Item 1A. Risk Factors
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks described below, as well as the other information in this annual report and in our other public filings in evaluating our business. The occurrence of any of the events or developments described below could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects. In such an event, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial also may impair our business operations and the market price of our common stock.
Risk Factors Summary
Our ability to execute on our business strategy is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those outside of our control, that could cause our actual results to be harmed, including risks regarding the following:
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We are early in our development efforts, with a limited operating history, and have no products approved for commercial sale, which may make it difficult for you to evaluate our current business and likelihood of success and future viability.
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We have not generated any product revenue to date, have incurred significant net losses since our inception, and expect to continue to incur significant net losses for the foreseeable future.
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Our ability to generate revenue and achieve profitability depends significantly on our ability to achieve several objectives relating to the discovery, development and commercialization of our product candidates, if approved.
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We require substantial additional capital to finance our operations, which if available, may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates. If we are unable to raise such capital when needed, or on acceptable terms, we may be forced to delay, reduce and/or eliminate one or more of our research and drug development programs or future commercialization efforts.
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Our product candidates are in the early stages of development, and we have no products approved for commercial sale. If we are unable to successfully develop, receive regulatory approval for, manufacture and commercialize our product candidates, or successfully develop any other product candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be harmed.
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We intend to identify and develop gene therapy product candidates based on novel technology, and because the regulatory landscape that governs any product candidates we may develop is rigorous, complex, uncertain and subject to change, we cannot predict the time and cost of obtaining regulatory approval, if we receive it at all, for any product candidates we may develop.
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The mechanisms of action of our product candidates are unproven, and we do not know whether we will be able to develop any drug of commercial value.
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Drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome. The preclinical studies, clinical trials and post-marketing studies of our product candidates may not demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities or otherwise produce positive results and the results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials may not be predictive of future results. We may incur additional costs or experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete, the development and commercialization of our product candidates.
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Our product candidates may cause serious adverse events, toxicities or other undesirable side effects when used alone or in combination with other approved products or investigational new drugs that may result in a safety profile that could delay or prevent regulatory approval, or market acceptance, or even if approval is received, require them to be taken off the market, include new safety warnings, contraindications or precautions, or otherwise limit their commercial potential or result in significant negative consequences.
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Due to the significant resources required for the development of product candidates, and depending on our ability to access capital, we must prioritize development of certain programs and product candidates. Moreover, we may expend our limited resources on programs or product candidates that do not yield a successful product and fail to capitalize on product candidates or indications that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.
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Gene therapies are novel, complex and difficult to manufacture. We could experience production problems that result in delays in development or commercialization of our product candidates, limit the supply of our products, if approved, or otherwise seriously harm our business.
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The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities are lengthy, time consuming and inherently unpredictable. If we are ultimately unable to obtain regulatory approval of our product candidates, we will be unable to generate product revenue, and our business will be substantially harmed.
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If we are unable to obtain, maintain, protect, defend and enforce patent and other intellectual property coverage for our technology and product candidates, our competitors could develop and commercialize technology and product candidates similar or identical to ours, and our ability to commercialize our technology and product candidates may be adversely affected.
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Our commercial success depends significantly on our ability to operate without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the patents and other intellectual property and proprietary rights of third parties.
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We rely on third parties to conduct our preclinical studies and our clinical trials, and plan to rely on third parties to conduct such future drug development activities. These third parties may not perform satisfactorily, including failing to meet completion deadlines, or to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, which may harm our business.
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If we do not regain compliance with or continue to satisfy the Nasdaq continued listing requirements, our common stock could be delisted from Nasdaq. Our ability to publicly or privately sell equity securities and the liquidity of our common stock could be adversely affected if our common stock is delisted.
Risks Related to Our Financial Position, Need for Additional Capital and Limited Operating History
We are early in our development efforts, with a limited operating history and have no products approved for commercial sale, which may make it difficult for you to evaluate our current business and likelihood of success and future viability.
We have limited experience conducting clinical trials, have no products approved for commercial sale and have not generated any revenue. We are developing therapies that address the underlying drivers of heart disease, which is an unproven and highly uncertain undertaking and involves a substantial degree of risk. Since our inception, we have devoted substantially all of our focus and financial resources to identifying and developing product candidates, conducting preclinical studies and clinical trials, developing our internal capabilities, acquiring technology, organizing and recruiting management and technical staff, business planning, establishing our intellectual property portfolio, raising capital, and providing general and administrative support for these operations. We have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete any late-stage clinical trials, obtain marketing approvals, manufacture a late stage clinical- or commercial-scale product or arrange for a third party to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful product commercialization. As a result, it may be more difficult for investors to accurately predict our likelihood of success and viability than it would be if we had a longer operating history.
In addition, we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other known and unknown factors and risks frequently experienced by early-stage biotechnology companies in rapidly evolving fields. We also may need to transition from a company with a research and development focus to a company capable of supporting commercial activities. If we do not adequately address these risks and difficulties or successfully make such a transition, our business will suffer.
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We have not generated any product revenue to date, have incurred significant net losses since our inception, and expect to continue to incur significant net losses for the foreseeable future.
We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, have not generated any product revenue to date and have financed our operations principally through issuances of our stock. As of December 31, 2025, we had an accumulated deficit of $605.0 million. Substantially all of our losses have resulted from expenses incurred in connection with our research and development programs, manufacturing activities and from general and administrative costs associated with our operations. Our product candidates will require substantial additional development time and resources before we will be able to apply for regulatory approvals and, if approved, begin generating revenue from product sales. As a result, we expect that it will be several years, if ever, before we receive approval to commercialize a product and generate revenue from product sales. Even if we succeed in receiving marketing approval for and commercializing one or more of our product candidates, we expect that we will continue to incur substantial research and development and other expenses in order to discover, develop and market additional potential products.
We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for the foreseeable future. The net losses we incur may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter such that a period-to-period comparison of our results of operations may not be a good indication of our future performance, particularly since we expect our expenses to increase if and when our product candidates progress through late-stage clinical development, where costs may increase significantly. The size of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses and our ability to generate revenue. Our prior losses and expected future losses have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our working capital, our ability to fund the development of our product candidates and our ability to achieve and maintain profitability and the performance of our stock.
Our ability to generate revenue and achieve profitability depends significantly on our ability to achieve several objectives relating to the discovery, development and commercialization of our product candidates, if approved.
Our business depends on the successful research, development, manufacturing, regulatory approval and commercialization of product candidates that we discover. Our ability to generate revenue and achieve profitability depends significantly on our ability, or any future collaborator’s ability, to achieve several objectives, including:
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successful and timely completion of preclinical and clinical development of product candidates and programs, including, but not limited to, generating sufficient data to support the initiation or continuation of clinical trials;
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submission of INDs or other regulatory applications for our planned clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approval to commence clinical trials of our product candidates, and achieving favorable results from clinical trials;
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establishing and maintaining relationships with contract research organizations (CROs) and clinical sites for the clinical development of our product candidates;
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the initiation and successful patient enrollment and completion of clinical trials on a timely basis;
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acceptable frequency and severity of adverse events in the clinical trials;
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efficacy and safety profiles that are satisfactory to the FDA or any comparable foreign regulatory authority for marketing approval;
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timely receipt of marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities for any product candidates for which we successfully complete clinical development;
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complying with any required post-marketing approval commitments to applicable regulatory authorities;
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developing an efficient and scalable manufacturing process for our product candidates, and the timely manufacture of sufficient quantities of a product candidate for use in clinical trials and, if approved, commercialization;
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establishing and maintaining commercially viable supply and manufacturing relationships with third parties that can provide adequate, in both amount and quality, products and services to support clinical development and meet the market demand for our product candidates, if approved;
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successful commercial launch following any marketing approval, including the development of a commercial infrastructure, whether in-house or with one or more collaborators;
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the achievement of development, regulatory and sales-based milestones under our collaboration agreement with Alnylam;
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successful outputs from our capsid engineering and promoter and regulatory elements efforts;
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a continued acceptable safety profile following any marketing approval of our product candidates;
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actual market-size, ability to identify patients and the demographics of patients eligible for our product candidates, which may be different than expected;
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commercial acceptance of our product candidates by patients, the medical community and third-party payors;
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our ability to distribute our products to certain segments of the patient population only accessible through restricted or closed distribution channels;
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satisfying any required post-marketing approval commitments to applicable regulatory authorities;
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maintaining consistent quality, purity, and potency across clinical supplies and commercial supplies for any approved products;
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identifying, assessing and developing new product candidates, and our ability to expand into multiple indications;
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obtaining, maintaining, and expanding patent and other intellectual property protection, trade secret protection and regulatory exclusivity, both in the U.S. and internationally;
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protecting and enforcing our rights in our intellectual property portfolio;
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defending against third-party infringement, misappropriation, or other claims, if any;
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entering into, on favorable terms, any collaboration, licensing or other arrangements that may be necessary or desirable to develop, manufacture or commercialize our product candidates and to meet our obligations set forth under such arrangements;
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obtaining coverage and adequate reimbursement by third-party payors for our products and patients’ willingness to pay in the absence of such coverage and adequate reimbursement;
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obtaining additional funding to develop, manufacture and commercialize our product candidates;
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addressing any competing therapies and technological and market developments;
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managing costs, including any unforeseen costs, that we may incur as a result of nonclinical study or clinical trial delays; and
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attracting, hiring and retaining qualified and key personnel including clinical, scientific, management and administrative personnel.
We may never be successful in achieving our objectives and, even if we are, may never generate revenue that is significant or large enough to achieve profitability. If we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to become and remain profitable would decrease our value and could impair our ability to maintain or further our research and development efforts, raise additional necessary capital, grow our business and continue our operations.
We require substantial additional capital to finance our operations, which, if available, may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates. If we are unable to raise such capital when needed, or on acceptable terms, we may be forced to delay, reduce
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and/or eliminate one or more of our research and drug development programs or future commercialization efforts.
Developing pharmaceutical products, including conducting preclinical studies and clinical trials, is a very time-consuming, expensive and uncertain process that takes years to complete. Our operations have consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception, and we expect our expenses to increase over the long-term in connection with our ongoing activities, particularly as we initiate and conduct clinical trials of, and seek marketing approval for, our product candidates. Even if one or more of the product candidates that we develop is approved for commercial sale, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with sales, marketing, manufacturing and distribution activities. Our expenses could increase beyond expectations if we are required by the FDA, EMA or other regulatory agencies to perform clinical trials or preclinical studies in addition to those that we currently anticipate. Other unanticipated costs may also arise. Because the design and outcome of our planned preclinical studies and clinical trials are highly uncertain, we cannot reasonably estimate the actual amount of resources and funding that will be necessary to successfully complete the development and commercialization of any product candidate we develop. We also expect to incur costs 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, 2025, we had $100.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments in marketable securities. We may seek additional capital due to favorable market conditions or strategic considerations even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans. Attempting to secure additional financing may divert our management from our day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop our product candidates. Our failure to raise capital as and when needed or on acceptable terms would have a negative impact on our financial condition and our ability to pursue our business strategy, and we may have to delay, reduce the scope of, suspend or eliminate one or more of our preclinical development programs, platforms, manufacturing activities, ongoing or planned clinical trials or future commercialization efforts.
To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, your ownership interest will be diluted, and the terms may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a stockholder. 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, maintaining certain leverage ratios, making acquisitions, engaging in acquisition, merger or collaboration transactions, selling or licensing our assets, making capital expenditures, redeeming our stock, making certain investments, declaring dividends or encumbering our assets to secure future indebtedness. Such restrictions could adversely impact our ability to conduct our operations and execute our business plan.
If we raise additional funds through upfront payments or milestone payments pursuant to strategic collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies or intellectual property, future revenue streams, research programs or product candidates or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. For example, under our collaboration agreement with Alnylam, we are not permitted to conduct any research or development activities with respect to certain collaboration targets or any therapeutic products designed to be directed to such targets, for as long as the target remains a collaboration target. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings, we may be 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.
Our Loan Agreement requires us to comply with specified operating covenants and places restrictions on our operating and financial flexibility.
As of the filing date of this periodic report, under our Loan Agreement, we have the right to draw down up to $20.0 million, subject to agreement on the terms and conditions thereof and SVB’s sole discretion. As security for our obligations under the Loan Agreement, we granted SVB a first priority security interest on substantially all of our assets (other than intellectual property), subject to certain exceptions. We intend to satisfy our future debt service obligations with our existing cash and cash equivalents. However, we may not have sufficient funds or may be unable to arrange for additional financing to pay the amounts due under our outstanding debt. Funds from external sources may not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.
The Loan Agreement contains customary representations and warranties, events of default and affirmative and negative covenants, including covenants that limit or restrict our ability to, among other things, dispose of assets,
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make changes to our business, merge or consolidate, incur additional indebtedness, incur additional liens, pay dividends or other distributions or repurchase equity, make investments, and enter into certain transactions with affiliates, in each case subject to certain exceptions. These restrictive covenants could limit our flexibility in operating our business and our ability to pursue business opportunities that we or our stockholders may consider beneficial. In addition, a failure to comply with the conditions of our Loan Agreement, including a breach of any covenant, could limit our ability to draw upon available tranches orresult in an event of default and an acceleration of any outstanding loans thereunder.
In the event of an acceleration of amounts due under our Loan Agreement as a result of an event of default, including upon the occurrence of an event or circumstance that could be expected to have a material adverse effect on our business, operations, properties, assets or financial condition or a failure to pay any principal or interest due, we may not have sufficient funds or may be unable to arrange for additional financing to repay our indebtedness or to make any accelerated payments, and SVB could seek to enforce security interests in the collateral securing such indebtedness. Even if we are able to repay such accelerated debt amount under the Loan Agreement, the repayment of these sums may significantly reduce our working capital and impair our ability to operate as planned. As such, any declaration by SVB of an event of default could significantly harm our business and prospects and could cause the price of our common stock to decline. Further, if we are liquidated, SVB’s rights to repayment under the Loan Agreement would be senior to the rights of the holders of our common stock to receive any proceeds from the liquidation.
Our ability to utilize our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes to offset future taxable income may be limited.
Our net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards may be unavailable to offset future taxable income because of restrictions on their use under U.S. tax law. In addition, under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change” (generally defined as a cumulative change in the corporation’s ownership by “5-percent shareholders” that exceeds 50 percentage points over a rolling three-year period), the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change NOLs and certain other pre-change tax attributes to offset its post-change taxable income may be limited. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We have experienced such ownership changes in the past, and we may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership, some of which are outside our control. In addition, the use of our NOLs and other tax attributes may be subject to other limitations under applicable law. For example, California has enacted a temporary suspension on the use of state NOLs in taxable years beginning in 2024, 2025 and 2026, which would adversely affect our company if we earn taxable income in 2026. Consequently, our ability to use our NOLs and certain other tax attributes may be limited.
Risks Related to the Discovery, Development, Manufacturing and Commercialization of Our Product Candidates
Our product candidates are in the early stages of development, and we have no products approved for commercial sale. If we are unable to successfully develop, receive regulatory approval for, manufacture and commercialize our product candidates, or successfully develop any other product candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be harmed.
Before we are able to generate any revenue from product sales, each of our programs and product candidates will require additional preclinical and/or clinical development, expansion of manufacturing capabilities and expertise or successfully outsourcing manufacturing, regulatory approval, building a commercial organization or successfully outsourcing commercialization, substantial investment and significant marketing efforts. Consequently, because of the substantial operational and financial investment required to further develop and commercialize our product candidates, there is a high risk of failure and we may never succeed in developing marketable products.
If we do not successfully initiate and complete our clinical trials in a timely manner, including the successful manufacturing of the relevant product candidate, or fail to achieve favorable results from our trials, we may experience significant delays or be unable to advance our programs. We cannot be certain that our clinical trials will be initiated and completed on time, if at all, or whether our planned clinical strategy will be acceptable to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Furthermore, any changes to our development programs may cause our product candidates to perform differently and affect the results of planned clinical trials, which could delay completion of clinical trials, require the conduct of bridging clinical trials or the repetition of one or more clinical
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trials, increase clinical trial costs, delay approval of our product candidates and jeopardize our ability to commercialize our product candidates, if approved, and generate revenue.
There is a high failure rate for biopharmaceutical products proceeding through clinical trials. It is not uncommon for product candidates to exhibit unforeseen safety issues or inadequate efficacy when tested in humans despite promising results in preclinical animal models or earlier clinical studies. In addition, a number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in later stage clinical trials even after achieving promising results in earlier stage clinical trials and we may experience the same. We may also encounter regulatory delays or rejections as a result of many factors, including varying interpretations of data or changes in regulatory policy during the period of product development.
Because of the early stage of development of our programs, our ability to eventually generate significant revenues from our product candidates, which we do not expect will occur for several years, if ever, will depend on a number of factors, including those described in the Risk Factor entitled “Our ability to generate revenue and achieve profitability depends significantly on our ability to achieve several objectives relating to the discovery, development and commercialization of our product candidates, if approved.”
We do not have control over many of these factors, including certain aspects of the manufacturing process, preclinical and clinical development, the regulatory review process and potential threats to our intellectual property rights. If we are not successful with respect to one or more of these factors, we could experience significant delays or an inability to successfully commercialize our product candidates, which would materially harm our business.
To become and remain profitable, we must develop, obtain approval for and eventually commercialize product candidates that generate significant revenue. We do not expect to receive approval of any product candidates for many years and may never succeed in these activities. Even if we obtain approval and begin commercializing one or more of our product candidates, we may never generate revenue that is significant enough to achieve profitability, as we will continue to incur substantial research and development, manufacturing and other expenditures to develop and market additional product candidates. Even as we successfully discover and advance product candidates into clinical development, their success will be subject to all of the clinical, regulatory and commercial risks described elsewhere in this “Risk Factors” section. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that we will ever be able to discover, develop, obtain regulatory approval of, manufacture, commercialize or generate significant revenue from any product candidates.
We intend to identify and develop gene therapy product candidates based on novel technology, and because the regulatory landscape that governs any product candidates we may develop is rigorous, complex, uncertain and subject to change, we cannot predict the time and cost of obtaining regulatory approval, if we receive it at all, for any product candidates we may develop.
We intend to discover, develop, manufacture, and commercialize gene therapy product candidates for the heart. Our product candidates may use both known capsids, such as AAV9, as well as proprietary capsids developed in-house through our own capsid engineering efforts or licensed from third parties. Furthermore, our product candidates may also use novel heart-specific promoters and we may explore different routes-of-administration involving infusion- or injection-based catheters to support targeted delivery and efficient uptake of gene therapies for the heart. We are also establishing proprietary manufacturing processes for our product candidates. Our future success depends on the successful development of these novel therapeutic approaches.
Within the broader genetic medicine field, very few therapeutic products, including those that utilize AAV-mediated gene transfer, have received marketing authorization from the FDA, EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. No AAV-based gene therapies have yet been approved for the heart, much less therapies for the heart using novel capsids or promoters or delivery methods. It is therefore difficult to determine how long it will take, how much it will cost, or how likely it will be to obtain regulatory approvals for our product candidates in the U.S., EU or other jurisdictions.
The regulatory requirements that will govern any novel gene therapy product candidate we develop are not entirely clear, have changed over time and are subject to further change. Even with respect to more established products that fit into the categories of gene therapies or cell therapies, the regulatory landscape is still developing. Changes in the regulatory authorities’ data requirements and risk mitigation methods, including requirements resulting from safety concerns raised by regulatory authorities in clinical programs of unrelated companies in the gene therapy and cardiovascular fields in general, could have a material impact on our clinical development,
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increase our costs, and delay or preclude regulatory approval of our product candidates. Moreover, there is substantial overlap in those responsible for regulation of existing gene therapy products and cell therapy products. For example, in the U.S., the FDA has established the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies within CBER to consolidate the review of gene therapy and related products, and the Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee to advise CBER on its review.
Our product candidates will need to meet safety and efficacy standards applicable to any new biologic under the regulatory framework administered by the FDA. In addition to FDA oversight and oversight by IRBs, under guidelines promulgated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), gene therapy clinical trials are also subject to review and oversight by an institutional biosafety committee (IBC), a local institutional committee that reviews and oversees research utilizing recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules at that institution. The IBC assesses the safety of the research and identifies any potential risk to public health or the environment. While the NIH guidelines are not mandatory unless the research in question is being conducted at or sponsored by institutions receiving NIH funding of recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecule research, many clinical study sites receive NIH funding and many companies and other institutions not otherwise subject to the NIH guidelines voluntarily follow them. Although the FDA decides whether individual gene therapy protocols may proceed, the review process and determinations of other reviewing bodies can impede or delay the initiation of a clinical trial, even if the FDA has reviewed the trial and approved its initiation.
The same applies in the EU. The EMA’s Committee for Advanced Therapies (CAT) is responsible for assessing the quality, safety, and efficacy of advanced-therapy medicinal products. Advanced-therapy medicinal products include gene therapy medicines, somatic-cell therapy medicines and tissue- engineered medicines. The role of the CAT is to prepare a draft opinion on an application for marketing authorization for a gene therapy medicinal candidate that is submitted to the EMA. In the EU, the development and evaluation of a gene therapy product must be considered in the context of the relevant EU guidelines. The EMA may issue new guidelines concerning the development and marketing authorization for gene therapy products and require that we comply with these new guidelines. As a result, the procedures and standards applied to gene therapy products and cell therapy products in the EU may be applied to any gene therapy product candidate we may develop, but that remains uncertain at this point. Furthermore, approvals by the EMA may not be indicative of what the FDA may require for approval.
Delay or failure to obtain, or unexpected costs in obtaining, the regulatory approvals necessary to bring a potential gene therapy product to market could decrease our ability to generate sufficient product revenue and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed.
Adverse developments in preclinical studies or clinical trials conducted by others in the field of gene therapy and gene regulation products may cause the FDA, EMA, and other regulatory bodies to revise the requirements for the conduct of the clinical trials and approval of our product candidates or limit the use of products utilizing gene regulation technologies, either of which could harm our business. For example, the FDA has imposed clinical holds on various clinical trials of gene therapy product candidates being developed by other companies. In addition, the clinical trial requirements of the FDA, EMA, and other regulatory authorities and the criteria these regulators use to determine the safety and efficacy of a product candidate vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty, and intended use and market of the potential products. The regulatory approval process for product candidates such as ours can be more expensive and take longer than for other, better known, or more extensively studied pharmaceutical or other product candidates. Further, as we are developing novel potential treatments for diseases in which, in some cases, there is little clinical experience with potential new endpoints and methodologies, there is heightened risk that the FDA, EMA or other regulatory bodies may not consider the clinical trial endpoints to provide clinically meaningful results, and the resulting clinical data and results may be more difficult to analyze. In addition, we may not be able to identify or develop appropriate animal disease models to enable or support planned clinical development. Any natural history studies that we may conduct or rely upon in our clinical development may not be accepted by the FDA, EMA or other regulatory authorities. Regulatory agencies administering existing or future regulations or legislation may not allow production and marketing of products utilizing gene regulation technology in a timely manner or under technically or commercially feasible conditions. In addition, regulatory action or private litigation could result in expenses, delays, or other impediments to our research programs or the commercialization of resulting products. Further, approvals by one regulatory agency may not be indicative of what other regulatory agencies may require for approval.
The regulatory review committees and advisory groups described above and the new guidelines they promulgate may lengthen the regulatory review process, require us to perform additional preclinical studies or
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clinical trials, increase our development costs, lead to changes in regulatory positions and interpretations, delay or prevent approval and commercialization of our product candidates, or lead to significant post-approval limitations or restrictions. As we advance our research programs and develop our product candidates, we will be required to consult with these regulatory and advisory groups and to comply with applicable guidelines. If we fail to do so, we may be required to delay or discontinue development of our product candidates. These additional processes may result in a review and approval process that is longer than we otherwise would have expected. Delays as a result of an increased or lengthier regulatory approval process or further restrictions on the development of our product candidates can be costly and could negatively impact our ability to complete clinical trials and commercialize our product candidates in a timely manner, if at all.
The mechanisms of action of our product candidates are unproven, and we do not know whether we will be able to develop any drug of commercial value.
We have discovered and are developing product candidates that have what we believe are novel mechanisms of action. Because no currently-approved drugs appear to operate via the same biochemical mechanisms as our compounds, we cannot be certain that our product candidates will result in commercially viable drugs that safely and effectively treat the indications for which we intend to develop them. The results we see for our compounds in preclinical models may not be replicated in subsequent preclinical studies or translate into similar results in humans in clinical trials, and results of early clinical trials in humans may not be predictive of the results of larger clinical trials or post-marketing studies that may later be conducted with our product candidates. As an example, patients may develop antibodies against the product candidates, or the product candidates may otherwise have a more limited duration of therapeutic effect than anticipated, resulting in decreased efficacy over time, which could delay approval and, if approved, limit the ultimate commercial value. Even if we are successful in developing and receiving regulatory approval for a product candidate for the treatment of a particular disease, we cannot be certain that it will be accepted by prescribers or be reimbursed by insurers or that we will also be able to develop and receive regulatory approval for that or other product candidates for the treatment of other diseases. If we are unable to successfully develop and commercialize our product candidates, our business will be materially harmed.
Moreover, in the event any of our competitors were to develop their own product candidates that have a similar mechanism of action to any of our product candidates, any efficacy or safety concerns identified during the development of such similar product candidates may have an adverse impact on the development of our product candidates. For example, if our competitors’ product candidate having a similar mechanism of action as any of our product candidates is shown in clinical trials to give rise to serious safety concerns or have poor efficacy when administered to the target patient population, the FDA or other regulatory bodies may subject our product candidates to increased scrutiny, leading to additional delays in development and potentially decreasing the chance of ultimate approval of our product candidates.
Drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome. The preclinical studies, clinical trials and post-marketing studies of our product candidates may not demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities or otherwise produce positive results and the results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials may not be predictive of future results. We may incur additional costs or experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete, the development and commercialization of our product candidates.
Preclinical and clinical testing is expensive, difficult to design and implement, can take many years to complete and its ultimate outcome is uncertain. We cannot guarantee that any of our preclinical studies or clinical trials will be initiated, conducted or completed on schedule or as planned, or at all. Failure can occur at any stage of testing. Such failure may result from a multitude of factors, including, among other things, flaws in study design, dose selection issues, placebo effects, patient enrollment criteria, novel assay design and failure to demonstrate favorable safety or efficacy traits, which could delay or prevent the submission of an IND or clinical trial application, initiation of a clinical trial, receipt of marketing approval or our ability to commercialize our product candidates, or require us to suspended or terminate further development of our product candidates. Moreover, the outcome of preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later clinical trials. For example, our product candidates may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy in clinical development despite positive results in preclinical studies or having successfully advanced through initial clinical trials. As a result,we cannot assure you that any preclinical studies, clinical trials or post-marketing studies that we conduct will demonstrate consistent or adequate efficacy and safety to support marketing approval.
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Further, FDA and other regulatory authorities may implement new policies and regulations on clinical trials. For example, the EU Clinical Trials Regulation (CTR), which repealed the EU Clinical Trials Directive, became applicable on January 31, 2022, and provided a three-year transition period. The CTR streamlined the processes for applying for authorization and supervision of clinical trials in the EU. From January 31, 2025, any trials approved under the Clinical Trials Directive that continue running will need to comply with the CTR, and their sponsors must enter information on the trials in the Clinical Trials Information System. Trials we initiate in the United Kingdom are also subject to regulatory requirements and policies of the MHRA. Compliance with the CTR and/or MHRA requirements by us, our collaborators and third-party service providers, such as CROs, may increase our clinical trial costs and impact the timeline of our development plans. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in clinical trial requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies governing clinical trials, our development plans may be negatively impacted.
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, and we cannot be certain that we will not face similar setbacks. Moreover, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their drugs. This is particularly true for clinical trials in very rare diseases, such as with certain indications we are pursuing, where the very small patient population makes it difficult or impossible to conduct two traditional, adequate and well-controlled studies, and therefore the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities are often permitted to exercise flexibility in approving therapies for such diseases. Moreover, results acceptable to support approval in 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 or 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. Furthermore, the failure of any of our product candidates to demonstrate safety and efficacy in any clinical trial could negatively impact the perception of our other product candidates and/or cause the FDA or comparable regulatory authorities to require additional testing before approving any of our product candidates.
We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, preclinical studies, clinical trials or post-marketing studies that could delay or prevent receipt of marketing approval or our ability to commercialize our product candidates, including:
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inability to generate sufficient preclinical, toxicology, or other in vivo or in vitro data to support the initiation of clinical trials;
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delays in sufficiently developing, characterizing or controlling a manufacturing process suitable for clinical trials;
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receipt of feedback from regulatory authorities that requires us to modify the design of our preclinical or clinical trials;
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preclinical study or clinical trial observations or results that require us to modify the design of our clinical trials;
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negative or inconclusive preclinical study or clinical trial results that may require us to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials or abandon certain research and/or drug development programs;
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extended IRB, IBC and/or EC review process, or inability to obtain approval from one or more of these committees;
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the number of patients required for clinical trials being larger than anticipated, enrollment in these clinical trials being slower than anticipated, participants dropping out of these clinical trials at a higher rate than anticipated, or more patients failing to meet eligibility criteria than anticipated;
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any failure or delay in reaching an agreement with CROs and clinical trial sites;
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the suspension or termination of our clinical trials, as a result of a clinical hold by regulatory authorities or a voluntary pause, for various reasons, such as we experienced with MyPEAK-1;
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changes to clinical trial protocol;
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clinical sites deviating from trial protocol or dropping out of a trial;
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the costs and/or duration of preclinical studies or clinical trials being greater than anticipated;
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the supply or quality of our product candidates or other materials necessary to conduct clinical trials of our product candidates being insufficient or inadequate or slower than anticipated;
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subjects experiencing serious, severe, unexpected or otherwise important drug-related or study-related adverse effects;
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selection of clinical end points that require prolonged periods of clinical observation or analysis of the resulting data;
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inaccurate or untimely clinical data collection, entry, analysis or reporting by clinical sites, third-party contractors and/or CROs;
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variability of efficacy assessments;
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a facility manufacturing our product candidates or any of their components being ordered by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities to temporarily or permanently shut down due to violations of cGMPs, regulations or other applicable requirements, or infections or cross-contaminations of product candidates in the manufacturing process;
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any changes to our manufacturing process that may be necessary or desired;
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third-party clinical investigators losing the licenses or permits necessary to perform our clinical trials, not performing our clinical trials on our anticipated schedule or consistent with the clinical trial protocol, GCP or other regulatory requirements;
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third-party contractors becoming debarred or suspended or otherwise penalized by the FDA or other government or regulatory authorities for violations of regulatory requirements, in which case we may need to find a substitute contractor, and we may not be able to use some or all of the data produced by such contractors in support of our marketing applications;
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regulators revising the requirements for approving our product candidates;
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an unsuccessful post-marketing study or failure to complete such a study;
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absence in some countries of established groups with sufficient regulatory expertise for review of AAV gene therapy protocols; and
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the potential burden of complying with a variety of foreign laws, medical standards and regulatory requirements, including the regulation of pharmaceutical and biotechnology products and treatment.
To the extent we pursue any pediatric indications or expand any approved drug product labeling to include pediatric populations, we may face additional challenges associated with clinical testing in pediatric populations, which can increase our operational costs, delay regulatory approval and commercialization, or expose us to additional liability. For example, finding qualified clinical sites that have access to sufficient pediatric populations and that are interested in participating in our clinical trials may take more time than adult indications. There may be fewer eligible patients with the target genetic disorder or heart disease or condition applicable to our product candidate for our planned clinical trials. This may increase the time needed to enroll patients for our planned pediatric clinical trials, increase our clinical development timelines, delay approval for such pediatric indications, and increase our operational costs. We may also be required to modify the formulation or other aspects of the product candidate, as compared to the comparable product candidate intended for adult patient populations, make manufacturing changes, modify route of administration, and conduct additional clinical trials, such as bridging studies and additional safety studies before we can commence our clinical trials in pediatric populations. The FDA or other health authorities may require us to complete studies in adults prior to initiating testing in children. Any delays in our planned clinical development activities for pediatric patients could have an adverse effect on our business operations.
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If we are required to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials or other testing of our product candidates beyond those that we currently contemplate, if we are unable to successfully complete preclinical studies or clinical trials of our product candidates or other testing in a timely manner and if the results of these studies, trials or tests are not positive or are only modestly positive or if there are safety concerns, we may incur unplanned costs and be delayed in submitting an IND, initiating clinical trials or seeking and obtaining marketing approval. We may also decide to change the design or protocol of one or more of our planned clinical trials, which could result in increased costs and expenses and/or delays. Any delays in initiating or completing our preclinical studies or clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues, including by shortening any period during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our product candidates and permitting our competitors to bring products to market before we do. If we receive approval, it is possible that we may receive limited or restrictive marketing approval, be subject to additional post-marketing testing requirements or have the drug removed from the market after obtaining marketing approval.
Moreover, in the future, principal investigators for our clinical trials may serve as scientific advisors or consultants to us from time to time and receive compensation in connection with such services. Under certain circumstances, we may be required to report some of these relationships to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may conclude that a financial relationship between us and a principal investigator has created a conflict of interest or otherwise affected interpretation of the study. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may therefore question the integrity of the data generated at the applicable clinical trial site and the utility of the clinical trial itself may be jeopardized. This could result in a delay in approval, or rejection, of our marketing applications by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority, as the case may be, and may ultimately lead to the denial of marketing approval of one or more of our product candidates, which may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.
Our product candidates may cause serious adverse events, toxicities or other undesirable side effects when used alone or in combination with other approved products or investigational new drugs that may result in a safety profile that could delay or prevent regulatory approval or market acceptance, or even if approval is received, require them to be taken off the market, include new safety warnings, contraindications or precautions, or otherwise limit their commercial potential or result in significant negative consequences.
We are developing novel therapies for the treatment of heart disease. As a result, there is uncertainty as to the safety profile of product candidates we may develop. Patients in our clinical trials have suffered and may continue to suffer adverse events, including serious adverse events or other side effects, including those not observed in our preclinical studies or previous clinical trials. Patients treated with our product candidates may also be undergoing other therapies or procedures which can cause side effects or adverse events that are unrelated to our product candidates but may still impact the success of our clinical trials. The inclusion of critically ill patients in our clinical trials may result in deaths or other adverse medical events, either during the course of or after participating in such trials. These events may be due to one or more factors, including, without limitation, the underlying heart disease, other therapies or medications that such patients may be using, the drug product formulation of our product candidates, complications arising from protocol regimens, the method of delivery of our product candidates or other diseases the patients have. In some cases, it may not be clear if an adverse event is due to the product candidate, another therapy, the underlying disease, or another cause, and causality may be incorrectly attributed to the product candidate.
Serious adverse events or other side effects observed in any of our clinical trials, through our expanded access program, or in similar trials by other sponsors, may result in difficulty recruiting patients to the clinical trials, cause patients to drop out of our trials, or require that we abandon the trials or our development efforts of that product candidate altogether.
We, the FDA, EMA, other comparable regulatory authorities or an IRB may suspend clinical trials of a product candidate at any time for various reasons, including a belief that subjects in such trials are being exposed to unacceptable health risks or adverse side effects or that the expected benefit does not justify the risk. For example, in November 2025, we announced that the FDA placed MyPEAK-1 on clinical hold to request a protocol amendment, primarily to standardize activities related to patient monitoring and management of the immunosuppressive regimen across trial sites. While the hold was lifted after swift and collaborative engagement with the FDA, there is no assurance that it or any future hold on our clinical trials would not have a material adverse effect on our business or our data milestones or development timelines for TN-201 or other product candidates.
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Some potential therapeutics developed in the biotechnology industry that initially showed therapeutic promise in early-stage trials have later been found to cause side effects that prevented their further development. There is no guarantee that our product candidates will not have side effects similar to those seen in other gene therapies or that we will be able to prevent such side effects from escalating to an unsafe level for our patients. Even if the side effects do not preclude the product candidate from obtaining or maintaining marketing approval, undesirable side effects may inhibit market acceptance due to its tolerability versus other therapies, result in marketing approval with restrictive label warnings or for limited patient populations, or result in potential product liability claims. Any of these developments could materially harm our business, financial condition and prospects. Further, if any of our product candidates obtains marketing approval, toxicities associated with such product candidates previously not seen during clinical testing may also develop after such approval and lead to a requirement to conduct additional clinical safety trials, additional contraindications, warnings and precautions being added to the drug label, significant restrictions on the use of the product or the withdrawal of the product from the market. No regulatory agency has made any determination that any of our product candidates or discovery programs is safe or effective for use by the general public for any indication. We cannot predict whether our product candidates will cause toxicities in humans that would preclude regulatory approval, or if approved, lead to the revocation of regulatory approval based on preclinical studies or early-stage clinical trials.
The outcome of preclinical studies and early clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later clinical trials, and the results of our clinical trials may not satisfy the requirements of the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities.
We will be required to demonstrate with substantial evidence through well-controlled clinical trials that our product candidates are safe and effective for use in a diverse population before we can seek marketing approvals for their commercial sale. Success in preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials does not mean that future clinical trials will be successful. For instance, we do not know whether any of our product candidates will perform in our current or future preclinical studies or future clinical trials as it has in prior preclinical studies or earlier clinical trials. Product candidates in clinical trials may fail to demonstrate sufficient safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities despite having progressed through preclinical studies. Regulatory authorities may also limit the scope of later-stage trials until we have demonstrated satisfactory safety, which could delay regulatory approval, limit the size of the patient population to which we may market our product candidates, or prevent regulatory approval.
In some instances, there can be significant variability in safety and efficacy results between different clinical trials of the same product candidate due to numerous factors, including changes in trial protocols, differences in size and type of the patient populations, differences in and adherence to the dose and dosing regimen and other trial protocols and the rate of dropout among clinical trial participants. Patients treated with our product candidates may also be undergoing other therapies and may be using other approved products or investigational new drugs, which can cause side effects or adverse events that are unrelated to our product candidates. As a result, assessments of efficacy can vary widely for a particular patient, and from patient to patient and site to site within a clinical trial. This subjectivity can increase the uncertainty of, and adversely impact, our clinical trial outcomes and success in one trial does not ensure success in the next.
We do not know whether any clinical trials we may conduct will demonstrate consistent or adequate efficacy and safety sufficient to obtain approval to market any of our product candidates.
If we experience delays or difficulties in the enrollment and/or maintenance of patients in clinical trials, our regulatory submissions or receipt of necessary marketing approvals could be delayed or prevented.
We may not be able to initiate or continue clinical trials for our product candidates if we are unable to locate and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials to such trial’s conclusion. Patient enrollment and retention are significant factors in the timing of clinical trials and our ability to enroll eligible patients may be limited or slower than we anticipate.
We are developing product candidates for the treatment of heart disease, including for certain indications, such as rare genetic diseases, that have limited patient pools from which to draw for clinical trials. We also may encounter difficulties in identifying and enrolling patients with a stage of disease appropriate for our planned clinical trials and monitoring such subjects adequately during and after treatment. The process of finding and diagnosing patients may prove costly. Further, the treating physicians in our clinical trials may also use their medical discretion
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in advising patients enrolled in our clinical trials to withdraw from our studies to try alternative therapies. Patients also have the right to withdraw from our clinical trials for any reason. Enrollment may also be impacted by an IRB or ethics committee decision to pause or stop enrollment at a trial site, a DSMB recommendation to pause or stop trial enrollment, or a decision by a regulatory authority to pause or stop trial enrollment in a particular country. Additionally, the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require long-term follow-up assessments for a certain number of patients, which could delay marketing approval.
We also expect patient enrollment to be affected because our competitors have ongoing clinical trials for programs that are under development or are approved for the same indications as our product candidates, and patients who would otherwise be eligible for our clinical trials could instead enroll in clinical trials of our competitors’ programs or choose to take an approved medication. Patient enrollment for our clinical trials has been and may continue to be affected by other factors, including:
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size and nature of the patient population;
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the perceived risks and benefits of novel, unproven approaches;
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severity of the disease under investigation;
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availability and efficacy of approved drugs for the disease under investigation;
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ongoing clinical trials evaluating other product candidates in the same disease under investigation;
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patient eligibility criteria for the trial in question as defined in the protocol;
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perceived risks and benefits of the product candidate under study;
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regulatory actions, ongoing IRB and/or ethics committee decisions and DSMB recommendations;
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clinicians’ and patients’ perceptions as to the potential advantages of the product candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new products that may be approved or other product candidates being investigated for the indications we are investigating;
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public perception about the use of genetic medicines in human therapeutics or precision medicine;
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patient referral practices of physicians;
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challenges associated with recruiting eligible patients;
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the ability to monitor patients adequately during and after treatment;
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limited staff and resources at clinical trial sites, including support for clinical trial enrollment and the availability of hospital beds;
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the activities of key opinion leaders (KOLs) and patient advocacy groups;
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proximity and availability of clinical trial sites for prospective patients and the ability of patients to travel to these sites;
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the practical and financial burden of the trial protocol on patients, including conflicts with their work, family and personal activities, as well as travel costs, lodging, lost wages and insufficient reimbursement or support;
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delays in site activation, contracting and budget approvals;
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protocol amendments, reviews and approvals;
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the risk that patients enrolled in clinical trials will drop out of the trials before completion or, because they may have an advanced disease, will not survive the full terms of the clinical trials; and
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limitations on the rate of patient enrollment required by the clinical trial protocol, including those that may be requested by health authorities.
Our inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials would result in significant delays or may require us to abandon one or more clinical trials altogether. Enrollment delays in our clinical trials may result in increased development costs for our product candidates and jeopardize our ability to obtain marketing approval for
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the sale of our product candidates. Furthermore, even if we are able to enroll a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials, we may have difficulty maintaining participation in our clinical trials through the treatment and any follow-up periods.
Due to the significant resources required for the development of product candidates, and depending on our ability to access capital, we must prioritize development of certain programs and product candidates. Moreover, we may expend our limited resources on programs or product candidates that do not yield a successful product and fail to capitalize on product candidates or indications that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.
Due to the significant resources required for the development of product candidates, in particular our product candidates in clinical trials, we must decide which programs, product candidates and indications to pursue and advance the amount of resources to allocate to each. For example, in connection with our cost containment measures, we are prioritizing generating data from our MyPEAK-1 and RIDGE-1 clinical trials of TN-201 and TN-401, respectively. Our decisions concerning the allocation of research, development, collaboration, management and financial resources toward particular programs, product candidates or therapeutic areas may not lead to the development of any viable commercial product and may result in the diversion of resources away from better opportunities. Similarly, our potential decisions to delay, terminate or collaborate with third parties in respect of certain platforms, programs or product candidates may subsequently also prove to be less than optimal and could cause us to miss valuable opportunities. If we make incorrect assumptions and/or determinations regarding data emerging from our clinical trials, the viability or market potential of any of our programs or product candidates or misread trends in the biotechnology industry, in particular in the field of cardiology, our business could be seriously harmed. As a result, we may fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities, be required to forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other programs, product candidates or other diseases that may later prove to have greater commercial potential than those we choose to pursue, or relinquish valuable rights to our platforms or product candidates through collaboration, licensing or other royalty arrangements in cases in which it would have been advantageous for us to invest additional resources to retain sole development and commercialization rights.
We face significant competition and if our competitors develop and market technologies or products more rapidly than we do or that are more effective, safer or less expensive than the products we develop, our commercial opportunities will be negatively impacted.
The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are characterized by rapidly advancing technologies, intense competition and a strong emphasis on proprietary and novel products and product candidates. Our competitors have developed, are developing or may develop products, product candidates and processes competitive with our product candidates. Any product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize will compete with existing therapies and new therapies that may become available in the future. We believe that a significant number of products are currently under development, and may become commercially available in the future, for the treatment of conditions for which we may attempt to develop product candidates.
We have competitors both in the U.S. and internationally, including major multinational pharmaceutical companies, established biotechnology companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies, emerging and start-up companies, universities and other research institutions. We face competition in recruiting personnel, establishing clinical trial sites, enrolling subjects for clinical trials and in identifying and in-licensing new product candidates.
We expect to face competition from existing products and products in development for each of our programs and anticipate substantial direct competition from a variety of competitors. Many of these current and potential competitors have significantly greater financial, manufacturing, marketing, drug development, technical and human resources and commercial expertise than we do. Large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, in particular, have extensive experience in clinical testing, obtaining regulatory approvals, recruiting patients and manufacturing biotechnology products. These companies also have significantly greater research and marketing capabilities than we do and may also have products that have been approved or are in late stages of development, and collaborative arrangements in our target markets with leading companies and research institutions. Established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies may also invest heavily to accelerate discovery and development of novel compounds or to in-license novel compounds that could make the product candidates that we develop obsolete. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our
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programs. As a result of all of these factors, our competitors may succeed in obtaining approval from the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities or in discovering, developing and commercializing products in our field before we do.
Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer side effects, are more convenient, have a broader label, are marketed more effectively, are more widely reimbursed or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain marketing approval from the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. Due to the nature of gene therapy products, use of a competitor gene therapy product by a prospective patient may preclude use of our gene therapy product candidate at a later point in time. Even if the product candidates we develop achieve marketing approval, they may be priced at a significant premium over competitive products if any have been approved by then, resulting in reduced competitiveness. Technological advances or products developed by our competitors may render our technologies or product candidates obsolete, less competitive or not economical. If we are unable to compete effectively, our opportunity to generate revenue from the sale of our products we may develop, if approved, could be adversely affected.
Initial, interim and topline data from our clinical trials that we announce or publish may change as more patient 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 publicly disclose initial, interim or topline data from our clinical trials. These updates are based on a preliminary analysis of then-available data, and the results and related findings and conclusions are subject to change following availability of additional data and a more comprehensive review of the data related to the particular study or trial. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, and we may not have received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data. As a result, the initial, interim and/or topline results that we report may differ from future results of the same trials, or different conclusions or considerations may qualify such results, once additional data have been received and fully evaluated. Initial, interim and/or topline data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, initial, interim and topline data should be viewed with caution until the final data is available. In addition, we may report interim analyses of only certain endpoints rather than all endpoints. Initial and interim data 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. Adverse changes between initial and/or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business and prospects.
Further, others, including regulatory agencies, may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses, may do their own analyses, or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular product candidate 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 material or otherwise appropriate information to include in our disclosure. If the initial, interim or topline data that we report differ from late, final or actual results, or if others, including regulatory authorities, disagree with the conclusions reached, our ability to obtain approval for, and commercialize, our product candidates may be harmed, which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Gene therapies are novel, complex and difficult to manufacture. We could experience production problems that result in delays in development or commercialization of our product candidates, limit the supply of our products, if approved, or otherwise seriously harm our business.
Our gene therapy product candidates require processing steps that are more complex than those required for most chemical and protein pharmaceuticals. Moreover, unlike chemical pharmaceuticals, the physical and chemical properties of a biologic such as ours generally cannot be fully characterized. As a result, assays of the finished product may not be sufficient to ensure that the product will perform in the intended manner. Accordingly, we need to employ multiple steps to control our manufacturing process to ensure that the process works and the product candidate is made strictly and consistently in compliance with the process. Problems with the manufacturing
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process, even minor deviations from the normal process, including during the manufacture of drug substance, drug product, filling, labeling, packaging, storage, shipping, QC and testing and/or in connection with release assays, including potency assays, could result in product defects, lot failures, product recalls, product liability claims or insufficient inventory, and may ultimately disrupt or delay the supply of our product candidates.
Although some of our employees have experience in the manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products from prior employment at other companies, we as a company have limited experience in manufacturing and oversight of CDMOs conducting manufacturing activities on our behalf. We may also encounter problems hiring and retaining the experienced personnel needed to manage our complex manufacturing operations, including those outsourced to CDMOs. If we experience unanticipated employee shortage or turnover in any of these areas, we may not be able to maintain oversight of our QC, conduct further process improvements or meet our product development timelines; we may also experience difficulties in maintaining compliance with applicable regulatory requirements, which would impair our product development and commercialization efforts.
To date, our product candidates have been manufactured in quantities adequate for preclinical studies and our Phase 1b/2 clinical trials for our lead product candidates. We will need to manufacture product candidates in larger quantities for commercialization of the resulting product, if that product candidate is approved for sale, and we may need to manufacture more product to conduct later-stage clinical trials. We may not be able to successfully repeat or increase the manufacturing capacity for any of our product candidates in a timely or cost-effective manner or at all. Significant changes or scale-up of manufacturing may require additional validation studies, which are costly and which regulatory authorities must review and approve. In addition, quality issues may arise during those changes or scale-up activities.
As product candidates progress through preclinical studies and clinical trials to marketing 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 yield and manufacturing batch size, minimize costs and achieve consistent quality and results. Such changes carry the risk that they will not achieve these intended objectives. Any of these changes could cause our product candidates to perform differently and affect the results of planned clinical trials or other future clinical trials conducted with the altered materials. 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 commercialize our product candidates, if approved, and generate revenue. Moreover, if we choose to transfer manufacturing activities for our clinical-stage gene therapy programs to a CDMO, we may also be required to conduct additional studies to ensure comparability, notify and submit additional filings to regulatory authorities, and obtain regulatory authority approval for the new facilities, which may be delayed or never received. While the manufacturing process alone is complex, quality issues may also arise during drug product filling, labeling, packaging, storage, shipping and ongoing QC and testing activities.
If we are unable to successfully manufacture any of our product candidates in sufficient quality and quantity, the development of that product candidate and regulatory approval or commercial launch for any resulting products may be delayed or there may be a shortage in supply, which could significantly harm our business.
The manufacture of our product candidates will be subject to significant government regulations and approvals, which are often costly and could result in adverse consequences to our business if we or our CDMO’s fail to comply with the regulations or maintain the approvals.
We will need to comply with the FDA’s and applicable foreign regulatory authorities’ cGMP requirements for the production of product candidates for clinical trials and, if approved, commercial supply. We and our CDMOs will be subject to inspections by the FDA and comparable agencies in other jurisdictions to confirm compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. These requirements include the qualification and validation of manufacturing equipment and processes. Any failure to follow cGMP or other regulatory requirements or delay, interruption or other issues that arise in the manufacture of our product candidates as a result of a failure of our facilities or the facilities or operations of our CDMOs or third-party suppliers to comply with regulatory requirements or pass any regulatory authority inspection could significantly impair our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates, including leading to significant delays in the availability of our product candidates for our clinical trials or the termination or hold on a clinical trial, or the delay or prevention of a filing or approval of marketing applications for our product candidates. Significant non-compliance could also result in the imposition of sanctions, including fines, injunctions, civil penalties, failure of regulatory authorities to grant marketing approvals for our
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product candidates, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could damage our reputation. If we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may not be permitted to market our product candidates and/or may be subject to product recalls, seizures, injunctions, or criminal prosecution. Furthermore, regulatory requirements for the manufacturing of genetic medicines may change over time. Our failure to comply with such changes could have a material impact on the manufacturing costs for our product candidates, delay our planned preclinical and clinical trial timelines and/or preclude regulatory approval of our product candidates.
Our product candidates may not achieve adequate market acceptance among physicians, patients, healthcare payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.
Even if our product candidates receive regulatory approval, they may not gain adequate market acceptance among physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. If we are unable to demonstrate sufficient safety or efficacy to permit a broader use of our product candidates, we may not generate significant product revenue and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of any of our approved product candidates will depend on a number of factors, including:
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the efficacy and safety profile as demonstrated in clinical trials compared to alternative treatments;
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perceived safety and efficacy profile and ease of use for pediatric patient population if approved for a pediatric indication;
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the timing of market introduction of the product candidate as well as competitive products;
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the clinical indications for which a product candidate is approved;
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restrictions on the use of product candidates in the labeling approved by regulatory authorities, such as boxed warnings or contraindications in labeling, or a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, if any, which may not be required of alternative treatments and competitor products;
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physicians, hospitals, treatment centers and patients considering our product candidates a safe, pure and effective treatment;
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the perceived prevalence and severity of any side effects for our product candidates compared to the prevalence and severity of any side effects for conventional products and other gene therapies;
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the potential and perceived advantages of our product candidates over alternative treatments;
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the cost of treatment in relation to alternative treatments;
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relative convenience and ease of administration;
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the willingness of the target patient population or their caregivers to try new therapies and of physicians to prescribe these therapies;
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the size of the relevant pediatric patient population if approved for a pediatric indication, including challenges associated with diagnosing or identifying pediatric populations with the applicable target disease or condition;
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the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement by third-party payors, including government authorities;
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patients’ willingness to pay for these therapies in the absence of such coverage and adequate reimbursement;
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the effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts;
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support from KOLs and patient advocacy groups;
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negative public perception about the use of genetic medicines, whether related to our technology or our competitor’s technology;
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unfavorable publicity relating to our product candidates;
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the approval of other new therapies for the same indications; and
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the acceptance and use of genetic testing required to diagnose the disease and identify patients who qualify for treatment with our product candidates.
If any of our product candidates are approved but do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance by physicians, hospitals, healthcare payors and patients, we may not generate or derive sufficient revenue from that product candidate and our financial results could be negatively impacted.
The limited number of patients who have the diseases for which our product candidates are being developed may make it more difficult for us to enroll or complete clinical trials or may result in findings in our clinical trials that do not reach levels of statistical significance sufficient for marketing approval. Even if such product candidates achieve marketing approval, because such target patient populations are small and the addressable patient population may be even smaller, we must be able to successfully identify patients and capture a significant market share to achieve profitability and growth.
Some of the indications for which we plan to evaluate our product candidates in clinical trials are rare genetic diseases. Accordingly, there are limited patient pools from which to draw for clinical trials. In addition to the rarity of these diseases, the eligibility criteria of our planned clinical trials will further limit the pool of available study participants as we will require that patients have specific characteristics that we can measure to assure their disease is either severe enough or not too advanced to include them in a trial. Moreover, the effort to identify patients with diseases we seek to treat is in early stages, and we cannot accurately predict the number of patients for whom treatment might be possible. We may not be able to initiate or continue clinical trials on a timely basis or at all for our product candidates if we are unable to locate and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in the trials as required by applicable regulations or as needed to provide appropriate statistical power for a given trial. Similarly, because some of the conditions we intend to treat are rare in nature, we plan to design and conduct clinical trials utilizing a small number of patients in order to evaluate the safety and therapeutic activity of our product candidates. Conducting trials in smaller subject populations increases the risk that any safety or efficacy issues observed in only a few patients could prevent such trials from reaching statistical significance or otherwise meeting their specified endpoints, which could require us to conduct additional clinical trials, or delay or prevent our product candidates from receiving regulatory approval, which would seriously harm our business.
Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for our product candidates may be limited or may not be amenable to treatment with our product candidates, and new patients may become increasingly difficult to identify or gain access to, which would adversely affect our results of operations and our business. Further, even if we obtain significant market share for our product candidates, because the potential target populations are very small, we may never achieve profitability despite obtaining such significant market share.
Any product candidates we develop may become subject to unfavorable third-party coverage and reimbursement practices, as well as pricing regulations.
The availability and extent of coverage and adequate reimbursement by third-party payors including government health administration authorities, private health coverage insurers, managed care organizations and other third-party payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford expensive treatments. The indications we are initially pursuing for our gene therapy product candidates have small patient populations. For product candidates that are designed to treat smaller patient populations to be commercially viable, the reimbursement for such product candidates must be higher, on a relative basis, to account for the lack of volume. Accordingly, we will need to implement a coverage and reimbursement strategy for any approved product candidate that accounts for the smaller potential market size.
Sales of any of our product candidates that receive marketing approval will depend substantially, both in the U.S. and internationally, on the extent to which the costs of such product candidates will be covered and reimbursed by third-party payors. If reimbursement is not available, or is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize our product candidates. Even if coverage is provided, the approved reimbursement amount may not be high enough to allow us to establish or maintain pricing sufficient to realize an adequate return on our investment. Coverage and reimbursement may impact the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval. If coverage and reimbursement are not available or reimbursement is available only to limited levels, we may not successfully commercialize any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval.
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There is significant uncertainty related to third-party payor coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products. In the U.S., for example, principal decisions about reimbursement for new products are typically made by CMS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CMS decides whether and to what extent a new product will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare, and private third-party payors often follow CMS’s decisions regarding coverage and reimbursement to a substantial degree. However, one third-party payor’s determination to provide coverage for a product candidate does not assure that other payors will also provide coverage for the product candidate or at the same level of reimbursement. As a result, the coverage determination process is often time-consuming and costly. This process will require us to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of our products to each third-party payor separately, with no assurance that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be applied consistently or obtained in the first instance.
Increasingly, third-party payors are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for medical products. Further, such payors are increasingly challenging the price, examining the medical necessity and reviewing the cost effectiveness of medical product candidates. There may be especially significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs. Third-party payors may limit coverage to specific product candidates on an approved list, known as a formulary, which might not include all FDA-approved drugs for a particular indication. We may need to conduct expensive pharmaco-economic studies to demonstrate the medical necessity and cost effectiveness of our products. Nonetheless, our product candidates may not be considered medically necessary or cost effective. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for any product that we commercialize and, if reimbursement is available, what the level of reimbursement will be.
Outside the U.S., the commercialization of therapeutics is generally subject to extensive governmental price controls and other market regulations, and we believe the increasing emphasis on cost containment initiatives in Europe, Canada and other countries has and will continue to put pressure on the pricing and usage of therapeutics such as our product candidates. In many countries, particularly the countries of the EU, medical product prices are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. In these countries, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after a product receives marketing approval. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our product candidate to other available therapies. In general, product prices under such systems are substantially lower than in the U.S. Other countries allow companies to fix their own prices for products but monitor and control company profits. Additional foreign price controls or other changes in pricing regulation could restrict the amount that we are able to charge for our product candidates. Accordingly, in markets outside the U.S., the reimbursement for our products may be reduced compared with the U.S. and may be insufficient to generate commercially reasonable revenue and profits.
If we are unable to establish or sustain coverage and adequate reimbursement for any product candidates from third-party payors, the adoption of those products and sales revenue will be adversely affected, which, in turn, could adversely affect the ability to market or sell those product candidates, if approved. Coverage policies and third-party payor reimbursement rates may change at any time. Even if favorable coverage and reimbursement status is attained for one or more products for which we receive regulatory approval, less favorable coverage policies and reimbursement rates may be implemented in the future.
Our business entails a significant risk of product liability and if we are unable to obtain sufficient insurance coverage, such inability could have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition. If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our products.
Our business exposes us to significant product liability risks inherent in the development, testing, manufacturing and marketing of therapeutic treatments. We have limited product liability insurance. Any insurance we have or may obtain may not provide sufficient coverage against potential liabilities. As clinical trial and product liability insurance becomes increasingly expensive, we may be unable to obtain sufficient insurance at a reasonable cost to protect us against losses caused by product liability claims that could have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition. Also, our insurance policies may have various exclusions, and we may be subject to a product liability claim for which we have no coverage. We may have to pay any amounts awarded by a court or negotiated in a settlement that exceed our coverage limitations or that are not covered by our insurance, and we may not have, or be able to obtain, sufficient capital to pay such amounts. Even if our agreements with any future
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collaborators entitle us to indemnification against losses, such indemnification may not be available or adequate should any claim arise.
We may be sued if any of our product candidates or any medications, procedures or activities associated with our clinical trial protocols or our expanded access program cause or are perceived to cause injury, or if our product candidates are found to be otherwise unsuitable during clinical testing, manufacturing, marketing, or sale post-approval. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the protocol or product, negligence, strict liability, or a breach of warranties. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection laws. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability claims, we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit testing and commercialization of our products. Even a successful defense would require significant financial and management resources.
Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:
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delays in the development of our product candidates;
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FDA, EMA or other regulatory authority investigation of the safety and effectiveness of our products, our manufacturing processes and the facilities used to manufacture our products or our marketing programs;
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decreased or interrupted demand for our products;
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injury to our reputation;
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withdrawal of clinical trial participants and inability to continue clinical trials;
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costs to defend the related litigation;
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a diversion of management’s time and our resources;
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substantial monetary awards to trial participants or patients;
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product recalls, withdrawals or labeling, marketing, or promotional restrictions;
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loss of revenue;
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inability to raise capital or enter into strategic agreements for the development of our product candidates;
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exhaustion of any available insurance and our capital resources; and
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the inability to commercialize any products.
Risks Related to Regulatory Approval and Other Legal Compliance Matters
The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities are lengthy, time consuming and inherently unpredictable. If we are ultimately unable to obtain regulatory approval of our product candidates, we will be unable to generate product revenue and our business will be substantially harmed.
Our product candidates are and will continue to be subject to extensive governmental regulations relating to, among other things, research, testing, development, manufacturing, safety, efficacy, approval, recordkeeping, reporting, labeling, storage, packaging, advertising and promotion, pricing, marketing, distribution and orphan exclusivity of drugs. Rigorous preclinical testing and clinical trials and an extensive regulatory approval process must be successfully completed in the U.S. and in many foreign jurisdictions before a new drug can be approved for marketing. Obtaining approval by the FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities is costly, unpredictable, typically takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the type, complexity and novelty of the product candidates involved and the availability of alternative therapies. In addition, approval policies, regulations or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions, which may cause delays in the approval or the decision not to approve an application. Regulatory
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authorities have substantial discretion in the approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our data are insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other data.
We cannot provide assurance that any of the product candidates we develop will progress through required clinical testing and obtain the regulatory approvals necessary for us to begin selling them. Applications for our product candidates could be delayed or fail to receive regulatory approval for many reasons, including the following:
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with the design, implementation or results of our clinical trials;
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may refuse to accept an application or decide not to accept data from our clinical trials conducted in locations outside of their jurisdiction;
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may determine that our product candidates are not safe and effective, are only moderately effective or have undesirable or unintended side effects, toxicities or other characteristics that preclude our obtaining marketing approval or prevent or limit commercial use;
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the population studied in the clinical trial may not be sufficiently broad or representative to assure efficacy and safety in the full population for which we seek approval;
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data from preclinical studies or clinical trials;
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require that we conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials;
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we may be unable to demonstrate to the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities that our product candidate’s risk-benefit ratio for its proposed indication is acceptable;
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may fail to approve the manufacturing processes, test procedures and specifications or facilities of CDMOs and or third-party manufacturers with which we contract for clinical and commercial supplies;
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the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may fail to approve companion diagnostic tests required for commercialization of our product candidates; and
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the approval policies or regulations of the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may significantly change in a manner rendering our clinical data insufficient for approval.
This lengthy approval process, as well as the unpredictability of the results of clinical trials, may result in our failing to obtain regulatory approval to market any of our product candidates, which would significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects. Any delay or failure in seeking or obtaining required approvals would have a material and adverse effect on our ability to generate revenue from any particular product candidates we are developing and for which we are seeking approval.
Further, under the current leadership at the HHS, layoffs due to the reduction in force initiative and other measures implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency, agency staff departures, and lapse of government appropriations can impact the normal operations of the FDA as well as other federal agencies. The FDA may lack adequate staff and resources to meet current review, approval, and inspection schedules, which could delay our anticipated timelines. It is unclear how our industry and our clinical programs will be impacted by policies, regulations and initiatives implemented under the current administration and FDA commissioner, or other executive orders. There is significant uncertainty in the industry and how federal agencies like the FDA will change in the coming years under the current administration. To the extent the agency reorganization and other agency changes lead to disruptions in FDA’s operations, our correspondence and regulatory review processes with the FDA may be materially delayed.
Obtaining and maintaining regulatory approval of our product candidates in one jurisdiction does not mean that we will be successful in obtaining regulatory approval of our product candidates in other jurisdictions.
If the FDA or EMA grants marketing approval of a product candidate, other comparable regulatory authorities in foreign jurisdictions must still approve the manufacturing, marketing and promotion and reimbursement of the
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product candidate in those countries. A failure or delay in obtaining regulatory approval in one jurisdiction may have a negative effect on the regulatory approval process in others. Approval procedures vary among jurisdictions and can involve requirements and administrative review periods different from those in the U.S., including additional preclinical studies or clinical trials as clinical trials conducted in one jurisdiction may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions outside the U.S., a product candidate must be approved for reimbursement before it can be approved for sale in that jurisdiction.
Obtaining foreign regulatory approvals and establishing and maintaining compliance with foreign regulatory requirements could result in significant delays, difficulties and costs for us and could delay or prevent the introduction of our products in certain countries. If we or any future collaborator fail to comply with the regulatory requirements in international markets or fail to receive applicable marketing approvals, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of our potential product candidates will be harmed.
Even if our product candidates receive regulatory approval, such approval may be for a narrower indication than we seek, and our product candidates will be subject to significant post-marketing regulatory requirements and oversight.
Even if we eventually complete clinical testing and receive approval for our product candidates, the FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may approve our product candidates for a more limited indication or a narrower patient population than we originally requested or may impose other prescribing limitations or warnings that limit the product’s commercial potential. Furthermore, any regulatory approval to market a drug may be subject to significant limitations on the approved uses or indications for which we may market, promote and advertise the drug or the labeling or other restrictions. The regulatory authorities may require precautions or contra-indications with respect to conditions of use or they may grant approval subject to the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials. In addition, the FDA has the authority to require a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy plan as part of approving a NDA or biologics license application, or after approval, which may impose further requirements or restrictions on the distribution or use of an approved drug. These requirements or restrictions might include limiting prescribing to certain physicians or medical centers that have undergone specialized training, limiting treatment to patients who meet certain safe-use criteria and requiring treated patients to enroll in a registry. Any of the foregoing scenarios could materially harm the commercial prospects for our product candidates and materially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects, and may significantly limit the size of the market for the drug and affect reimbursement by third-party payors.
In addition, if the FDA, EMA or other foreign regulatory authorities approve our product candidates, the manufacturing processes, labeling, packaging, distribution, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion, import, export and recordkeeping for our product candidates will be subject to extensive and ongoing regulatory requirements. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, registration, as well as on-going compliance with cGMP and GCP for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval. Manufacturers of drug products and the facilities where the products are manufactured are also subject to continual review and periodic, unannounced inspections by the FDA and other regulatory authorities for compliance with cGMP regulations and standards. If we or a regulatory agency discover previously unknown problems with a product, such as adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or problems with the facilities where the product is manufactured, a regulatory agency may impose restrictions on that product, the manufacturing facility or us, including requiring recall or withdrawal of the product from the market or suspension of manufacturing. In addition, failure to comply with FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory requirements may subject our company to administrative or judicially imposed sanctions, including:
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delays in or the rejection of product approvals;
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restrictions on our ability to conduct clinical trials, including full or partial clinical holds on ongoing or planned trials;
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restrictions on the products, manufacturers or manufacturing process;
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warning or untitled letters;
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civil and criminal penalties;
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injunctions;
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suspension or withdrawal of regulatory approvals;
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product seizures, detentions or import bans;
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voluntary or mandatory product recalls and publicity requirements;
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total or partial suspension of production; and
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imposition of restrictions on operations, including costly new manufacturing requirements.
The occurrence of any event or penalty described above may inhibit our ability to commercialize our product candidates, if approved, and generate revenue. Furthermore, non-compliance by us or any future collaborator with regulatory requirements, including safety monitoring and with requirements related to the development of products for the pediatric population can also result in significant financial penalties.
To the extent we obtain orphan drug and other designations from the FDA for our product candidates, we may not realize the full benefits of such designations. Further, orphan drug exclusivity may not prevent the FDA, EMA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities, from approving competing products.
Regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions, including the U.S. and the EU, may designate drugs for relatively small patient populations as orphan drugs. Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may designate a product as an orphan drug if it is a drug intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which is generally defined as a patient population of fewer than 200,000 individuals annually in the U.S., or a patient population greater than 200,000 in the U.S. where there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing the drug will be recovered from sales in the U.S. Similarly, in the EU, the EC, upon the recommendation of the EMA’s Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products, grants orphan drug designation to promote the development of drugs that are intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of life-threatening or chronically debilitating conditions affecting not more than five in 10,000 persons in Europe and for which no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention, or treatment has been authorized (or the product would be a significant benefit to those affected). Additionally, designation is granted for drugs intended for the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of a life-threatening, seriously debilitating or serious and chronic condition. In the EU, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as reduction of fees or fee waivers and without incentives, it is unlikely that sales of the drug in Europe would be sufficient to justify the necessary investment in developing the drug.
In the U.S., orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as opportunities for grant funding towards clinical trial costs, tax advantages and user-fee waivers. In addition, if a product that has orphan drug designation subsequently receives the first FDA approval for the disease for which it has such designation, the product is entitled to orphan drug exclusivity. Orphan drug exclusivity in the U.S. provides that the FDA may not approve any other applications, including a full NDA, to market the same drug for the same indication for seven years, except in limited circumstances. In view of the court decision in the Catalyst Pharms., Inc. v. Becerra, 14 F.4th 1299 (11thCir. 2021) case, in a January 2023 notice, the FDA clarified that while the agency complies with the court’s order in Catalyst, the FDA intends to continue to apply its longstanding interpretation of the regulations to matters outside of the scope of the Catalyst order. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, signed into law in February 2026, codified this longstanding FDA interpretation of the Orphan Drug Act, allowing the FDA to approve multiple versions of the same orphan drug for different subindications and subpopulations. The applicable exclusivity period for an orphan drug is ten years in the EU. The EU orphan exclusivity period can be reduced to six years if a drug no longer meets the criteria for orphan drug designation or if the drug is sufficiently profitable so that market exclusivity is no longer justified.
Under the Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher program, a sponsor who receives an approval for a drug or biological product for a rare pediatric disease may qualify for a voucher that can be redeemed to receive priority review for a different product. The sponsor may also transfer or sell the voucher to another sponsor. FDA awards rare pediatric disease priority review vouchers to sponsors of rare pediatric disease products that are approved and meet certain criteria, including a product candidate intended to treat a manifestation of a serious or life-threatening disease or condition in children aged 0 through 18 years of age. The rare pediatric disease priority review program has been extended by Congress through September 2029 under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, which means the FDA may not award any priority review vouchers under this program after September 30, 2029. There is no guarantee that any of our product candidates will be approved by that date, or at all. We may
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not obtain a priority review voucher prior to expiration of the program, unless Congress further reauthorizes the program.
Our lead product candidates from our gene therapy platform, TN-201 and TN-401, have each been granted orphan drug designation by the FDA and the EC, and we may seek orphan drug designation for other product candidates in the U.S., Europe and other jurisdictions. TN-201 has also received rare pediatric disease designation from the FDA for MYBPC3-associated HCM. We may not be able to maintain orphan drug exclusivity for our product candidates and may not realize all the benefits of the orphan drug designation and the rare pediatric disease designation. Receiving these designations does not change FDA’s standards for regulatory approval of our product candidates and may not lead to faster regulatory review of any product candidate or increase the likelihood that any product candidate will receive marketing approval, if at all. We may seek orphan drug designation for other product candidates in the U.S., Europe and other jurisdictions, however, there can be no assurances that we will be able to obtain orphan drug designation for our other product candidates.
We may not be the first to obtain marketing approval of any product candidate for which we have obtained orphan drug designation for the orphan-designated indication, in which case we could be precluded from receiving marketing approval for our product candidate for the applicable exclusivity period. In addition, exclusive marketing rights in the U.S. may be limited if we seek approval for an indication broader than the orphan-designated indication or may be lost if the FDA later determines that the request for designation was materially defective or if we are unable to ensure that we will be able to manufacture sufficient quantities of the product to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition. Further, even if we obtain orphan drug exclusivity for a product, that exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from competition because different drugs with different active moieties may be approved for the same condition. Even after an orphan drug is approved, the FDA can subsequently approve the same drug with the same active moiety for the same condition if the FDA concludes that the later drug is clinically superior in that it is shown to be safer, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care or the manufacturer of the product with orphan exclusivity is unable to maintain sufficient product quantity. Orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug nor gives the product candidate any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process or entitles the product candidate to priority review.
We may face difficulties from changes to current FDA and healthcare regulations and future legislation.
Existing regulatory policies may change, and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay regulatory approval of our product candidates. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may lose any marketing approval that we may have obtained, and we may not achieve or sustain profitability.
We also cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative or executive action, either in the U.S. or abroad. For example, certain policies of the current U.S. administration may impact our business and industry, which could impose significant burdens on, or otherwise materially delay, the FDA’s ability to engage in routine regulatory and oversight activities such as implementing statutes through rulemaking, issuance of guidance, and review and approval of marketing applications. It is difficult to predict how current and future legislation, executive actions, and litigation, including the executive orders referenced below, will be implemented, and the extent to which they will impact our business, our clinical development, and the FDA’s and other agencies’ ability to exercise their regulatory authority, including FDA’s pre-approval inspection and timely review of any regulatory filings or applications we submit to the FDA. If these executive actions impose constraints on the FDA’s ability to engage in oversight and implementation activities in the normal course or constraints on our business operations, including operations of our contractors, our business may be negatively impacted.
In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Chevron doctrine, which gives deference to regulatory agencies’ statutory interpretations in litigation against federal government agencies, such as the FDA, where the law is ambiguous. This landmark Supreme Court decision may invite more companies and other stakeholders to bring lawsuits against the FDA to challenge longstanding decisions and policies of the FDA, including FDA’s statutory interpretations of market exclusivities and the “substantial evidence” requirements for drug approvals, which could undermine the FDA’s authority, lead to uncertainties in the industry, and disrupt the FDA’s normal operations, any of which could delay the FDA’s review of our regulatory submissions. Further, under the new leadership at the HHS
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under the current U.S. presidential administration, agency reorganization, mass layoffs due to the reduction in force initiative and other measures implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency may impact the normal operations of the FDA as well as other federal agencies. The FDA may lack adequate staff and resources to meet current review, approval, and inspection schedules, which could delay our anticipated timelines. To the extent the agency reorganization and other agency changes lead to disruptions in FDA’s operations, our correspondence and regulatory review processes with the FDA may be materially delayed.
The pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. has also been significantly impacted by other major legislative initiatives. Under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the statutory cap on Medicaid Drug Rebate Program rebates that manufacturers pay to state Medicaid programs was eliminated. Elimination of this cap may require pharmaceutical manufacturers to pay more in rebates than it receives on the sale of products, which could have a material impact on our business. In August 2022, Congress passed the IRA, which includes prescription drug provisions that have significant implications for the pharmaceutical industry and Medicare beneficiaries, including allowing the federal government to negotiate a maximum fair price for certain high-priced single source Medicare drugs, imposing penalties and excise tax for manufacturers that fail to comply with the drug price negotiation requirements, requiring inflation rebates for all Medicare Part B and Part D drugs, with limited exceptions, if their drug prices increase faster than inflation, and redesigning Medicare Part D to reduce out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for beneficiaries, among other changes. Various stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, have initiated lawsuits against the federal government asserting that the price negotiation provisions of the IRA are unconstitutional. Further, the current administration has issued executive orders focused on decreasing prescription drug prices, including directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a mechanism through which American patients can buy drugs directly from manufacturers who sell at a most-favored-nation price and directing the U.S. Trade Representative and Secretary of Commerce to take action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States. In September and October 2025, the government announced the first agreements with two major pharmaceutical companies to bring American drug prices in line with the lowest paid by other developed nations, requiring the companies to offer medicines at a deep discount off the list price when selling directly to American patients. Such agreements and other government measures that use most-favored-nation pricing targets for prescription drugs, including the use of international pricing reference to set drug prices in the United States, or increases generic and biosimilar drug entry sooner than expected, that can have a material adverse effect on our industry, ability to set adequate pricing for new drugs to recover R&D costs, ability to attract potential investors and potential buyers in the future. We cannot predict the full impact of the executive orders focused on reducing prescription drug prices or increasing domestic drug manufacturing capacity, or other measures that may be implemented by the current administration related to drug pricing, drug supply chain and manufacturing in the United States. The impact of ongoing and future judicial challenges as well as future legislative, executive, and administrative actions and any future healthcare measures and agency rules implemented by the current administration on us and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole is unclear. Further, changes to the leadership of federal agencies under the current administration, as well as new policies, executive orders and actions, such as a freeze on hiring, return-to-office policy, and a freeze on implementing new regulations and on external communications, may impact normal operations of the FDA and other agencies or result in a material impact on our clinical development plans and timelines. The implementation of cost containment measures, including the prescription drug provisions under the IRA, as well as other healthcare reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability, or commercialize our product candidates if approved.
At the state level, legislatures have increasingly passed legislation and implemented regulations designed to control pharmaceutical product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing. A number of states are considering or have recently enacted state drug price transparency and reporting laws that could substantially increase our compliance burdens and expose us to greater liability under such state laws once we begin commercialization after obtaining regulatory approval for any of our products. We are unable to predict the future course of federal or state healthcare legislation in the U.S. directed at broadening the availability of healthcare and containing or lowering the cost of healthcare. These and any further changes in the law or regulatory framework that reduce our revenue or increase our costs could also have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We expect that the ACA, as well as other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and in additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any
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approved product. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. The implementation of cost containment measures or other healthcare reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability or commercialize our product candidates.
Legislative and regulatory proposals have been made to expand post-approval requirements and restrict sales and promotional activities for biotechnology products. We cannot be sure whether additional legislative changes will be enacted, or whether FDA regulations, guidance or interpretations will be changed, or what the impact of such changes on the marketing approvals of our product candidates, if any, may be. In addition, increased scrutiny by Congress of the FDA’s approval process may significantly delay or prevent marketing approval, as well as subject us to more stringent product labeling and post-marketing testing and other requirements.
We are subject to stringent laws, rules, regulations, policies, industry standards and contractual obligations regarding data privacy and security and may be subject to additional related laws and regulations in jurisdictions into which we expand. Many of these laws and regulations are subject to change and reinterpretation and could result in claims, changes to our business practices, monetary penalties, increased cost of operations or other harm to our business.
The regulatory framework for privacy and personal information security issues worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. The U.S. federal and various state, local and foreign government bodies and agencies have adopted or are considering adopting laws, rules, regulations and standards limiting, or laws, rules, regulations and standards regarding, the collection, distribution, use, disclosure, storage, transfer, security and other processing of personal information.
Outside of the U.S., we are subject to extensive legal requirements relating to privacy, data protection, security and the collection, distribution, use, disclosure, storage, transfer and other processing of personal data. For example, the collection and use of health data and other personal data, including personal data collected in clinical trials, is governed in the EU by the GDPR, which imposes substantial obligations upon companies and provides rights for individuals, and by certain EU member state-level legislation. The GDPR also forms part of the law of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by virtue of section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and as amended by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/419), known as UK GDPR. Failure to comply with the GDPR or UK GDPR may result in fines up to €20,000,000 (£17.5 million in the UK) or 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, and other administrative penalties. The GDPR or UK GDPR impose significant responsibility and expose us to potential liability in relation to personal data that we may process, and we may be required to implement additional measures in an effort to comply with the GDPR and UK GDPR or with other laws, rules, regulations and standards in the EEA, UK and Switzerland relating to privacy and data protection. This may be onerous and if our efforts to comply with GDPR and UK GDPR or other applicable laws, rules, regulations and standards are not successful, or are perceived to be unsuccessful, it could adversely affect our business. Further, restrictions on the transfer of personal data from the EEA, UK, Switzerland or other jurisdictions to the U.S. or other regions, could restrict our activities in those jurisdictions, limit our ability to provide our products and services in those jurisdictions, require us to modify our policies and practices, and to engage in additional contractual negotiations, or increase our costs and obligations and impose limitations upon our ability to efficiently transfer personal data to the U.S. In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and similar provincial laws impose obligations on companies with respect to processing personal information, including health-related information, regarding Canadian data subjects and provides individuals certain rights with respect to such information, including the right to access and challenge the accuracy of their personal information held by an organization. Failure to comply with PIPEDA, where applicable, could result in fines and penalties.
In the U.S., a variety of laws, rules, regulations and standards relating to privacy, data protection, security, and the distribution, use, disclosure, storage, transfer and other processing of data potentially may apply to our activities, such as state data breach notification laws, state personal data privacy laws, for example, the CCPA, state health information privacy laws, and federal and state consumer protection laws. The CCPA requires covered businesses that process personal information of California residents to disclose their data collection, use, sharing and retention practices, provides California residents with data privacy rights (including the ability to opt out of certain disclosures of personal information including for certain advertising purposes), imposes operational requirements for covered businesses, provides for significant civil penalties for violations as well as a private right of action for certain data breaches and statutory damages (that is expected to increase data breach class action litigation and result in
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significant exposure to costly legal judgments and settlements). Although there are limited exemptions for clinical trial data under the CCPA and certain other state laws, the CCPA and other new and evolving state laws could impact our business activities, depending on their interpretation. Numerous other states have enacted laws relating to privacy and data security that either are in operation or slated to go into operation over the next several years. In many cases, these laws are comprehensive privacy laws similar to the CCPA, with potentially greater penalties and more rigorous compliance requirements.
States also are enacting laws addressing specific subject matter, such as Washington’s My Health, My Data Act, which includes a private right of action. Laws in all 50 states may require businesses to provide notice to individuals whose personal data has been disclosed as a result of a data breach. The U.S. government also has instituted rules, effective April 8, 2025, that prohibit or restrict transactions involving certain types and amounts of sensitive data between U.S. persons and foreign persons associated with specific countries of concern. Among other things, these new rules require U.S. businesses to seek assurances from certain foreign parties with which they share sensitive data (under certain types of agreements) that those parties will not further share that data with parties in countries of concern. Finally, federal, state and foreign laws, rules, regulations and standards may apply generally to the privacy and security of information we maintain, and may differ from each other significantly, thus complicating compliance efforts and potentially requiring us to undertake additional measures to comply with them.
With the GDPR, PIPEDA, CCPA, and other laws, regulations and other obligations relating to privacy, data protection and security imposing new and relatively burdensome obligations, and with substantial uncertainty over the interpretation and application of these laws, regulations and other obligations, we may face challenges in addressing their requirements and making necessary changes to our policies and practices, and may incur significant costs and expenses in an effort to do so.
We make public statements about our use, collection, disclosure and other processing of personal data through our privacy policies, information provided on our website and press statements. Although we endeavor to comply with our public statements and documentation, we may at times fail to do so or be alleged to have failed to do so. Any failure or perceived failure by us or our vendors or service providers to comply with our applicable policies or notices relating to privacy or data protection, our contractual or other obligations to third parties, or any of our other legal obligations, laws, rules, regulations and standards relating to privacy or data protection, may result in governmental investigations or enforcement actions, litigation, claims and other proceedings, harm our reputation, and could result in significant liability.
Our relationships with healthcare professionals, clinical investigators, CROs and third-party payors in connection with our current and future business activities may be subject to federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse laws, false claims laws, transparency laws, government price reporting, and health information privacy and security laws, which could expose us to significant losses, including, among other things, criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, exclusion from governmental healthcare programs, reputational harm, administrative burdens and diminished profits and future earnings.
Healthcare providers and third-party payors play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current and future arrangements with healthcare professionals, clinical investigators, CROs, third-party payors and customers may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we research, as well as market, sell and distribute our products for which we obtain marketing approval. Restrictions under applicable federal and state healthcare laws and regulations may include the following:
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the federal Anti-Kickback Statute which prohibits, among other things, persons and entities from knowingly and willfully soliciting, offering, receiving or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, to induce or reward, or in return for, either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, order or recommendation of, any good or service, for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program such as Medicare and Medicaid;
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the federal false claims laws, including the civil False Claims Act, which can be enforced by private citizens through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, and civil monetary penalties laws, prohibit individuals or entities from, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, to the federal government, claims for payment that are false or fraudulent or making a false statement to avoid, decrease or conceal an obligation to pay money to the federal government;
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the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which prohibits, among other things, executing or attempting to execute a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or making false statements relating to healthcare matters;
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the Civil Monetary Penalty Act of 1981 and implementing regulations, which impose penalties against any person or entity that, among other things, is determined to have presented or caused to be presented a claim to a federal healthcare program that the person knows or should know is for an item or service that was not provided as claimed or is false or fraudulent, or offered or transferred remuneration to a federal healthcare beneficiary that a person knows or should know is likely to influence the beneficiary’s decision to order or receive items or services reimbursable by the government from a particular provider or supplier;
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the HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and their implementing regulations, also imposes obligations, including mandatory contractual terms, on covered entities, which are health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and certain health care providers, as those terms are defined by HIPAA, and their respective business associates and their subcontractors, with respect to safeguarding the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information;
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federal consumer protection and unfair competition laws, which broadly regulate marketplace activities and activities that potentially harm consumers;
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the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, with specific exceptions, to annually report to CMS information regarding payments and other transfers of value to physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors), certain non-physician healthcare professionals (such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, among others), and teaching hospitals as well as information regarding ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members; and
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analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws, may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-governmental third-party payors, including private insurers; state laws that require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance regulations promulgated by the federal government and may require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers, marketing expenditures, or drug pricing; state and local laws that require the registration of pharmaceutical sales and medical representatives; state laws that govern the privacy and security of health information in some circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.
Efforts to ensure that our current and future business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare and data privacy and security laws and regulations will involve substantial ongoing costs and may require us to undertake or implement additional policies or measures. We may face claims and proceedings by private parties, and claims, investigations and other proceedings by governmental authorities, relating to allegations that our business practices do not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations, and it is possible that courts or governmental authorities may conclude that we have not complied with them, or that we may find it necessary or appropriate to settle any such claims or other proceedings. In connection with any such claims, proceedings, or settlements, we may be subject to significant penalties, including civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, integrity oversight and reporting obligations, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. Defending against any such actions can be costly, time-consuming and may require significant financial and personnel resources. Therefore, even if we are successful in defending against any such actions that may be brought against us, our business may be impaired. Further, if any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we expect to do business is
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found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs.
Our employees, independent contractors, consultants, commercial collaborators, principal investigators, CROs, CDMOs, suppliers and vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including non-compliance with regulatory standards and requirements.
We are exposed to the risk that our employees, independent contractors, consultants, commercial collaborators, principal investigators, CROs, CDMOs, suppliers and vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities. Misconduct by these parties could include failures to comply with FDA regulations, provide accurate information to the FDA, comply with federal and state health care fraud and abuse laws and regulations, accurately report financial information or data or disclose unauthorized activities to us. In particular, research, sales, marketing and business arrangements in the health care industry are subject to extensive laws and regulations intended to prevent fraud, misconduct, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. These laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, sales commission, customer incentive programs and other business arrangements. Misconduct by these parties could also involve the improper use of information obtained in the course of clinical trials, which could result in regulatory sanctions and serious harm to our reputation. We have adopted a code of conduct, but it is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by these parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to comply with these laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, including the imposition of significant penalties, including civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, integrity oversight and reporting obligations, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations.
If we fail to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. Our operations involve the use of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological materials. Our operations also produce hazardous waste products. We generally contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and wastes. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination or injury from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from our use of hazardous materials, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We also could incur significant costs associated with civil or criminal fines and penalties.
Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological materials.
In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. These current or future laws and regulations may impair our research, development or commercialization efforts. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations also may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions.
Our business activities are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws of other countries in which we operate, as well as U.S. and certain foreign export controls, trade sanctions, and import laws and regulations. Compliance with these legal requirements could limit our ability to compete in foreign markets and subject us to liability if we violate them.
Our business activities are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended (FCPA), the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, and similar anti-bribery or
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anti-corruption laws, regulations or rules of other countries in which we operate. These laws generally prohibit companies and their employees and agents from offering or providing improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public or private sector. Our business is heavily regulated and therefore involves significant interaction with public officials, including officials of non-U.S. governments. Additionally, in many other countries, hospitals are owned and operated by the government, and doctors and other hospital employees would be considered foreign officials under the FCPA.