Item 1A. Risk Factors
RISKS RELATING TO COMMERCIALIZATION OF OUR PRODUCTS
We depend heavily on our lead product, JAKAFI (ruxolitinib), which is marketed as JAKAVI outside the United States. If we are unable to maintain revenues from JAKAFI or those revenues decrease, our business may be materially harmed.
JAKAFI is the first product marketed by us to be approved for sale in the United States. While we also sell our and our licensors’ other approved products ICLUSIG, PEMAZYRE, MONJUVI/MINJUVI, OPZELURA, ZYNYZ and NIKTIMVO and our exclusive licensees sell OLUMIANT and TABRECTA, we anticipate that JAKAFI product sales will continue to contribute a significant percentage of our total revenues over the next several years. However, we expect that JAKAFI product sales will begin to decline upon the expiration of our patent exclusivity in 2028.
Table of Contents
The continued commercial success of JAKAFI and our ability to maintain and continue to increase revenues from the sale of JAKAFI will depend on a number of factors, including:
• the number of patients diagnosed with intermediate or high-risk myelofibrosis, uncontrolled polycythemia vera or steroid-refractory graft-versus-host disease and the number of such patients that may be treated with JAKAFI;
• the acceptance of JAKAFI by patients and the healthcare community;
• whether physicians, patients and healthcare payors view JAKAFI as therapeutically effective and safe relative to cost and any alternative therapies, as well as whether patients will continue to use JAKAFI;
• the ability to obtain and maintain sufficient coverage or reimbursement by third-party payors and pricing;
• the ability of our third-party manufacturers to manufacture JAKAFI in sufficient quantities that meet all applicable quality standards;
• the ability of our company and our third-party providers to provide marketing and distribution support for JAKAFI;
• the label and promotional claims allowed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA);
• the maintenance of regulatory approval for the approved indications in the United States;
• our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for and commercialize JAKAFI in the United States for additional indications or in combination with other therapeutic modalities; and
• the effects of a public health pandemic or epidemic such as the COVID-19 pandemic or of adverse geopolitical events, regulatory, legislative or administrative developments.
If we are not able to maintain revenues from JAKAFI in the United States, or our revenues from JAKAFI decrease, our business may be materially harmed and we may need to delay other drug discovery, development and commercialization initiatives or even significantly curtail operations, and our ability to license or acquire new products to diversify our revenue base could be limited.
In addition, revenues from our other products and our receipt of royalties under our collaboration agreements, including our agreements with Novartis Pharmaceutical International Ltd. for sales of JAKAVI outside the United States and TABRECTA globally and with Eli Lilly and Company for worldwide sales of OLUMIANT, will depend on factors similar to those listed above, with similar regulatory, pricing and reimbursement issues driven by applicable regulatory authorities and governmental and third-party payors affecting jurisdictions outside the United States.
If we are unable to obtain, or maintain at anticipated levels, coverage and reimbursement for our products from government health administration authorities, private health insurers and other organizations, our pricing may be affected and our product sales, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.
Our ability to commercialize our current and any future approved products successfully will depend in part on the prices we are able to charge for these products and the extent to which adequate coverage and reimbursement levels for the cost of our products and related treatment are obtained from third-party payors, such as private insurers, government insurance programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, health maintenance organizations and other healthcare related organizations in the United States and abroad. We may not be able to sell our products on a profitable basis or our profitability may be reduced if we are required to sell our products at lower than anticipated prices or reimbursement is unavailable or limited in scope or amount. The costs of the drug products marketed by us are not insignificant and almost all patients will require some form of third-party coverage to afford their cost. Our future revenues and profitability will be adversely affected if we cannot depend on government and other third-party payors to defray the cost of our products to the patient.
Table of Contents
Governments and other third-party payors continue to pursue initiatives to manage drug costs. Pricing and reimbursement for our products may be adversely affected by a number of factors, including;
• actions of federal, state and foreign governments and other third-party payors to implement or modify laws, regulations or policies addressing payment and reimbursement for drugs;
• pressure by employers on private health insurance plans to reduce costs or moderate cost increases, as well as continued public scrutiny of the price of drugs and other healthcare costs;
• consolidation of third-party payors and continued initiatives of government and other third-party payors to reduce costs by seeking price discounts or rebates, reducing reimbursement rates or imposing restrictions on access to or coverage of particular drugs based on perceived value;
• pressure on healthcare budgets resulting from macroeconomic factors such as inflation, rising interest rates and the economic effects of geopolitical conflicts; and
• the increasing number of hospitals and other covered entities that are eligible to participate in the U.S. 340B drug pricing program, which requires drug manufacturers such as our company to sell drugs to those entities at discounted prices in order for those drugs to be covered by Medicaid.
In many markets outside of the United States, including countries of the European Union (EU), drug pricing and reimbursement are subject to government control, and government authorities are making greater efforts to limit or regulate the price of drug products. Reimbursement systems in international markets vary significantly by country and by region, and reimbursement approvals must be obtained on a country-by-country basis. Reimbursement in the EU must be negotiated on a country-by-country basis and in many countries a drug product cannot be commercially launched until reimbursement is approved. The timing to complete the negotiation process in each country is highly uncertain, and in some countries, we expect that it may exceed 12 months. Some countries set prices by reference to prices in other countries, and countries may refuse to reimburse or may restrict the reimbursed population for a drug product based on their national health technology assessments and cost effectiveness thresholds. In addition, governmental authorities in many countries may reduce prices for approved drug products from previously established prices.
Third-party payors are increasingly challenging the prices charged for medical products and services, and payors and employers are adopting benefit plan changes that shift a greater portion of prescription drug costs to patients. Third party pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) , other similar organizations and payors can limit coverage to specific products on an approved list, or formulary, which might not include all of the approved products for a particular indication, and to exclude drugs from their formularies in favor of competitor drugs or alternative treatments, or place drugs on formulary tiers with higher patient co-pay obligations, and/or to mandate stricter utilization criteria. Formulary exclusion effectively encourages patients and providers to seek alternative treatments, make a complex and time-intensive request for medical exemptions, or pay 100% of the cost of a drug. In addition, in many instances, certain PBMs, other similar organizations and third party payors may exert negotiating leverage by requiring incremental rebates, discounts or other concessions from manufacturers in order to maintain formulary positions, which could continue to result in higher gross to net deductions for affected products. There has been significant consolidation in the health insurance industry, resulting in large insurers and PBMs exerting greater pressure and leverage in pricing and usage negotiations with drug manufacturers. P ayors could decide to exclude our products from formulary coverage lists, impose step edits that require patients to try alternative, including generic, treatments before authorizing payment for our products, limit the types of diagnoses for which coverage will be provided or impose a on coverage for products while the payor makes a coverage decision. An to maintain adequate formulary positions could increase patient cost-sharing for our products and cause some patients to determine not to use our products. Any or in reimbursement approvals could limit patient access, therapy adherence rates, and impact our ability to commercialize our products. If we are in obtaining and maintaining broad coverage and reimbursement for our products, our anticipated revenue from and growth prospects for our products could be affected.
Table of Contents
If third parties institute high co-payment amounts or other benefit limits for our products, the demand for our products and, accordingly, our revenues and results of operations, could be adversely affected. Our patient assistance programs have provided support for non-profit organizations that provide financial assistance to eligible patients or in some cases, we have provided our products without charge to eligible patients who have no insurance coverage or are underinsured. Substantial support in this manner could harm our profitability in the future. Further, the ability of non-profit organizations to provide assistance to patients is dependent on funding from external sources, and we cannot guarantee that such funding will be provided at adequate levels, or at all.
Risks related to proposed changes in government regulations and healthcare reform measures are described below under “Other Risks Relating to our Business—Healthcare reform measures could impact the pricing and profitability of pharmaceuticals, and adversely affect the commercial viability of our or our collaborators’ products and drug candidates. If recent proposals for changes to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement of drug prices are adopted into law, our results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.” If government and other third-party payors refuse to provide coverage and reimbursement with respect to our products, determine to provide a lower level of coverage and reimbursement than anticipated, reduce previously approved levels of coverage and reimbursement, or delay reimbursement payments, then our pricing or reimbursement for our products may be affected and our product sales, results of operations or financial condition could be harmed. Our collaborators Novartis and Lilly are affected by similar considerations for the drugs that they market and for which we may receive royalties.
We depend upon a limited number of specialty pharmacies and wholesalers for a significant portion of any revenues from JAKAFI and most of our other drug products, and the loss of, or significant reduction in sales to, any one of these specialty pharmacies or wholesalers could adversely affect our operations and financial condition.
We sell JAKAFI and our other drug products other than OPZELURA primarily to specialty pharmacies and wholesalers. Specialty pharmacies dispense JAKAFI and our other drug products to patients in fulfillment of prescriptions and wholesalers sell JAKAFI and our other drug products to hospitals and physician offices. We do not promote JAKAFI or our other drug products to specialty pharmacies or wholesalers, and they do not set or determine demand for JAKAFI or our other drug products. Our ability to successfully commercialize JAKAFI and our other drug products will depend, in part, on the extent to which we are able to provide adequate distribution of JAKAFI and our other drug products to patients. Although we have contracted with a number of specialty pharmacies and wholesalers, they are expected generally to carry a very limited inventory and may be reluctant to be part of our distribution network in the future if demand for our products does not increase. Further, it is possible that these specialty pharmacies and wholesalers could decide to change their policies or fees, or both, at some time in the future. This could result in their refusal to carry smaller volume products such as JAKAFI and our other drug products, or lower margins or the need to find alternative methods of distributing our product. Although we believe we can find alternative channels to distribute JAKAFI or our other drug products on relatively short notice, our revenue during that period of time may and we may incur additional costs to replace any such specialty pharmacy or wholesaler. The of any large specialty pharmacy or wholesaler as part of our distribution network, a significant reduction in sales we make to specialty pharmacies or wholesalers, or any to pay for the products we have shipped to them could materially and affect our results of operations and financial condition.
If we are unable to establish and maintain effective sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, or to enter into agreements with third parties to do so, we will not be able to successfully commercialize our products.
We have established commercial capabilities in the United States and outside of the United States, but cannot guarantee that we will be able to enter into and maintain any marketing, distribution or third-party logistics agreements with third-party providers on acceptable terms, if at all. We may not be able to correctly judge the size and experience of the sales and marketing force and the scale of distribution capabilities necessary to successfully market and sell any new products. Establishing and maintaining sales, marketing and distribution capabilities are expensive and time-consuming. Competition for personnel with experience in sales and marketing can be high. Our expenses associated with building and maintaining the sales force and distribution capabilities may be disproportional compared to the revenues we may be able to generate on sales of our products.
We are continuing to establish and maintain sales, marketing and distribution capabilities for our products. Successful commercialization of our drug candidates requires us to establish new physician and payor relationships, PBM and pharmacy network relationships, reimbursement strategies and governmental interactions, separate from our existing capabilities. Our inability to successfully commercialize our products could harm our business and operating results.
Table of Contents
If we fail to comply with applicable laws and regulations, we could lose our approval to market our products or be subject to other governmental enforcement activity.
We cannot guarantee that we will be able to maintain regulatory approval to market our products in the jurisdictions in which they are currently marketed. If we do not maintain our regulatory approval to market our products, our results of operations will be materially harmed. We and our collaborators, third-party manufacturers and suppliers are subject to rigorous and extensive regulation by the FDA and other federal and state agencies as well as foreign governmental agencies. These regulations continue to apply after product marketing approval, and cover, among other things, testing, manufacturing, quality control and assurance, labeling, advertising, promotion, risk mitigation, and adverse event reporting requirements.
The commercialization of our products is subject to post-regulatory approval product surveillance, and our products may have to be withdrawn from the market or subject to restrictions if previously unknown problems occur. Regulatory agencies may also require additional clinical trials or testing for our products, and our products may be recalled or may be subject to reformulation, additional studies, changes in labeling, warnings to the public and negative publicity. For example, from late 2013 through 2014, ICLUSIG was subject to review by the European Medicines Agency (“EMA”), of the benefits and risks of ICLUSIG to better understand the nature, frequency and severity of events obstructing the arteries or veins, the potential mechanism that leads to these side effects and whether there needed to be a revision in the dosing recommendation, patient monitoring and a risk management plan for ICLUSIG. This review was completed in January 2015, with additional warnings in the product information but without any change in the approved indications. The EMA could take additional actions in the future that reduce the commercial potential of ICLUSIG. In addition, in September 2021, the FDA updated labeling for JAKAFI and other JAK inhibitor drugs to include of increased risk of major cardiovascular events, thrombosis, and secondary malignancies related to another JAK-inhibitor treating rheumatoid arthritis, a condition for which JAKAFI is not indicated. As part of the FDA labeling update for oral JAK inhibitors in treating inflammatory conditions, class “boxed” were also included in the OPZELURA label. It is possible that future sales of JAKAFI and OPZELURA could be affected as a result of the “boxed” , which could have a material and effect on our business, results of operations and prospects.
Failure to comply with the laws and regulations administered by the FDA or other agencies could result in:
• administrative and judicial sanctions, including warning letters;
• fines and other civil penalties;
• suspension or withdrawal of regulatory approval to market or manufacture our products;
• interruption of production;
• operating restrictions;
• product recall or seizure;
• injunctions; and
• criminal prosecution.
The occurrence of any such event may have a material adverse effect on our business.
Furthermore, disruptions at the FDA and other regulatory agencies could prevent those agencies from performing normal business functions on which the operation of our business relies, which could negatively impact our business.
Table of Contents
If the use of our products harms patients, or is perceived to harm patients even when such harm is unrelated to our products, our regulatory approvals could be revoked or otherwise negatively impacted or we could be subject to costly and damaging product liability claims.
The testing, manufacturing, marketing and sale of our products could expose us to product liability and other risks. Side effects and other problems experienced by patients from the use of our products could:
• lessen the frequency with which physicians decide to prescribe our products;
• encourage physicians to stop prescribing our products to their patients who previously had been prescribed our products;
• cause serious harm to patients that may give rise to product liability claims against us; and
• result in our need to withdraw or recall our products from the marketplace.
If our products are used by a wide patient population, new risks and side effects may be discovered, the rate of known risks or side effects may increase, and risks previously viewed as less significant could be determined to be significant.
Previously unknown risks and adverse effects of our products may also be discovered in connection with unapproved, or off-label, uses of our products. We are prohibited by law from promoting or in any way supporting or encouraging the promotion of our products for off-label uses, but physicians are permitted to use products for off-label purposes. In addition, we are studying and expect to continue to study our approved products in diseases for potential additional indications in controlled clinical settings, and independent investigators are doing so as well. In the event of any new risks or adverse effects discovered as new patients are treated and as our products are studied in or used by patients for off-label indications, regulatory authorities may delay or revoke their approvals, we may be required to conduct additional clinical trials, make changes in labeling of our products, reformulate our products or make changes and obtain new approvals. We may also experience a significant drop in the sales of our products, experience harm to our reputation and the reputation of our products in the marketplace or become subject to lawsuits, including class actions. Any of these results could decrease or prevent sales of our products or substantially increase the costs and expenses of commercializing our products.
Patients who have been enrolled in our clinical trials or who may use our products in the future often have severe and advanced stages of disease and known as well as unknown significant pre-existing and potentially life-threatening health risks. During the course of treatment, patients may suffer adverse events, including death, for reasons that may or may not be related to our products. Such events could subject us to costly litigation, require us to pay substantial amounts of money to injured patients, delay, negatively impact or end our opportunity to receive or maintain regulatory approval to market our products, or require us to suspend or abandon our commercialization efforts. Even in a circumstance in which we do not believe that an adverse event is related to our products, the into the circumstance may be time consuming or . These may our sales efforts, impact and limit the type of regulatory approvals our products receive or maintain, or the regulatory approval process in other countries.
Factors similar to those listed above also apply to our collaborators in the jurisdictions in which they have development and commercialization rights.
If we market our products in a manner that violates various laws and regulations, we may be subject to civil or criminal penalties.
In addition to FDA and related regulatory requirements, we are subject to healthcare “fraud and abuse” laws, such as the federal False Claims Act, the anti-kickback provisions of the federal Social Security Act, and other state and federal laws and regulations. Federal and state anti-kickback laws prohibit, among other things, knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting or receiving remuneration to induce, or in return for purchasing, leasing, ordering or arranging for the purchase, lease or order of any healthcare item or service reimbursable under Medicare, Medicaid, or other federally- or state-financed healthcare programs. Federal false claims laws prohibit any person from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, a false claim for payment to the federal government, or knowingly making, or causing to be made, a statement to get a claim paid. Pharmaceutical companies have been under these laws for a variety of promotional and marketing activities.
Table of Contents
Although physicians are permitted, based on their medical judgment, to prescribe products for indications other than those approved by the FDA, manufacturers are prohibited from promoting their products for such off-label uses. Although we believe that our promotional materials for physicians do not constitute improper promotion, the FDA or other agencies may disagree. If the FDA or another agency determines that our promotional materials or other activities constitute improper promotion, it could request that we modify our promotional materials or other activities or subject us to regulatory enforcement actions, including the issuance of a warning letter, injunction, seizure, civil fine and criminal penalties. It is also possible that other federal, state or foreign enforcement authorities might take action if they believe that the alleged improper promotion led to the submission and payment of claims for an unapproved use, which could result in significant or under other statutory authorities, such as laws prohibiting for reimbursement. Even if it is later determined we are not in of these laws, we may be faced with publicity, incur significant expenses our position and have to significant management resources from other matters.
The EU and member countries, as well as governmental authorities in other countries, impose similar strict restrictions on the promotion and marketing of drug products. The off-label promotion of medicinal products is prohibited in the EU and in other territories, and the EU also maintains strict controls on advertising and promotional materials. The promotion of medicinal products that are not subject to a marketing authorization is also prohibited in the EU. Violations of the rules governing the promotion of medicinal products in the EU and in other territories could be penalized by administrative measures, fines and imprisonment.
The majority of states also have statutes or regulations similar to the federal anti-kickback law and false claims laws, which apply to items and services reimbursed under Medicaid and other state programs, or, in several states, apply regardless of the payor. Numerous states and localities have enacted or are considering enacting legislation requiring pharmaceutical companies to establish marketing compliance programs, file periodic reports or make periodic public disclosures on sales, marketing, pricing, clinical trials, and other activities. Additionally, as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the U.S. federal government has enacted the Physician Payment Sunshine provisions. These provisions and similar laws and regulations in other jurisdictions where we do business require manufacturers to publicly report certain payments or other transfers of value made to physicians and teaching hospitals. Many of these requirements are new and uncertain, and the penalties for failure to comply with these requirements are unclear. Nonetheless, if we are found not to be in full compliance with these laws, we could face enforcement action and fines and other penalties, which could be significant in amount or result in exclusion from federal healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Any action initiated us for of these laws, even if we it, could require the expenditure of significant resources and generate publicity, which could our business and operating results, and any settlement of such action initiated us, regardless of the merits, could result in the payment of significant amounts, which could our financial condition and operating results. See also “—Other Risks Relating to our Business—If we to comply with the extensive legal and regulatory requirements affecting the healthcare industry, we could face increased costs, and a of business” below.
Competition for our products could harm our business and result in a decrease in our revenue.
Our products compete, and our product candidates may in the future compete, with currently existing therapies, including generic drugs, product candidates currently under development by us and others, or future product candidates, including new chemical entities that may be safer or more effective or more convenient than our products. Any products that we develop may be commercialized in competitive markets, and our competitors, which include large global pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies and smaller research-based biotechnology companies, may succeed in developing products that render our products obsolete or noncompetitive. Many of our competitors, particularly large pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, have substantially greater financial, operational and human resources than we do. Smaller or earlier stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through focused development programs and collaborative arrangements with large, established companies. In addition, many of our competitors deploy more personnel to market and sell their products than we do, and we compete with other companies to recruit, hire, train and retain pharmaceutical sales and marketing personnel. If our sales force and sales support organization are not appropriately resourced and sized to promote our products, the commercial potential of our current and any future products may be . In any event, the commercial potential of our current products and any future products may be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop or acquire and commercialize generic or branded products that are safer or more , are more convenient or are less expensive than our products. See “Item 1. Business—Competition” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information regarding the effects of competition. If we are to compete , our commercial will be reduced and our business, results of operations and financial conditions may be materially .
Table of Contents
Present and potential competitors for JAKAFI include major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as specialty pharmaceutical firms. In addition, JAKAFI could face competition from generic products. As a result of the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, commonly known as the Hatch-Waxman Act, in the United States, generic manufacturers may seek approval of a generic or other version of an innovative pharmaceutical by filing with the FDA an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”) or a New Drug Application (“NDA”) pursuant to section 505(b)(2) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the “FDCA”). The Hatch-Waxman Act provides significant incentives to generic manufacturers to challenge U.S. patents on successful innovative pharmaceutical products. We have received a notice letter from each of Apotex, Inc., Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc., Granules India Ltd., Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Inc., and Eugia Pharma Specialties, Ltd., which we refer to as the Generic Manufacturers, notifying us that each has filed an ANDA requesting approval to market a generic version of JAKAFI that contains a paragraph IV certification purporting to challenge one or more patents covering ruxolitinib composition of matter and its use that expire (with pediatric extension) in June 2028 and patents covering ruxolitinib phosphate and its use that expire (with pediatric extension) in December 2028. We have also received a separate notice letter from Apotex, Inc. regarding its filing of an NDA pursuant to section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA that requested to rely, in part, on the FDA’s previously published findings of safety and efficacy for JAKAFI and that contains a paragraph IV certification to patents covering ruxolitinib composition of matter and its use that expire (with pediatric extension) in June 2028 and patents covering ruxolitinib phosphate and its use that expire (with pediatric extension) in December 2028. In response, we filed patent actions each of the Generic Manufacturers (with respect to both the ANDA and 505(b)(2) NDA for Apotex, Inc.) in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey asserting certain FDA Orange-Book-listed patents for JAKAFI. In October 2025 and February 2026, we entered into a confidential settlement agreement with Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and Granules India Ltd., respectively, settling all outstanding in the Hikma and Granules . The actions the other generic companies remain pending.
With respect to deuterated ruxolitinib, in January 2018 the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office denied institution of a petition challenging our patent covering deuterated ruxolitinib analogs. The PTAB subsequently denied the petitioner’s request for rehearing in May 2018. Although the PTAB’s decision is now final, the petitioner still has the right to separately challenge the validity of our patent in federal court.
ICLUSIG currently competes with existing therapies that are approved for the treatment of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (“CML”) who are resistant or intolerant to prior tyrosine kinase inhibitor (“TKI”) therapies, on the basis of, among other things, efficacy, cost, breadth of approved use and the safety and side-effect profile. In addition, generic versions of imatinib are available. Given ICLUSIG’s various indication statements globally that are currently focused on resistant or intolerant CML, we currently believe that generic versions of imatinib will not materially impact our commercialization of ICLUSIG but we cannot be certain how physicians, payors, patients, regulatory authorities and other market participants will respond to the availability of generic versions of imatinib.
MONJUVI/MINJUVI currently competes with existing therapies that are approved for the treatment of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma on the basis of, among other things, efficacy, cost, breadth of approved use and the safety and side-effect profile. These existing therapies are offered by major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as specialty pharmaceutical firms. Competitors and potential competitors for PEMAZYRE, ZYNYZ and NIKTIMVO include major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as specialty pharmaceutical firms.
Competitors for OPZELURA include existing over-the-counter topical treatments and prescription topical treatments, as well as oral and injectable therapies, from major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and companies that produce generic versions of prescription treatments. We have received a notice letter from each of Padagis Israel Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Taro Pharmaceuticals Inc., Zydus Lifesciences Limited and Encube Ethicals Private Limited notifying us that each has filed an ANDA requesting approval to market a generic version of OPZELURA and that contains a paragraph IV certification purporting to challenge one or more patents covering ruxolitinib phosphate cream and its uses that expire in 2031 and 2040. None of the notice letters challenge the ruxolitinib or ruxolitinib phosphate composition of matter patents, providing patent coverage (with pediatric extension) until December 2028, and the notice letter from Zydus Lifesciences Limited also does not challenge certain patents covering ruxolitinib phosphate cream and its uses, providing patent coverage (with pediatric extension) until November 2031. In response to the notice letters, we filed patent infringement actions against each of Padagis Israel Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Taro Pharmaceuticals Inc., Zydus Lifesciences Limited and Encube Ethicals Private Limited in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey asserting certain FDA Orange Book-listed patents for OPZELURA. Each of these actions remains pending.
Table of Contents
There can be no assurance that our patents will be upheld or that any litigation in which we might engage with any generic manufacturer will be successful in protecting exclusivity of our products. The entry of a competitive drug product from another company or a generic version of one of our products could result in a decrease in sales of our products and materially harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Factors similar to those listed above also apply to our collaborator Novartis for JAKAVI and TABRECTA in the jurisdictions in which it has commercialization rights and to our collaborator Lilly for OLUMIANT in all jurisdictions.
OTHER RISKS RELATING TO OUR BUSINESS
We may be unsuccessful in our efforts to discover and develop drug candidates and commercialize drug products.
Our long-term success, revenue growth and diversification of revenues depends on our ability to obtain regulatory approval for new drug products and additional indications for our existing drug products. Our ability to discover and develop drug candidates and to commercialize additional drug products and indications will depend on our ability to:
• hire and retain key employees;
• identify high quality therapeutic targets;
• identify potential drug candidates;
• develop products internally or license or acquire drug candidates from others;
• identify and enroll suitable human subjects, either in the United States or abroad, for our clinical trials;
• complete laboratory testing;
• commence, conduct and complete safe and effective clinical trials on humans;
• obtain and maintain necessary intellectual property rights to our products;
• obtain and maintain necessary regulatory approvals for our products, both in the United States and abroad;
• enter into arrangements with third parties to provide services or to manufacture our products on our behalf;
• deploy sales, marketing, distribution and manufacturing resources effectively or enter into arrangements with third parties to provide these functions in compliance with all applicable laws;
• obtain appropriate coverage and reimbursement levels for the cost of our products from governmental authorities, private health insurers and other third-party payors;
• lease facilities at reasonable rates to support our growth; and
• enter into arrangements with third parties to license and commercialize our products.
The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are intensely competitive and subject to rapid and significant technological change. Despite investing significant resources, we may not be successful in discovering, developing, or commercializing additional drug products or our existing drug products in new indications. Discovery and development of drug candidates are expensive, uncertain and time-consuming, and we do not know if our efforts will lead to discovery of any drug candidates that can be successfully developed and marketed. We, or our collaborators or licensees, may decide to discontinue development of any or all of our drug candidates at any time for commercial, scientific or other reasons. Even if a drug candidate receives marketing approval, it may not be able to achieve market acceptance or compete successfully with our competitors’ products and we may never realize a return on the significant amount of time and money invested in the drug candidate, which could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition as well as our business plans. Of the compounds or biologics that we identify as potential drug products or that we in-license from other companies, including potential products for which we are conducting clinical trials, only a few, if any, are likely to lead to drug development programs and commercialized drug products.
Table of Contents
If we or our collaborators are unable to obtain regulatory approval for our drug candidates in the United States or foreign jurisdictions, we or our collaborators will not be permitted to commercialize products resulting from our research.
In order to commercialize drug products in the United States, drug candidates will have to obtain regulatory approval from the FDA. Satisfaction of regulatory requirements typically takes many years. To obtain regulatory approval, we or our collaborators, as the case may be, must first show that our or our collaborators’ drug candidates are safe and effective for target indications through preclinical testing (animal testing) and clinical trials (human testing). Preclinical testing and clinical development are long, expensive and uncertain processes, and we do not know whether the FDA will allow us or our collaborators to undertake clinical trials of any drug candidates in addition to our or our collaborators’ compounds currently in clinical trials. If regulatory approval of a product is granted, this approval will be limited to those disease states and conditions for which the product is demonstrated through clinical trials to be safe and effective.
Completion of clinical trials may take several years and failure may occur at any stage of testing. The length of time required varies substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of the drug candidate. Interim results of a preclinical test or clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results, and acceptable results in early clinical trials may not be repeated in later clinical trials. For example, a drug candidate that is successful at the preclinical level may cause harmful or dangerous side effects when tested at the clinical level. Our rate of commencement and completion of clinical trials may be delayed, and existing clinical trials with our or our collaborators’ drug candidates may be stopped, due to many potential factors, including:
• the high degree of risk and uncertainty associated with drug development;
• our inability to formulate or manufacture sufficient quantities of materials for use in clinical trials;
• variability in the number and types of patients available for each study;
• difficulty in maintaining contact with patients after treatment, resulting in incomplete data;
• unforeseen safety issues or side effects;
• poor or unanticipated effectiveness of drug candidates during the clinical trials; or
• government or regulatory delays.
Data obtained from clinical trials are susceptible to varying interpretation, which may delay, limit or prevent regulatory approval. Many companies in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry, including our company, have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials, even after achieving promising results in earlier clinical trials. In addition, regulatory authorities may refuse or delay approval as a result of other factors, such as changes in regulatory policy during the period of product development and regulatory agency review. Delays in FDA approval of drug candidates may also result from other factors such as funding limitations, staffing reductions or other resource restrictions, any of which could have an adverse effect on the regulatory approval process. Further, the FDA has in the past required, and could in the future require, that we or our collaborators conduct additional trials of any of our drug candidates, which would result in and could result in our of a drug development program. From time to time we and our have experienced events that have resulted in , and of drug development programs. In April 2017, we and our Lilly announced that the FDA had issued a complete response letter for the NDA of OLUMIANT as a once-daily oral medication for the treatment of moderate-to- rheumatoid arthritis. The letter indicated that additional clinical data were needed to determine the most appropriate doses and to further characterize safety across treatment arms. In June 2018, after a resubmission of the NDA, the FDA approved the 2mg dose of OLUMIANT for the treatment of adults with moderately-to- active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an response to one or more tumor necrosis factor inhibitor therapies. The FDA did not at that time approve any higher dose of OLUMIANT and required a label in connection with its approval. In addition, in January 2022, we announced that we withdrew the NDA seeking approval of parsaclisib for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma. The decision to withdraw the NDA followed discussions with FDA regarding confirmatory clinical trials that we determined cannot be completed within the time period to support the investment. Also, in March 2023, we received a complete response letter for ruxolitinib extended release tablets, which identified additional requirements for approval.
Table of Contents
Compounds or biologics developed by us or with or by our collaborators and licensees may not prove to be safe and effective in clinical trials and may not meet all of the applicable regulatory requirements needed to receive marketing approval. For example, in January 2020 we stopped our Phase 3 trial of itacitinib for the treatment of acute graft-versus-host-disease. If clinical trials of any of our or our collaborators’ compounds or biologics are stopped for safety, efficacy or other reasons or fail to meet their respective endpoints, our overall development plans, business, prospects, expected operating results and financial condition could be materially harmed and the value of our company could be negatively affected.
Even if any of our applications receives an FDA Fast Track or priority review designation (including based on a priority review voucher, one of which we recently acquired and used in connection with our submission seeking FDA approval of ruxolitinib cream for atopic dermatitis), these designations may not result in faster review or approval for our product candidate compared to product candidates considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures and, in any event, do not assure ultimate approval of our product candidate by the FDA. For example, in June 2021 we were informed by the FDA that the FDA had extended by three months the review period for the NDA for ruxolitinib cream for atopic dermatitis. Also, in July 2021, we announced that the FDA issued a complete response letter for the BLA of retifanlimab for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal, in which the FDA stated it cannot approve the BLA and that additional data are needed. In addition, while the FDA had granted orphan drug designation and Fast Track designation to parsaclisib as a treatment for patients with follicular lymphoma, marginal zone lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma, as discussed above we withdrew our NDA seeking approval for treatment of patients with those lymphomas. The FDA has recently increased its attention on mandated confirmatory trials for oncology drug candidates with accelerated approvals, and the logistics, cost and timing required for confirmatory trials may conflict with our investment thesis for drug candidates, resulting in withdrawal of approval applications.
Outside the United States, our and our collaborators’ ability to market a product is contingent upon receiving a marketing authorization from the appropriate regulatory authorities. This foreign regulatory approval process typically includes all of the risks associated with the FDA approval process described above and may also include additional risks. The requirements governing the conduct of clinical trials, product licensing, pricing and reimbursement vary greatly from country to country and may require us to perform additional testing and expend additional resources. Approval by the FDA does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries, and approval by one foreign regulatory authority does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or by the FDA.
Healthcare reform measures could impact the pricing and profitability of pharmaceuticals, and adversely affect the commercial viability of our or our collaborators’ products and drug candidates. If recent proposals for changes to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement of drug prices are adopted into law, our results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.
In recent years, through legislative and regulatory actions and executive orders, the U.S. federal government has made substantial changes to various payment systems under the Medicare and other federal healthcare programs. Comprehensive reforms to the U.S. healthcare system were enacted, including changes to the methods for, and amounts of, Medicare reimbursement. For example, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 includes a provision that became effective in January 2024 that eliminated the statutory cap on rebates that drug manufacturers pay to Medicaid. It is expected that this provision, as implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) will have the effect of increasing Medicaid rebate liability, particularly in the case of medicines that have experienced price increases at a rate in excess of inflation. Further, in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was enacted, which includes provisions allowing the federal government to negotiate prices for certain high-expenditure single source Medicare drugs, to impose penalties and to implement a potential excise tax for manufacturers that fail to comply with the negotiation by offering a price that is not equal to or less than the negotiated “maximum fair price” under the law, and to impose rebate liability on manufacturers that take price increases that exceed inflation. The new law also reduced the out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare Part D beneficiaries, and to help pay for this change in design, the law imposes a new discount program which started in 2025 in which manufacturers pay specified discounts on Medicare Part D utilization of their drugs as a condition of selling such drugs in the Medicare Part D program. The Inflation Reduction Act includes certain exemptions for small biotech drug manufacturers, including Incyte. These exemptions apply on a drug-specific basis, and qualifying drugs will be exempt from possible negotiation through 2028 and subject to reduced discounts that will be phased-in over a number of years under the new Part D . While there is currently significant uncertainty regarding the implementation of some of these reforms or the scope of amended or additional reforms, the implementation of reforms could significantly reduce net sales resulting from the Medicare programs and limit our ability to increase the prices that we charge for our drugs. Reforms or other changes to these payment systems may change the availability, methods and rates of reimbursements from Medicare, private insurers and other third-party payors for our current and any future
Table of Contents
approved products. These reforms may affect future investments in our drug development, should the reforms affect our risk-benefit analysis of investing in a drug candidate. Some of these changes and proposed changes could result in reduced reimbursement rates or the elimination of dual sources of payment, which could reduce the price that we or any of our collaborators or licensees receive for any products in the future, and which would adversely affect our business strategy, operations and financial results.
In addition, there has been an increasing legislative and enforcement interest in the United States with respect to drug pricing practices. This has resulted in significant legislative activity and proposals from the prior and current administrations relating to prescription drug prices and reimbursement, any of which, if enacted, could impose downward pressure on the prices that we can charge for our products and may further limit the commercial viability of our products and drug candidates. Specifically, there have been ongoing federal congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation, executive orders and administrative agency rules designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to drug pricing, reduce drug prices, reform government program reimbursement methodologies for prescription drugs, expand access to government-mandated discounted pricing (known as 340B pricing) through broader contract pharmacy arrangements, allow importation of drugs into the United States from other countries, and limit allowable prices for drugs through reference to an average price from foreign markets that may be substantially lower than what we currently or would otherwise charge. In certain foreign markets, pricing or profitability of prescription pharmaceuticals is subject to government control. We expect that the healthcare reform measures that have been adopted in the United States and in foreign markets, and further reforms that may be adopted in the future, could result in more rigorous coverage criteria and additional pressure on the prices that we may receive for our approved products. If reimbursement for our products is or limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at levels, our business could be materially , including material affects to our revenue and the or, in some case, the of our research and development efforts. There may be future changes that result in reductions in current prices, coverage and reimbursement levels for our current or any future approved products, and we cannot predict the scope of any future changes or the impact that those changes would have on our operations.
Further, if we become the subject of any governmental or other regulatory hearing or investigation with respect to the pricing of our products or other business practices, we could incur significant expenses and could be distracted from the operation of our business and execution of our business strategy. Any such hearing or investigation could also result in significant negative publicity and harm to our reputation, reduced market acceptance and demand, which could adversely affect our financial results and growth prospects.
In addition, the trend toward managed healthcare in the United States as well as legislative and regulatory proposals to reform healthcare or address the cost of government insurance programs may all result in lower prices for, or rejection of, our products. Managed healthcare organizations could control or significantly influence the purchase of healthcare services and products. Adoption of our products by the medical community and patients may be limited without adequate reimbursement for those products. Cost control initiatives may decrease coverage and payment levels for our products and, in turn, the price that we will be able to charge for any product. Our products may not be considered cost-effective, and coverage and reimbursement may not be available or sufficient to allow us to sell our products on a profitable basis. We are unable to predict all changes to the coverage or reimbursement methodologies that will be applied by private or government payors to our current and any future approved products.
The continuing efforts of legislatures, health agencies and third-party payors to contain or reduce the costs of healthcare, any denial of private or government payor coverage or inadequate reimbursement for our drug candidates could materially and adversely affect our business strategy, operations, future revenues and profitability, and the future revenues and profitability of our potential customers, suppliers, collaborators and licensees and the availability of capital. The same risks apply to our compounds developed and marketed by our collaborators, and our future potential milestone and royalty revenues could be affected in a similar manner.
Table of Contents
Changes in government pricing policies, including the enactment of “most favored nation” pricing legislation, could adversely affect our business.
Our revenue, results of operations, and cash flows could be materially and adversely affected by changes in government pricing policies, including recently proposed or enacted “most favored nation” (MFN) pricing legislation or executive actions. For example, an executive order issued on May 12, 2025, directed the Department of Health and Human Services to establish MFN price targets, and, if progress toward these targets is insufficient, to pursue rulemaking that could require sale of certain products in the U.S. at prices no higher than those in comparable developed nations. The extent, timing, and ultimate effect of this policy are uncertain, and we cannot predict the potential impact on our pricing, reimbursement, or profitability.
We depend on our collaborators and licensees for the future development and commercialization of some of our drug candidates. Conflicts may arise between our collaborators and licensees and us, or our collaborators and licensees may choose to terminate their agreements with us, which may adversely affect our business.
We have licensed to Novartis rights to ruxolitinib outside of the United States and worldwide rights to our MET inhibitor compounds, including TABRECTA, and licensed to Lilly worldwide rights to baricitinib. In addition, we have licensed certain Asian rights to some of our drug products and clinical stage compounds to other collaborators. Under the terms of our agreements with these collaborators, we have no or limited control over the further clinical development of these drug candidates in the relevant territories and any revenues we may receive if these drug candidates receive regulatory approval and are commercialized in the relevant territories will depend primarily on the development and commercialization efforts of others. While OLUMIANT was approved by the European Commission in February 2017 for the treatment of moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis in adult patients and by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in July 2017 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in patients with inadequate response to standard-of-care therapies, the NDA for OLUMIANT for the treatment of moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis was approved in June 2018, and only in the lower dosage tablet and with a warning label. Delays in any marketing approval by the FDA, European or other regulatory authorities, or any label modifications or restrictions in connection with any such approval, or the existence of other risks relating to approved drug products, including those described under “Risks Relating to Commercialization of Our Products,” could the receipt of and reduce resulting potential royalty and milestone revenue from our out-licensed drug candidates.
Conflicts may arise with our collaborators and licensees if they pursue alternative technologies or develop alternative products either on their own or in collaboration with others as a means for developing treatments for the diseases that we have targeted. Competing products and product opportunities may lead our collaborators and licensees to withdraw their support for our drug candidates. Any failure of our collaborators and licensees to perform their obligations under our agreements with them or otherwise to support our drug candidates could negatively impact the development of our drug candidates and lead to our loss of potential revenues from product sales and milestones. Additionally, conflicts have from time to time occurred, and may in the future arise, relating to, among other things, disputes about the achievement and payment of milestone amounts and royalties owed, the ownership of intellectual property that is developed during the course of a relationship or the operation or interpretation of other provisions in our and license agreements. These have led and could in the future lead to or arbitration, which could be and the efforts of our management and scientific staff and could the expected effectiveness of the .
Our existing collaborative and license agreements can be terminated by our collaborators and licensees for convenience, in addition to other circumstances. If any of our collaborators or licensees terminates its agreement with us, or terminates its rights with respect to certain indications or drug candidates, we may not be able to find a replacement collaborator and our business could be adversely affected. Should an agreement be terminated before we have realized the benefits of the collaboration or license, our reputation could be harmed, we may not obtain revenues that we anticipated receiving, and our business could be adversely affected.
Table of Contents
The success of our drug discovery and development efforts may depend on our ability to find suitable collaborators to fully exploit our capabilities. If we are unable to establish collaborations or if these future collaborations are unsuccessful in the development and commercialization of our drug candidates, our research, development and commercialization efforts may be unsuccessful, which could adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition and future revenue prospects.
An element of our business strategy is to enter into collaborative or license arrangements with other parties, under which we license our drug candidates to those parties for development and commercialization or under which we study our drug candidates in combination with other parties’ compounds or biologics. For example, in addition to Novartis, Lilly, and our other existing collaborations, we are evaluating strategic relationships with respect to several of our other programs. However, because collaboration and license arrangements are complex to negotiate, we may not be successful in our attempts to establish these arrangements. Also, we may not have drug candidates that are desirable to other parties, or we may be unwilling to license a drug candidate to a particular party because such party is a competitor or for other reasons. The terms of any such arrangements that we establish may not be favorable to us. Alternatively, potential collaborators may decide against entering into an agreement with us because of our financial, regulatory or intellectual property position or for scientific, commercial or other reasons. If we are not to establish or license arrangements, we may not be to develop and commercialize a drug product, which could affect our business, our revenues and our future revenue prospects.
We will likely not be able to control the amount and timing of resources that our collaborators or licensees devote to our programs or drug candidates. If our collaborators or licensees prove difficult to work with, are less skilled than we originally expected, do not devote adequate resources to the program, are unable to obtain regulatory approval of our drug candidates, pursue alternative technologies or develop alternative products, or do not agree with our approach to development or manufacturing of the drug candidate, the relationship could be unsuccessful. We cannot be sure that potential conflicts will not arise or be alleged among our existing or future collaborations. If a business combination involving a collaborator or licensee and a third-party were to occur, the effect could be to terminate or cause delays in the development of our drug candidate.
If we fail to enter into additional licensing agreements or if these arrangements are unsuccessful, our business and operations might be adversely affected.
In addition to establishing collaborative or license arrangements under which other parties license our drug candidates for development and commercialization or under which we study our drug candidates in combination with such parties’ compounds or biologics, we may explore opportunities to develop our clinical pipeline by in-licensing drug candidates or therapeutic targets that fit within our focus, such as our collaborations with MacroGenics, Inc. (“MacroGenics”), Merus N.V. (“Merus”) and Syndax Pharmaceuticals Inc., or explore additional opportunities to further develop and commercialize existing drug candidates in specific jurisdictions, such as our June 2016 acquisition of the development and commercialization rights to ICLUSIG in certain countries. We may be unable to enter into any additional in-licensing agreements because suitable drug candidates that are within our expertise may not be available to us on terms that are acceptable to us or because competitors with greater resources seek to in-license the same drug candidates. Drug candidates that we would like to develop or commercialize may not be available to us because they are controlled by competitors who are unwilling to license the rights to the drug candidate to us. In addition, we may enter into license agreements that are and our business and operations might be affected if we are to realize the expected economic benefits of a or other licensing arrangement, by the of a drug candidate and and winding down of the related license agreement, or due to other business or regulatory issues, including financial , that may affect a licensor’s ability to continue to perform its obligations under an in-license agreement. For example, in January 2022, we decided to opt-out of the continued development with Merus of MCLA-145, which was the most advanced compound under our with Merus, and in 2022 and 2023, we decided to our with Calithera Biosciences, Inc. and Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. If we make or incur contractual obligations to make significant upfront payments in connection with licenses for -stage drug candidates, and if any of those drug candidates do not receive marketing approval or commercial sales as anticipated or we have to fund additional clinical trials before marketing approval can be obtained, we will have expended significant funds that might have been applied for other uses or we may have to expend funds that were not otherwise budgeted or anticipated in connection with the , and such developments could have a material effect on our stock price and our ability to pursue other transactions. As discussed above under “Other Risks Relating to Our Business—We depend on our and licensees for the future development and commercialization of some of our drug candidates. may arise between our and licensees and us, or our and licensees may choose to their agreements with us, which may affect our business,” or other issues may arise with our licensors. Those
Table of Contents
conflicts could result in delays in our plans to develop drug candidates or result in the expenditure of additional funds to resolve those conflicts that could have an adverse effect on our results of operations. We have also licensed, and may in the future need to license, drug delivery or other technology in order to continue to develop our drug candidates. If we are unable to enter into additional agreements to license drug candidates, drug delivery technology or other technology or if these arrangements are unsuccessful, our research and development efforts could be adversely affected, and we may be unable to increase our number of successfully marketed products and our revenues.
Public health epidemics and pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have adversely affected and could in the future adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our global operations expose us to risks associated with public health epidemics and pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The extent to which a public health pandemic and the measures taken to limit the disease’s spread can impact our operations and those of our suppliers, collaborators, service providers and healthcare organizations serving patients, as well as demand for our drug products, will depend on developments that are highly uncertain, including the duration of the outbreak and any related government actions.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic we experienced, and as a result of future pandemics we may in the future experience, disruptions with the potential to severely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition. These disruptions can include the following:
• the imposition of shelter-in-place orders and work-from-home policies that could affect our research and development activities and access to our laboratory space;
• disruptions in our sales and marketing activities;
• negative impacts on the demand for our products as a result of a decrease in patient visits to healthcare professionals and the prioritization of hospital resources for a future pandemic;
• negative impacts on our clinical trials as a result of delays in site initiation, patient screening, patient enrollment, and monitoring and data collection;
• slower response times by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory agencies for the review and potential approvals of our drug candidate applications; and
• negative impacts on the global supply chain which may affect our ability to obtain sufficient materials for our drug products and product candidates.
Our collaborators could be affected by similar factors as those that have or could affect our business. The ultimate impact of a public health epidemic or pandemic is highly uncertain, but the potential impacts or delays on our or our collaborators’ businesses, our revenues, including milestone and royalty revenues from our collaborators, our and our collaborators’ clinical trials, healthcare systems or the global economy as a whole could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Even if a drug candidate that we develop receives regulatory approval, we may decide not to commercialize it if we determine that commercialization of that product would require more money and time than we are willing to invest.
Even if any of our drug candidates receives regulatory approval, it could be subject to post-regulatory surveillance, and may have to be withdrawn from the market or subject to restrictions if previously unknown problems occur. Regulatory agencies also may require additional clinical trials or testing, and the drug product may be recalled or may be subject to reformulation, additional studies, changes in labeling, warnings to the public and negative publicity. As a result, we may not continue to commercialize a product even though it has obtained regulatory approval. Further, we may decide not to continue to commercialize a product if the market does not accept the product because it is too expensive or because third parties, such as insurance companies or Medicare, will not cover it for substantial reimbursement. In addition, we may decide not to continue to commercialize a product if competitors develop and commercialize similar or superior products or have proprietary rights that preclude us from ultimately marketing our products.
Table of Contents
We have limited capacity to conduct preclinical testing and clinical trials, and our resulting dependence on other parties could result in delays in and additional costs for our drug development efforts.
We have limited internal resources and capacity to perform preclinical testing and clinical trials. As part of our development strategy, we often hire contract research organizations (“CROs”) to perform preclinical testing and clinical trials for drug candidates. If the CROs that we hire to perform our preclinical testing and clinical trials do not meet deadlines, do not follow proper procedures, or a conflict arises between us and our CROs, our preclinical testing and clinical trials may take longer than expected, may cost more, may be delayed or may be terminated. If we were forced to find a replacement entity to perform any of our preclinical testing or clinical trials, we may not be able to find a suitable entity on favorable terms, or at all. Even if we were able to find another entity to perform a preclinical test or clinical trial, the delay in the test or trial may result in significant additional expenditures. Events such as these may result in delays in our obtaining regulatory approval for our drug candidates or our ability to commercialize our products and could result in increased expenditures that would affect our operating results.
Our reliance on other parties to manufacture our drug products and drug candidates could result in a short supply of the drugs, delays in clinical trials or drug development, increased costs, and withdrawal or denial of a regulatory authority’s approval.
We do not currently operate manufacturing facilities for most of our clinical or commercial products, including JAKAFI, PEMAZYRE, ICLUSIG, OPZELURA, ZYNYZ and NIKTIMVO, and our drug candidates. Our current manufacturing strategy for these products and drug candidates is to contract with third parties to manufacture the related raw materials, active pharmaceutical ingredient (“API”), and finished drug product. We do have a biologics production facility located in Yverdon, Switzerland, currently registered for MONJUVI/MINJUVI drug substance manufacturing. We are responsible for the sourcing and manufacturing of ZYNYZ together with our collaborator MacroGenics. While working to increase our own manufacturing capacity through our Swiss bioplant site, we expect to continue to rely on third parties for the manufacture of clinical and commercial supplies of raw materials, API and finished drug product for any drugs that we successfully develop. We also contract with third parties to package and label our products. The FDA requires that the raw materials, API and finished product for drug products such as JAKAFI, PEMAZYRE and OPZELURA and our drug candidates be manufactured according to its current Good Manufacturing Practices regulations, and regulatory authorities in other countries have similar requirements. Failure to comply with Good Manufacturing Practices and the applicable regulatory requirements of other countries in the manufacture of our drug candidates and products could result in the FDA or a foreign regulatory authority halting our clinical trials, withdrawing or regulatory approval of our drug product, initiating product or taking other enforcement actions, which could have a material effect on our business.
We may not be able to obtain sufficient quantities of our drug candidates or any drug products we may develop if our designated manufacturers do not have the capacity or capability to manufacture them according to our schedule and specifications. Manufacturers of pharmaceutical products often encounter difficulties in production, especially in scaling up initial production to commercial quantities from clinical quantities. These problems include difficulties with production costs and yields, quality control and assurance and shortages of qualified personnel. To the extent problems such as these are experienced, we could encounter difficulties in supplying sufficient product to meet demand or incur additional costs to remedy the problems or to recall defective products. Any such recall could also harm our sales efforts and our reputation. Our suppliers, which operate in multiple countries around the world, could also experience in their operations resulting from various factors, including equipment or , regulatory requirements or actions, raw material , labor or , including from the effects of public health pandemics, , natural and other , and wars or other geopolitical events. In addition, one or more of our third party contract manufacturers could be acquired and its contract manufacturing operations could be or . While our strategy is to maintain at a minimum 24 months stock of ruxolitinib phosphate API, inclusive of finished product, ruxolitinib phosphate might be used by us either to make JAKAFI or OPZELURA or for ruxolitinib drug candidates in clinical trials. In addition, we may not be to arrange for our drug candidates or any drug products that we may develop to be manufactured by one of these parties on reasonable terms, if at all. We generally have a single source or a limited number of suppliers that are qualified to supply each of the raw materials, API and finished product of our drug products and our other drug candidates. If any of these suppliers were to become or to supply us with raw materials, API or finished product that complies with applicable regulatory requirements, we could incur significant in our clinical trials or of commercial supply that could have a material effect on our business. If we have promised delivery of a drug candidate or drug product and are to meet the delivery requirement due to manufacturing , our development programs could be , we may have to expend additional sums in order to ensure that manufacturing capacity is available when we need it even if we do not use all of the manufacturing capacity, and our business and operating results could be . Any increases in the cost of our drug candidates or drug products, whether through
Table of Contents
conditions affecting the cost and availability of raw materials, such as inflation, decreases in available manufacturing capacity, or otherwise, would adversely affect our results of operations.
We may not be able to adequately manage and oversee the manufacturers we choose, they may not perform as agreed or they may terminate their agreements with us. Foreign manufacturing approval processes typically include all of the risks associated with the FDA approval process for manufacturing and may also include additional risks.
A number of our collaborations involve the manufacture of antibodies. Either we or our collaborators have primary responsibility for manufacturing activities, and we intend to continue to use third-party contract manufacturing organizations for the manufacture of antibodies in conjunction with our manufacturing facility in Switzerland. Manufacturing antibodies and products containing antibodies is a more complex process than manufacturing small molecule drugs and subject to additional risks. The process of manufacturing antibodies and products containing antibodies is highly susceptible to product loss due to contamination, equipment failure or improper installation or operation of equipment, vendor or operator error, inconsistency in yields, variability in product characteristics, and difficulties in scaling up the production process. Even minor deviations from normal manufacturing processes could result in reduced production yields, product defects and other supply . If microbial, viral or other contaminations are discovered in our product candidates or in the manufacturing facilities in which our product candidates are made, such manufacturing facilities may need to be for an extended period of time to and remedy the contamination. We may encounter and in scaling up production at our Swiss facility or in obtaining necessary regulatory approvals and registrations to do so.
If we fail to comply with the extensive legal and regulatory requirements affecting the healthcare industry, we could face increased costs, penalties and a loss of business.
Our activities, and the activities of our collaborators, partners and third-party providers, are subject to extensive government regulation and oversight both in the United States and in foreign jurisdictions. The FDA and comparable agencies in other jurisdictions directly regulate many of our most critical business activities, including the conduct of preclinical and clinical studies, product manufacturing, advertising and promotion, product distribution, adverse event reporting and product risk management. States increasingly have been placing greater restrictions on the marketing practices of healthcare companies and have instituted pricing disclosure and other requirements for companies selling pharmaceuticals. In addition, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have been the target of lawsuits and investigations alleging violations of government regulations, including claims asserting submission of incorrect pricing information, improper promotion of pharmaceutical products, payments intended to influence the referral of federal or state healthcare business, submission of for government reimbursement, , of the U.S. Foreign Practices Act, the U.K. Act and similar anti- or anti- laws, or related to environmental matters. There is also of company-sponsored patient assistance programs, including insurance premium and co-pay assistance programs and donations to third-party charities that provide such assistance, and we have previously been subject to an relating to our speaker programs and patient assistance programs. of governmental regulation by us, our vendors or donation recipients may be punishable by and civil sanctions, including , and and exclusion from participation in government programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. In addition to , and for of laws and regulations, we could be required to repay amounts we received from government payors, or pay additional rebates and interest if we are found to have the pricing information we have submitted to the government. Actions taken by federal or local governments, legislative bodies and enforcement agencies with respect to these legal and regulatory compliance matters could also result in reduced demand for our products, reduced coverage of our products by healthcare payors, or both. We cannot ensure that our compliance controls, policies, and procedures will in every instance protect us from acts committed by our employees, , partners or third-party providers that would the laws or regulations of the jurisdictions in which we operate. Whether or not we have complied with the law, an into conduct could increase our expenses, our reputation, management time and attention and affect our business, and any settlement of these proceedings could result in significant payments by us. Risks relating to compliance with laws and regulations may be heightened as we continue to expand our global operations and enter new therapeutic areas with different patient populations, which due to different product distribution methods, marketing programs or patient assistance programs may result in additional regulatory and obligations.
Table of Contents
The illegal distribution and sale by third parties of counterfeit or unfit versions of our or our collaborators’ products or stolen products could harm our business and reputation.
We are aware that counterfeit versions of our products have been distributed or sold by entities not authorized by us using product packaging suggesting that the product was provided by us. If unauthorized third parties illegally distribute and sell counterfeit versions of our or our collaborators’ products, those products may not meet our or our collaborators’ rigorous manufacturing, distribution and handling standards. In addition, inventory that is stolen from warehouses, plants or while in-transit, and that is subsequently improperly stored and sold through unauthorized channels, may not meet our or our collaborators’ distribution and handling standards. A patient who receives a counterfeit or unfit drug may suffer dangerous health consequences. Our reputation and business could as a result of or drugs sold under our brand name and could result in sales for us and decreased revenues. If or drugs are sold under our or our ’ brand names, our reputation and business could and we could experience decreased royalty revenues.
As most of our drug discovery and development operations are conducted at our headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, the loss of access to this facility would negatively impact our business.
Our facility in Wilmington, Delaware is our headquarters and is also where we conduct most of our drug discovery, research, development and marketing activities. In addition, natural disasters, the effects of or measures taken to limit the effects of health epidemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or actions of activists opposed to aspects of pharmaceutical research may disrupt our experiments or our ability to access or use our facility. The loss of access to or use of our Wilmington, Delaware facility, either on a temporary or permanent basis, would result in an interruption of our business and, consequently, would adversely affect our overall business.
We depend on key employees in a competitive market for skilled personnel, and the loss of the services of any of our key employees or our inability to attract and retain additional personnel would affect our ability to expand our drug discovery and development programs and achieve our objectives.
We are highly dependent on the members of our executive management team and principal members of our commercial, development, medical, operations and scientific staff. We experience intense competition for qualified personnel. Our future success also depends in part on the continued service of our executive management team and key personnel and our ability to recruit, train and retain essential personnel for our drug discovery and development programs, and for our medical affairs and commercialization activities. If we lose the services of any of these people or if we are unable to recruit sufficient qualified personnel, our research and product development goals, and our commercialization efforts could be delayed or curtailed. We do not maintain “key person” insurance on any of our employees.
If we fail to manage our growth effectively, our ability to develop and commercialize products could suffer.
We expect that if our drug discovery efforts continue to generate drug candidates, our clinical drug candidates continue to progress in development, and we continue to build our development, medical and commercial organizations, we will require significant additional investment in personnel, management and resources. Our ability to achieve our research, development and commercialization objectives depends on our ability to respond effectively to these demands and expand our internal organization, systems, controls and facilities to accommodate additional anticipated growth. If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, our business could be harmed and our ability to execute our business strategy could suffer.
Table of Contents
We may acquire businesses or assets, form joint ventures or make investments in other companies that may be unsuccessful, divert our management’s attention and harm our operating results and prospects.
As part of our business strategy, we may pursue acquisitions of what we believe to be complementary businesses or assets or seek to enter into joint ventures. We also may pursue strategic alliances in an effort to leverage our existing infrastructure and industry experience to expand our product offerings or distribution or make investments in other companies. For example, in February 2024 we entered into a purchase agreement with MorphoSys AG and MorphoSys US Inc. under which we acquired rights to tafasitamab (MONJUVI/MINJUVI) that resulted in our holding exclusive global development and commercialization rights to tafasitamab. The success of our acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and investments will depend on our ability to identify, negotiate, complete and, in the case of acquisitions, integrate those transactions and, if necessary, obtain satisfactory debt or equity financing to fund those transactions. These strategic transactions are complex, time consuming and expensive and entail numerous risks, including:
• unanticipated costs, delays or other operational or financial problems related to integrating the products, product candidates, technologies, business operations, systems, controls and personnel of an acquired company or asset with our company;
• failure to successfully develop and commercialize acquired products, product candidates or technologies or to achieve other strategic objectives;
• delays or inability to progress preclinical programs into clinical development or unfavorable data from clinical trials evaluating acquired or licensed products or product candidates;
• disruption of our ongoing business and diversion of our management’s and employees’ attention from ongoing development of our existing business and other opportunities and challenges;
• inability to achieve planned synergies or cost savings;
• the potential loss of key employees of an acquired company;
• entry into markets in which we have no or limited direct prior experience or where competitors in such markets have stronger market positions;
• uncertainties in our ability to maintain the key business relationships of any business we acquire;
• exposure to unknown or contingent liabilities or the incurrence of unanticipated expenses, including those with respect to intellectual property, pre-clinical or clinical data, safety, compliance or internal controls, and including as a result of the failure of the due diligence processes to identify significant problems, liabilities or challenges of an acquired company or asset;
• the risk that acquired businesses may have differing or inadequate cybersecurity and data protection controls; and
• exposure to litigation or other claims in connection with, or inheritance of claims or litigation risk as a result of, the strategic transaction, including claims from terminated employees, customers, former equity holders or other third parties.
Acquisition transactions may be subject to regulatory approvals or other requirements that are not within our control. We may be unable to obtain these regulatory or other approvals, and closing conditions required in connection with our acquisition transactions may be unable to be satisfied or waived, which could result in our inability to complete the planned acquisition transactions. In addition, antitrust scrutiny by regulatory agencies and changes to regulatory approval processes in the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions may cause approvals to take longer than anticipated to obtain, or may not be obtained at all, or contain burdensome conditions such as required divestitures, which may jeopardize, delay or reduce the anticipated benefits of acquisitions to us and could impede the execution of our business strategy.
Table of Contents
As a result of these or other problems and risks, the businesses, products or technologies we acquire or invest in or obtain licenses to may not produce the revenues, earnings, business synergies or other benefits that we anticipated within the expected timeframe or at all. As a result, we may incur higher costs and realize lower revenues than we had anticipated. For example, in 2024 we acquired Escient Pharmaceuticals, Inc., but later in that year we stopped development of the two lead compounds acquired from Escient. We cannot be sure that any acquisitions or investments we may make in the future will be completed or that, if completed, the acquired business, licenses, investments, products, or technologies will generate sufficient revenue to offset the costs or other negative effects on our business. Other pharmaceutical companies, many of which may have substantially greater resources, compete with us for these opportunities and we may be unable to effectively advance our business strategy through strategic transactions, which could impair our ability to grow or obtain access to products or technology that could be important to the development of our business. Any acquisitions or investments made by us also could result in significant write-offs or the incurrence of debt and contingent liabilities, any of which could our operating results. For example, in several quarters of the last three fiscal years we recorded unrealized related to our investments in our partners, and we may experience additional related to our investments in future periods. In addition, if we choose to issue equity securities as consideration for any acquisition, dilution to our stockholders could result.
Risks associated with our operations outside of the United States could adversely affect our business.
We have European operations and plan to continue to expand our operations and conduct certain development activities outside of the United States. For example, as part of our plans to expand our activities outside of the United States, we conduct some of our operations in Canada, have commercial and clinical development activities in Japan, maintain an office in China and are working with collaborative partners in additional markets. International operations and business expansion plans are subject to numerous additional risks, including:
• multiple, conflicting and changing laws and regulations such as tax laws, privacy regulations, tariffs, export and import restrictions, employment, immigration and labor laws, regulatory requirements, and other governmental approvals, permits and licenses, compliance with which can increase in complexity and cost as we enter into additional jurisdictions;
• difficulties in staffing and managing operations in diverse countries and difficulties in connection with assimilating and integrating any operations and personnel we might acquire into our company;
• risks associated with obtaining and maintaining, or the failure to obtain or maintain, regulatory approvals for the sale or use of our products in various countries;
• complexities associated with managing government payor systems, multiple payor-reimbursement regimes or patient self-pay systems;
• financial risks, such as longer payment cycles, difficulty obtaining financing in foreign markets, difficulty enforcing contracts and intellectual property rights, difficulty collecting accounts receivable, exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations and increased costs due to tariffs;
• general political and economic conditions in the countries in which we operate, including inflation, political or economic instability, terrorism and political unrest and geopolitical events;
• public health risks, including epidemics and pandemics, and related effects on new patient starts, clinical trial activity, regulatory agency response times, supply chain, travel and employee health and availability; and
• regulatory and compliance risks that relate to maintaining accurate information and control over activities that may fall within the purview of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, its books and records provisions or its anti-bribery provisions, or similar anti-bribery or anti-corruption laws and regulations in other countries, such as the U.K. Anti-Bribery Act and the U.K. Criminal Finances Act, which may have similarly broad extraterritorial reach.
Table of Contents
In addition, our revenues are subject to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations due to the global nature of our operations and unfavorable changes in foreign currency exchange rates may adversely affect our revenues and net income. To the extent that our non-U.S. source revenues represent a more significant portion of our total revenues, these fluctuations could materially affect our operating results. Any of the risks described above, if encountered, could significantly increase our costs of operating internationally, prevent us from operating in certain jurisdictions, or otherwise significantly harm our future international expansion and operations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we could face substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our products and our results of operations could be harmed.
In addition to the risks described above under “Risks Relating to Commercialization of Our Products—If the use of our products harms patients, or is perceived to harm patients even when such harm is unrelated to our products, our regulatory approvals could be revoked or otherwise negatively impacted or we could be subject to costly and damaging product liability claims,” the conduct of clinical trials of medical products that are intended for human use entails an inherent risk of product liability. If any product that we or any of our collaborators or licensees develops causes or is alleged to cause injury during clinical trials or commercialization, we may be held liable. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability , we may incur substantial liabilities, including substantial to be paid to the and legal costs, or we may be required to limit further development and commercialization of our products. Additionally, any product liability lawsuit could our reputation, cause participants and investigators to withdraw from clinical trials, and encourage potential or licensees to seek other partners, any of which could impact our results of operations.
Our product liability insurance policy may not fully cover our potential liabilities. In addition, we may determine that we should increase our coverage, and this insurance may be prohibitively expensive to us or our collaborators or licensees and may not fully cover our potential liabilities. We have elected to self-insure a portion of our exposure to product liability risks through our wholly-owned captive insurance subsidiary, in tandem with third-party insurance policies. Our inability to obtain sufficient product liability insurance at an acceptable cost to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the development or commercialization of our drug candidates and products, and if our liabilities from any such claims exceed our third-party insurance limits and self-insurance reserves, our results of operations, cash flows and financial condition could be adversely impacted.
Because our activities involve the use of hazardous materials, we may be subject to claims relating to improper handling, storage or disposal of these materials that could be time consuming and costly.
We are subject to various environmental, health and safety laws and regulations governing, among other things, the use, handling, storage and disposal of regulated substances and the health and safety of our employees. Our research and development processes involve the controlled use of hazardous and radioactive materials and biological waste resulting in the production of hazardous waste products. We cannot completely eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or discharge and any resultant injury from these materials. If any injury or contamination results from our use or the use by our collaborators or licensees of these materials, we may be sued and our liability may exceed our insurance coverage and our total assets. Further, we may be required to indemnify our collaborators or licensees against all damages and other liabilities arising out of our development activities or products produced in connection with these collaborations or licenses. Compliance with the applicable environmental and workplace laws and regulations is expensive. Future changes to environmental, health, workplace and safety laws could cause us to incur additional expense or may restrict our operations or our research, development and production efforts.
Table of Contents
Business disruptions and uncertainties could seriously harm our operations, future revenues and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.
Our operations, and those of our CROs, suppliers, and other contractors and consultants, could be subject to business disruptions as a result of natural disasters, power and other infrastructure failures or shortages, public health pandemics or epidemics, and other natural or man-made disasters, as well as other business uncertainties as a result of international trade policies, including tariff and trade disputes, trade sanctions and import and export licensing requirements. In addition, geopolitical and other events, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the conflicts in the Middle East, could lead to sanctions, embargoes, supply shortages, regional instability, geopolitical shifts, cyberattacks, other retaliatory actions, and adverse effects on macroeconomic conditions, currency exchange rates, and financial markets, which could impact our operations and financial results, as well as those of third parties with whom we conduct business. The occurrence of any of these business or other uncertainties could our operations, future revenues and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.
RISKS RELATING TO OUR FINANCIAL RESULTS
We may incur losses in the future, and we expect to continue to incur significant expenses to discover and develop drugs, which may make it difficult for us to achieve sustained profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.
We intend to continue to spend significant amounts on our efforts to discover and develop drugs, and if we are unable to generate revenues from our marketed drug products sufficient to offset our expenses we may incur losses in future periods. Our revenues, expenses and net income (loss) may fluctuate, even significantly, due to the risks described in these “Risk Factors” and the factors discussed in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” appearing in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as the timing of charges and expenses that we may take, including those relating to transactions such as acquisitions and the entry into collaborative agreements. In addition, revenues from JAKAFI currently make up the substantial majority of our total revenues, but we expect that revenues from JAKAFI will begin to decline once patent exclusivity expires in 2028. We cannot assure you that we will be able to generate revenues from our other marketed drug products to offset the expected decline in revenues from JAKAFI.
We anticipate that our drug discovery and development efforts and related expenditures will increase as we expand our focus on the studies, including preclinical tests and clinical trials prior to seeking regulatory approval, that are required before we can sell a drug product.
The development of drug products will require us to spend significant funds on research, development, testing, obtaining regulatory approvals, manufacturing and marketing. We cannot be sure that we will generate substantial revenues from any drug candidates that we license or develop for several years, if ever.
We cannot be certain whether or when we will achieve sustained or increased profitability on a quarterly or annual basis because of the factors discussed under “Risks Relating to Commercialization of our Products” and in the above paragraphs and the significant uncertainties relating to our ability to generate commercially successful drug products. Even if we are successful in obtaining regulatory approvals for manufacturing and commercializing drug products in addition to our marketed drug products, we may incur losses if our drug products do not generate significant revenues.
We may need additional capital in the future. If we are unable to generate sufficient funds from operations, the capital markets may not permit us to raise additional capital at the time that we require it, which could result in limitations on our research and development or commercialization efforts or the loss of certain of our rights in our technologies or drug candidates.
Our future funding requirements will depend on many factors and we anticipate that we may need to raise additional capital to fund our business plan and research and development efforts going-forward.
Additional factors that may affect our future funding requirements include:
• the acquisition of businesses, technologies, or drug candidates, or the licensing of technologies or drug candidates, if any;
• the amount of revenues generated from our business activities;
Table of Contents
• any changes in the breadth of our research and development programs;
• the results of research and development, preclinical testing and clinical trials conducted by us or our current or future collaborators or licensees, if any;
• our exercise of any co-development options with collaborators that may require us to fund future development;
• costs for future facility requirements;
• our ability to maintain and establish new corporate relationships and research collaborations;
• competing technological and market developments;
• the time and costs involved in filing, prosecuting, defending and enforcing patent and intellectual property rights;
• the receipt or payment of contingent licensing or milestone fees or royalties on product sales from our current or future collaborative and license arrangements, if established; and
• the timing of regulatory approvals, if any.
If we require additional capital at a time when investment in companies such as ours, or in the marketplace generally, is limited due to the then prevailing market or other conditions, we may have to scale back our operations, eliminate one or more of our research or development programs, or attempt to obtain funds by entering into an agreement with a collaborator or licensee that would result in terms that are not favorable to us or relinquishing our rights in certain of our proprietary technologies or drug candidates. If we are unable to raise funds at the time that we desire or at any time thereafter on acceptable terms, we may not be able to continue to develop our drug candidates. The sale of equity or equity-linked securities in the future may be dilutive to our stockholders and may provide for rights, preferences or privileges senior to those of our holders of common stock, and debt financing arrangements could result in increased financing costs due to higher interest rates and may require us to pledge certain assets or enter into covenants that could restrict our operations or our ability to pay dividends or other distributions on our common stock or incur further indebtedness.
Our marketable securities and equity investments are subject to risks that could adversely affect our overall financial position.
We invest our cash in accordance with an established internal policy and customarily in money market funds, U.S. government backed-funds and Treasury securities, which are investment grade and historically have been highly liquid and carried relatively low risk.
Should a portion of our cash or marketable securities lose value or have their liquidity impaired, it could adversely affect our overall financial position by imperiling our ability to fund our operations and forcing us to seek additional financing sooner than we would otherwise. Such financing, if available, may not be available on commercially attractive terms.
As discussed under “Other Risks Relating to Our Business—We may acquire businesses or assets, form joint ventures or make investments in other companies that may be unsuccessful, divert our management’s attention and harm our operating results and prospects,” any investments that we may make in companies with which we have strategic alliances could result in our recognition of losses on those investments. In addition, to the extent we may seek to sell or otherwise monetize those investments, we may not be able to do so at our desired price or valuation levels, or at all, due to the limited liquidity of some or all of those investments.
Any loss in value of our equity investments could adversely affect our financial position on the consolidated balance sheets and consolidated statements of operations.
Table of Contents
Changes in tax laws or regulations could adversely affect our results of operations, business and financial condition.
New tax laws or regulations could be enacted at any time, and existing tax laws or regulations could be interpreted, modified or applied in a manner that is adverse to us or our customers, which could adversely affect our results of operations, business and financial condition. For example, in July 2025, U.S. federal tax legislation commonly referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was enacted, which, among other things, allows domestic research and development expenditures to be expensed for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2025, with retroactive elections for such expenditures paid or incurred in the two prior years but also increases the effective tax rate on foreign-derived deduction eligible income (formerly known as “foreign-derived intangible income”) for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2026. As another example, in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 was enacted, which, among other things, includes a new 15% alternative minimum tax on the adjusted financial statement income of certain large corporations for tax years beginning after December 31, 2022.
Furthermore, the enactment of some or all of the recommendations set forth or that may be forthcoming in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (“OECD”) project on “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting,” commonly known as BEPS 2.0, by tax authorities and economic blocs in the countries in which we operate, could unfavorably impact our effective tax rate. Broadly speaking, BEPS 2.0 would make fundamental changes to the international tax system, including with respect to the entitlement to tax global corporate profits and minimum global tax rates. For example, in December 2022, the EU member states agreed to implement in their domestic tax laws a 15% global minimum tax on the profits of large multinational enterprises with a target effective date for fiscal years beginning on or after December 31, 2023. Although we continue to evaluate and monitor the potential impact of BEPS 2.0 on us, and the OECD minimum tax rules do not currently have a material impact on us, these minimum tax rules could in the future result in tax increases in both the United States and many foreign jurisdictions where we operate or have a presence. In January 2025, the OECD released new guidance addressing implementation of the Pillar Two global minimum tax rules, which were effective for us in tax year 2024. As part of the guidance, the OECD placed on transactions that produce deferred tax assets entered into during the transition period that runs from November 2021 through an entity’s adoption of Pillar Two. However, in January 2026, the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework released its Side-by-Side (“SbS”) Safe Harbor package which is intended to work “side-by-side” with the Pillar Two framework, offering a streamlined compliance pathway for large multinational enterprises. If an eligible multinational enterprise group elects the SbS Safe Harbor, any top-up tax under Pillar Two’s income inclusion rule and undertaxed profits rule is treated as zero for the group’s controlled domestic and foreign operations. The SbS Safe Harbor does not apply to 2024 and 2025. While we anticipate making the SbS Safe Harbor election for our tax year beginning on January 1, 2026, if we do not obtain side-by-side tax treatment, we could experience consequences for tax provisions, tax liabilities and tax rate. Any new tax legislation or initiatives could not only significantly increase our tax provision, cash tax liabilities, compliance costs and tax rate, but could also significantly increase tax uncertainty due to differing interpretations and increased audit .
We derive a substantial portion of our revenues from royalties, milestone payments and other payments under our collaboration agreements. If we are unable to achieve milestones, develop product candidates to license or renew or enter into new collaborations, our revenues may decrease, and future milestone and royalty payments may not contribute significantly to revenues for several years, and may never result in revenues.
We derive a substantial portion of our total revenues from product royalties and milestone payments under our collaboration agreements, with royalties on JAKAVI and OLUMIANT representing most of our product royalty, milestone and contract revenues in each of the three most recently completed fiscal years. Future revenues from research and development collaborations depend upon the continuation of the collaborations, the achievement of milestones, and any royalties we earn from any future products developed from our research. If we are unable to successfully achieve milestones or our collaborators fail to develop successful products, we will not earn the future revenues contemplated under our collaborative agreements. For example, delays in or other limitations with respect to the approval of baricitinib in the United States for the treatment of moderate-to- rheumatoid arthritis, or the to obtain such approval as a first line therapy, as discussed under “Other Risks Relating to Our Business—We depend on our and licensees for the future development and commercialization of some of our drug candidates. may arise between our and licensees and us, or our and licensees may choose to their agreements with us, which may affect our business,” could affect potential future royalty and milestone and contract revenue.
Table of Contents
RISKS RELATING TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND LEGAL MATTERS
If we are subject to arbitration, litigation and infringement claims, they could be costly and disrupt our drug discovery and development efforts.
The success of our drug discovery and development efforts will depend on our ability to develop new compounds, drugs and technologies without infringing or misappropriating the proprietary rights of others. The technology that we use to make and develop our drug products, the technology that we incorporate in our products, and the products we are developing may be subject to claims that they infringe the patents or proprietary rights of others. We are aware of patents and patent applications filed in certain countries claiming intellectual property relating to some of our drug discovery targets and drug candidates. While the validity of issued patents, patentability of pending patent applications and applicability of any of them to our programs are uncertain, if any of these patents are asserted against us or if we choose to license any of these patents, our ability to commercialize our products could be harmed or the potential return to us from any product that may be successfully commercialized could be diminished.
From time to time we have received, and we may in the future receive, notices from third parties offering licenses to technology or alleging patent, trademark, or copyright infringement, claims regarding trade secrets or other contract claims. Receipt of these notices could result in significant costs as a result of the diversion of the attention of management from our drug discovery and development efforts. Parties sending these notices may have brought and in the future may bring litigation against us or seek arbitration relating to contract claims.
We may be involved in future lawsuits or other legal proceedings alleging patent infringement or other intellectual property rights or contract violations. In addition, litigation or other legal proceedings may be necessary to:
• assert claims of infringement;
• enforce our patents or trademarks;
• protect our trade secrets or know-how; or
• determine the enforceability, scope and validity of the proprietary rights of others.
We may be unsuccessful in defending or pursuing these lawsuits, claims or other legal proceedings. Regardless of the outcome, litigation or other legal proceedings can be very costly and can divert management’s efforts. An adverse determination may subject us to significant liabilities or require us or our collaborators or licensees to seek licenses to other parties’ patents or proprietary rights. We or our collaborators or licensees may also be restricted or prevented from manufacturing or selling a drug or other product that we or they develop. Further, we or our future collaborators or licensees may not be able to obtain any necessary licenses on acceptable terms, if at all. If we are unable to develop non-infringing technology or license technology on a timely basis or on reasonable terms, our business could be .
We may be unable to adequately protect or enforce our proprietary information, which may result in its unauthorized use, a loss of revenue under a collaboration agreement or loss of sales to generic versions of our products or otherwise reduce our ability to compete in developing and commercializing products.
Our business and competitive position depends in significant part upon our ability to protect our proprietary technology, including any drug products that we create. Despite our efforts to protect this information, unauthorized parties may attempt to obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. For example, one of our collaborators may disclose proprietary information pertaining to our drug discovery efforts. In addition, while we have filed numerous patent applications with respect to our approved products and drug candidates in the United States and in foreign countries, our patent applications may fail to result in issued patents. In addition, because patent applications can take several years to issue as patents, there may be pending patent applications of others that may later issue as patents that cover some aspect of our approved products or drug candidates. Our existing patents and any future patents we may obtain may not be broad enough to protect our products or all of the potential uses of our products, or otherwise prevent others from developing competing products or technologies. In addition, our patents may be challenged and invalidated or may fail to provide us with any competitive if, for example, others were first to or first to file a patent application for the technologies and products covered by our patents. As noted above under “Risks Relating to Commercialization of Our Products—Competition for our products could our business and result in a decrease in our revenue,” potential generic drug company competitors have certain patents relating to JAKAFI and OPZELURA.
Table of Contents
Additionally, when we do not control the prosecution, maintenance and enforcement of certain important intellectual property rights, such as a drug candidate in-licensed to us or subject to a collaboration with a third-party, the protection of such intellectual property rights may not be in our hands. If we do not control the intellectual property rights in-licensed to us with respect to a drug candidate and the entity that controls such intellectual property rights does not adequately protect those rights, our rights may be impaired, which may impact our ability to develop, market and commercialize the in-licensed drug candidate.
Our means of protecting our proprietary rights may not be adequate, and our competitors may:
• independently develop substantially equivalent proprietary information, products and techniques;
• otherwise gain access to our proprietary information; or
• design around patents issued to us or our other intellectual property.
We pursue a policy of having our employees, consultants and advisors execute proprietary information and invention agreements when they begin working for us. However, these agreements may not provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets or other proprietary information in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure. If we fail to maintain trade secret and patent protection, our potential future revenues may be decreased.
If the effective term of our patents is decreased due to changes in U.S. patent laws or if we need to refile some of our patent applications, the value of our patent portfolio and the revenues we derive from it may be decreased.
The value of our patents depends, in part, on their duration. A shorter period of patent protection could lessen the value of our rights under any patents that we obtain and may decrease the revenues we derive from our patents. U.S. patent laws provide a term of patent protection of 20 years from the earliest effective filing date of the patent application. Because the time from filing to issuance of biotechnology applications may be more than three years depending on the subject matter, a 20-year patent term from the filing date may result in substantially shorter patent protection.
Additionally, U.S. patent laws were amended in 2011 with the enactment of the America Invents Act and third parties are now able to challenge the validity of issued U.S. patents through various review proceedings; thus rendering the validity of U.S. patents more uncertain. We may be obligated to participate in review proceedings to determine the validity of our U.S. patents. We cannot predict the ultimate outcome of these proceedings, the conduct of which could result in substantial costs and diversion of our efforts and resources. If we are unsuccessful in these proceedings some or all of our claims in the patents may be narrowed or invalidated and the patent protection for our products and drug candidates in the United States could be substantially shortened. Further, if all of the patents covering one of our products are invalidated, the FDA could approve requests to manufacture a generic version of that product prior to the expiration date of those patents.
Other changes in U.S. patent laws or changes in the interpretation of patent laws could diminish the value of our patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States resolved a split among the circuit courts of appeals regarding antitrust challenges to settlements of patent infringement lawsuits under the Hatch-Waxman Act between brand-name drug companies and generic drug companies. The Court rejected the “scope of the patent” test and ruled that settlements involving “reverse payments” from brand-name drug companies to generic drug companies should be analyzed under the rule of reason. This ruling may create uncertainty and make it more difficult to settle patent litigation if a company seeking to manufacture a generic version of one of our products challenges the patents covering that product prior to the expiration date of those patents.
Table of Contents
International patent protection is particularly uncertain and costly, and our involvement in opposition proceedings in foreign countries may result in the expenditure of substantial sums and management resources.
Biotechnology and pharmaceutical patent law outside the United States is even more uncertain and costly than in the United States and is currently undergoing review and revision in many countries. Further, the laws of some foreign countries may not protect our intellectual property rights to the same extent as U.S. laws. For example, certain countries do not grant patent claims that are directed to the treatment of humans. We have participated, and may in the future participate, in opposition proceedings to determine the validity of our foreign patents or our competitors’ foreign patents, which could result in substantial costs and diversion of our efforts. Successful challenges to our patent or other intellectual property rights through these proceedings could result in a loss of rights in the relevant jurisdiction and allow third parties to use our proprietary technologies without a license from us or our collaborators, which may also result in loss of future royalty payments. In addition, successful may or our ability to enter into new or commercialize potential products, which could our business and results of operations.
RISKS RELATING TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DATA PRIVACY
Significant disruptions of information technology systems, breaches of data security, or unauthorized disclosures of personal information (including sensitive personal information) could adversely affect our business, and could subject us to liability or reputational damage.
Our business is increasingly dependent on critical, complex, and interdependent information technology (“IT”) systems, including Internet-based systems, some of which are managed or hosted by third parties, to support business processes as well as internal and external communications. The size and complexity of our IT systems make our IT systems and data vulnerable to risks and damages from a variety of sources, including malicious human acts, breaches of security, cyber-attacks, catastrophe or natural disaster, telecommunications or network failures, loss of power or other natural or man-made events. In addition, despite network security and back-up measures, we and our vendors frequently defend against and respond to data security attacks and incidents, and our servers and our vendors’ servers are potentially to physical or electronic -ins, computer viruses, software , ransomware attacks and similar . If our business continuity and recovery plans and procedures or those of our vendors, including our CROs and contract manufacturers, were , or in the event of a , we could experience an of all or a portion of our operations, which could result in significant to our business, financial results and reputation. In addition, having a portion of our employees work remotely can our IT infrastructure, which may affect our ability to operate effectively, may make us more to communications , and us to cybersecurity risks.
We are continuously evaluating and, where appropriate, enhancing our IT systems to address our planned growth, including to support our manufacturing operations. There are inherent costs and risks associated with implementing enhancements to our IT systems, including potential delays in access to, or errors in, critical business and financial information, substantial capital expenditures, additional administrative time and operating expenses, retention of sufficiently skilled personnel to implement and operate the enhanced systems, demands on management time, and costs of delays or difficulties in transitioning to the enhanced systems, any of which could harm our business and results of operations. In addition, the implementation of enhancements to our IT systems may not result in productivity improvements at a level that outweighs the costs of implementation, or at all.
In addition, our systems and the systems of our third-party providers and collaborators are potentially vulnerable to data security breaches which may expose sensitive data to unauthorized persons or to the public. Such data security breaches could lead to the loss of confidential information, trade secrets or other intellectual property, could lead to the public exposure of personal information of our employees, clinical trial patients, customers, business partners, and others, could lead to potential identity theft, or could lead to reputational harm. Data security breaches could also result in loss of clinical trial data or damage to the integrity of that data. Malicious cyber attacks are growing in frequency and sophistication, including the use of artificial intelligence, and can be made by groups and individuals with a wide range of motives, including nation states, organized groups, “hacktivists” and others acting with intent. In addition, the increased use of social media by our employees and contractors could result in disclosure of sensitive data or personal information, including but not limited to, confidential information, trade secrets and other intellectual property.
Table of Contents
Any such disruption or security breach, as well as any action by us or our employees or contractors that might be inconsistent with the rapidly evolving data privacy and security laws and regulations applicable within the United States and elsewhere where we conduct business, could result in enforcement actions by U.S. states, the U.S. federal government or foreign governments, liability or sanctions under data privacy laws, including healthcare laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that protect certain types of sensitive information, regulatory penalties, other legal proceedings such as but not limited to private litigation, the incurrence of significant remediation costs, disruptions to our development programs, business operations and collaborations, diversion of management efforts and damage to our reputation, which could harm our business and operations. Because of the rapidly moving nature of technology and the increasing sophistication of cybersecurity threats, our measures to prevent, respond to and minimize such risks may be .
Disruptions or data security breaches within other healthcare companies could also affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. If systems used by healthcare providers, third-party payors and companies in our distribution network such as PBMs, pharmacies and wholesalers are disrupted by a data security breach, the ability to process claims and fulfill prescriptions could be impacted, which could result in adverse effects on our net product revenues.
Further, many countries and jurisdictions in which we work globally have enacted or are proposing privacy and data protection laws and regulations which govern the collection and use of personal information and which may impose large fines and penalties for noncompliance. For example, in the EU under the General Data Protection Regulation, potential fines for noncompliance are up to €20 million or 4% of annual global revenue, whichever is greater. Further, some jurisdictions provide for private rights of action if data breaches result in the loss or theft of personal data. These laws and regulations may also require, as applicable, that we:
• ensure individuals to whom personal information relates are informed about how their personal information is collected and processed;
• keep personal information confidential and secure;
• transfer personal information in a compliant manner;
• respond to requests from individuals about their personal information; and
• inform authorities and individuals as may be applicable about any data breaches.
These obligations may increase our costs of doing business and the varying requirements among all countries and jurisdictions in which we work can complicate our compliance efforts.
Increasing use of social media and new technology, including artificial intelligence, could give rise to liability, breaches of data security, or reputational damage.
We and our employees increasingly are utilizing social media tools as a means of communication both internally and externally. We also are using new technology on a daily basis to enhance how we work. Despite our efforts to monitor evolving social media communication, our internal guidelines regarding the appropriate use of new technology and applicable and emerging rules, there is risk that the use of these tools by us or our employees may cause us to be found in violation of applicable requirements. In addition, our employees may knowingly or inadvertently make use of these tools in ways that may not comply with our policies or other legal or contractual requirements, which may give rise to liability, lead to the loss of trade secrets or other intellectual property, or result in public exposure of personal information of our employees, patients, customers, and others. Furthermore, negative posts or comments about us or our products in social media could seriously damage our reputation, brand image, and goodwill. Additionally, the use of artificial intelligence is increasing in the biopharmaceutical industry. As with many developing technologies, artificial intelligence presents risks and that could affect its further development, adoption, and use, which could affect our business. If the analyses that artificial intelligence applications assist in producing are or , we could be to competitive , potential legal liability, and brand or reputational . Use of artificial intelligence may also lead to the release of confidential proprietary information, which may impact our ability to realize the of our intellectual property.
Table of Contents
