in the therapeutic categories we intend to target. Therefore, our ability to compete successfully will depend largely on our ability to:
•develop and commercialize drugs that are superior to other products in the market;
•demonstrate through our clinical trials that our product candidates are differentiated from existing and future therapies;
•attract qualified scientific, product development and commercial personnel;
•obtain patent or other proprietary protection for our medicines;
•obtain required regulatory approvals;
•obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement from, and negotiate competitive pricing with, third-party payors; and
•successfully collaborate with pharmaceutical companies and/or non-profit institutions in the discovery, development and commercialization of new medicines.
The availability of our competitors’ products could limit the demand, and the price we are able to charge, for any product candidate we develop. The inability to compete with existing or subsequently introduced drugs would have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects. In addition, the reimbursement structure of approved cell therapies by other companies could impact the anticipated reimbursement structure of our cell therapies, if approved, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Established pharmaceutical companies may invest heavily to accelerate discovery and development of novel compounds or to in-license novel compounds that could make our product candidates less competitive. In addition, any new product that competes with an approved product must demonstrate compelling advantages in efficacy, convenience, tolerability and safety in order to overcome price competition and to be commercially successful. Accordingly, our competitors may succeed in obtaining patent protection, discovering, developing, receiving regulatory and marketing approval for, or commercializing, drugs before we do, which would have an adverse impact on our business and results of operations.
Any product candidates for which we intend to seek approval as biologic products may face competition sooner than anticipated.
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If we are successful in achieving regulatory approval to commercialize any biologic product candidate that we develop, it may face competition from biosimilar products. In the United States, our product candidates are regulated by the FDA as biologic products subject to approval under the BLA pathway. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, or collectively, the ACA, includes a subtitle called the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009, or BPCIA, which created an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products that are biosimilar to or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed reference biological product. Under the BPCIA, an application for a biosimilar product may not be submitted to the FDA until four years following the date that the reference product was first licensed by the FDA. In addition, the approval of a biosimilar product may not be made effective by the FDA until 12 years from the date on which the reference product was first licensed by the FDA. During this 12-year period of exclusivity, another company may still market a competing version of the reference product if the FDA approves a full BLA for the competing product containing the sponsor’s own preclinical data and data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials to demonstrate the safety, purity and potency of their product. The law is complex and is still being interpreted and implemented by the FDA. As a result, its ultimate impact, implementation and meaning are subject to uncertainty. While it is uncertain when such processes intended to implement BPCIA may be fully adopted by the FDA, any such processes could have an adverse effect on the future commercial prospects for our biological products.
There is a risk that any of our product candidates approved as a biological product under a BLA would not qualify for the 12-year period of exclusivity or that this exclusivity could be shortened due to congressional action or otherwise, or that the FDA will not consider our product candidates to be reference products for competing products, potentially creating the opportunity for generic competition sooner than anticipated. Other aspects of the BPCIA, some of which may impact the BPCIA exclusivity provisions, have also been the subject of recent litigation. Moreover, the extent to which a biosimilar, once approved, will be substituted for any one of our reference products in a way that is similar to traditional generic substitution for non-biological products is not yet clear, and will depend on a number of marketplace and regulatory factors that are still developing. If competitors are able to obtain marketing approval for biosimilars referencing our candidates, if approved, our products may become subject to competition from such biosimilars, with the attendant competitive pressure and potential adverse consequences.
The success of our product candidates will depend significantly on coverage and adequate reimbursement or the willingness of patients to pay for these therapies.
We believe our success depends on obtaining and maintaining coverage and adequate reimbursement for our product candidates and the extent to which patients will be willing to pay out-of-pocket for such products, in the absence of reimbursement for all or part of the cost. In the United States and in other countries, patients who are provided medical treatment for their conditions generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the costs associated with their treatment. The availability of coverage and adequacy of reimbursement for our products by third-party payors, including government health care programs (e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE), managed care providers, private health insurers, health maintenance organizations, and other organizations is essential for most patients to be able to afford medical services and pharmaceutical products such as our product candidates. Third-party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own coverage and reimbursement policies. However, decisions regarding the extent of coverage and amount of reimbursement to be provided are made on a payor-by-payor basis. One payor’s determination to provide coverage for a drug product does not assure that other payors will also provide coverage, and adequate reimbursement. The principal decisions about reimbursement for new medicines are typically made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. CMS decides whether and to what extent products will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare and private payors tend to follow CMS to a substantial degree.
Third-party payors determine which products and procedures they will cover and establish reimbursement levels. Even if a third-party payor covers a particular product or procedure, the resulting reimbursement payment rates may not be adequate. Patients who are treated in-office for a medical condition generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the costs associated with the procedure, including costs associated with products used during the procedure, and may be unwilling to undergo such procedures in the absence of such coverage and adequate reimbursement. Physicians may be unlikely to offer procedures for such treatment if they are not covered
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by insurance and may be unlikely to purchase and use our product candidates, if approved, for our stated indications unless coverage is provided and reimbursement is adequate. In addition, for products administered under the supervision of a physician, obtaining coverage and adequate reimbursement may be particularly difficult because of the higher prices often associated with such drugs.
Reimbursement by a third-party payor may depend upon a number of factors, including the third-party payor’s determination that a procedure is safe, effective and medically necessary; appropriate for the specific patient; cost-effective; supported by peer-reviewed medical journals; included in clinical practice guidelines; and neither cosmetic, experimental, nor investigational. Further, increasing efforts by third-party payors in the United States and abroad to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and the level of reimbursement for newly approved products and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for our product candidates. In order to secure coverage and reimbursement for any product that might be approved for sale, we may need to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies in order to demonstrate the medical necessity and cost-effectiveness of our products, in addition to the costs required to obtain FDA or comparable regulatory approvals. Additionally, we may also need to provide discounts to purchasers, private health plans or government healthcare programs. Our product candidates may nonetheless not be considered medically necessary or cost-effective. If third-party payors do not consider a product to be cost-effective compared to other available therapies, they may not cover the product after approval as a benefit under their plans or, if they do, the level of payment may not be sufficient to allow a company to sell its products at a profit. We expect to experience pricing pressures from third-party payors in connection with the potential sale of any of our product candidates. Decreases in third-party reimbursement for any product or a decision by a third-party payor not to cover a product could reduce physician usage and patient demand for the product and also have a material adverse effect on sales.
Foreign governments also have their own healthcare reimbursement systems, which vary significantly by country and region, and we cannot be sure that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be made available with respect to the treatments in which our products are used under any foreign reimbursement system.
There can be no assurance that ITIL-306, or any other product candidate, if approved for sale in the United States or in other countries, will be considered medically reasonable and necessary, that it will be considered cost-effective by third-party payors, that coverage or an adequate level of reimbursement will be available or that reimbursement policies and practices in the United States and in foreign countries where our products are sold will not adversely affect our ability to sell our product candidates profitably, if they are approved for sale.
Product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and to limit commercialization of any products that we may develop.
We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our product candidates in human clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if we commercially sell any products that we may develop. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against claims that our product candidates or drugs caused injuries, we will incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:
•decreased demand for any product candidates or drugs that we may develop;
•injury to our reputation and significant negative media attention;
•withdrawal of clinical trial participants;
•significant costs to defend the related litigation;
•substantial monetary awards paid to trial participants or patients;
•loss of revenue;
•reduced resources of our management to pursue our business strategy; and
•the inability to commercialize any products that we may develop.
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Although we maintain product liability insurance coverage, such insurance may not be adequate to cover all liabilities that we may incur. We may need to increase our insurance coverage as we expand our clinical trials or if we commence commercialization of our product candidates. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise.
Our business and operations would suffer in the event we, or the third parties upon which we rely, suffer computer system failures, cyberattacks or a deficiency in our or such third parties’ cybersecurity.
In the ordinary course of our business, we, and the third parties upon which we rely, may collect, receive, store, process, generate, use, transfer, disclose, make accessible, protect, secure, dispose of, transmit and share (collectively, process) proprietary, confidential and sensitive data, including personal data (such as health-related data), data we collect about trial participants in connection with clinical trials, intellectual property, sensitive third-party data and trade secrets (collectively, sensitive information). Cyber-attacks, malicious internet-based activity, online and offline fraud and other similar activities threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our sensitive information and information technology systems and those of the third parties upon which we rely. Such threats are prevalent and continue to rise, are increasingly difficult to detect and come from a variety of sources, including traditional computer “hackers,” threat actors, “hacktivists,” organized criminal threat actors, personnel (such as through theft or misuse), sophisticated nation states and nation-state-supported actors.