Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our business involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks described below, together with the other information contained in this Annual Report, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report. We cannot assure you that any of the events discussed in the risk factors below will not occur. These risks could have a material and adverse impact on our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows and, if so, our future prospects would likely be materially and adversely affected. If any of such events were to happen, the trading price of shares of our common stock could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment.
Risks Related to Development, Regulatory Approval and Commercialization
Our business is dependent on the successful and timely development, regulatory approval and commercialization of our product candidates.
We currently have no products that are approved for commercial sale and may never be able to develop marketable products. We expect that our primary efforts and expenditures over the next few years will be devoted to the advancement of our clinical programs. Our business currently depends on the successful completion of our clinical trials for and subsequent regulatory approval and commercialization of our product candidates, which is uncertain. See “Risks Related to Development, Regulatory Approval and Commercialization – Clinical trials are very expensive, time-consuming, difficult to design and implement, and involve uncertain outcomes.”
We cannot be certain that any of our product candidates will receive regulatory approval or be successfully commercialized even if we receive regulatory approval. The research, testing, manufacturing, labeling, packaging, approval, sale, marketing, distribution, import, export, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion and recordkeeping of pharmaceutical products, including antibody-based products, are, and will remain, subject to extensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the U.S. and other countries which may vary from one country to another. We are not permitted to market our product candidates in the U.S. until we receive approval of a biologics license application (“BLA”) or in any foreign country until we receive the requisite approvals from the appropriate regulatory authorities in such countries for marketing authorization. We have not submitted a BLA for any product candidate to the FDA or any comparable application to any other foreign regulatory authority. Obtaining approval of a BLA or similar foreign regulatory approval is an extensive, lengthy, expensive and inherently uncertain process, and the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities may delay, limit or deny approval for many reasons, including:
• the results of our clinical trials may not meet the level of statistical or clinical significance required by the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities for marketing approval;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with the number, design, size, conduct or implementation of our clinical trials, including whether the design of our clinical trials is sufficient to support a regulatory approval;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may not find the data from nonclinical studies or clinical trials sufficient to demonstrate that the clinical and other benefits of our product candidates outweigh their safety risks;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data or significance of results from the nonclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates or may require additional studies;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may not accept data generated from our clinical trial sites;
• if our BLA or other foreign marketing authorization application is referred for review by an advisory committee, the advisory committee may recommend against approval of our application or may recommend that the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authority, as the case may be, require, as a condition of approval, additional nonclinical studies or clinical trials, limitations on approved labeling or distribution and use restrictions;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may require development of a REMS drug safety program or similar strategy imposed by foreign regulatory authorities, as a condition of approval;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may require additional post-marketing studies and/or a patient registry, which would be costly;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may find the chemistry, manufacturing and controls data insufficient to support the quality of our product candidate;
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may identify deficiencies in the manufacturing processes or facilities of our third-party manufacturers; or
• the FDA or other relevant foreign regulatory authorities may change their approval policies or adopt new regulations.
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In addition, if our product candidates encounter safety or efficacy problems, such as the observed lipid findings from our clinical trials of batoclimab, developmental delays, regulatory issues, supply issues, or other problems in one of our target indications, our development plans for our product candidates could be significantly harmed in other indications, which would have a material adverse effect on our business. Further, problems encountered by competitors who are developing product candidates in the autoimmune disease field, including IgG-mediated autoimmune indications, or that target the same indications or use the same mechanism of action as our product candidates could suggest problems with our product candidates that would potentially harm our business. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that any of our product candidates will be successfully developed or commercialized.
Clinical trials are very expensive, time-consuming, difficult to design and implement, and involve uncertain outcomes.
Our product candidates are still in clinical development and will require extensive clinical testing before we are prepared to submit a BLA or other similar application for regulatory approval. For example, we are conducting trials evaluating IMVT-1402 in GD, D2T RA, MG, CIDP, SjD and CLE. Except for D2T RA and CLE, the first top-line data for any of the studies are not expected until sometime in calendar year 2027, assuming we can fully enroll and successfully complete the relevant trials according to our anticipated timelines. We cannot provide any assurance that any clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. Clinical trials are very expensive and difficult to design and implement, in part because they are subject to rigorous regulatory requirements. The clinical trial process is also time-consuming and costly and is dependent upon collaboration with many contract research organizations (“CROs”) and clinical trial sites.
Failures can occur at any stage of clinical trials, and we could encounter problems that cause us to abandon or repeat clinical trials. In addition, results from clinical trials may require further evaluation delaying the next stage of clinical development or submission of a BLA. Further, product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through nonclinical studies and initial clinical trials, and such product candidates may exhibit negative safety signals in later stage clinical trials that they did not exhibit in nonclinical or earlier-stage clinical trials. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, have suffered significant setbacks in or the discontinuation of clinical trials due to lack of efficacy or adverse safety profiles, notwithstanding positive results in earlier trials. Likewise, the results of early nonclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates, some of which were not conducted by us, may not be predictive of the results of our current or planned development programs.
The commencement and completion of clinical trials may be delayed by several factors, including:
• failure to obtain regulatory authorization to commence a clinical trial or reach a consensus with regulatory authorities regarding the design or implementation of our studies;
• unforeseen safety issues or subjects experiencing severe or unexpected AEs;
• continuation of previously identified safety issues;
• occurrence of AEs in trials of the same class of agents conducted by other sponsors or AEs reported by anti-FcRn product candidates developed by others;
• lack of effectiveness during clinical trials;
• resolving any dosing issues or limitations, including those raised by the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities;
• inability to reach agreement on acceptable terms with prospective CROs and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and trial sites;
• slower than expected rates of patient recruitment or failure to recruit suitable patients to participate in a trial;
• failure to identify, qualify, or initiate a sufficient number of clinical trial sites;
• imposition of a temporary or permanent clinical hold by regulatory agencies for a number of reasons, including after review of an investigational new drug application (“IND”) or amendment, a clinical trial application (“CTA”) or amendment, or equivalent application or amendment; as a result of a new safety finding that presents unreasonable risk to clinical trial participants; a negative finding from a Good Clinical Practice (“GCP”) inspection of our clinical trial operations or trial sites; developments in trials conducted by in-class competitors that raise regulatory concerns about risk to patients of the class broadly; or if the regulator finds that the investigational protocol or plan is clearly deficient to meet its stated objectives;
• failure to perform in accordance with the FDA’s or any other regulatory authority’s GCP requirements, or other regulatory guidelines in other countries;
• unanticipated impact from changes in or modifications to protocols or clinical trial design, including those that may be required by the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities;
• inability or unwillingness of clinical investigators or study participants to follow our clinical and other applicable protocols or applicable regulatory requirements;
• an institutional review board (“IRB”) or ethics committee refusing to approve, suspending, or terminating the trial at an investigational site, precluding enrollment of additional subjects, or withdrawing their approval of the trial;
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• IRBs or ethics committees issuing negative opinions regarding a clinical trial or requiring substantial modifications of a proposed clinical trial;
• premature discontinuation of study participants from clinical trials or missing data at a level that impacts study integrity;
• failure to manufacture or release sufficient quantities of our product candidates or placebo for our clinical trials that in each case meet our and global quality standards for use in clinical trials;
• inability to monitor patients adequately during or after treatment; or
• inappropriate unblinding of trial results.
Therefore, we cannot predict with any certainty the schedule for commencement and completion of future clinical trials. If we experience delays in the commencement, enrollment, or completion of our clinical trials, or if we terminate a clinical trial prior to completion, the commercial prospects of our product candidates could be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenue from our product candidates, if approved, may be delayed. In addition, any delays in our clinical trials could increase our costs, cause a decline in our share price, slow down the approval process, and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenue.
Enrollment and retention of patients in clinical trials is an expensive and time-consuming process and could be made more difficult or rendered impossible by multiple factors outside our control and we may not be able to enroll patients in our trials on our anticipated timelines.
We may encounter delays or difficulties in enrolling or be unable to enroll a sufficient number of patients to complete any of our clinical trials on our current timelines, or at all, and even once enrolled, we may be unable to retain a sufficient number of patients to complete any of our trials. Enrollment in our clinical trials may be slower than we anticipate or be stopped, leading to delays in our development timelines. For example, we may face difficulty enrolling or maintaining a sufficient number of patients in our clinical trials evaluating IMVT-1402 for MG, CIDP and GD due to existing alternative treatments available, including efgartigimod, rozanolixizumab, and nipocalimab for the treatment of MG, efgartigimod, IVIg, plasma exchange and steroids for the treatment of CIDP, and anti-thyroid drugs and ablative treatments for GD. In addition, patients may decline to enroll or decide to withdraw from our clinical trials due to protocol-required washout periods or the risk of receiving placebo.
Patient enrollment and retention in clinical trials depends on many factors, including the size of the eligible patient population, the nature of the trial protocol, our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience, limited trial site capacity and staffing as a result of healthcare worker shortages, the existing body of safety and efficacy data with respect to the study drug or drug class, the number and nature of competing treatments and ongoing clinical trials of competing drugs for the same indication, the proximity of patients to clinical sites, the eligibility criteria for the trial and the proportion of patients screened that meets those criteria, and our ability to obtain and maintain patient consents. Our product candidates are focused in part on addressing rare autoimmune indications, and we have focused our initial development efforts for batoclimab on the treatment of MG, TED, CIDP and GD with limited patient pools from which to draw in order to complete our clinical trials in a timely and cost-effective manner. We could be faced with similarly limited patient pools as we pursue certain of these and other indications for IMVT-1402, such as SjD, D2T RA and CLE.
Furthermore, any negative results or new safety signals we may report in clinical trials of our product candidates may make it difficult or impossible to recruit and retain patients in other clinical trials we are conducting or to resume enrolling patients if a clinical trial is paused and then subsequently resumed. For example, we previously voluntarily paused dosing in our clinical trials for batoclimab due to elevated total cholesterol and LDL levels observed in some patients treated with batoclimab. Similarly, negative results reported by our competitors about their drug candidates may negatively affect patient recruitment in our clinical trials. Also, marketing authorization of competitors in this same class of drugs may impair our ability to enroll patients into our clinical trials, delaying or potentially preventing us from completing recruitment of one or more of our trials.
Delays or failures in planned patient enrollment or retention may result in increased costs, program delays or both, which could have a harmful effect on our ability to develop our product candidates or could render further development impossible.
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The results of our preclinical studies and clinical trials may not support our proposed claims for our product candidates, or regulatory approval on a timely basis or at all, and the results of earlier studies and trials may not be predictive of future trial results.
Success in preclinical testing and early clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials will be successful, and we cannot be sure that the results of later clinical trials will replicate the results of prior preclinical testing and clinical trials. In particular, we cannot assure you that the reductions in IgG antibodies and favorable analyte profile that we have observed in our Phase 1 trial of IMVT-1402 will be observed in any future clinical trials, including pivotal trials necessary for regulatory approvals, or that such reductions in IgG antibodies will correlate with clinical benefits sufficient to demonstrate that the efficacy endpoints of the study are met. Likewise, promising interim results or other preliminary analyses do not ensure that the clinical trial as a whole will be successful and may lack statistical significance, which would further limit the reliability of such interim or preliminary data. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including biotechnology companies, have suffered significant setbacks in, or the discontinuation of, clinical trials, even after promising results were seen with their product candidates in earlier preclinical studies or clinical trials. These setbacks have been caused by, among other things, preclinical findings made while clinical trials were underway and safety or efficacy observations made during clinical trials, including previously unobserved adverse effects.
The results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials of our product candidates may not be predictive of the results of later-stage clinical trials. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical and initial clinical trials. A future failure of a clinical trial to meet its pre-specified endpoints may cause us to abandon development of the product candidate in question. For example, our Phase 3 trials evaluating batoclimab in TED failed to meet the primary endpoint, resulting in our decision to discontinue development of batoclimab. Any delay in, or termination of, our clinical trials will delay the submission of a BLA to the FDA or similar applications with other relevant foreign regulatory authorities and, ultimately, our ability to commercialize our product candidates (if approved) and generate product revenue. Even if our clinical trials are completed as planned, we cannot be certain that their results will support our expectations for differentiation or the effectiveness or safety of our product candidates. The FDA has substantial discretion in the review and approval process and may disagree that our data support the differentiated claims we may propose. In addition, only a small percentage of biologics under development result in the submission of a BLA to the FDA, or other similar applications with other relevant foreign regulatory authorities, and even fewer are approved for commercialization.
Interim, “top-line” or preliminary data from our clinical trials that we announce or publish from time to time 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 preliminary or “top-line” data from our clinical trials, which is based on a preliminary analysis of then-available top-line data, and the results and related findings and conclusions are subject to change following a full analysis of all data related to the particular 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 top-line 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 has been received and fully evaluated. Top-line data also remains subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously disclosed. As a result, top-line data should be viewed with caution until the final data is available. We may also disclose interim data from our clinical trials. Interim data from clinical trials that we may complete is subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data becomes available. Adverse differences between preliminary or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business prospects. Further, disclosure of preliminary or interim data by us or by our competitors could result in volatility in the price of shares of our common stock.
Further, others, including regulatory authorities, may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the approvability or commercialization of the particular product candidate or product and our business 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 what we determine is the material or otherwise appropriate information to include in our disclosure is subject to interpretation, and any information we determine not to disclose may ultimately be deemed significant with respect to future decisions, conclusions, views, activities or otherwise regarding a particular drug, product candidate or our business. If the top-line data that we report differs from actual results, or if others, including regulatory authorities, disagree with the conclusions reached, our ability to obtain approval for and commercialize IMVT-1402, or any future product candidate, our business, operating results, prospects or financial condition may be harmed.
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Our product candidates may be associated with adverse events or cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that could delay or prevent their regulatory approval, cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials, cause us to abandon further development or limit the commercial viability of any approved label or market acceptance.
Results of our trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Adverse events reported in our clinical trials or undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates or others’ anti-FcRn products or product candidates could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA, European Commission, or other competent regulatory authorities.
If an unacceptable frequency or severity of treatment related side effects or new safety signals are reported in our or others’ anti-FcRn clinical trials or from post-marketing safety surveillance of approved anti-FcRn products, our ability to obtain regulatory approval may be negatively impacted. Treatment-related side effects arising from, or those potentially arising from, our product candidates or those from other companies targeting similar autoimmune indications or using the same mechanism of action could affect the design of clinical studies, target patient population, enrollment and conduct of the studies, patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete our clinical trials, eventual labeling and risk management, or result in potential product liability claims.
For example, treatment-related side effects associated with batoclimab in our clinical trials previously caused us to pause dosing in our clinical trials of batoclimab. We voluntarily paused dosing in our early phase clinical studies of batoclimab to evaluate treatment-induced elevations in total cholesterol and LDL levels observed in some trial subjects. We incurred a delay to evaluate the available safety data and eventually continued our clinical development of batoclimab and adjusted protocols that contained long-term treatment durations to include frequent monitoring of plasma lipids and guidelines for the management of any observed lipid abnormalities. Although our focus is currently on IMVT-1402, which has not been observed to cause the treatment-induced lipid elevations associated with batoclimab, these occurrences harmed, and any similar occurrences may in the future harm, our business, financial condition and prospects.
Furthermore, if our product candidates cause side effects that negatively affect the risk/benefit profile, it is possible we will not be able to agree upon sufficient risk mitigation with all regulatory authorities and that our development of our product candidates will not continue in certain countries or for certain indications. Even if we are able to continue clinical development of our product candidates with such risk mitigations, any future approval and marketing would suffer from the risks of potential adverse reactions or side effects and potential impact of mitigating measures, including, among others, limited indication, monitoring, a boxed warning, a REMS or similar strategy imposed by foreign regulatory authorities, potential additional safety studies and other adverse labeling.
If any of our product candidates is approved and then causes serious or unexpected side effects, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:
• regulatory authorities may withdraw, suspend, vary or limit their approval of the product or require a REMS (or similar strategy imposed by foreign regulatory authorities) to impose restrictions on the product’s distribution or require other risk management measures;
• we may be required to recall a product;
• additional restrictions may be imposed on the distribution or marketing of the particular product or the manufacturing processes for the product or any component thereof, including a “black box” warning or contraindication on the product label or communications containing warnings or other safety information about the product;
• regulatory authorities may require the addition of labeling statements, such as warnings or contraindications, require other labeling changes or require field alerts or other communications to physicians, pharmacies or the public;
• we may be required to change the way the product is administered or distributed, conduct additional clinical trials, change the labeling of a product or be required to conduct additional post-marketing studies or surveillance;
• we may be required to repeat a nonclinical study or clinical trial or terminate a program, even if other studies or trials related to the program are ongoing or have been successfully completed;
• we may be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients, or may be subject to fines, restitution or disgorgement of profits or revenues;
• physicians may stop prescribing the product;
• reimbursement may not be available for the product;
• we may elect to discontinue the sale of our product;
• the product may become less competitive; and
• our reputation may suffer.
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Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the affected product candidate and could substantially increase the costs of commercializing such product candidate, if approved.
Our product candidates are antibody proteins that could cause an immune response in patients, resulting in the creation of harmful or neutralizing antibodies against these therapeutic proteins, preventing or limiting regulatory approval or our ability to commercialize our product candidates.
In addition to the safety, efficacy, manufacturing, and regulatory hurdles faced by our product candidates, the administration of proteins such as monoclonal antibodies, even those that are fully human in nature, including our product candidates, can cause an immune response, resulting in the creation of antibodies directed against the therapeutic protein. These anti-drug antibodies can have no effect or can neutralize the effectiveness of the protein or require that higher doses be used to obtain a therapeutic effect. Whether anti-drug antibodies will be created and how they react can often not be predicted from nonclinical studies or clinical trials and their detection or appearance is often delayed. As a result, neutralizing antibodies may be detected at a later date or upon longer exposure periods, such as following more chronic administration in longer lasting clinical trials. In some cases, detection of neutralizing antibodies can even occur after pivotal clinical trials have been completed. Therefore, there can be no assurance that neutralizing antibodies will not be detected in future clinical trials or at a later date upon longer exposure (including after commercialization). If anti-drug antibodies reduce or neutralize the effectiveness of any of our product candidates, the continued clinical development or receipt of marketing approval for such product candidate could be delayed or prevented and, even if such product candidate is approved, its commercial success could be limited, any of which would impair our ability to generate revenue and continue operations.
If we are not able to obtain required regulatory approvals, we will not be able to commercialize IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, and our ability to generate product revenue will be impaired.
IMVT-1402 and any future product candidate that we may develop, as well as the activities associated with their development and commercialization, including their design, research, testing, manufacture, safety, efficacy, recordkeeping, labeling, packaging, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale and distribution are subject to comprehensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the U.S. and by similar regulatory authorities outside the U.S. Failure to obtain marketing approval for, and thus commercialize any product candidate, could negatively impact our ability to generate any revenue from product sales.
We have not received approval from regulatory authorities to market any product candidate in any jurisdiction, and it is possible that our product candidates will never obtain the appropriate regulatory approvals necessary for us to commence product sales. Neither we nor any collaborator is permitted to market our product candidates in the U.S. or any other jurisdiction until we receive regulatory approval of a BLA from the FDA or similar approval from comparable regulatory authorities outside of the U.S.
The time required to obtain approval of a BLA by the FDA or similar approval from comparable regulatory authorities outside of the U.S. is unpredictable but typically takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the discretion of the regulatory authority. Prior to submitting a BLA to the FDA or any comparable application to any other foreign regulatory authorities for approval of any product candidate, we will need to complete Phase 3 or other registrational clinical trials to adequately demonstrate favorable results with respect to safety, tolerability and efficacy. In addition, approval policies, regulations, or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to obtain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions.
Securing marketing approvals requires the submission of extensive manufacturing, nonclinical and clinical data and supporting information to regulatory authorities for each therapeutic indication to establish the safety and efficacy of our product candidates for the specified indications. We expect to rely on third-party CROs, consultants and our collaborators to assist us in filing and supporting the applications necessary to obtain marketing approvals. Securing marketing approval also requires the submission of information about the product manufacturing process to, and inspection of manufacturing facilities by, the regulatory authorities. Errors in the submission of applications for marketing approval or issues, including those related to gathering the appropriate data and the inspection process, may ultimately delay or affect our ability to obtain regulatory approval, commercialize our product candidates and generate product revenue.
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We have in-licensed the rights to IMVT-1402 and batoclimab in limited territories. Any adverse developments that occur during any clinical trials or manufacturing conducted by third parties, including HanAll, in other jurisdictions may affect our ability to obtain regulatory approval or commercialize our product candidates.
We have in-licensed the right to develop, manufacture and commercialize anti-FcRn antibodies (including IMVT-1402 and batoclimab) in the Licensed Territory. HanAll or any of its sublicensees or collaborators, over which we have no control, has the right to develop, manufacture and commercialize these product candidates in geographies outside of our Licensed Territory. If an impact to the characterization of the safety profile occurs in studies conducted by HanAll or third parties in other jurisdictions outside of our Licensed Territory, the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities may delay, limit or deny approval of these product candidates or require us to conduct additional clinical trials as a condition to marketing approval, which would increase our costs and time to market. If we receive FDA or foreign regulatory authority approval for any of our product candidates and a new or serious safety issue is identified in connection with clinical trials conducted by third parties in other jurisdictions outside of our Licensed Territory, the FDA or foreign regulatory authority may withdraw or vary their approval or restrict our ability to market and sell our products or may require additional testing or evaluation. In addition, treating physicians may be less willing to administer our product candidates due to concerns over such AEs, which would limit our ability to successfully commercialize these product candidates. In addition, issues may arise in connection with the manufacturing process for our product candidates utilized by HanAll or any of its other licensees or collaborators, which could affect our ability to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize these product candidates.
We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies targeting autoimmune disease indications. Our operating results will suffer if we fail to compete effectively.
The markets for autoimmune disease therapies are competitive and are characterized by significant technological development and new product introduction. For example, there are several large and small pharmaceutical companies focused on delivering therapeutics for our targeted autoimmune disease indications, including GD, MG, CIDP, RA, CLE and SjD. We anticipate that, if we obtain regulatory approval of any of our product candidates, we will face significant competition from other approved therapies or drugs that become available in the future for the treatment of our target indications. If approved, our product candidates may also compete with unregulated, unapproved and off-label treatments. Even if a biosimilar product is less effective than our product candidates, a less effective biosimilar may be more quickly adopted by physicians and patients than our competing product candidates based upon healthcare cost or convenience. Our product candidates, if approved, are expected to present a novel therapeutic approach for certain indications we are pursuing and will have to compete with existing therapies, some of which are widely known and accepted by physicians and patients. To compete successfully in this market, we will have to demonstrate that the relative cost, safety and efficacy of our product candidates, if approved, provide an attractive alternative to existing standard of care and other new therapies to gain a share of some patients’ discretionary budgets and to gain physicians’ attention and adoption within their clinical practices. Some of the companies that may offer competing products also have a broad range of other product offerings, large direct sales forces, established patient support programs, and long-term customer relationships with our target physicians, which could inhibit our market penetration efforts. Such competition could lead to reduced market share for our product candidates and contribute to downward pressure on the pricing of our product candidates, which could harm our business, financial condition, operating results and prospects.
We face intense competition from other biopharmaceutical companies who are marketing and developing agents for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, including multiple agents in the anti-FcRn class. These include efgartigimod (Argenx SE), nipocalimab (Johnson & Johnson) and rozanolixizumab (UCB SA), each of which are approved for the treatment of generalized myasthenia gravis (“gMG”). Efgartigimod is also approved for the treatment of CIDP. Each of efgartigimod and nipocalimab are being evaluated in Phase 3 studies in SjD, and Argenx plans to initiate an efgartigimod study in GD in 2026. Other FcRn inhibitors include Viridian Therapeutics’ VRDN-006 and VRDN-008, each of which is currently in Phase 1 development, and have the potential to treat a broad array of autoimmune diseases.
Our product candidates, if approved, may also face competition from agents with different mechanisms of action. The most commonly prescribed first-line agents for the treatment of MG are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, such as pyridostigmine, which are marketed by several manufacturers of generic medicines. IVIg is also routinely used for patients with MG. A number of C5 complement inhibitors are approved in gMG including SOLIRIS® (eculizumab), ULTOMIRIS® (ravulizumab-cwvz), and ZILBRYSQ® (zilucoplan). UPLIZNA® (inebilizumab), a CD19-targeted humanized monoclonal antibody, is approved for the treatment of gMG.
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IMVT-1402 may also face competition in CIDP from agents in Phase 3 development with different mechanisms of action including C1 inhibitors riliprubart (Sanofi), DNTH103 (Dianthus) and C2 inhibitor empasiprubart (Argenx SE).
We are aware of multiple agents with different mechanisms of action that are in early-stage development for the treatment of GD, including TSH antagonists being developed by Crinetics Pharmaceuticals and Lycia Therapeutics (LCA-0321) and currently in IND-enabling studies, Biohaven’s IgG degrader (BHV-1300) in a Phase 1 study, Merida Biosciences’ FC biotherapeutic targeting TSHR (MER511) in a Phase 1 study, Yarrow Bioscience’s anti-TSHR antibody (YB-101) entering a Phase 1b/2b trial, and Sanofi’s BTK inhibitor (rilzabrutinib) in a Phase 2 study. Viridian has an anti-TRAb, half‑life extended monoclonal antibody candidate in preclinical development with potential use in the treatment of GD, which is intended to be delivered by subcutaneous administration via autoinjector.
CLE is a dermatology focused therapeutic category with no treatment innovation for more than 50 years, but treatment options include prevention of exposure to sunlight with the utilization of both topical and systemic therapies such as antimalarials, immunomodulators, and immunosuppressives (methotrexate, mycophenolate). With the significant unmet need and increasing demand for biologic therapies in dermatology and rheumatology, the competitive landscape for SCLE and CCLE is a growing market for novel therapies and diagnostic tools in development. Biogen is in Phase 2/3 with litifilimab (BDCA2), AstraZeneca is in Phase 3 anifrolumab (IFNAR1) with many other early development programs, and Merck has entered Phase 3 evaluations of enpatoran.
Therapeutic approaches for SjD include a variety of local agents to address the associated dry eye and mouth and/or immunosuppressive treatments to address the systemic manifestations of disease. In addition to the anti-FcRn competitors mentioned above, IMVT-1402 may also face competition from other drug classes, including inhibitors of TYK2 (deucravacitinib), CD40 (dazodalibep), BAFF (ianalumab) or BLyS/APRIL (telitacicept).
Many of our existing or potential competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do and significantly greater experience in the discovery and development of product candidates, as well as in obtaining regulatory approvals of those product candidates in the U.S. and in foreign countries. Many of our current and potential future competitors also have significantly more experience commercializing drugs that have been approved for marketing. Competition may reduce the number and types of patients available to us to participate in clinical trials because some patients who might have opted to enroll in our trials may instead opt to enroll in a trial being conducted by one of our competitors.
Due to varying regulatory requirements in certain foreign countries, there are many more products and procedures available for use to treat autoimmune diseases in some international markets than are approved for use in the U.S. In certain international markets, there are also fewer limitations on the claims that our competitors can make about the effectiveness of their products and the manner in which they can market their products. As a result, we expect to face more competition in these markets than in the U.S.
Our ability to compete successfully will depend largely on our ability to:
• develop and commercialize therapies in our target indications that are superior to other products in the market;
• demonstrate through our clinical trials that IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate is differentiated from existing and future therapies;
• attract qualified scientific, product development, manufacturing and commercial personnel;
• obtain patent or other proprietary protection for IMVT-1402, or any future product candidates;
• obtain required regulatory approvals, including approvals to market IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate we develop, in ways that are differentiated from existing and future products and treatments;
• have commercial quantities of any approved product manufactured at acceptable cost and quality levels and in compliance with FDA and other regulatory requirements;
• successfully commercialize IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, if approved;
• obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement from, and negotiate competitive pricing with, third-party payors and/or competent authorities;
• successfully collaborate with pharmaceutical companies in the discovery, development and commercialization of new therapies; and
• avoid regulatory exclusivities or patents held by competitors that may inhibit our products’ entry to the market.
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The availability of our competitors’ products could limit the demand and the price we are able to charge for any product candidate we develop. The inability to compete with existing or subsequently introduced treatments would have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects.
Additional time may be required to obtain marketing authorizations for the autoinjector presentation of IMVT-1402 because it would be subject to regulation as a combination product.
Combination products are therapeutic and diagnostic products that combine drugs, devices and/or biological products. The autoinjector presentation of IMVT-1402 would be considered a combination product that requires coordination within the FDA and in similar foreign regulatory authorities for review of its device and biologic components. Although the FDA and similar foreign regulatory authorities have systems in place for the review and approval of combination products such as ours, we may experience delays in the development and commercialization of these product candidate presentations due to uncertainties in the product development and approval process.
In the EU, combination products are not subject to a single regulatory pathway. Products combining a medical device and a medicinal product are either regulated as a medicinal product or a medical device depending on which product has the primary mode of action. Alternatively, they can be regulated by two separate procedures, with elements regulated as a medicinal product and elements as a medical device. Authorities involved in the regulatory assessment of combination products may include the EMA, national competent authorities of EU Member States and Notified Bodies.
The regulatory approval processes of the FDA and comparable foreign authorities are lengthy, time-consuming and inherently unpredictable, and even if we obtain approval for a product candidate in one country or jurisdiction, we may never obtain approval for or commercialize it in any other jurisdiction, which would limit our ability to realize our full market potential.
Prior to obtaining approval to commercialize a product candidate in any jurisdiction, we or our collaborators must demonstrate with substantial evidence from well-controlled clinical trials, and to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, that such product candidate is safe and effective for its intended use. Results from nonclinical studies and clinical trials can be interpreted in different ways. Even if we believe the nonclinical or clinical data for a product candidate are positive, such data may not be sufficient to support approval by the FDA and other regulatory authorities. In order to market any products in any particular jurisdiction, we must establish and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements on a country-by-country basis regarding safety and efficacy. Approval by the FDA does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in any other country or jurisdiction outside the U.S. In addition, clinical trials conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries, and regulatory approval in one country does not guarantee regulatory approval in any other country. Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional product testing and validation, as well as additional administrative review periods. Seeking regulatory approval could result in difficulties and costs for us and require additional nonclinical studies or clinical trials, which could be costly and time-consuming. We do not have any product candidates approved for sale in any jurisdiction, including in international markets. If we fail to comply with regulatory requirements in international markets or to obtain and maintain required approvals, or if regulatory approvals in international markets are delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of any product we develop will be unrealized.
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Even if we obtain regulatory approval for a product candidate, we will still face extensive ongoing quality and regulatory compliance requirements and our product may face future development and quality or regulatory compliance difficulties.
Any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval will be subject to extensive and ongoing regulatory requirements, including for the manufacturing processes, labeling, packaging, distribution, AE reporting, storage, recordkeeping, conduct of potential post-market studies and post-market commitment and requirements, export, import and advertising and promotional activities for such product, among other things, by the FDA and other regulatory authorities. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, establishment of registration and drug listing requirements, continued compliance with current good manufacturing practice (“cGMP”) requirements relating to manufacturing, quality control, quality assurance and corresponding maintenance of records and documents, requirements regarding the distribution of drug product samples to physicians, recordkeeping and GCP requirements for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval. Even if marketing approval of a product candidate is granted, the approval may be subject to limitations on the indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or to conditions of approval. In addition, the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities may require that contraindications, warnings or precautions, including in some cases, a boxed warning be included in the product labeling or a REMS program be established, which could limit sales of the product. Regulatory authorities closely regulate the post-approval marketing and promotion of drugs to ensure drugs are marketed only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved labeling. Although the FDA and other foreign regulatory authorities do not regulate a physician’s choice of drug treatment made in the physician’s independent medical judgment, regulatory authorities impose stringent restrictions on manufacturers’ communications regarding off-label use, and if we do not market our products for their approved indications, we may be subject to enforcement action for off-label marketing. Violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in the U.S. and other comparable regulations in foreign jurisdictions relating to the promotion of prescription drugs may lead to enforcement actions and investigations by the FDA, U.S. Department of Justice, State Attorneys General and other foreign regulatory authorities alleging violations of U.S. federal and state health care fraud and abuse laws, as well as state consumer protection laws and comparable laws in foreign jurisdictions.
In addition, later discovery of previously unknown AEs caused by our product candidates or reported by anti-FcRn product candidates developed by others, or other problems with our product, manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements may yield various results, including:
• restrictions on the manufacture of such product;
• restrictions on the labeling or marketing of such product, including a “black box” warning or contraindication on the product label or communications containing warnings or other safety information about the product;
• restrictions on product distribution or use;
• requirements to conduct post-marketing studies or clinical trials, or any regulatory holds on our clinical trials;
• requirement of a REMS or additional risk management plans (or similar strategy imposed by foreign regulatory authorities);
• Warning or Untitled Letters;
• withdrawal of the product from the market;
• recall of a product;
• fines, restitution or disgorgement of profits or revenues;
• suspension, variation or withdrawal of marketing approvals;
• refusal to permit the import or export of such product;
• product seizure; or
• lawsuits, injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties.
The FDA and other foreign regulatory authorities’ policies may change and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay regulatory approval of IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate. For example, in December 2025, the European Union legislators adopted a new Directive and Regulation, revising the existing pharmaceutical legislation. A number of changes to the regulatory framework governing medicinal products in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) will now occur, including a one year decrease in data and market exclusivity available in the EEA. We cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action, either in the U.S. or abroad. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or to 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.
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For example, certain policies of the current U.S. administration may impact our business and industry. It is difficult to predict how these policies will be implemented and the extent to which they will impact the FDA’s ability to exercise its regulatory authority. If these policies impose constraints on the FDA’s ability to engage in oversight and implementation activities in the normal course, our business may be negatively impacted.
Non-compliance by us or any future collaborator with regulatory requirements, including safety monitoring or pharmacovigilance, and with requirements related to the development of products for the pediatric population can also result in significant financial penalties.
Even if we receive marketing approval for any product candidate, it may fail to achieve market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors or others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.
Even if we receive marketing approval for a product candidate, it may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. If it does not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant product revenue or become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of any product candidate, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:
• the safety, efficacy, risk-benefit profile and potential advantages compared to alternative, competing or existing treatments, which physicians may perceive to be adequately effective for some or all patients;
• limitations or warnings contained in the labeling approved for our product candidates by the FDA or other applicable foreign regulatory authorities;
• any restrictions on the use of the product candidate and the prevalence and severity of any side effects;
• the content of the approved product label;
• the effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts;
• the cost of treatment in relation to alternative treatments, including any biosimilar treatments;
• our ability to offer our products for sale at competitive prices;
• the cost, convenience and ease of administration compared to alternative treatments;
• the willingness of the target patient population to try new therapies and of physicians to prescribe these therapies over existing or competing therapies;
• the strength of marketing and distribution support;
• the availability of third-party coverage and adequate reimbursement of our product candidates;
• utilization controls imposed by third-party payors, such as prior authorizations and step edits; and
• any restrictions on the use of our product candidate, if approved, together with other medications.
Market acceptance of new products for the treatment of the indications we pursue with our product candidates, including MG, CIDP, GD, RA, SjD and CLE, may also be affected by the perception that existing treatments are sufficient to treat the majority of these patients. In addition, our product candidates, if approved, may compete with other approved FcRn inhibitors or other FcRn inhibitors under development that have demonstrated similar levels of IgG reductions and shown clinical benefit by meeting their efficacy endpoints in completed clinical trials to date. In addition, the potential patient population for certain autoimmune indications that we may target are relatively small. This could affect the rate of adoption and as a result, market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved, could be much slower than anticipated.
We cannot assure you that IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, if approved, will achieve broad market acceptance among physicians, patients and third-party payors. The failure of any such product candidate that receives regulatory approval or clearance to achieve market acceptance or commercial success would adversely affect our business and results of operations.
We may expend our limited resources to pursue particular indications and fail to capitalize on indications that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.
We have limited financial and management resources. As a result, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential. Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future development programs for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable products. Any such failures would adversely affect our business and results of operations.
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If we are unable to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, either on our own, or in collaboration with third parties, we may not be successful in commercializing our product candidates, if approved.
We do not currently have our own sales or distribution capabilities and our marketing capabilities are limited. The cost of establishing and maintaining such an organization may exceed the cost-effectiveness of doing so. In order to effectively market our product candidates if we obtain regulatory approval, we must successfully build out our sales, marketing, compliance, distribution and related capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services. We will also need a patient support services organization to ensure patients have appropriate access to our products, once approved.
We expect to build a focused sales, distribution and marketing infrastructure to market our product candidates in the U.S., if approved. There are significant expenses and risks involved with establishing our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, including our ability to hire, retain and appropriately incentivize qualified individuals, develop an appropriate and effective compliance function, provide adequate training to sales and marketing personnel and effectively manage geographically dispersed sales and marketing teams to generate sufficient demand. Any failure or delay in the development of our internal sales, marketing and distribution capabilities could delay any product launch, which would adversely impact its commercialization. If the commercial launch of our first product candidate, if approved, for which we recruit a sales force and establish marketing capabilities is delayed or does not occur for any reason, we would have prematurely or unnecessarily incurred these commercialization expenses. This may be costly and our investment would be lost if we cannot retain or reposition our sales and marketing personnel. The costs associated with a sales, marketing and distribution infrastructure may exceed the net revenues we are able to generate from the sale of a product candidate following regulatory approval.
Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our products on our own include:
• our inability to recruit, train and retain adequate numbers of effective sales, marketing, reimbursement, patient support, medical affairs and other support personnel;
• the inability of sales personnel to appropriately inform and educate healthcare providers regarding the potential benefits and proper administration of our products;
• the inability of reimbursement professionals to negotiate arrangements for formulary access, reimbursement and other acceptance by payors;
• the inability to price products at a sufficient price point to ensure an adequate and attractive level of profitability;
• restricted or closed distribution channels that make it difficult to distribute our products to segments of the patient population;
• the lack of complementary products to be offered by sales personnel, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to companies with more extensive product lines; and
• unforeseen costs and expenses associated with creating an independent commercialization organization.
If we are unable to build our own sales force or negotiate a collaborative relationship for the commercialization of any product candidate, it could result in a delay to, or reduce the effectiveness of, our commercialization efforts. This could adversely impact the product revenues generated from a product candidate following regulatory approval.
If we decide to fund commercialization activities ourselves, we will need to obtain additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all. If we do not have sufficient funds, we will not be able to bring any product candidate to market or generate product revenue. We could enter into arrangements with collaborative partners at an earlier stage than otherwise would be ideal and we may be required to relinquish certain rights to any of our product candidates or otherwise agree to terms unfavorable to us, any of which may have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and prospects.
If we enter into arrangements with third parties to perform sales, marketing, commercial support and distribution services, our product revenues, including net revenues, may be lower than if we were to market and sell a product candidate through an internal sales force. In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to commercialize our product candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. We may have little control over such third parties, and any of them may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our product candidates effectively or may expose us to legal and regulatory risk by not adhering to regulatory requirements and restrictions governing the sale and promotion of prescription drug products, including those restricting off-label promotion.
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If we do not establish commercialization capabilities successfully, either on our own or in collaboration with third parties, we will not be successful in commercializing our product candidates following regulatory approval and may not become profitable. We may be competing with many companies that currently have extensive and well-funded marketing and sales operations. Without an internal team or the support of a third party to perform marketing and sales functions, we may be unable to compete successfully against these more established companies.
We may seek orphan drug designations for IMVT-1402 or other product candidates we develop, but we may be unable to obtain such further designation or to maintain the benefits associated with orphan drug status even if that designation is granted.
As part of our business strategy, we have in the past and may in the future seek orphan drug designations for any product candidates we develop, and we may be unsuccessful. In July 2021, we were granted orphan drug designation in the U.S. by the FDA for batoclimab for the treatment of MG and, in August 2022, we received orphan drug designation from the European Commission for batoclimab for the treatment of MG. We may seek orphan drug designation from the FDA for IMVT-1402 where there is a medically plausible basis for its use. We may also seek orphan drug designations for IMVT-1402 for the treatment of other indications in European countries, where available.
Although we may seek additional orphan drug designations for our product candidates where available from the FDA, the European Commission and other regulatory authorities, we may never receive such further designation. Moreover, obtaining orphan drug designation for a product candidate for the treatment of a given indication does not mean we will be able to obtain such designation for any other indications. Even if we were to obtain orphan drug designation for a product candidate from any regulatory authority, we may not be the first to obtain marketing approval for the same drug for any particular orphan indication due to the uncertainties associated with developing pharmaceutical products, and thus approval of our product candidates could be blocked for years if another company obtains approval and orphan drug exclusivity for the same drug and same condition before us. If we do obtain market exclusivity in the U.S. or in European countries, it may be limited if we seek approval for an indication broader than the orphan designated indication and may be lost if the FDA or applicable regulatory authority later determines that the request for designation was materially defective or if we are unable to assure sufficient quantities of the product to meet the needs of the relevant patients. Further, exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from competition because different drugs with different active moieties can be approved for the same condition, the same drugs can be approved for different indications and might then be used off-label in our approved indication and different drugs for the same condition may already be approved and commercially available. Orphan drug designation does not convey any automatic advantage in, or shorten the duration of, the development or FDA or foreign regulatory authority review and approval process.
It is also possible that current or future litigation or action by Congress could change the scope of available orphan exclusivity. Any changes to the orphan drug provisions could change our opportunities for, or likelihood of success in obtaining, orphan drug exclusivity and would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects.
If we obtain approval to commercialize our product or any future product candidate outside of the U.S., a variety of risks associated with international operations could adversely affect our business.
If our product candidates or any future product candidate is approved for commercialization outside of the U.S., we expect that we will be subject to additional risks related to entering into international business relationships, including:
• different post-approval regulatory requirements for drug approvals and rules governing drug commercialization in foreign countries;
• reduced or no protection of intellectual property rights;
• unexpected changes in tariffs, trade barriers and regulatory requirements;
• workforce uncertainty, economic weakness, including inflation or political instability in particular foreign economies and markets;
• compliance with tax, employment, immigration and labor laws for employees living or traveling abroad;
• foreign tax, reimbursement, pricing and insurance regimes;
• any foreign partners or collaborators not fulfilling their respective regulatory reporting requirements and any foreign regulatory authorities taking actions with respect to such failures, which would be reportable to the FDA;
• any foreign partners or collaborators not informing us of any new post-marketing safety signals in a timely manner;
• foreign currency fluctuations, which could result in increased operating expenses and reduced revenue and other obligations incident to doing business in another country;
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• potential noncompliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended (the “FCPA”), the United Kingdom Bribery Act 2010 (the “UK Bribery Act”) or similar antibribery and anticorruption laws in other jurisdictions;
• production shortages resulting from any events affecting raw material supply or manufacturing capabilities abroad; and
• business interruptions resulting from geopolitical actions, including war and terrorism or natural disasters including earthquakes, typhoons, floods and fires.
We have no prior experience in commercializing any product, and many biopharmaceutical companies have found the process of marketing their products in foreign countries to be very challenging.
Our current and future relationships with investigators, healthcare professionals, consultants, third-party payors and customers are subject to applicable healthcare regulatory laws, which could expose us to penalties or other negative actions.
Our business operations and current and future arrangements with investigators, healthcare professionals, consultants, third-party payors, patient support programs, charitable organizations and customers expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations. These laws regulate the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we conduct our operations, including how we research, market, sell and distribute any product for which we obtain marketing approval. Such laws include, among others:
• the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, a criminal law that broadly prohibits the exchange of any “remuneration” related to items or services for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under a federal healthcare program such as Medicare and Medicaid. The term “remuneration” has been broadly interpreted to include anything of value. The intent standard under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute was amended by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Affordable Care Act”) to a stricter standard such that a person or entity no longer needs to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. A claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute also constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act (“FCA”). A conviction for a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute can result in criminal fines and/or imprisonment and requires mandatory exclusion from participation in federal health care programs. Exclusion may also be imposed if the government determines that an entity has committed acts that are prohibited by the federal Anti-Kickback Statute;
• the federal criminal and civil false claims laws and civil monetary penalty laws, including the FCA, which prohibits, among other things, (i) knowingly presenting or causing to be presented, claims for payment of government funds that are false or fraudulent; (ii) knowingly making, or using or causing to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim; (iii) knowingly making, using or causing to be made or used a false record or statement material to an obligation to pay money to the government; or (iv) knowingly concealing or knowingly and improperly avoiding, decreasing, or concealing an obligation to pay money to the federal government. Private individuals, commonly known as “whistleblowers,” can bring FCA qui tam actions, on behalf of the government and may share in amounts paid by the entity to the government in recovery or settlement;
• the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), which imposes criminal and civil liability for, among other things, knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or making false or fraudulent statements relating to healthcare matters; similar to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it to have committed a violation;
• the federal Physician Payment Sunshine Act (as defined below), which requires certain manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies, among others, to report annually to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), information related to payments or other “transfers of value” made by such manufacturers to U.S.-licensed physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors), physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, anesthesiologist assistants, certified registered nurse anesthetists, certified nurse midwives, and U.S. teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by U.S.-licensed physicians and their immediate family members. Failure to timely, accurately, and completely submit the required information for all payments, transfers of value and ownership or investment interests may result in civil monetary penalties;
• analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws, which may apply to our business practices;
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• state laws that require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government; state laws that 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 representatives; and state laws that require the reporting of certain pricing information, including information pertaining to and justifying price increases, prohibit prescription drug price gouging; or impose payment caps on certain pharmaceutical products deemed by the state to be “high cost”; and
• federal, state and foreign laws governing the privacy and security of personal information, including health information, such as HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”), and their implementing regulations, which may require us to, among other data protection measures, provide notices, obtain individual consents to use and disclose information, give individuals rights with respect to their information and keep the information secure. Enforcement of such laws could result in civil and criminal penalties as well as, in some circumstances, damages and related costs in defending private actions, including class actions.
Efforts to ensure that our current and future business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will involve substantial costs. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices do not comply with current or future statutes, regulations, authoritative guidance or case law involving applicable healthcare laws. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these or any other healthcare regulatory laws that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant penalties, including the imposition of significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, monetary fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, possible exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs or similar programs in other countries or jurisdictions, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, additional reporting requirements and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or similar agreement and curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations. The issuance of a subpoena or an investigation, regardless of the merits, may result in negative publicity, a drop in our share price and other harm to our business, financial condition and results of 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.
Legislation targeting biotechnology companies with ties to certain foreign adversaries, including the BIOSECURE Act, could materially adversely affect our business, supply chain and results of operations.
We rely on third-party contract manufacturing organizations (“CMOs”) to manufacture drug substance and drug product for our product candidates. The BIOSECURE Act, enacted in December 2025 as Section 851 of the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, prohibits U.S. government agencies from procuring or obtaining biotechnology equipment or services from designated “biotechnology companies of concern,” and restricts agencies from entering into, extending, or renewing contracts with entities that use such covered equipment or services (the “BIOSECURE Act”). The statute relies on two designation mechanisms: (1) automatic designation through the Department of Defense’s Section 1260H list of “Chinese military companies”; and (2) a criteria-based pathway administered through an interagency process led by the Office of Management and Budget, which is required to publish a list of biotechnology companies of concern within one year.
The prohibitions under the BIOSECURE Act take effect following revisions to the Federal Acquisition Regulation, with the timing depending on the basis for a company’s designation as a “biotechnology company of concern.” Although the statute includes a five-year rule of construction that protects legacy agreements from being invalidated by the new restrictions, a safe harbor for items no longer produced or provided by a biotechnology company of concern, and limited case-by-case waivers in the national security interest, there can be no assurance that we will be able to fully avail ourselves of such provisions or that they will adequately mitigate the impact of the statute’s prohibitions on our operations. In such event, we may be required to transition manufacturing activities then performed by CMOs receiving the designation to alternative CMOs, which could be costly, time-consuming and disruptive to our supply chain and clinical development programs.
In addition to the BIOSECURE Act, the introduction or passage of other federal or state legislation, executive orders or regulatory actions further restricting U.S. biotechnology companies’ use of certain foreign-based CMOs could impose additional constraints on our manufacturing operations and supply chain. Although we also maintain manufacturing relationships with a number of different CMOs, there can be no assurance that we would be able to identify and qualify alternative manufacturers on commercially reasonable terms or in a timeframe sufficient to avoid material disruption to our business, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Changes in healthcare law and implementing regulations, as well as changes in healthcare policy, may impact our business in ways that we cannot currently predict and may have a significant adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
There have been, and continue to be, numerous executive, legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the U.S. healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval of product candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to profitably sell any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Among policy makers and payors in the U.S. there is significant interest in promoting changes in healthcare systems with the stated goals of containing healthcare costs, improving pricing transparency, improving quality and/or expanding patient access and the pharmaceutical industry has been a particular focus of these efforts and has been significantly affected by major legislative initiatives.
The Affordable Care Act, substantially changed the way healthcare is financed by both the government and private insurers, and significantly impacts the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. The Affordable Care Act, among other things: (1) introduced an “average manufacturer price” calculation for drugs and biologics that are inhaled, infused, instilled, implanted or injected and that are not generally dispensed through retail community pharmacies; (2) increased the minimum Medicaid rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and expanded rebate liability from fee-for-service Medicaid utilization to include the utilization of Medicaid managed care organizations as well; (3) established a branded prescription drug fee that pharmaceutical manufacturers of branded prescription drugs must pay to the federal government; (4) expanded the list of covered entities eligible to participate in the 340B drug pricing program by adding new entities to the program; (5) expanded eligibility criteria for Medicaid programs by, among other things, allowing states to offer Medicaid coverage to additional individuals, including individuals with income at or below 133% of the federal poverty level, thereby potentially increasing manufacturers’ Medicaid rebate liability; (6) created a licensure framework for follow-on biologic products; and (7) established a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS to test innovative payment and service delivery models to lower Medicare and Medicaid spending.
There have been amendments to and executive, judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act. While the U.S. Congress has not passed comprehensive repeal legislation, it has enacted laws that modify certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as removing penalties, starting January 1, 2019, for not complying with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to carry health insurance and eliminating the implementation of certain mandated fees. On June 17, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to the law brought by several states arguing that, without the individual mandate, the entire Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit without ruling on the merits of the states’ constitutionality arguments.
On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was signed into law, which eliminated the statutory Medicaid drug rebate cap, previously set at 100% of a drug’s average manufacturer price, for single source and innovator multiple source drugs. As of January 1, 2024, manufacturers’ Medicaid Drug Rebate Program rebate liability is no longer capped, potentially resulting in a manufacturer paying more in Medicaid Drug Rebate Program rebates than it receives on the sale of certain covered outpatient drugs. Further, on August 16, 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”) was signed into law, which among other things, extended enhanced subsidies for individuals purchasing health insurance coverage in Affordable Care Act marketplaces through plan year 2025. These enhanced subsidies expired on December 31, 2025 but remain the subject of Congressional debate. In the future, there may be additional challenges and/or amendments to the Affordable Care Act. It is unclear how future litigation and the healthcare reform measures of future presidential administrations will impact the Affordable Care Act and our business. The IRA also eliminates the “donut hole” under the Medicare Part D program beginning in 2025 by significantly lowering the beneficiary maximum out-of-pocket cost and implementing a manufacturer discount program. It is possible that the Affordable Care Act will be subject to judicial or Congressional challenges in the future. It is unclear how any such challenges and the healthcare reform measures of the current presidential administration will impact the Affordable Care Act and our business. We are continuing to monitor any changes to the Affordable Care Act that, in turn, may potentially impact our business in the future.
Other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. These changes include aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to providers of 2% per fiscal year pursuant to the Budget Control Act of 2011 and subsequent laws, which began in 2013 and will remain in effect through 2032 (with the exception of a temporary suspension, and subsequent reduction, due to the COVID-19 pandemic) unless additional Congressional action is taken. New laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which may materially adversely affect customer demand and affordability for our products and, accordingly, the results of our financial operations.
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There is also recent heightened governmental scrutiny over the manner in which pharmaceutical companies set prices for their marketed products, which has resulted in several Congressional inquiries and proposed federal legislation, as well as state efforts, designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to product pricing, reduce the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for drug products. For example, the IRA, among other things, (1) directs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) to negotiate the price of certain high-expenditure single-source biologics that have been on the market for at least 11 years covered under Medicare (the “Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program”) and (2) imposes rebates under Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D to penalize price increases that outpace inflation. CMS has and continues to take steps to implement the IRA, including negotiating and publishing “maximum fair prices” for drugs selected under the IRA’s price negotiation framework and releasing quarterly lists of Medicare Part B products and annual lists of Medicare Part D products that are subject to adjusted coinsurance rates based on the inflationary rebate provisions of the IRA. While it remains to be seen how the drug pricing provisions imposed by the IRA will affect the broader pharmaceutical industry, several pharmaceutical manufacturers and other industry stakeholders have challenged the law, including through lawsuits brought against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CMS, and the CMS Administrator challenging the constitutionality and administrative implementation of the IRA’s drug price negotiation provisions. Additionally, when originally enacted, the IRA explicitly excluded from price negotiation orphan drugs designated for only one rare disease or condition and for which the only active approved indication is for such disease or condition. However, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“OBBBA”) signed into law on July 4, 2025, amended the applicable statute to broaden the orphan drug exclusion such that products with more than one orphan designation and more than one approved indication will remain exempt from price negotiation, so long as each approved indication is for a rare disease or condition. The OBBBA also postpones the start of price negotiation requirements for drugs and biologics with orphan designations until the product receives approval for a non-orphan indication.
The current presidential administration has also signaled its intent to pursue additional healthcare reform measures, including those aimed at reducing prescription drug prices, through various means, including presidential executive orders and agency action. These efforts include, among other things, proposals to establish a “most favored nation” drug pricing policy that would tie U.S. drug prices to the prices paid for drugs in other countries. It remains to be seen how these drug pricing initiatives will affect the broader pharmaceutical industry.
Further, on December 8, 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology published for comment a Draft Interagency Guidance Framework for Considering the Exercise of March-In Rights which for the first time includes the price of a product as one factor an agency can use when deciding to exercise march-in rights. While march-in rights have not previously been exercised, it is uncertain if that will continue under the new framework.
At the state level, individual states in the U.S. are increasingly active in passing legislation and implementing regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological 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. Another emerging trend at the state level is the establishment of prescription drug affordability boards, some of which will prospectively permit certain states to establish upper payment limits for drugs that the state has determined to be “high-cost.” Prescription drug affordability boards in several states have begun identifying products for affordability reviews and issuing information requests to manufacturers to determine whether upper payment limits may be justified. Furthermore, the increased emphasis on managed healthcare will put additional pressure on product pricing, reimbursement and usage, which may adversely affect our future product sales. These pressures can arise from rules and practices of managed care groups, other insurers, judicial decisions and governmental laws and regulations related to Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare reform, pharmaceutical reimbursement policies and pricing in general.
We expect that these and other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and lower reimbursement, and in additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any approved product. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government-funded 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 drugs, once marketing approval is obtained. The current presidential administration is pursuing policies to reduce regulations and expenditures across government including at HHS, the FDA, CMS and related agencies. These actions, presently directed by executive orders or memoranda from the Office of Management and Budget, may propose policy changes that create additional uncertainty for our business.
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Additionally, in its June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the longstanding Chevron doctrine, under which courts were required to give deference to regulatory agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal statutes. The Loper Bright decision could result in additional legal challenges to current regulations and guidance issued by federal agencies applicable to our operations, including those issued by the FDA, HHS, and CMS. The new framework could increase both the frequency of such challenges and their odds of success by eliminating one way in which the government previously prevailed in such cases. As a result, significant regulatory policies will likely be subject to increased litigation and judicial scrutiny.
Congress may introduce and ultimately pass health care related legislation that could, among others, impact the drug approval process and make changes to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, expand the orphan drug exclusion in the IRA, and reduce Medicaid enrollment and funding. We expect additional health reform measures may be implemented in the future.
Coverage and adequate reimbursement may not be available for our product candidates, which could make it difficult for us to sell it profitably, if approved.
Market acceptance and sales of any approved product that we develop will depend in part on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement for these products and related treatments will be available from third-party payors, including government health administration authorities and private health insurers. The pricing and reimbursement of our product candidates, if approved, must be adequate to support the costs associated with commercialization efforts. If we are unable to obtain adequate levels of reimbursement, our ability to successfully market and sell our product candidates following regulatory approval, will be adversely affected. There is no assurance that our product candidates, if approved, would achieve adequate coverage and reimbursement levels.
In the U.S., no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for products exists among third-party payors. Third-party payors decide which drugs they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. Third-party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own coverage and reimbursement policies. However, decisions regarding the extent of coverage and amount of reimbursement to be provided for any product candidate that we develop through approval will be made on a plan-by-plan basis. For example, one payor’s determination to provide coverage for a product does not assure that other payors will also provide coverage and adequate reimbursement for the same product, and payors may periodically review and change their coverage and reimbursement rates. Additionally, a third-party payor’s decision to provide coverage for a drug does not imply that an adequate reimbursement rate will be approved. Each plan determines whether or not it will provide coverage, what amount it will pay the manufacturer, on what tier of its formulary the drug will be placed and whether to require step therapy. The position of a drug on a formulary generally determines the co-payment that a patient will need to make to obtain the drug and can strongly influence the adoption of a drug by patients and physicians. Patients who are prescribed treatments for their conditions and providers prescribing such services generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the associated healthcare costs. Patients are unlikely to use our products, if approved, unless coverage is provided and reimbursement is adequate to cover a significant portion of the cost of our products. Further, from time to time, typically on an annual basis, payment rates are updated and revised by third-party payors. Such updates could impact the demand for our products, to the extent that patients who are prescribed our products, if approved, are not separately reimbursed for the cost of the product.
The process for determining whether a third-party payor will provide coverage for a product may be separate from the process for setting the price of a product or for establishing the reimbursement rate that such a payor will pay for the product. Even if we do obtain adequate levels of reimbursement, third-party payors, such as government or private healthcare insurers, carefully review and increasingly question the coverage of, and challenge the prices charged for, products. Increasingly, third-party payors are requiring that pharmaceutical companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for products. Reimbursement rates may vary according to the use of the drug and the clinical setting in which it is used, may be based on reimbursement levels already set for lower cost drugs and may be incorporated into existing payments for other services. A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Many payors continue to adopt benefit plan changes that shift a greater portion of prescription costs to patients, including more limited benefit plan designs, higher patient co-pay or co-insurance obligations and limitations on patients’ use of commercial manufacturer co-pay payment assistance programs. Significant consolidation in the health insurance industry has resulted in a few large insurers and pharmacy benefit managers exerting greater pressure in pricing and usage negotiations with drug manufacturers, significantly increasing discounts and rebates required of manufacturers and limiting patient access and usage. Further consolidation among insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and other payors would increase the negotiating leverage such entities have over us and other drug manufacturers. Additional discounts, rebates, coverage or plan changes, restrictions or exclusions as described above could have a material adverse effect on sales of our affected products.
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We may also be required to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies to justify the coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular medications. Target patient populations may be small for some of the indications we may pursue with our product candidates. 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. Inadequate coverage or reimbursement may impact the demand for, or the price of, any product for which we obtain marketing approval. If coverage and adequate reimbursement are not available, or are available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize any product candidate for which we are able to obtain regulatory approval.
Additionally, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory proposals to change the healthcare system in the U.S. and in some foreign jurisdictions that could affect our ability to profitably sell any product candidates following regulatory approval. There can be no assurance that our product candidates, if approved, will be considered medically reasonable and necessary or cost-effective by third-party payors, that coverage or an adequate level of reimbursement will be available or that reimbursement policies and practices in the U.S. and in foreign countries where our products are sold will not adversely affect our ability to sell our product candidates profitably, if approved for sale.
Many EU Member States periodically review their reimbursement procedures for medicinal products, which could have an adverse impact on reimbursement status. We expect that legislators, policymakers and healthcare insurance funds in the EU Member States will continue to propose and implement cost-containing measures, such as lower maximum prices, lower or lack of reimbursement coverage and incentives to use cheaper, usually generic, products as an alternative to branded products, and/or branded products available through parallel import to keep healthcare costs down. Moreover, in order to obtain reimbursement for our products in some European countries, including in the EU Member States, we may be required to compile additional data comparing the cost-effectiveness of our products to other available therapies. HTA of medicinal products are now part of the pricing and reimbursement procedures in the EU Member States. The HTA process, which is currently governed by EU law as well as national laws in each EU Member State, is the procedure to assess therapeutic, economic and societal impact of a given medicinal product in the national healthcare systems of the individual country. The outcome of an HTA will often influence the pricing and reimbursement status granted to these medicinal products by the competent authorities of individual EU Member States. The extent to which pricing and reimbursement decisions are influenced by the HTA of the specific medicinal product currently varies between EU Member States.
Regulation No 2021/2282 on HTA boosts cooperation among the EU Member States in assessing health technologies, including new medicinal products, and providing the basis for cooperation at the EU level for joint clinical assessments in these areas. The Regulation permits the EU Member States to use common HTA tools, methodologies and procedures across the EU, working together in four main areas, including joint clinical assessment of the innovative health technologies with the most potential impact for patients, joint scientific consultations whereby developers can seek advice from HTA authorities, identification of emerging health technologies to identify promising technologies early and continuing voluntary cooperation in other areas. Individual EU Member States will continue to be responsible for assessing non-clinical (e.g., economic, social, ethical) aspects of health technologies, and making decisions on pricing and reimbursement. If we are unable to maintain favorable pricing and reimbursement status in selected EU Member States for product candidates that we may successfully develop and for which we may obtain regulatory approval, any anticipated revenue from and growth prospects for those products in the EU could be negatively affected.
Legislators, policymakers and healthcare insurance funds in the EU may continue to propose and implement cost-containing measures to keep healthcare costs down. These measures could include limitations on the prices we would be able to charge for product candidates that we may successfully develop and for which we may obtain regulatory approval or the level of reimbursement available for these products from governmental authorities or third-party payors. Further, an increasing number of EU and other foreign countries use prices for medicinal products established in other countries as “reference prices” to help determine the price of the product in their own territory. Consequently, a downward trend in prices of medicinal products in some countries could contribute to similar downward trends elsewhere.
Risks Related to Our Business, Financial Position and Capital Requirements
We expect to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future and may never achieve or maintain profitability.
Investment in biopharmaceutical product development is highly speculative because it entails substantial upfront capital expenditures and significant risk that a product candidate will fail to obtain regulatory approval or fail to become commercially viable. We have never generated any product revenue and we cannot estimate with precision the extent of our future losses. We do not currently have any products that are available for commercial sale and we may never generate product revenue or achieve profitability. Our net loss was $505.6 million and $413.8 million for the years ended March 31, 2026 and 2025, respectively. As of March 31, 2026, we had an accumulated deficit of $1,745.1 million.
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We expect to continue to incur substantial and increasing losses through the commercialization of IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, if approved, and we currently have no products that are approved for commercial sale. As a result, we are uncertain when or if we will achieve profitability and, if so, whether we will be able to sustain it. Our ability to generate product revenue and achieve profitability is dependent on our ability to complete the development of our product candidates, obtain necessary regulatory approvals for such product candidate and manufacture and successfully commercialize such product candidate alone or in collaboration with others. We cannot assure you that we will be able to achieve or maintain profitability even if we successfully commercialize IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate. If we do successfully obtain regulatory approval to market a product candidate, our revenue will be dependent upon, in part and among other things, the size of the markets in the territories for which we obtain regulatory approval, the number of competitors in such markets, the accepted price for our product candidates, the reimbursement environment for our product candidates and whether we own the commercial rights for those territories. If the indication approved by regulatory authorities for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate is narrower than we expect, or the treatment population is narrowed by competition, physician choice or treatment guidelines, we may not generate significant revenue from sales of such product candidate, even if approved. Failure to become and remain profitable may adversely affect the market price of shares of our common stock and our ability to raise capital and continue operations.
We expect our research and development expenses in connection with our development programs for our product candidates to continue to be significant. For example, we expect our research and development expenses to increase as we conduct evaluations of IMVT-1402, including trials currently underway in GD, D2T RA, MG, CIDP, SjD and CLE. In addition, if we obtain regulatory approval for IMVT-1402, we expect to incur increased sales, marketing and manufacturing expenses. As a result, we expect to continue to incur significant and increasing operating losses and negative cash flows for the foreseeable future. These losses had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our results of operations, financial position and working capital.
We have a limited operating history and have never generated any product revenue.
We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a limited operating history. We have not yet demonstrated an ability to successfully complete a large-scale, pivotal clinical trial, obtain marketing approval, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful product commercialization. Consequently, we have no meaningful operations upon which to evaluate our business and predictions about our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history or a history of successfully developing, manufacturing and commercializing pharmaceutical products, including antibody-based products.
Our ability to generate product revenue and become profitable depends upon our ability to successfully complete the development of and obtain the necessary regulatory approvals for our product candidates we develop. We have never been profitable, have no products approved for commercial sale and have not generated any product revenue.
Even if we receive regulatory approval for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, we do not know when or if we will generate product revenue.
Our ability to generate product revenue depends on a number of factors, including, but not limited to, our ability to:
• successfully complete clinical trials and obtain regulatory approval for the marketing of IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions;
• add operational, financial and management information systems personnel, including personnel to support our planned future commercialization efforts;
• initiate and continue relationships with third-party suppliers and manufacturers and have commercial quantities of IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate manufactured at acceptable cost and quality levels and in compliance with FDA and other foreign regulatory requirements;
• attract and retain experienced management and advisory teams;
• raise additional funds when needed and on terms acceptable to us;
• commercially launch IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, if approved, whether alone or in collaboration with others, including establishing sales, marketing and distribution systems;
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• set an acceptable price for any approved product and obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors;
• achieve market acceptance of any approved product in the medical community and with third-party payors and consumers;
• compete effectively with other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies targeting autoimmune disease indications; and
• maintain, expand and protect our intellectual property portfolio.
Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with product development, including delays in subject enrollment or interruptions in clinical trial supplies or investigational product, we are unable to predict the timing or amount of increased expenses or when or if we will be able to achieve or maintain profitability. Our expenses could increase beyond expectations if we are required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities to perform studies or clinical trials in addition to those that we currently anticipate. Even if IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate is approved for commercial sale, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with its commercial launch. If we cannot successfully execute any one of the foregoing, our business may not succeed and you may lose some or all of your investment.
We may not be successful in our efforts to identify and acquire or in-license additional product candidates or technologies or to enter into collaborations or strategic alliances for the development and commercialization of any such future product candidates.
We may seek to identify and acquire or in-license novel product candidates or technologies in the autoimmune disease field. The process by which we identify product candidates and technologies may fail to yield product candidates for clinical development for a number of reasons, including those discussed in these risk factors and also:
• the process by which we identify and decide to acquire product candidates or technologies, including through the business development support we receive from RSL and its subsidiaries pursuant to the Services Agreements, may not be successful;
• potential product candidates may, upon further study, be shown to have harmful side effects or other characteristics that indicate that they are unlikely to be products that will receive marketing approval and achieve market acceptance;
• potential product candidates may not be effective in treating their targeted diseases; or
• the acquisition or in-licensing transactions can entail numerous operational and functional risks, including exposure to unknown liabilities, disruption of our business, incurrence of substantial debt or dilutive issuances of equity securities to pay transaction consideration or costs or higher than expected acquisition or integration costs.
We may choose to focus our efforts and resources on a potential product candidate or technology that ultimately proves to be unsuccessful. We also cannot be certain that, following an acquisition or in-licensing transaction, we will achieve the revenue or specific net income that justifies such transaction. Further, time and resources spent identifying, acquiring and developing potential product candidates or technologies may distract management’s attention from our primary business or other development programs. If we are unable to identify and acquire suitable product candidates for clinical development, this could adversely impact our business strategy, our financial position and share price.
In the future, we may also decide to collaborate with other pharmaceutical companies for the development and potential commercialization of our product candidates in the U.S. or other countries or territories. We will likely face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators. We may not be successful in our efforts to establish a strategic partnership or other alternative arrangements for our product candidates because they may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaborative effort and third parties may not view our product candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy. If and when we collaborate with a third party for development and commercialization of a product candidate, we can expect to relinquish some or all of the control over the future success of that product candidate to the third party. Our ability to reach a definitive agreement for a collaboration will depend upon, among other things, our assessment of the collaborator’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and the proposed collaborator’s evaluation of a number of factors.
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We will require additional capital to fund our operations. If we fail to obtain necessary financing, we may not be able to complete the development and commercialization of our product candidates.
We expect to spend substantial capital to complete the development of, seek regulatory approvals for and commercialize our product candidates. For example, we will require substantial capital to execute our plans to conduct studies evaluating IMVT-1402, including those currently underway in GD, D2T RA, MG, CIDP, SjD and CLE. Our expenditures may also include costs associated with the HanAll Agreement, including payments in connection with the resolution of any potential dispute with HanAll relating to our development of batoclimab, the achievement of certain future regulatory milestones for IMVT-1402 prior to generating any product sales, significant further payments upon the achievement of certain sales milestones and tiered royalty payments in connection with the commercial sale of IMVT-1402, if approved.
We will require additional capital to complete the development and potential commercialization of our product candidates. Because the length of time and activities associated with successful development of our product candidates are highly uncertain, we are unable to estimate with certainty the actual funds we will require for development and any approved marketing and commercialization activities. Additional capital may not be available in sufficient amounts or on reasonable terms, if at all, and our ability to raise additional capital may be adversely impacted by global economic conditions, including disruptions to and volatility in the credit and financial markets in the U.S. and worldwide, geopolitical tensions, including the rising tensions between China and Taiwan, tensions in Venezuela, the ongoing military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and in the Middle East, including the recent hostilities involving Iran, changes in inflation, interest rates, international trade policies and tariffs and other factors. Our future funding requirements, both near- and long-term, will depend on many factors, including, but not limited to:
• the timing, progress, costs and results of our clinical trials for our product candidates;
• the outcome, timing and cost of meeting regulatory requirements established by the FDA and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities;
• the cost of filing, prosecuting, defending and enforcing our patent claims and other intellectual property rights;
• the cost of defending potential intellectual property disputes, including patent infringement actions brought by third parties against us or any of our current or future product candidates;
• the cost of future product candidates or technologies that we may acquire or in-license;
• the effect of competing market developments;
• the cost and timing of completion of commercial-scale and other manufacturing activities;
• the cost of establishing sales, marketing and distribution capabilities for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate in regions where we choose to commercialize such product candidate, if approved, on our own; and
• the initiation, progress, timing and results of our commercialization of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale.
We do not have any committed external source of funds. If we are unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us, we may have to significantly delay, scale back or discontinue the development or commercialization of IMVT-1402 and any future product candidates or potentially discontinue operations altogether. In addition, attempting to secure additional capital may divert the time and attention of our management from day-to-day activities and harm our product candidate development efforts. Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with the development and potential commercialization of IMVT-1402, we are unable to estimate the associated amounts of increased capital outlays, operating expenditures and capital requirements.
Raising additional funds by issuing equity securities will cause dilution to existing stockholders. Raising additional funds through debt financings may involve restrictive covenants and raising funds through lending and licensing arrangements may restrict our operations or require us to relinquish proprietary rights.
We expect that significant additional capital will be needed in the future to continue our planned operations. Until such time, if ever, that we can generate substantial product revenue, we expect to finance our cash needs through a combination of equity offerings, debt financings, strategic alliances and license and development agreements or other collaborations. To the extent that we raise additional capital by issuing equity securities, our existing stockholders’ ownership may experience substantial dilution, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that could adversely affect the rights of a common stockholder. Additionally, any agreements for future debt or preferred equity financings, if available, may involve covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends.
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If we raise additional funds through collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our future revenue streams, research programs, or batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds when needed, 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 develop and market ourselves. Although we were able to raise additional funds through an underwritten offering of our common stock completed in December 2025, there can be no assurances that we will be able to raise additional capital on favorable terms (if at all) in the future.
We rely on the HanAll Agreement to provide us rights to the core intellectual property relating to IMVT-1402 and batoclimab. Any termination or loss of significant rights under the HanAll Agreement could adversely affect our development or commercialization of IMVT-1402.
We have licensed our core intellectual property relating to IMVT-1402 and batoclimab from HanAll under the HanAll Agreement. The HanAll Agreement imposes a variety of obligations on us, including those relating to exclusivity, territorial rights, development, commercialization, funding, payment, diligence, sublicensing, insurance, intellectual property protection and other matters. If we materially breach any of our obligations under the HanAll Agreement and are unable to cure that breach within the time frame specified under the HanAll Agreement, we may be required to pay damages to HanAll and they may have the right to terminate the HanAll Agreement, which would result in us being unable to develop or manufacture our product candidates. We have commenced discussions with HanAll regarding the potential return of certain rights for batoclimab.
Biotechnology and pharmaceutical license agreements are complex and certain provisions in the HanAll Agreement may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any dispute or disagreement involving contract interpretation that may arise in relation to the HanAll Agreement could affect the scope of our rights to our product candidates or affect financial or other obligations under the HanAll Agreement or other agreements related to the development and commercialization of our product candidates, either of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We shared top-line results from the two batoclimab Phase 3 TED studies concurrently in April 2026. Neither study achieved its primary endpoint, leading us to make a decision to discontinue further development of batoclimab across all indications to focus fully on IMVT-1402. HanAll has a variety of interests in the licensed products including under the HanAll Agreement and outside of our Licensed Territory and may, as a result of those interests, disagree with, or initiate a dispute with respect to, our plans for batoclimab. While the HanAll Agreement gives us final decision-making authority over development and regulatory matters for licensed products in our Licensed Territory, and we believe we have satisfied our obligations under the HanAll Agreement, including with respect to batoclimab, HanAll may disagree with our interpretation of the agreement or our actions thereunder, and we may be unable to reach an agreement with HanAll regarding the future of batoclimab. This could result in a dispute with HanAll involving arbitration or litigation. In the event that HanAll asserts a breach, we do not believe there would be any basis for such a claim, and we would vigorously contest such a claim if made. Any potential dispute with HanAll could be very expensive and time-consuming, may divert our management’s attention from our core business, and may result in unfavorable results that could materially impact our business. In addition, discontinuing further development of and regulatory submissions for batoclimab could impact and result in disputes with third parties, such as with respect to the contract manufacturing of batoclimab, which may be time-consuming and expensive to resolve.
The HanAll Agreement obligates us to make milestone payments, some of which may be triggered prior to our potential commercialization of any product candidate.
We will be responsible for future contingent payments and royalties under the HanAll Agreement, including up to an aggregate of $420.0 million (after an aggregate amount of $32.5 million paid for milestone events achieved as of March 31, 2026), certain of which will occur prior to commercialization of any product candidate. Accordingly, we will be required to make such payments prior to the time at which we are able to generate any revenue, if any, from commercial sales of IMVT-1402. As disclosed, we have discontinued development of batoclimab. Following commercialization (if achieved), we may be required to make significant further payments upon the achievement of sales milestones and make tiered royalty payments in connection with the commercial sale of IMVT-1402, if approved. There can be no assurance that we will have the funds necessary to make such payments or be able to raise such funds when needed on terms acceptable to us or at all. As a result, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts. We may not be able to manage our business effectively if we are unable to attract and retain key personnel.
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We may not be able to attract or retain qualified management, scientific, clinical and commercial personnel due to the intense competition for qualified individuals among biotechnology, pharmaceutical and other businesses.
If we are not able to recruit, retain, manage and motivate necessary personnel to accomplish our business objectives, including our plan to focus on the execution of clinical trials of IMVT-1402 in the current six indications, we may experience constraints that will significantly impede the achievement of our development objectives, our ability to raise additional capital and our ability to implement our business strategies.
Many of the other pharmaceutical companies with which we compete for qualified personnel have greater financial and other resources, different risk profiles and a longer operating history in the industry than we do. They also may provide more diverse opportunities and better chances for career advancement. Some of these opportunities may be more appealing to high-quality candidates than what we offer. If we are unable to continue to attract and retain high-quality personnel, the rate and success at which we can develop IMVT-1402 and our business will be harmed.
We are highly dependent on the skills and leadership of our senior management team and key employees. Our senior management and key employees have previously and may terminate their positions with us at any time. If we lose members of our senior management team or key employees, our ability to successfully implement our business strategies could be adversely affected. Replacing these individuals may be difficult, cause disruption to our business and may take an extended period of time due to the limited number of individuals in our industry with the breadth of skills and experience required to develop, manufacture, obtain regulatory approval of and commercialize products successfully. Competition to hire from this limited pool is intense and we may be unable to hire, train, retain or motivate additional key personnel. We do not maintain “key person” insurance for any members of our senior management team or other employees.
Our or our affiliates’ employees, independent contractors, principal investigators, consultants, commercial collaborators, service providers and other vendors or potential collaborators may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including noncompliance with regulatory standards and requirements, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations.
We are exposed to the risk that our or our affiliates’ employees and contractors, including principal investigators, CROs, consultants, commercial collaborators, service providers and other vendors, may engage in misconduct or other illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless or negligent conduct or other unauthorized activities that violate the laws and regulations of the FDA or other similar regulatory authorities, including those laws that require the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to such regulatory authorities, manufacturing and the GCP or cGMP standards, federal, state and foreign healthcare fraud and abuse laws and data privacy or laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data. In particular, sales, marketing and other business arrangements in the healthcare industry are subject to extensive laws intended to prevent fraud, kickbacks, self-dealing, bribery, corruption, antitrust violations and other abusive practices. These laws may restrict or prohibit a wide range of business activities, including research, manufacturing, distribution, pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, sales commission, customer incentive programs and other business arrangements. Activities subject to these laws also involve the improper use or misrepresentation of information obtained in the course of clinical trials, creating fraudulent data in our preclinical studies or clinical trials or illegal misappropriation of drug product, which could result in regulatory sanctions and serious harm to our reputation. It is not always possible to identify and deter employee or third-party misconduct, 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 such laws or regulations.
Additionally, we are subject to the risk that a person, including any person who may have engaged in any fraud or misconduct, or government agency could allege such fraud or other misconduct, even if none occurred. Furthermore, we rely on our CROs and clinical trial sites to adequately report data from our clinical trials. For example, any failure by such parties to adequately report safety signals to us in a timely manner from any such trials may also affect the approvability of our product candidates or cause delays and disruptions for the approval of our product candidate, if at all. If our or our affiliates’ employees, independent contractors, principal investigators, consultants, commercial collaborators, service providers or other vendors are alleged or found to be in violation of any such regulatory standards or requirements or become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or similar agreement and curtailment of our operations, it could have a significant impact on our business and financial results, including the imposition of significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, monetary fines, suspension or delay in our clinical trials, possible exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal and state healthcare programs or comparable foreign programs, FDA debarment, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings and additional reporting requirements and oversight, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations.
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International expansion of our business exposes us to business, legal, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks associated with conducting business outside of the U.S.
Part of our business strategy involves potentially expanding internationally with third-party collaborators to seek regulatory approval for IMVT-1402 and any future product candidates outside the U.S. Doing business internationally involves a number of risks, including but not limited to:
• multiple conflicting and changing laws and regulations such as tax laws, export and import restrictions, employment laws, anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws, regulatory requirements and other governmental approvals, permits and licenses;
• failure by us or our collaborators to obtain appropriate licenses or regulatory approvals for the sale or use of our product candidate, if approved, in various countries;
• delays or interruptions in the supply of clinical trial materials resulting from any events affecting raw material supply or manufacturing capabilities abroad;
• difficulties in managing foreign operations;
• complexities associated with managing multiple payor-reimbursement regimes or self-pay systems;
• financial risks, such as longer payment cycles, difficulty enforcing contracts and collecting accounts receivable and exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations;
• reduced protection for intellectual property rights;
• natural disasters, political and economic instability, including wars, terrorism and political unrest, outbreak of disease, including pandemics and related shelter-in-place orders, travel, social distancing and quarantine policies, boycotts, curtailment of trade and other business restrictions; and
• failure to comply with the FCPA, including its books and records provisions and its anti-bribery provisions, the UK Bribery Act and similar antibribery and anticorruption laws in other jurisdictions, for example by failing to maintain accurate information and control over sales or distributors’ activities.
Any of these risks, if encountered, could significantly harm our future international expansion and operations and consequently, negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations.
We and the third parties with whom we work are subject to stringent and changing privacy, data protection and information security laws, contractual obligations, self-regulatory schemes, government regulation, industry standards and other obligations related to data privacy and security. The actual or perceived failure by us or the third parties with whom we work to comply with such obligations could result in harm to our reputation, regulatory investigations or actions, significant fines and liability, disruption of our clinical trials or other material adverse effects on our business.
We collect, receive, store, process, use, generate, transfer, disclose, make accessible, protect and share personal information and other information, including information we collect about patients and healthcare providers in connection with clinical trials in the U.S. and abroad (“Process” or “Processing”) necessary to operate our business and for legal, marketing and other business-related purposes. These activities subject us to numerous federal, state, local and foreign laws, regulations and guidance regarding privacy, data protection, information security and Processing (“Data Protection Laws”), the number and scope of which is changing, subject to differing applications and interpretations, and which may be inconsistent among jurisdictions, or in conflict with other rules, laws or Data Protection Obligations (as defined below).
In the United States, federal, state and local governments have enacted numerous data privacy and security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal data privacy laws, consumer protection laws (e.g., Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act) and other similar laws (e.g., wiretapping laws). Numerous U.S. states have enacted comprehensive privacy laws that impose certain obligations on covered businesses, including providing specific disclosures in privacy notices and affording residents with certain rights concerning their personal data. As applicable, such rights may include the right to access, correct, or delete certain personal data and to opt-out of certain data processing activities, such as targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making. The exercise of these rights may impact our business and ability to conduct our clinical trials and commercialize our product candidates, if approved. Certain states also impose stricter requirements for processing certain personal data, including sensitive information, such as conducting data privacy impact assessments. These state laws allow for statutory fines for noncompliance. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (collectively, “CCPA”), applies to personal data of consumers, business representatives and employees who are California residents, and requires businesses to provide specific disclosures in privacy notices and honor requests of such individuals to exercise certain privacy rights. The CCPA provides for fines of up to $7,988 per intentional violation and allows private litigants affected by certain data breaches to recover significant statutory damages. Similar laws are being considered in several other states, as well as at the federal and local levels, and we expect more states to pass similar laws in the future. The CCPA and other comprehensive U.S. state privacy laws exempt some data processed in the context of clinical trials, but these developments may further complicate compliance efforts, and increase legal risk and compliance costs for us and the third parties with whom we work.
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We also expect that there will continue to be new or amended laws, regulations and industry standards concerning privacy, data protection and information security proposed and enacted in various foreign jurisdictions. For example, under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“EU GDPR”) and the United Kingdom’s GDPR (“UK GDPR”), companies can face private litigation related to processing of personal information brought by classes of data subjects or consumer protection organizations authorized at law to represent their interests; temporary or definitive bans on data processing and other corrective actions; and fines of up to 20 million Euros under the EU GDPR, 17.5 million pounds sterling under the UK GDPR, or 4% of their worldwide annual revenue, whichever is greater. Our or our CROs’, or other third party vendors’ failure to comply with the GDPR could lead to significant fines imposed by regulators or restrictions on our ability to process personal information as needed to conduct clinical trials in the EEA and/or the UK (as applicable) or commercialize our product candidates, if approved. We may also be obligated to assist our clinical trial sites, CROs and vendors with their own compliance obligations under the GDPR, which could require expenditure of significant resources. Assisting our clinical trial sites, CROs and vendors in complying with the GDPR or complying with the GDPR ourselves may cause us to incur substantial operational costs or require us to change our business practices.
In the ordinary course of business, we may transfer personal information from Europe and other jurisdictions to the United States or other countries. Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted laws requiring data to be localized or limiting the transfer of personal information to other countries. In particular, the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom (UK) have significantly restricted the transfer of personal information to the United States and other countries whose privacy laws it generally believes are inadequate. Other jurisdictions may adopt similarly stringent interpretations of their data localization and cross-border data transfer laws. Although there are currently various mechanisms that may be used to transfer personal information from the EEA and UK to the United States in compliance with law, such as the EEA and UK’s standard contractual clauses, the UK’s International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum, and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (which allows for transfers for relevant U.S.-based organizations who self-certify compliance and participate in the Framework), these mechanisms are subject to legal challenges, and there is no assurance that we can satisfy or rely on these measures to lawfully transfer personal information to the United States. If there is no lawful manner for us to transfer personal information from the EEA, the UK or other jurisdictions to the United States, or if the requirements for a legally-compliant transfer are too onerous, we could face significant adverse consequences, including the interruption or degradation of our operations, the need to relocate part of or all of our business or data processing activities to other jurisdictions (such as Europe) at significant expense, increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines and penalties, the inability to transfer data and work with partners, vendors and other third parties, and injunctions against our processing or transferring of personal information necessary to operate our business. Additionally, companies that transfer personal information out of the EEA and UK to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, are subject to increased scrutiny from regulators, individual litigants and activist groups. Some European regulators have ordered certain companies to suspend or permanently cease certain transfers out of Europe for allegedly violating the GDPR’s cross-border data transfer limitations.
Other jurisdictions may adopt or have already adopted similarly stringent data localization and cross-border data transfer laws. For example, regulators in the United States including the Department of Justice are increasingly scrutinizing certain personal data transfers and taking steps to enact certain data localization requirements, such as the Department of Justice’s recently finalized rule implementing the Biden Administration’s executive order “Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern.”
We are also subject to the terms of our external and internal privacy and security policies, representations, certifications, standards, publications and frameworks (“Privacy Policies”) and to contractual obligations to third parties related to privacy, data protection, information security and Processing (“Data Protection Obligations”). We may be contractually subject to industry standards adopted by industry groups and may become subject to additional such obligations in the future. We are also bound by contractual obligations related to data privacy and security, and our efforts to comply with such obligations may not be successful. For example, certain privacy laws, such as the GDPR and the CCPA, may require our vendors to impose specific contractual restrictions on their service providers. We publish privacy policies, marketing materials and other statements regarding our data privacy and security practices. Regulators in the United States are increasingly scrutinizing such statements, and if they are found to be deficient, lacking in transparency, deceptive, unfair, misleading or misrepresentative of our practices, we may be subject to investigation, enforcement actions by regulators or other adverse consequences.
Data Protection Laws and data protection worldwide are, and are likely to remain, uncertain for the foreseeable future. We strive to comply with applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations, but we may at times fail to do so, or may be perceived to have failed to do so. Moreover, despite our efforts, we may not be successful in achieving compliance if our personnel, contractors or vendors do not comply with applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations.
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If we or the third parties with whom we work fail, or are perceived to have failed, to address or comply with applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations, or if our Privacy Policies are, in whole or part, found to be inaccurate, incomplete, deceptive, unfair or misrepresentative of our actual practices, it could increase our compliance and operational costs, expose us to regulatory scrutiny, actions, fines and penalties, result in reputational harm, interrupt or stop clinical trials, result in litigation and liability, result in an inability to process personal information or to operate in certain jurisdictions, cause a material adverse effect on our business operations or financial results or otherwise result in a material adverse effect on our business. In particular, plaintiffs have become increasingly active in bringing privacy-related claims against companies, including class claims and mass arbitration demands. Some of these claims allow for the recovery of statutory damages on a per violation basis, and, if viable, carry the potential for monumental statutory damages, depending on the volume of data and the number of violations.
With applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations imposing complex and burdensome obligations, and with substantial uncertainty over the interpretation and application of these requirements, we have faced and may face additional challenges in addressing and complying with these obligations and making necessary changes to our Privacy Policies and practices, and may incur material costs and expenses in an effort to do so, any of which could materially adversely affect our business operations and financial results, and may limit the adoption and use of, and reduce the overall demand for, our products, which could have an adverse impact on our business.
We may in the future receive inquiries or be subject to investigations, proceedings or actions by various government entities regarding our privacy and information security practices and Processing (“Regulatory Proceedings”). These Regulatory Proceedings could result in a material adverse effect on our reputation, business or financial condition, including without limitation: interruptions or stoppages in our business operations (including, as relevant, clinical trials); the diversion of resources and the attention of management from our business to defend any claim or inquiry; limited ability to commercialize our products; discontinuance of necessary processing; adverse publicity; or substantial changes to our business model or operations.
If our information technology systems or data, or those of our affiliates, service providers or other third parties with whom we work, are or were compromised now or in the future, this could result in a material adverse effect on our business, including without limitation, a material interruption to our operations, harm to our reputation, regulatory investigations or actions, significant fines, penalties and liability, breach or triggering of Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations or material disruption of our clinical trials or other business activity.
In the ordinary course of our business, we Process proprietary, confidential and sensitive information, including personal information (including health information), intellectual property, trade secrets and proprietary business information owned or controlled by ourselves or other parties (“Sensitive Information”).
We may use third-party service providers and subprocessors to help us operate our business and engage in Processing on our behalf, such as RSL and its affiliates, our CROs and other contractors. We may also share Sensitive Information with our affiliates or other third parties in conjunction with our business. If we, our service providers, affiliates or other third parties with whom we work have experienced, or in the future experience (or are perceived to have experienced), any security incident(s) that result in any accidental or unlawful data loss, deletion or destruction, unauthorized access to, loss of, unauthorized acquisition or disclosure of or inadvertent exposure or disclosure of Sensitive Information, or compromise related to the security, confidentiality, integrity or availability of our (or their) information technology, software, services, communications or data (collectively a “Security Breach”), it may result in a material adverse effect on our business, including without limitation, disruptions of our drug development programs, delays in our regulatory approval efforts, regulatory investigations or enforcement actions, litigation, indemnity obligations, negative publicity and financial loss.
Cyberattacks, malicious internet-based activity and online and offline fraud threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our sensitive information and information technology systems, and those of the third parties upon which we rely. Such threats are prevalent and continue to rise, are increasingly difficult to detect, and come from a variety of sources, including traditional computer “hackers,” threat actors, “hacktivists”, organized criminal threat actors, personnel (such as through theft or misuse), sophisticated nation-state and nation-state-supported actors. Some actors now engage and are expected to continue to engage in attacks, including without limitation, nation-state actors for geopolitical reasons and in conjunction with military conflicts and defense activities. During times of war and other major conflicts, we and the third parties with whom we work may be vulnerable to a heightened risk of these attacks, including retaliatory cyber-attacks, that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain and ability to produce, sell and distribute our goods and services.
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We and the third parties with whom we work (including our CROs and trial sites) are subject to a variety of evolving threats, including but not limited to social-engineering attacks (including through deep fakes, which may be increasingly more difficult to identify as fake, and phishing attacks), software bugs, malicious code (such as viruses and worms), adware, employee theft or misuse, supply chain attacks, denial-of-service attacks (such as credential stuffing) and ransomware attacks, phishing attacks, viruses, malware installation (including as a result of advanced persistent threat intrusions), server malfunction, software or hardware failures, loss of data or other information technology assets, telecommunications failures, earthquakes, fires, floods, attacks, enhanced or facilitated by AI or other similar issues. In particular, severe ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent and can lead to significant interruptions in our operations, loss of sensitive data and income, reputational harm and diversion of funds. Extortion payments may alleviate the negative impact of a ransomware attack, but we may be unwilling or unable to make such payments due to, for example, applicable laws or regulations prohibiting such payments.
Remote work has increased risks to our information technology systems and data, as more of our employees utilize network connections, computers and devices outside our premises or network, including working at home, while in transit and in public locations. Additionally, future or past business transactions (such as acquisitions or integrations) could expose us to additional cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, as our systems could be negatively affected by vulnerabilities present in acquired or integrated entities’ systems and technologies. Furthermore, we may discover security issues that were not found during due diligence of such acquired or integrated entities, and it may be difficult to integrate companies into our information technology environment and security program.
We rely on third-party service providers and technologies to operate critical business systems to process sensitive information in a variety of contexts, including, without limitation, cloud-based infrastructure, clinical trial operations, encryption and authentication technology, employee email and other functions. Our ability to monitor these third parties’ information security practices is limited, and these third parties may not have adequate information security measures in place. If our third-party service providers experience a Security Breach or other interruption, we could experience adverse consequences. While we may be entitled to damages if our third-party service providers fail to satisfy their privacy- or security-related obligations to us, any award may be insufficient to cover our damages, or we may be unable to recover such award. In addition, supply-chain attacks have increased in frequency and severity, and we cannot guarantee that third parties’ infrastructure in our supply chain or our third-party partners’ supply chains have not been compromised.
Any of the previously identified or similar threats could cause a security incident or other interruption that could result in unauthorized, unlawful, or accidental acquisition, modification, destruction, loss, alteration, encryption, disclosure of, or access to our sensitive information or our information technology systems, or those of the third parties with whom we work. For example, we have been the target of unsuccessful phishing attempts in the past and expect such attempts will continue in the future. A Security Breach or other interruption could disrupt our ability (and that of third parties with whom we work) to conduct our business operations. We may be required to expend significant resources, fundamentally change our business activities and practices or modify our operations (including our clinical trial activities) or information technology in an effort to protect against Security Breaches and to mitigate, detect and remediate actual and potential vulnerabilities. Applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations also require us to implement and maintain specific security measures or use industry-standard or reasonable security measures to protect our information technology systems and sensitive information. While we have implemented security measures designed to protect against Security Breaches, there can be no assurance that our security measures or those of our service providers, partners and other third parties with whom we work will be effective in protecting against all Security Breaches and adverse effects on our business that may arise from such breaches. The recovery systems, security protocols, network protection mechanisms and other security measures that we (and our third parties) have integrated into our platform, systems, networks and physical facilities, which are designed to protect against, detect and minimize Security Breaches, may not be adequate to prevent or detect service interruption, system failure or data loss.
We have not always been able in the past and may be unable in the future to detect, anticipate, measure or prevent Security Breaches or threats or techniques used to detect or exploit vulnerabilities in our (or our service providers’, partners’ or other relevant third parties’) information technology, services, communications or software because such threats and techniques change frequently and are often sophisticated in nature. Such vulnerabilities could be exploited but may not be detected until after a Security Breach has occurred. In addition, security researchers and other individuals have and will continue to actively search for and exploit actual and potential vulnerabilities in our (or our third parties’) information technology and communications. These vulnerabilities pose material risks to our business. We cannot be certain that we will be able to address any such vulnerabilities, in whole or part, and there may be delays in developing and deploying patches and other remedial measures to adequately address vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities could be exploited and result in a Security Breach.
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Applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies and Data Protection Obligations may require us to notify relevant stakeholders of Security Breaches, including affected individuals, customers, regulators and credit reporting agencies. Such disclosures are costly and the disclosures or the failure to comply with such requirements could lead to adverse effects on our business including, without limitation, government enforcement actions (for example, investigations, fines, penalties, audits and inspections); additional reporting requirements and/or oversight; restrictions on processing sensitive information (including personal data); litigation (including class claims); indemnification obligations; negative publicity; reputational harm; monetary fund diversions; interruptions in our operations (including availability of data); financial loss; and other similar harms.
There can be no assurance that the limitations of liability in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate or would otherwise protect us from liabilities or damages if we fail to comply with applicable Data Protection Laws, Privacy Policies or Data Protection Obligations related to information security or Security Breaches.
Failures or significant downtime of our information technology or telecommunication systems or those used by our third-party service providers could also cause significant interruptions in our operations and adversely impact the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive or confidential information, including preventing us from conducting clinical trials, tests or research and development activities and preventing us from managing the administrative aspects of our business.
While we maintain general liability insurance coverage and coverage for errors or omissions, we cannot assure that such coverage will be adequate or otherwise protect us from or adequately mitigate liabilities or damages with respect to claims, costs, expenses, litigation, fines, penalties, business loss, data loss, regulatory actions or adverse effects on our business arising out of our privacy and security practices, Processing or Security Breaches, or that such coverage will continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceeds our available insurance coverage or results in changes to our insurance policies (including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements), could have an adverse effect on our business. In addition, we cannot be sure that our existing insurance coverage and coverage for errors and omissions will continue to be available on acceptable terms or that our insurers will not deny coverage as to any future claim.
In addition to experiencing a Security Breach, third parties may gather, collect or infer sensitive information about us from public sources, data brokers or other means that reveals competitively sensitive details about our organization and could be used to undermine our competitive advantage or market position. Additionally, our sensitive information could be leaked, disclosed or revealed as a result of or in connection with the use of generative AI technologies by our employees, personnel or vendors, even if such use is not authorized by us or permitted by our internal policies.
Potential product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and limit commercialization of any products that we may develop.
The use of IMVT-1402 and any future product candidate in clinical trials and the sale of any products for which we obtain marketing approval exposes us to the risk of product liability claims. Product liability claims might be brought against us by consumers, health care providers, other pharmaceutical companies, government authorities or others taking or otherwise coming into contact with any approved products. On occasion, large monetary judgments have been awarded in class action lawsuits where drugs have had unanticipated adverse effects. If we cannot successfully defend against product liability claims, we could incur substantial liability and costs. In addition, regardless of merit or eventual outcome, product liability claims may result in, among other things:
• impairment of our business reputation and significant negative media attention;
• delay or termination of clinical trials or withdrawal of participants from our clinical trials;
• significant costs to defend related litigation;
• distraction of management’s attention from our primary business;
• substantial monetary awards to patients or other claimants;
• inability to commercialize any product candidate, if approved;
• product recalls, withdrawals or labeling, marketing or promotional restrictions;
• decreased demand for any product candidate, if approved; and
• loss of revenue.
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The product liability insurance we currently carry and any additional product liability insurance coverage we acquire in the future may not be sufficient to reimburse us for any expenses or losses we may suffer. Moreover, insurance coverage is becoming increasingly expensive and in the future we may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in sufficient amounts to protect us against losses due to liability. If we obtain marketing approval for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, we intend to acquire insurance coverage to include the sale of commercial products; however, we may be unable to obtain product liability insurance on commercially reasonable terms or in adequate amounts. A successful product liability claim or series of claims brought against us could cause our share price to decline and, if judgments exceed our insurance coverage, could adversely affect our results of operations and business, including preventing or limiting the commercialization of any approved product.
The biopharmaceutical industry is subject to extensive regulatory obligations and policies that may be subject to significant and abrupt change, including due to judicial challenges, election cycles, and resulting regulatory updates and changes in policy priorities.
On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion holding that courts reviewing agency action pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (the “APA”) “must exercise their independent judgment” and “may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.” The decision has had and will have a significant impact on how lower courts evaluate challenges to agency interpretations of law, including those by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CMS, FDA and other agencies with significant oversight of the biopharmaceutical industry. The new framework is likely to increase both the frequency of such challenges and their odds of success by eliminating one way in which the government previously prevailed in such cases. As a result, significant regulatory policies will be subject to increased litigation and judicial scrutiny.
In addition, federal agency priorities, leadership, policies, rulemaking, communications, spending, and staffing may be significantly impacted by election cycles and legislative developments. For example, the current presidential administration’s commitment to significantly reduce government spending through cuts to federal healthcare programs and reductions in the workforces of key government agencies, such as HHS, FDA and CMS. Efforts by the current administration to limit federal agency budgets or personnel may result in reductions to agency budgets, employees, and operations. The administration and agencies have also made abrupt announcements about new or changed regulatory policies, such as policies related to the use of artificial intelligence to review product applications. And, the recent federal government shutdown may prevent the FDA or other regulatory authorities from conducting their regular inspections, reviews or other regulatory activities, and may significantly impact the ability of the FDA to timely review and process our regulatory submissions. These developments may lead to greater uncertainty regarding FDA policies, slower response times and longer review periods, potentially affecting our ability to progress development of our product candidates or obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates.
Any resulting changes in regulation may result in unexpected delays, increased costs, or other negative impacts on our business that are difficult to predict.
Disruptions at the FDA and other government authorities caused by funding shortages or global health concerns could hinder their ability to hire, retain or deploy key leadership and other personnel or otherwise prevent new or modified products from being developed, approved or commercialized in a timely manner or at all, which could negatively impact our business.
The ability of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities to review and approve new products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, statutory, regulatory and policy changes, the FDA’s or comparable foreign regulatory authorities’ ability to hire and retain key personnel and accept the payment of user fees and other events that may otherwise affect the FDA’s or comparable foreign regulatory authorities’ ability to perform routine functions, as applicable. Average review times at the FDA have fluctuated in recent years as a result. In addition, government funding of other government agencies that fund research and development activities is subject to the political process, which is inherently fluid and unpredictable. Disruptions at the FDA and other foreign regulatory authorities may also slow the time necessary for new drugs and biologics or modifications to approved drugs and biologics to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government authorities, which would adversely affect our business. For example, over the last several years, the U.S. government has shut down several times and certain regulatory authorities, such as the FDA, have had to furlough critical FDA employees and stop critical activities.
Separately, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA adopted a risk-based approach to the inspection of foreign and domestic manufacturing facilities and similar restrictions. The use of alternative regulatory tools may delay FDA or foreign regulatory authority actions. If a prolonged government shutdown occurs or if global health concerns prevent the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities from conducting their regular inspections, reviews or other regulatory activities, it could significantly impact the ability of the FDA or other regulatory authorities to timely review and process our regulatory submissions, which could have an adverse effect on our business.
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Our business could be adversely affected by economic downturns, changes in inflation and interest rates, changes in international trade policies and tariffs, natural disasters, political crises, geopolitical events, such as the crises and conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, or other macroeconomic conditions, which may negatively impact our business and financial performance in the future.
The global economy, including credit and financial markets, has experienced extreme volatility and disruptions, including, among other things, severely diminished liquidity and credit availability, declines in consumer confidence, declines in economic growth, supply chain shortages, changes in inflation and interest rates and uncertainty about economic stability. For example, during 2022 and 2023, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates multiple times in response to concerns about inflation. Higher interest rates, coupled with reduced government spending and volatility in financial markets may increase economic uncertainty and affect consumer spending. Trade policies and geopolitical disputes and conflicts can result in tariffs, sanctions and other measures that restrict international trade, and may adversely affect our costs of doing business, particularly if these measures occur in regions where our suppliers source components or raw materials. For example, in April 2025 the U.S. and China implemented reciprocal tariffs on a variety of goods, including pharmaceutical products. Similarly, the ongoing military conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, the Israel/Hamas conflict in the Middle East, and the conflict in Iran have created volatility in the global capital markets and are expected to have further global economic consequences, including disruptions of the global supply chain and energy markets. Any such volatility and disruptions may adversely affect our business or the third parties on whom we rely. If the equity and credit markets deteriorate, including as a result of political unrest or war, it may make any necessary debt or equity financing more difficult to obtain in a timely manner or on favorable terms, more costly or more dilutive. Increased inflation rates can adversely affect us by increasing our costs, including labor and employee benefit costs.
Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties
We do not have our own manufacturing capabilities and rely on third parties to produce clinical supplies and commercial supplies of our product candidates. The manufacture of biologics is complex and we or our third-party manufacturers may encounter difficulties in production or our quality management program may fail to detect quality issues at our third-party manufacturers, which may delay or prevent our ability to obtain marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates if approved.
We have no experience in biologic manufacturing and do not own or operate, and we do not expect to own or operate, facilities for product manufacturing, storage and distribution or testing. We rely on third parties for the manufacture of our drug substance, drug product, and delivery devices. With respect to IMVT-1402, we have established arrangements with CMOs to supply drug substance and drug product to support our current and planned clinical trial programs, as well as anticipated commercial supply to support the potential launch of IMVT-1402, if approved. Additional third-party vendors may be difficult to identify for our product candidate process and formulation development and manufacturing due to special capabilities required, and they may not be able to meet our quality standards. In addition, certain of our third-party manufacturers and suppliers may encounter delays in providing their services as a result of supply chain constraints. If any third-party manufacturers or third parties in the supply chain for materials used in the production of our product candidates are adversely impacted by supply chain constraints, our supply chain may be disrupted, limiting our ability to manufacture our product candidates for our preclinical studies, clinical trials, research and development activities and, following regulatory approval, commercialization. Any significant delay in the supply of IMVT-1402 or the raw material components thereof, or in placebo controls for an ongoing clinical trial due to the need to replace a third-party manufacturer could considerably delay completion of our clinical trials, product testing and potential regulatory approval of IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate. If our manufacturers or we are unable to purchase these raw materials after regulatory approval has been obtained for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, the commercial launch of such product candidate would be delayed or there would be a shortage in supply, which would impair our ability to generate revenue from the sale of such product candidate and may require notification to the FDA or other regulatory authorities. In addition, our product candidates are biologics and require processing steps that are more difficult than those required for most chemical pharmaceuticals. Accordingly, multiple steps are needed to control the manufacturing processes. Our future success depends on our ability to maintain and continuously improve our quality management program to monitor the manufacturing processes used by third-party manufacturers and our reliance on third-party manufacturers does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. Problems with these manufacturing processes, even minor deviations from the normal process or from the materials used in the manufacturing process, which may not be detectable by us in a timely manner, could lead to product defects or manufacturing failures, resulting in lot failures, product recalls, product liability claims and insufficient inventory. A quality or safety issue emanating from manufacturing failures may result in adverse inspection reports, warning letters, monetary sanctions, injunction to halt manufacture and distribution of drugs or drug products, civil or criminal sanctions, costly litigation, refusal of a government to grant approvals and licenses, restrictions on operations or withdrawal of existing approvals and licenses.
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The facilities used by our contract manufacturers to manufacture IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate must be approved by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities pursuant to inspections that will be conducted after we submit our BLA to the FDA or comparable applications to foreign regulatory authorities. We do not control the manufacturing process of, and are completely dependent on, our contract manufacturing partners for compliance with cGMP requirements for manufacture of drug products. If our contract manufacturers cannot successfully manufacture material that conforms to our specifications and the strict regulatory requirements of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, we will not be able to secure or maintain regulatory approval for our product candidate. In addition, we have no control over the ability of our contract manufacturers to maintain adequate quality control, quality assurance and qualified personnel. If the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities do not approve these facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates or if they withdraw any such approval in the future, we may need to find alternative manufacturing facilities, which could significantly impact our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for or market IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate, if approved. We, our contract manufacturers, any future collaborators and their contract manufacturers could be subject to periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities, to monitor and ensure compliance with cGMP. Despite our efforts to audit and verify regulatory compliance, one or more of our third-party manufacturing vendors may be found on regulatory inspection by the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities to be noncompliant with cGMP regulations. This may result in shutdown of the third-party vendor or invalidation of drug product lots or processes. In some cases, a product recall may be warranted or required, which would materially affect our ability to supply and market our drug products.
Further, our reliance on third-party manufacturers entails risks, including:
• inability to meet our product specifications and quality requirements consistently;
• delay or inability to procure or expand sufficient manufacturing capacity;
• manufacturing and product quality issues related to scale-up of manufacturing, which can be difficult for a biologic product;
• costs and validation of new equipment and facilities required for scale-up;
• failure to comply with applicable laws, regulations and standards, including cGMP and similar foreign standards;
• deficient or improper record-keeping;
• inability to negotiate manufacturing agreements with third parties under commercially reasonable terms;
• potential disputes with third parties that might delay work under third-party contracts;
• termination or nonrenewal of manufacturing agreements with third parties in a manner or at a time that is costly or damaging to us;
• reliance on a limited number of sources, and in some cases, single sources for product components, such that if we are unable to secure a sufficient supply of these product components, we will be unable to manufacture and sell any product candidate, if approved, in a timely fashion, in sufficient quantities or under acceptable terms;
• lack of qualified backup suppliers for those components that are currently purchased from a sole or single source supplier;
• operations of our third-party manufacturers or suppliers could be disrupted by conditions unrelated to our business or operations, including the bankruptcy of the manufacturer or supplier or other regulatory sanctions related to the manufacture of another company’s products;
• carrier disruptions or increased costs that are beyond our control; and
• failure to deliver our products under specified storage conditions and in a timely manner.
Any of these events could lead to clinical trial delays, cost overruns, delay or failure to obtain regulatory approval or impact our ability to successfully commercialize our products, as well as product recalls or product withdrawals. Some of these events could be the basis for FDA or other foreign regulatory authority action, including injunction, recall, seizure or total or partial suspension of production.
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A portion of our manufacturing, clinical trial activities and laboratory research takes place in Asia. A significant disruption in that region, such as a trade war or political unrest, or adverse legislation could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We currently and expect to continue to engage in contract manufacturing, conduct clinical trials, and perform laboratory research activities outside the U.S., including in Asia. Any disruption in production or inability of our manufacturers in Asia to produce adequate quantities to meet our needs could impair our ability to operate our business on a day-to-day basis and to continue our development of our product candidates. In particular, trade tensions and conflict between the United States and China remain high, and could result in changes to the laws, rules, regulations and policies of the governments of the United States or China that impact the ability of U.S. biotechnology companies to partner with entities in China. For example, in April 2025, the U.S. and China implemented reciprocal tariffs on a variety of goods, including pharmaceutical products. We also conduct certain laboratory research and expect to have clinical trial sites in Asia. We are exposed to the possibility of product supply disruption, clinical trial delays and increased costs in the event of changes in governmental policies, political unrest or unstable economic conditions in Asia. Any disruption of these activities could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
We rely on third parties to conduct, supervise and monitor our clinical trials and if those third parties perform in an unsatisfactory manner or fail to comply with applicable requirements or our quality management program fails to detect such events in a timely manner, it may harm our business.
We currently do not have the ability to independently conduct nonclinical studies that comply with good laboratory practice (“GLP”) requirements. We also do not currently have the ability to independently conduct any clinical trials. We rely exclusively on CROs and clinical trial sites, which need to comply with GCP, to ensure the proper and timely conduct of our clinical trials and we have limited influence over their actual performance.
We rely upon CROs to monitor and manage data for our clinical programs, as well as for the execution of nonclinical studies. We control only certain aspects of our CROs’ activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific standards and our reliance on the CROs does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities.
We and our CROs are required to comply with GLP and GCP regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA and equivalent foreign regulations and guidelines, including the International Council for Harmonization guidelines, enforced by foreign regulatory authorities for IMVT-1402 or any of our future product candidates that are in nonclinical and clinical development. The regulatory authorities enforce GCP regulations through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and clinical trial sites. Although we rely on CROs to conduct our GLP-compliant nonclinical studies and GCP-compliant clinical trials, we remain responsible for ensuring that each of our nonclinical studies and clinical trials is conducted in accordance with its investigational plan and protocol and applicable laws and regulations and our reliance on the CROs does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. Therefore, the success of our clinical trials depends on our ability to maintain and continuously improve our quality management program to monitor our CROs’ compliance with applicable regulations. If we or our CROs fail to comply with GCP requirements, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may reject our marketing applications or require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. Accordingly, if we or our CROs fail to comply with these regulations or other applicable laws, regulations or standards, or fail to recruit a sufficient number of subjects, we may be required to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the relevant regulatory approval process. Failure by our CROs to properly execute study protocols in accordance with applicable law could also create product liability and regulatory risks for us as sponsors of those studies. Further, our or our CROs’ inability to address a quality or safety issue may result in, among others, adverse inspection reports, warning letters, civil or criminal sanctions, costly litigation, refusal of a government to grant approvals and licenses, restrictions on operations or withdrawal of existing approvals and licenses.
While we will have agreements governing their activities, our CROs are not our employees, and we will not control whether or not they devote sufficient time and resources to our future clinical and nonclinical programs. These CROs may also have relationships with other commercial entities, including our competitors, for whom they may also be conducting clinical trials, or other drug development activities, which could harm our competitive position. We face the risk of potential unauthorized disclosure or misappropriation of our intellectual property by CROs, which may reduce our trade secret and intellectual property protection and allow our potential competitors to access and exploit our proprietary technology. If our CROs do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations, fail to meet expected deadlines or if the quality or accuracy of the clinical data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our (or their own) clinical protocols or regulatory requirements or for any other reasons, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize any product candidate that we develop. As a result, our financial results and the commercial prospects for any product candidate that we develop could be harmed, our costs could increase and our ability to generate revenue could be delayed.
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If our relationships with these CROs terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative CROs or do so on commercially reasonable terms or in a timely manner. Switching or adding additional CROs involves substantial cost and requires management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new CRO commences work. As a result, delays occur, which could adversely impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines. Though we carefully manage our relationships with our CROs, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
Our product candidates for which we intend to seek approval as a biological product may face competition sooner than anticipated.
In the U.S., the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (“BPCIA”) created an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products that are biosimilar to or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed reference biological product. New biologics, such as IMVT-1402 or batoclimab, may be entitled to regulatory exclusivity under the BPCIA. The BPCIA grants new biologics 12 years of FDA-granted exclusivity. Further, under the BPCIA, an application for a biosimilar product may not be submitted to the FDA until four years following the date that the reference product was first licensed by the FDA. During the period of exclusivity, however, another company may still market a competing version of the reference product if the FDA approves a full BLA for the competing product containing the sponsor’s own clinical data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials to demonstrate the safety, purity and potency of their product. After the expiration of the exclusivity period, the FDA can approve a biosimilar product through an abbreviated approval process. The law is complex and is still being interpreted and implemented by the FDA. As a result, its ultimate impact, implementation and meaning are subject to uncertainty.
Our product candidates, IMVT-1402 and batoclimab, as biological products, may qualify for the 12-year period of exclusivity. However, there is a risk that this exclusivity could be shortened due to congressional action or otherwise, potentially creating the opportunity for generic competition sooner than anticipated. Other aspects of the BPCIA, some of which may impact the BPCIA exclusivity provisions, have also been the subject of litigation. Moreover, the extent to which a biosimilar, once approved, will be substituted for any one of our reference products in a way that is similar to traditional generic substitution for non-biological products is not yet clear, and will depend on a number of marketplace and regulatory factors that are still developing.
The validity, scope and enforceability of any patents that cover a biologic subject to approval by the FDA via a BLA, such as IMVT-1402 or batoclimab, can be challenged by third parties.
For biologics subject to approval by the FDA via a BLA, such as IMVT-1402 or batoclimab, the BPCIA provides a mechanism for one or more third parties to seek FDA approval to manufacture or sell a biosimilar or interchangeable versions of brand name biological products. Due to the large size and complexity of biological products as compared to small molecules, a biosimilar must be “highly similar” to the reference product with “no clinically meaningful differences between the two.” The BPCIA requires a formal pre-litigation process which includes the exchange of information between a biosimilar applicant and a reference biologic sponsor that includes the identification of relevant patents and each parties’ basis for infringement and invalidity. After the exchange of this information, we may then initiate a lawsuit within 30 days to defend the patents identified in the exchange. If the biosimilar applicant successfully challenges the asserted patent claims it could result in the invalidation of or render unenforceable some or all of the relevant patent claims or result in a finding of non-infringement. Such litigation or other proceedings to enforce or defend intellectual property rights are often very complex in nature, may be very expensive and time-consuming, may divert our management’s attention from our core business and may result in unfavorable results that could limit our ability to prevent third parties from competing with IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates.
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If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, we may not be able to compete effectively in our markets.
We rely, and will continue to rely, upon a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements with employees, consultants, collaborators, advisors and other third parties to protect the intellectual property related to our brand, current and future drug development programs and product candidates. Our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection in the U.S. and other countries with respect to IMVT-1402, batoclimab, and any future product candidates and their uses. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing or collaborating with our licensor to file patent applications in the U.S. and abroad in the Licensed Territory related to our current and future drug development programs and product candidates. The patent prosecution process is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner.
It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. We may choose not to seek patent protection for certain innovations or products and may choose not to pursue patent protection in certain jurisdictions and under the laws of certain jurisdictions, patents or other intellectual property rights may be unavailable or limited in scope and, in any event, any patent protection we obtain may be limited. We generally apply for patents in those countries in the Licensed Territory where we intend to make, have made, use, offer for sale or sell products and where we assess the risk of infringement to justify the cost of seeking patent protection. However, we do not seek protection in all countries where we intend to sell products and we may not accurately predict all the countries where patent protection would ultimately be desirable. If we fail to timely file a patent application in any such country or major market, we may be precluded from doing so at a later date. We may also make statements to regulatory authorities during the regulatory approval process that may be inconsistent with positions that have been taken during prosecution of our patents, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable or unpatentable.
The patent applications that we in-license in the U.S. or in other foreign countries may fail to result in issued patents with claims that protect our product candidates or result in patents that are narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable or unpatentable following challenge in certain jurisdictions. We cannot guarantee any current or future patents will provide us with any meaningful protection or competitive advantage. There is no assurance that all of the potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and patent applications has been found, which can prevent a patent from issuing from a pending patent application or be used to invalidate an issued patent. The examination process may require us to narrow our claims, which may limit the scope of any patent protection we obtain. Even if patents do successfully issue based on our patent applications and even if such patents cover our product candidates, uses of our product candidates or other aspects related to our product candidates, third parties may challenge their patentability, validity, ownership, enforceability or scope, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable or circumvented, any of which could limit our ability to prevent competitors and other third parties from developing and marketing similar products or limit the length of terms of patent protection we may have for our product candidates, if approved, and technologies. Other companies may also design around our patents. The issuance of a patent does not give us the right to practice the patented invention. Third parties may have blocking patents that could prevent us from marketing our product candidates, if approved, or practicing our own patented technology. Further, if we encounter delays in regulatory approvals, the period of time during which we could market a product candidate while under patent protection could be reduced. If any of our patents expire or are challenged, invalidated, circumvented or otherwise limited by third parties prior to the commercialization of our product candidates and if we do not own or have exclusive rights to other enforceable patents protecting our product candidates, competitors and other third parties could market products that are substantially similar to ours and our business would suffer.
If the patent applications we hold or have in-licensed with respect to our development programs and our product candidates fail to issue, if their patentability, validity, breadth or strength of protection is threatened or if they fail to provide meaningful exclusivity for our product candidates, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to develop our product candidates and threaten our ability to commercialize future drugs. Any such outcome could have an adverse effect on our business. Our pending patent applications cannot be enforced against third parties practicing the technology claimed in such applications unless and until a patent issues from such application.
The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies is generally highly uncertain, involves complex legal, scientific and factual questions, and has in recent years been the subject of much litigation. The standards that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and its foreign counterparts use to grant patents are not always applied predictably or uniformly. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the U.S. and many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending such rights in foreign jurisdictions.
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Publications of discoveries in scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries and patent applications in the U.S. and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not until a patent issues. Therefore, we cannot know with certainty whether we were the first to make the inventions claimed in our owned or licensed patents or pending patent applications or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued which protect IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates, in whole or in part, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive products. Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the U.S. and other countries may diminish the value of our patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection.
Moreover, we may be subject to a third-party pre-issuance submission of prior art to the USPTO or become involved in opposition, derivation, reexamination, inter partes review, post-grant review or interference proceedings challenging our owned or licensed patent rights. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of or invalidate our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates and compete directly with us without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize products without infringing third-party patent rights. In addition, if the breadth or strength of protection provided by our patents and patent applications is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to license, develop or commercialize IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates.
The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, ownership, scope, validity or enforceability, and our owned and in-licensed patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices, both in the U.S. and abroad. Such challenges may result in loss of exclusivity or in patent claims being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, in whole or in part, which could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical products or limit the duration of the patent protection of our products. Moreover, patents have a limited lifespan. In the U.S., if all maintenance fees are timely paid, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional filing date. In certain instances, the patent term may be adjusted to add additional days to compensate for delays incurred by the USPTO in issuing the patent. Also, the patent term may be extended for a period of time to compensate for at least a portion of the time a product candidate was undergoing FDA regulatory review. However, the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Without patent protection for IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates, we may be open to competition from generic versions of such products. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.
We may not be able to protect or enforce our intellectual property rights throughout the world.
Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or any future product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive and even in countries where we have sought protection for our intellectual property, such protection may be less extensive than that provided in the U.S. The requirements for patentability may differ in certain countries, particularly developing countries and the breadth of patent claims allowed can be inconsistent. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect patent rights and other intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal laws and state laws in the U.S. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the U.S. or from selling or importing products made using our inventions in certain jurisdictions. Competitors may exploit our technology or inventions in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and may also export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection but where enforcement is not as strong as that in the U.S. These products may compete with our products and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.
We may decide to abandon national and regional patent applications while they are still pending. The examination and issuance of each national or regional patent is an independent proceeding which may lead to situations in which applications may be rejected by a patent office in one jurisdiction, while substantively similar applications are granted by patent offices in other jurisdictions. For example, relative to other countries, India has a heightened requirement for patentability and specifically does not allow patenting of medical treatment methods. It is also common that, depending on the country, the scope of patent protection may vary for the same product candidate or technology. If we are unable obtain claims that we feel are commercially relevant in a particular jurisdiction, we may abandon that patent application and forego obtaining patent protection for that product in the relevant jurisdiction, which may allow competitors in that jurisdiction to develop their own products that may compete with our products without infringing our patent claims in that jurisdiction.
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We do not have patent rights in certain foreign countries in which a market may exist. Moreover, in foreign jurisdictions where we may obtain patent rights, proceedings to enforce such rights could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biotechnology products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions, whether or not successful, could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly, could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Thus, we may not be able to stop a competitor from marketing and selling in foreign countries products and services that are the same as or similar to our products and services and our competitive position in the international market would be harmed.
Many countries, including certain countries in the European Union, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled under specified circumstances to grant licenses to other parties. EU legislators are currently negotiating a Regulation on Critical Medicines which, among other measures, envisages the conclusion of voluntary agreements for certain in-scope medicines, and – as a measure of last resort – the possibility of allowing third-party production of patented medicines without the consent of the license holder. The Regulation is expected to be adopted in 2026. In those countries, we may have limited remedies if patents are infringed or if we are compelled to grant a license to a third party, which could materially diminish the value of those patents. This could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.
Patent terms may be inadequate to protect our competitive position on our product candidates for an adequate amount of time.
Patents have a limited lifespan. In the U.S., if all maintenance fees are timely paid, the statutory expiration of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional filing date, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. In certain instances, the patent term may be adjusted to add additional days to compensate for delays incurred by the USPTO in issuing the patent. Also, the patent term may be extended for a period of time to compensate for at least a portion of the time a product candidate was undergoing FDA regulatory review. However, the life of a patent and the protection it affords is limited. Even if patents covering our product candidates are obtained, once the patent has expired, we may be open to competition from competitive products, including generics or biosimilars. The patent family directed to the composition of matter of batoclimab has a statutory projected expiration date in 2035 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent family directed to the composition of matter of IMVT-1402 and its use in treating autoimmune diseases has a statutory projected expiration date in 2043 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent family directed to methods of improving anti-FcRn therapies, which describes specific dosing regimens for IMVT-1402 including for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, has a statutory projected expiration date in 2044 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent family directed to methods of treating skin diseases using anti-FcRn antibodies including IMVT-1402 and batoclimab has a statutory projected expiration date in 2046 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent family directed to the formulation of batoclimab has a statutory projected expiration date in 2041 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent families directed to the use of IMVT-1402 and batoclimab for treating GD and the use of IMVT-1402 and batoclimab for treating CIDP each have a statutory projected expiration date in 2043 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent family directed to the method of manufacturing of, and formulations produced by such method, covering manufacturing and formulations of batoclimab, has a statutory projected expiration date in 2044 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees. The patent family directed to formulations for anti-FcRn antibodies has a statutory projected expiration date in 2045 in the U.S. and in foreign jurisdictions, without taking into account any possible patent term adjustment or extension and assuming payment of all appropriate maintenance, renewal, annuity or other governmental fees.
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Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of any new product candidate, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned and in-licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.
If we are not able to obtain patent term extension in the U.S. under the Hatch-Waxman Act and in foreign countries under similar legislation, thereby potentially extending the term of our marketing exclusivity for batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or other product candidates that we may identify, our business may be harmed.
Our commercial success will largely depend on our ability to obtain and maintain patent and other intellectual property rights in the U.S. and other countries with respect to our proprietary technology, product candidates and our target indications. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting our product candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates begin to be commercialized. Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of FDA marketing approval of IMVT-1402, batoclimab or other product candidates that we may identify, one of the U.S. patents covering each of such product candidates or the use thereof may be eligible for up to five years of patent term extension under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (the “Hatch-Waxman Act”). The Hatch-Waxman Act allows a maximum of one patent to be extended per FDA approved product as compensation for the patent term lost during the FDA premarket regulatory review process. A patent term extension cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of product approval and only claims covering such approved drug product, a method for using it or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. Patent term extension also may be available in certain foreign countries, including the EU where it is known as a Supplementary Protection Certificate (“SPC”), upon regulatory approval of our product candidates, based on similar legislation. Nevertheless, we may not be granted patent term extension either in the U.S. or in any foreign country because of, for example, failing to exercise due diligence during the testing phase or regulatory review process, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents or otherwise failing to satisfy applicable requirements. Moreover, the term of extension, as well as the scope of patent protection during any such extension, afforded by the governmental authority could be less than we request.
If we are unable to obtain patent term extension or the term of any such extension is less than we request, the period during which we will have the right to exclusively market our product may be shortened and our competitors may obtain approval to market competing products sooner and our revenue could be reduced, possibly materially.
It is possible that we will not obtain patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act for a U.S. patent covering batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or other product candidates that we may identify even where that patent is eligible for patent term extension or if we obtain such an extension, it may be for a shorter period than we had sought. Further, for patents we may later in-license or jointly own, we may not have the right to control patent prosecution, including filing with the USPTO a petition for patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act. Thus, if one of these patents was eligible for patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act, we might not be able to control whether a petition to obtain a patent term extension would be filed or obtained from the USPTO.
We do not have rights to protect intellectual property in certain territories and may be unable to adequately protect our rights.
We do not have rights to develop, manufacture, use or commercialize IMVT-1402, batoclimab, or other assets licensed from HanAll in jurisdictions outside the Licensed Territory. One or more third parties may challenge patents corresponding to the patent portfolio licensed to us from HanAll in jurisdictions outside the Licensed Territory and HanAll may not reasonably cooperate in the defense and enforcement of such patents with us, which could impair our ability to defend or enforce our rights to corresponding patents in jurisdictions within the Licensed Territory.
If we fail to comply with our obligations under any license, collaboration or other agreements, including the HanAll Agreement, we may be required to pay damages and could lose intellectual property rights that are necessary for developing and protecting our product candidates.
We have licensed certain intellectual property rights, including certain intellectual property rights covering IMVT-1402 and batoclimab from HanAll. We depend, and will continue to depend, on the HanAll Agreement for the rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize our product candidates. If, for any reason, the rights granted to us under the HanAll Agreement are terminated or we otherwise lose those rights, it would adversely affect our business. The HanAll Agreement also imposes, and any future collaboration agreements or license agreements we enter into are likely to impose, various development, commercialization, funding, milestone payment, royalty, diligence, sublicensing, insurance, patent prosecution and enforcement or other obligations on us.
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If we materially breach any of those obligations, or use the intellectual property licensed to us in an unauthorized manner, we may be required to pay damages and HanAll, as the licensor, may have the right to terminate the HanAll Agreement, which could result in us being unable to develop, manufacture and sell products that are covered by the HanAll Agreement or having to negotiate new or reinstated licenses on less favorable terms or enable a competitor to gain access to the licensed technology.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for noncompliance with these requirements.
Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and other foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various foreign national or international patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process and fee payment during the life of a patent. While an inadvertent lapse in compliance with these provisions can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Noncompliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of patent rights include, but are not limited to, failure to timely file national and regional stage patent applications based on our international patent application, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, underpayment or non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents within the prescribed time limits. If we or our licensors fail to maintain the patents and patent applications covering batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or any of our future product candidates, our competitors might be able to enter the market earlier than anticipated, which would have an adverse effect on our business.
We may not be successful in obtaining necessary intellectual property rights to future products through acquisitions and in-licenses.
We may seek to acquire or in-license additional product candidates or technologies to grow our product offerings and intellectual property portfolio. However, we may be unable to acquire or in-license intellectual property rights relating to, or necessary for, any such product candidates from third parties on commercially reasonable terms or at all. In that event, we may be unable to develop or commercialize such product candidates or technology. We may also be unable to identify product candidates or technology that we believe are an appropriate strategic fit for our company and protect intellectual property relating to, or necessary for, such product candidates and technology.
The in-licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights for product candidates is a competitive area and a number of more established companies are also pursuing strategies to in-license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights for products that we may consider attractive or necessary. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. Furthermore, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to additional technologies or products, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects for growth could suffer.
In addition, we expect that competition for the in-licensing or acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights for product candidates and technologies that are attractive to us may increase in the future, which may mean fewer suitable opportunities for us as well as higher acquisition or licensing costs. We may be unable to in-license or acquire the third-party intellectual property rights for product candidates or technology on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment.
We may need to license intellectual property from third parties and such licenses may not be available or may not be available on commercially reasonable terms.
A third party may hold intellectual property, including patent rights that are important or necessary to the development of any of our product candidates. It may be necessary for us to use the patented or proprietary technology of third parties to commercialize batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or any future product candidates, in which case we would be required to obtain a license from these third parties on commercially reasonable terms. Such a license may not be available, or it may not be available on commercially reasonable terms. Our business would be harmed if we are not able to obtain such a license on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or if a non-exclusive license is offered and our competitors gain access to the same technology. If we are unable to obtain a license, we may need to cease use of the compositions or methods covered by such third-party intellectual property rights, and may need to seek to develop alternative approaches that do not infringe on such intellectual property rights which may entail additional costs and development delays, even if we were able to develop such alternatives, which may not be feasible.
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The risks described in this Item pertaining to our intellectual property rights also apply to the intellectual property rights that we in-license and any failure by us or our licensors to obtain, maintain, defend and enforce these rights could have an adverse effect on our business. In some cases, we may not have control over the prosecution, maintenance or enforcement of the patents that we license and may not have sufficient ability to provide input into the patent prosecution, maintenance and defense process with respect to such patents and our licensors may fail to take the steps that we believe are necessary or desirable in order to obtain, maintain, defend and enforce the licensed patents.
Third-party claims or litigation alleging infringement of patents or other proprietary rights or us seeking to invalidate patents or other proprietary rights may delay or prevent the development and commercialization of our product candidates.
Our commercial success depends, and will continue to depend, in part on our ability to operate while avoiding infringement and other violations of the patents and proprietary rights of third parties. However, our research, development and commercialization activities may be subject to claims that we infringe or otherwise violate patents or other intellectual property rights owned or controlled by third parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation, both within and outside the U.S., involving patent and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, including patent infringement lawsuits, interferences, derivation and administrative law proceedings, inter partes review and post-grant review before the USPTO, as well as oppositions and similar processes in foreign jurisdictions. Our competitors in both the U.S. and abroad, many of which have substantially greater resources and have made substantial investments in patent portfolios and competing technologies, may have applied for or obtained or may in the future apply for or obtain, patents that will prevent, limit or otherwise interfere with our ability to make, use and sell, if approved, our product candidate. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by third parties, exist in the fields in which we and our collaborators are developing product candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued and as we gain greater visibility and market exposure as a public company, the risk increases that our product candidates or other business activities may be subject to claims of infringement of the patent and other proprietary rights of third parties. Third parties may assert that we are infringing their patents or employing their proprietary technology without authorization.
There may be third-party patents or patent applications with claims to materials, formulations, methods of manufacture or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of our product candidates. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications that may later result in issued patents that our product candidates may infringe. In addition, third parties may obtain patents in the future and claim that use of our technologies infringes upon these patents. If any third-party patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover the manufacturing process of our product candidates, any molecules formed during the manufacturing process or any final product itself, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to commercialize such product candidate unless we obtained a license under the applicable patents or until such patents expire or until such patent is found unpatentable, invalid, or unenforceable. Similarly, if any third-party patent was to be held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover aspects of our formulations, processes for manufacture or methods of use, including combination therapy, the holders of any such patent may be able to block our ability to develop and commercialize the applicable product candidate unless we obtained a license or until such patent expires. In either case, such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. In addition, we may be subject to claims that we are infringing other intellectual property rights, such as trademarks or copyrights, or misappropriating the trade secrets of others and to the extent that our employees, consultants or contractors use intellectual property or proprietary information owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions.
Parties making claims against us may obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could effectively block our ability to further develop and commercialize our product candidates. Defending these claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful infringement or other intellectual property claim against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, obtain one or more licenses from third parties, pay royalties or redesign our affected products, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. We cannot predict whether any such license would be available at all or whether it would be available on commercially reasonable terms. Furthermore, even in the absence of litigation, we may need to obtain licenses from third parties to advance our research or allow commercialization of our product candidates. We may fail to obtain any of these licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. In that event, we would be unable to further develop and commercialize our product candidates, which could harm our business significantly. Claims that we have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could have a similar negative impact on our business.
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Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation more effectively than we can because they have substantially greater resources. In addition, intellectual property litigation, regardless of its outcome, may cause negative publicity, adversely impact prospective customers, cause product shipment delays or prohibit us from manufacturing, importing, marketing or otherwise commercializing our product candidates or any future product candidates. Any uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of any litigation could have an adverse effect on our ability to raise additional funds or otherwise have an adverse effect on our business, results of operation, financial condition or cash flows.
Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments, which could have an adverse effect on the price of shares of our common stock. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have an adverse effect on the price of shares of our common stock. The occurrence of any of these events may have an adverse effect on our business, results of operation, financial condition or cash flows.
We cannot provide any assurances that third-party patents do not exist which might be enforced against our product candidates or any future product candidates, resulting in either an injunction prohibiting our manufacturing, sales or, with respect to our sales, an obligation on our part to pay royalties or other forms of compensation to third parties.
We may not identify relevant third-party patents or may incorrectly interpret the relevance, scope or expiration of a third-party patent, which might adversely affect our ability to develop and market our product candidates or any future product candidates.
We cannot guarantee that any of our or our licensors’ patent searches or analyses, including the identification of relevant patents, the scope of patent claims or the expiration of relevant patents are complete or thorough, nor can we be certain that we have identified each and every third-party patent and pending application in the U.S. and abroad that is or may be relevant to or necessary for the commercialization of our product candidates or any future product candidates in any jurisdiction. Patent applications in the U.S. and elsewhere are not published until approximately 18 months after the earliest filing for which priority is claimed, with such earliest filing date being commonly referred to as the priority date. Therefore, patent applications covering our product candidates or any future product candidates could have been filed by others without our knowledge. Additionally, pending patent applications that have been published can, subject to certain limitations, be later amended in a manner that could cover our product candidates or any future product candidates, including the use thereof, provided such pending patent applications result in issued patents, our ability to develop and market our product candidates or any future product candidates can be adversely affected in jurisdictions where such patents issue.
The scope of a patent claim is determined by an interpretation of the law, the written disclosure in a patent and the patent’s prosecution history. Our interpretation of the relevance or the scope of a patent or a pending application may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to market our product candidate, if approved. We may incorrectly determine that our applicable product candidate is not covered by a third-party patent or may incorrectly predict whether a third-party’s pending application will issue with claims of relevant scope. Our determination of the expiration date of any patent in the U.S. or abroad that we consider relevant may be incorrect, and our failure to identify and correctly interpret relevant patents may negatively impact our ability to develop and market our product candidates or any future product candidates, if approved.
If we fail to identify or correctly interpret relevant patents to which we do not have a license or we are unable to obtain a license, we may be subject to infringement claims. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to successfully settle or otherwise resolve such infringement claims. If we fail in any such dispute, in addition to being forced to pay damages, we may be temporarily or permanently prohibited from commercializing any of our products that are held to be infringing. We might, if possible, also be forced to redesign products so that we no longer infringe the third-party intellectual property rights. Any of these events, even if we were ultimately to prevail, could require us to divert substantial financial and management resources that we would otherwise be able to devote to our business.
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We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents, the patents of our licensors or our other intellectual property rights, which could be expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful.
Competitors may infringe or otherwise violate our patents, the patents of our licensors or our other intellectual property rights. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file legal claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming. In addition, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent of ours or our licensors is not valid or is unenforceable or may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology in question. The standards that courts use to interpret patents are not always applied predictably or uniformly and can change, particularly as new technologies develop. As a result, we cannot predict with certainty how much protection, if any, will be given to our patents if we attempt to enforce them and they are challenged in court. Further, even if we prevail against an infringer in U.S. district court, the infringer may file an appeal and the district court judgment may be overturned at the appeals court and/or that an adverse decision will be issued by the appeals court relating to the validity or enforceability of our patents.
An adverse result in any litigation or defense proceeding could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly in a manner insufficient to achieve our business objectives or could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing. The initiation of a claim against a third party may also cause the third party to bring counter claims against us such as claims asserting that our patents are invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the U.S., defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of novelty, obviousness, non-enablement or lack of written description or statutory subject matter. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld relevant material information from the USPTO or made a materially misleading statement during prosecution.
Third parties may also raise similar unpatentability claims before the USPTO in post-grant proceedings such as ex parte reexaminations, inter partes review, or post-grant review, or oppositions or similar proceedings outside the U.S., in parallel with litigation or even outside the context of litigation. The outcome following legal assertions of unpatentability is unpredictable. We cannot be certain that there is no prior art of which we and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution and which renders the claims unpatentable or invalid. For patents and patent applications that we may in-license, we may have a limited right or no right to participate in the defense of any licensed patents against challenge by a third party. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of unpatentability, invalidity or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of any future patent protection on batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or any future product candidates. Such a loss of patent protection could harm our business.
We may not be able to detect or prevent, alone or with our licensors, misappropriation of our intellectual property rights, particularly in countries where the laws may not protect those rights as fully as in the U.S. Our business could be harmed if in litigation the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms. Any litigation or other proceedings to enforce our intellectual property rights may fail and even if successful, may result in substantial costs and distract our management and other employees.
Even if we establish a party has infringed our intellectual property rights, the court may decide not to grant an injunction against further infringing activity and instead award only monetary damages, which may or may not be an adequate remedy. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have an adverse effect on the price of shares of our common stock.
Because of the expense and uncertainty of litigation, we may not be in a position to enforce our intellectual property rights against third parties.
Because of the expense and uncertainty of litigation, we may conclude that even if a third party is infringing our issued patent or a patent that we in-license, any patents that may be issued as a result of our pending or future patent applications or other intellectual property rights, the risk-adjusted cost of bringing and enforcing such a claim or action may be too high or not in the best interest of our company or our stockholders. In such cases, we may decide that the more prudent course of action is to simply monitor the situation or initiate or seek some other non-litigious action or solution.
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Changes in U.S. patent law or the patent law of other countries or jurisdictions could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect batoclimab, IMVT-1402 or any of our future product candidates.
As is the case with other biopharmaceutical companies, we depend, and will continue to depend, on intellectual property, particularly patents relating to our product candidates, IMVT-1402 and batoclimab, and any future product candidates. Obtaining and enforcing patents in the biopharmaceutical industry involves both technological and legal complexity and is therefore costly, time-consuming and inherently uncertain. Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the U.S. or USPTO rules and regulations could increase the uncertainties and costs.
The U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have ruled on several patent cases in recent years, either narrowing the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances or weakening the rights of patent owners in certain situations. Depending on future actions by the U.S. Congress, the U.S. courts, the USPTO and the relevant law-making bodies in other countries, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce our existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future.
Similarly, changes in patent law and regulations in other countries or jurisdictions or changes in the governmental bodies that enforce them or changes in how the relevant governmental authority enforces patent laws or regulations may weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce patents that we have licensed or that we may obtain in the future. We cannot predict future changes in the interpretation of patent laws or changes to patent laws that might be enacted into law by U.S. and foreign legislative bodies. Those changes may materially affect our patents or patent applications and our ability to obtain additional patent protection in the future.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets and other proprietary information, including as a result of our reliance on third parties, our business and competitive position could be harmed.
In addition to seeking patents for our product candidate, we also rely, and will continue to rely, on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect our proprietary technology and information in part by entering into confidentiality agreements and, if applicable, material transfer agreements, consulting agreements or other similar agreements with our advisors, employees, third-party contractors and consultants prior to beginning research or disclosing proprietary information. Despite these efforts and the contractual provisions employed when working with third parties, the need to share trade secrets and other confidential information due to our reliance on third parties, increases the risk that such trade secrets become known by our competitors, are inadvertently incorporated into the technology of others or are disclosed or used in violation of these agreements. Any disclosure, either intentional or unintentional, by our employees, the employees of third parties with whom we share our facilities or third-party consultants and vendors that we engage to perform research, clinical trials or manufacturing activities or misappropriation by third parties (such as through a cybersecurity breach) of our trade secrets or proprietary information could enable competitors to duplicate or surpass our technological achievements, thus eroding our competitive position in our market and having an adverse effect on our business.
Monitoring unauthorized uses and disclosures of our intellectual property is difficult and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property will be effective. In addition, we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for any such breaches. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the U.S. are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. The enforceability of confidentiality agreements may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Further, our key employees, consultants, suppliers or other individuals with access to our proprietary technology and know-how may incorporate that technology and know-how into projects and inventions developed independently or with third parties. As a result, disputes may arise regarding the ownership of the proprietary rights to such technology or know-how and any such dispute may not be resolved in our favor. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no right to prevent them or those to whom they communicate it from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets or other proprietary information were to be disclosed to or independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position could be harmed.
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We may be subject to claims that our licensors, employees, consultants, independent contractors or we have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information of their former employers or other third parties.
We do and may employ individuals who were previously employed at universities or other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our licensors, competitors or potential competitors. Although we seek to protect our ownership of intellectual property rights by ensuring that our agreements with our employees, consultants, collaborators, independent contractors and other third parties with whom we do business include provisions requiring such parties to assign rights in inventions to us and to not use the know-how or confidential information of their former employer or other third parties, we may be subject to claims that we or our employees, consultants, collaborators or independent contractors have inadvertently or otherwise used or disclosed know-how or confidential information of their former employers or other third parties. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. There is no guarantee of success in defending these claims, and if we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel, which could result in customers seeking other sources for the technology, or in ceasing from doing business with us. Such intellectual property rights could be awarded to a third party, and we could be required to obtain a license from such third party to commercialize our technology or our product candidate. Such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we are successful, litigation could result in substantial cost and be a distraction to our management and other employees. Moreover, any such litigation or the threat thereof may adversely affect our reputation, our ability to form strategic alliances or sublicense our rights to collaborators, engage with scientific advisors or hire employees or consultants, each of which would have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We may be subject to claims challenging the inventorship or ownership of our patents and other intellectual property.
We or our licensors may be subject to claims that former employees, consultants, collaborators, independent contractors or other third parties have an interest in our owned or in-licensed patents, trade secrets, or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. For example, we or our licensors may have inventorship disputes arise from conflicting obligations of employees, consultants or others who are involved in developing our product candidate. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging inventorship or ownership of our owned or in-licensed patents, trade secrets or other intellectual property.
In addition, while it is our policy to require our employees, consultants, collaborators and independent contractors who may be involved in the development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who in fact develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. Our and their assignment agreements may not be self-executing or may be breached and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties or defend claims they may bring against us to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property.
If we or our licensors fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable personnel or intellectual property rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, intellectual property that is important to our product candidate. Even if we and our licensors are successful in prosecuting or defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management and other employees. Any of the foregoing could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Any trademarks and trade names we have obtained or may obtain may be infringed or successfully challenged, resulting in harm to our business.
We expect to rely on trademarks and trade names as one means to distinguish any of our drug candidates that are approved for marketing from the products of our competitors. Once we select new trademarks and apply to register them, our trademark applications may not be approved. We may not be able to protect our rights in these trademarks and trade names, which we need in order to build name recognition with potential partners or customers in our markets of interest. In addition, third parties may have used trademarks similar and identical to our trademarks in certain jurisdictions and may have filed or may in the future file for registration of such trademarks. Third parties may oppose or attempt to cancel our trademark applications or trademarks or otherwise challenge our use of the trademarks. In the event that our trademarks are successfully challenged, we may not be able to use these trademarks to market our products in those countries and could be forced to rebrand our drugs, which could result in loss of brand recognition and could require us to devote resources to advertising and marketing new brands. Our competitors may infringe our trademarks and we may not have adequate resources to enforce our trademarks. If we attempt to enforce our trademarks and assert trademark infringement claims, a court may determine that the marks we have asserted are invalid or unenforceable or that the party against whom we have asserted trademark infringement has superior rights to the marks in question. In this case, we could ultimately be forced to cease use of such trademarks. In any case, if we are unable to establish name recognition based on our trademarks and trade names, then we may not be able to compete effectively and our business may be adversely affected.
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Intellectual property rights do not necessarily address all potential threats to our competitive advantage.
Once granted, patents may remain open to invalidity challenges including opposition, interference, re-examination, post-grant review, inter partes review, nullification or derivation action in court or before patent offices or similar proceedings for a given period after allowance or grant, during which time third parties can raise objections against such granted patent. In the course of such proceedings, which may continue for a protracted period of time, the patent owner may be compelled to limit the scope of the allowed or granted claims thus challenged or the allowed or granted claims may be finally determined to be unpatentable, invalid or unenforceable.
In addition, the degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights afford only limited protection, and may not adequately protect our business, provide a barrier to entry against our competitors or potential competitors, or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. Moreover, if a third party has intellectual property rights that cover the practice of our technology, we may not be able to fully exercise or extract value from our intellectual property rights. The following examples are illustrative:
• others may be able to make formulations or compositions that are the same as or similar to IMVT-1402 or future product candidates but that are not covered by the claims of the patents that we own or have licensed;
• others may be able to make a product that is similar to our product candidates and not covered by the patents that we exclusively licensed and have the right to enforce;
• we, our licensor or any collaborators might not have been the first to make or reduce to practice the inventions covered by the issued patents or pending patent applications that we own or have exclusively licensed;
• we, our licensor or any collaborators might not have been the first to file patent applications covering certain of our or our licensor’s inventions;
• others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our intellectual property rights;
• it is possible that our pending patent applications will not lead to issued patents;
• patents that we own or have exclusively licensed may not provide us with any competitive advantage or may be held invalid or unenforceable as a result of legal challenges;
• our competitors might conduct research and development activities in the U.S. and other countries that provide a safe harbor from patent infringement claims for certain research and development activities, as well as in countries where we do not have patent rights, and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our major commercial markets;
• we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;
• third parties performing manufacturing or testing for us using our product candidates or technologies could use the intellectual property of others without obtaining a proper license;
• parties may assert an ownership interest in our intellectual property and, if successful, such disputes may preclude us from exercising exclusive rights over that intellectual property;
• we may not develop or in-license additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;
• we may not be able to obtain and maintain necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms or at all; and
• the patents of others may have an adverse effect on our business.
Should any of these events occur, our business, financial condition, results of operations and business prospects could be adversely affected.
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General Risks Related to an Investment in Our Securities
RSL owns a significant percentage of shares of our common stock and may exert significant control over matters subject to stockholder approval.
As of May 14, 2026, RSL beneficially owned approximately 55.2% of the voting power of our outstanding shares of common stock. Therefore, we are controlled by RSL and RSL has the ability to substantially influence us and exert significant control through this ownership position. It is possible RSL may be able to control elections of directors, the issuance of equity, including to our employees under equity incentive plans, amendments of our organizational documents or approval of any merger, amalgamation, sale of assets or other major corporate transaction. RSL is publicly traded and its interests may not always coincide with our corporate interests or the interests of other stockholders and it may exercise its voting and other rights in a manner with which you may not agree or that may not be in the best interests of our other stockholders. There may be changes to the management or ownership of RSL, or to RSL’s business model, that could impact RSL’s interests in a way that may not coincide with our corporate interests or the interests of other stockholders. Any such changes may diminish or eliminate entirely any benefits we expect to derive from our membership in the Roivant family of companies. So long as RSL continues to own a significant amount of our equity, it will continue to be able to strongly influence and effectively control our decisions.
RSL has the right to elect a certain number of directors to our board of directors.
RSL has the right to elect a certain number of Series A preferred stock directors (“Series A Preferred Directors”) to our board of directors in accordance with our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (our “Certificate of Incorporation”). While the directors appointed by RSL are obligated to act in accordance with their applicable fiduciary duties, they may have equity or other interests in RSL and accordingly their interests may be aligned with RSL’s interests, which may not always coincide with our corporate interests or the interests of our other stockholders. Until such time as RSL holds less than 50% of the voting power of our outstanding shares of capital stock entitled to vote generally at an election of directors, the directors appointed by RSL will be able to determine the outcome of all matters presented to the board of directors.
Our organizational and ownership structure may create significant conflicts of interests.
Our organizational and ownership structure involves a number of relationships that may give rise to certain conflicts of interest between us and minority holders of shares of our common stock, on the one hand, and RSL, on the other hand. Certain of our directors and employees have equity interests in RSL and accordingly, their interests may be aligned with RSL’s interests, which may not always coincide with our corporate interests or the interests of our other stockholders. Further, our other stockholders may not have visibility into the RSL ownership of any of our directors or officers, which may change at any time through acquisition, disposition, dilution or otherwise. Any change in our directors’ or officers’ RSL ownership could impact the interests of those holders.
In addition, we are party to certain related party agreements with RSL, RSI and RSG. These entities and their stockholders, including certain of our directors and employees, may have interests which differ from our interests or those of the minority holders of shares of our common stock. Any material transaction between us and RSL, RSI, RSG or any other affiliate of RSL is subject to our related party transaction policy, which requires prior approval of such transaction by our audit committee. To the extent we fail to appropriately deal with any such conflicts of interests, it could negatively impact our reputation and ability to raise additional funds and the willingness of counterparties to do business with us, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
The market price of shares of our common stock has been and is likely to be highly volatile, and you may lose some or all of your investment.
The market price of shares of our common stock has been and is likely to continue to be highly volatile and may be subject to wide fluctuations in response to a variety of factors, including the following:
• results of clinical trials for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate or those of our competitors;
• sales of shares of our common stock by us or sales or purchases of our common stock by our stockholders in the future, including RSL;
• any delay in the commencement, enrollment and ultimate completion of our clinical trials;
• any delay in filing a BLA or similar application for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate and any adverse development or perceived adverse development with respect to the FDA or other foreign regulatory authority’s review of that BLA or similar application, as the case may be;
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• failure to successfully develop and commercialize IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate;
• inability to obtain additional funding;
• regulatory or legal developments in the U.S. or other countries or jurisdictions applicable to IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate;
• adverse regulatory decisions;
• changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;
• inability to obtain adequate product supply for IMVT-1402 or any future product candidate or the inability to do so at acceptable prices;
• introduction of new products, services or technologies by our competitors;
• failure to meet or exceed financial projections we provide to the public;
• failure to meet or exceed the estimates and projections of the investment community;
• changes in the market valuations of similar companies;
• market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors and the issuance of new or changed securities analysts’ reports or recommendations;
• announcements of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments by us or our competitors;
• variations in our financial results or the financial results of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;
• changes in estimates of financial results or investment recommendations by securities analysts;
• significant lawsuits, including patent or stockholder litigation and disputes or other developments relating to our proprietary rights, including patents, litigation matters and our ability to obtain patent protection for our technologies;
• additions or departures of key scientific or management personnel;
• short sales of shares of our common stock;
• sales of a substantial number of shares of shares of our common stock in the public market or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares;
• sales or purchases of shares of our common stock by our directors or officers subject to Section 16 of the Exchange Act;
• negative coverage in the media or analyst reports, whether accurate or not;
• issuance of subpoenas or investigative demands or the public fact of an investigation by a government agency, whether meritorious or not;
• the size of our public float;
• trading liquidity of shares of our common stock;
• investors’ general perception of our company and our business;
• general economic, industry and market conditions; and
• the other factors described in this “Risk Factors” section.
Certain shares of our common stock have rights, subject to conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering their shares or to include their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other stockholders. We have also registered or intend to register all shares of common stock that we may issue under our equity compensation plans or that are issuable upon exercise of outstanding options. These shares can be freely sold in the public market upon issuance once vested, subject to volume limitations applicable to affiliates. In addition, certain of our directors, executive officers and certain affiliates have established, or may establish, programmed selling plans under Rule 10b5-1 of the Exchange Act for the purpose of effecting sales of our common stock. If any of these events cause a large number of our shares to be sold in the public market, or if it is perceived that a large number of our shares will be sold, the market price of our common stock could decline.
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In addition, in the past, when the market price of a stock has been volatile, holders of that stock have sometimes instituted securities class action litigation against the company that issued the stock. For example, we previously had one such putative class-action complaint brought against us. We could incur substantial costs defending this or similar lawsuits, as well as diversion of the time and attention of our management, any or all of which could seriously harm our business. Furthermore, the stock markets have recently experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies, which has resulted in decreased stock prices for many companies notwithstanding the lack of a fundamental change in their underlying business models or prospects. These fluctuations have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Broad market and industry factors, including potentially worsening economic conditions, increased inflation and other adverse effects or developments, including political, regulatory and other market conditions, may negatively affect the market price of shares of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. The market price of shares of our common stock may decline, and you may lose some or all of your investment.
We have been and could be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention and adversely impact our business.
The market price of our common stock has been and may continue to be volatile. Companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their common stock are often subject to securities class action litigation. For example, in February 2021, a securities class action complaint was filed against us, certain of our officers and a board member of HSAC alleging violations of the Exchange Act. In April 2024, the court overseeing the litigation entered judgment in favor of the defendants. Plaintiffs did not appeal the court’s judgment, so the litigation is now concluded. Any future securities litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could adversely impact our business. Any adverse determination in litigation could also subject us to significant liabilities.
We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the applicable Nasdaq Global Select Market (“Nasdaq”) listing rules and, as a result, qualify for exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements. If we rely on these exemptions, you will not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to such requirements.
RSL controls a majority of the voting power of our outstanding shares of common stock. As a result, we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of applicable Nasdaq listing rules. Under these rules, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power for the election of directors is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company.” In addition, for so long as the RSL designated directors control all matters presented to our board of directors for a vote, we will be a “controlled company.” For so long as we remain a “controlled company,” we may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements, including the requirements:
• that a majority of the board of directors consists of independent directors;
• for an annual performance evaluation of the nominating and corporate governance and compensation committees;
• that we have a nominating and corporate governance committee that is composed entirely of independent directors with a written charter addressing the committee’s purpose and responsibilities; and
• that we have a compensation committee that is composed entirely of independent directors with a written charter addressing the committee’s purpose and responsibility.
We intend to use all or some of these exemptions. As a result, you may not have the same protections afforded to stockholders of companies that are subject to all of the Nasdaq corporate governance requirements.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business or publish negative reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline and has declined in the past upon downgrades of our common stock.
The trading market for shares of our common stock will depend, in part, on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If our financial performance fails to meet analyst estimates or one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade shares of our common stock or change their opinion of shares of our common stock, our share price would likely decline, as happened in August 2021. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
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Because we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on shares of our common stock in the foreseeable future, capital appreciation, if any, would be your sole source of gain.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on shares of our common stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain future earnings for the development, operation and expansion of our business and do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of shares of our common stock would be your sole source of gain on an investment in shares of our common stock for the foreseeable future.
As a public company, we are obligated to develop and maintain proper and effective internal controls over financial reporting and any failure to maintain the adequacy of these internal controls may adversely affect investor confidence in our company and, as a result, the value of shares of our common stock.
Pursuant to Section 404, we are required to furnish a report by our management on our internal control over financial reporting, including an attestation report on our internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. To maintain compliance with Section 404, we engage in a process to document and evaluate our internal control over financial reporting, which is both costly and challenging. In this regard, we will need to continue to dedicate internal resources, engage outside consultants and refine and revise a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls are functioning as documented and implement a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. Despite our efforts, there is a risk that neither we nor our independent registered public accounting firm will be able to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective as required by Section 404.
If we are unable to conclude that our internal controls over financial reporting are effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm determines we have a material weakness or significant deficiency in our internal controls over financial reporting, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of shares of our common stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by Nasdaq, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also negatively impact our ability to access the capital markets.
In addition, effective disclosure controls and procedures enable us to make timely and accurate disclosure of financial and non-financial information that we are required to disclose. As a public company, if our disclosure controls and procedures are ineffective, we may be unable to report our financial results or make other disclosures accurately on a timely basis, which could cause our reported financial results or other disclosures to be materially misstated and result in the loss of investor confidence and cause the market price of shares of our common stock to decline.
We may become subject to unanticipated tax liabilities and higher effective tax rates.
Our wholly owned subsidiary, ISL, is incorporated under the laws of Bermuda, where it is not subject to any income or withholding taxes. Further, ISL is centrally managed and controlled in the UK and, under current UK tax law, a company which is centrally managed and controlled in the UK is regarded as resident in the UK for taxation purposes. Accordingly, we expect ISL to be subject to UK taxation on its income and gains and subject to the UK’s controlled foreign company rules, except where an exemption applies. ISL may be treated as a dual resident company for UK tax purposes. As a result, ISL’s right to claim certain reliefs from UK tax may be restricted, and changes in law or practice in the UK could result in the imposition of further restrictions on ISL’s right to claim UK tax relief. ISL may also become subject to income, withholding or other taxes in certain jurisdictions by reason of its activities and operations, and it is also possible that taxing authorities in any such jurisdictions could assert that ISL is subject to greater taxation than we currently anticipate. Any such additional tax liability could adversely affect our results of operations.
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Our intercompany arrangements depend on the application of the tax laws of various jurisdictions and on how we operate our business.
Our wholly-owned subsidiary, ISL, and our controlling stockholder, RSL, are incorporated under the laws of Bermuda and are tax residents of the UK. Further, we currently have other subsidiaries that are domiciled in the UK, Switzerland and the U.S. If any of our product candidates receive approval by applicable regulatory bodies, we expect to conduct increased operations through our subsidiaries in various countries and tax jurisdictions where such approvals have been granted, in part through intercompany service agreements between us, our parent company and our subsidiaries. In that case, we anticipate that our corporate structure and intercompany transactions, including the manner in which we develop and use our intellectual property, will be organized so that we can achieve our business objectives in a tax-efficient manner and in compliance with applicable transfer pricing rules and regulations. If two or more affiliated companies are located in different countries or tax jurisdictions, the tax laws and regulations of each country generally will require that transfer prices be the same as those between unrelated companies dealing at arms’ length and that appropriate documentation be maintained to support the transfer prices. While we believe that we operate in compliance with applicable transfer pricing laws and intend to continue to do so, our transfer pricing procedures and determinations are not binding on applicable tax authorities. If tax authorities in any country were to successfully challenge our transfer pricing procedures and determinations as not reflecting arms’ length transactions, they could require us to adjust our transfer pricing procedures and determinations and thereby could require us to reallocate our income to reflect these revised transfer prices, which could result in a higher tax liability to us. In addition, if the country from which the income is reallocated does not agree with the reallocation, both countries could tax the same income, potentially resulting in double taxation. If tax authorities were to allocate income to a higher tax jurisdiction, subject our income to double taxation or assess interest and penalties, it could increase our consolidated tax liability, which could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Significant judgment is required in evaluating our tax positions and determining our provision for income taxes. During the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions and calculations for which an ultimate tax determination is uncertain. As such, there can be no assurance that the relevant taxing authorities will not assert that the actual tax treatment of such transactions differs from our intended tax treatment. The application of tax laws across countries and taxing jurisdictions can be subject to diverging and sometimes conflicting interpretations by tax authorities of these jurisdictions. It is not uncommon for taxing authorities in different countries to have conflicting views for instance with respect to, among other things, the manner in which the arms’ length standard is applied for transfer pricing purposes or with respect to the valuation of intellectual property. In addition, tax laws are dynamic and subject to change as new laws are passed and new interpretations of the law are issued or applied. Moreover, certain relevant tax, accounting and other laws have special application with respect to “affiliated,” “combined” or similar groups, which may include RSL, ISL and their respective subsidiaries and which may impact the tax liabilities of the companies. We continue to assess the impact of such changes in tax laws on our business and may determine that changes to our structure, practice or tax positions are necessary in light of such changes and developments in the tax laws of other jurisdictions in which we operate. Such changes may nevertheless be ineffective in avoiding an increase in our consolidated tax liability, which could harm our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
Changes in tax laws or our effective tax rate may reduce our net income in future periods.
New income, sales, use, excise or other tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be enacted at any time, which could adversely affect us. Further, our tax position could be adversely impacted by changes in existing tax rates, tax laws, tax practice, tax treaties or tax regulations or changes in the interpretation thereof by the tax authorities in Europe (including the UK and Switzerland), the U.S., Bermuda and other jurisdictions as well as being affected by certain international tax developments, including certain changes currently proposed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) and their action plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”), as well as other initiatives led by the OECD and the European Commission. For example, the OECD continues to lead work on proposals, commonly referred to as “BEPS 2.0”, which, to the extent implemented, would make important changes to the international tax system. These proposals are based on two “pillars”, involving the allocation of taxing rights in respect of certain multinational enterprises above a fixed profit margin to the jurisdictions in which they carry on business (referred to as the Pillar One rules) and imposing a minimum effective tax rate on certain multinational enterprises (referred to as the Pillar Two rules). A number of countries in which we have group entities or conduct business (including, the UK, Switzerland and Bermuda) have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, core elements of the Pillar Two rules. We may face an increase in our tax obligations under the OECD BEPS 2.0, which could also require us to incur additional costs to ensure compliance with any such rules in the countries where we do business or have group entities.
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Failure to manage the risks associated with international tax changes, or misinterpretation of the laws providing such changes, could result in costly audits, interest, penalties and reputational damage, which could adversely affect our business, results of our operations and our financial condition. In addition, changes to the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, U.S. Treasury Regulations or other U.S. Internal Revenue Service guidance thereunder could adversely affect our effective tax rate. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes provisions that impact the U.S. federal income taxation of corporations, including imposing a minimum tax on the book income of certain large corporations and an excise tax on certain corporate stock repurchases that would be imposed on the corporation repurchasing such stock.
Our actual effective tax rate may vary from our expectation and that variance may be material. A number of factors may increase our future effective tax rates, including the jurisdictions in which profits are determined to be earned and taxed, the resolution of issues arising from any future tax audits with various tax authorities, changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, increases in expenses not deductible for tax purposes, including transaction costs and impairments of goodwill in connection with acquisitions, changes in the taxation of stock-based compensation, changes in tax laws or the interpretation of such tax laws and changes in generally accepted accounting principles and challenges to the transfer pricing policies related to our structure.
Our ability to use our U.S. net operating loss carryforwards and certain other U.S. tax attributes may be limited.
Under current U.S. federal income tax law, U.S. federal net operating losses (“NOLs”) generated in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017, may be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such U.S. federal NOLs is generally limited to 80% of taxable income. In addition, our research and development credit carryforwards in the U.S. will begin to expire in our fiscal year ending March 31, 2039. It is uncertain if and to what extent various states will conform to the current U.S. federal income tax law.
In addition, under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and corresponding provisions of state law, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” which is generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage-point cumulative change (by value) in its equity ownership over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change NOL carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research tax credits) to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. It is possible that we have experienced one or more ownership changes in the past. In addition, we may also experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership some of which may be outside of our control. As a result, our ability to use our pre-ownership change NOL carryforwards to offset U.S. federal taxable income (if we earned net taxable income) and any other pre-ownership change tax attributes may be subject to limitations, which could potentially result in increased future tax liability to us. In addition, at the state level, there may be periods during which the use of NOLs is suspended or otherwise limited, which could accelerate or permanently increase state taxes owed.
Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of our company more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our common stock.
Provisions in our Certificate of Incorporation and amended and restated bylaws (our “Bylaws”) may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws include provisions that:
• authorize our board of directors to issue, without further action by the stockholders, shares of undesignated preferred stock with terms, rights and preferences determined by our board of directors that may be senior to our common stock;
• specify that the holder of our Series A preferred stock, RSL, has the right to appoint a certain number of Series A Preferred Directors to our board of directors;
• require that, from and after such time as we are no longer a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq rules, any action to be taken by our holders of common stock be effected at a duly called annual or special meeting and not by written consent;
• specify that special meetings of our stockholders can be called only by the chairperson of our board of directors, our chief executive officer or our board of directors;
• establish an advance notice procedure for stockholder proposals to be brought before an annual meeting, including proposed nominations of persons for election to our board of directors;
• provide that, subject to the rights of our Series A preferred stockholder, our directors may be removed only upon the vote of at least 66 2/3% of our outstanding shares of voting stock;
• require the approval of our board of directors or, from and after such time as we are no longer a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq rules, the holders of at least 66 2/3% of our outstanding shares of voting stock to amend our Bylaws and certain provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation;
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• provide that the number of directors is set at seven and may only be changed by resolution of the board of directors, including a majority of Series A Preferred Directors then serving;
• prohibit cumulative voting in the election of directors; and
• provide that, subject to the rights of our Series A preferred stockholder, vacancies on our board of directors may be filled only by a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum.
These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. Any of the foregoing provisions could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock and they could deter potential acquirers of our company, thereby reducing the likelihood that you would receive a premium for your shares of our common stock in an acquisition.
Our Certificate of Incorporation designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the U.S. as the exclusive forums for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which will restrict our stockholders’ ability to choose the judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our Certificate of Incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be the exclusive forum for the following types of actions or proceedings under Delaware statutory or common law: any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; any action asserting a breach of a fiduciary duty; any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”), our Certificate of Incorporation or our Bylaws; any action as to which DGCL confers jurisdiction to the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware; and any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act. Furthermore, Section 22 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”) creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all such Securities Act actions. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our Certificate of Incorporation provides that the federal district courts of the U.S. will be the exclusive forum for resolving any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act.
These choice of forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and other employees. While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than those designated in the exclusive forum provisions. In such instance, we would expect to vigorously assert the validity and enforceability of the exclusive forum provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation. This may require significant additional costs and there can be no assurance that the provisions will be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions. If a court were to find the exclusive forum provision in our Certificate of Incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur further significant additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, all of which could seriously harm our business.
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