Item 1A. Risk Factors
You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. If any of the following risks are realized, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be adversely affected. The risks described below are not the only risks facing our company. Risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial also may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or prospects.
Table of Contents
Risks Related to Our Financial Condition and Capital Requirements
We have incurred significant losses and negative cash flows from operations since our inception and expect to continue to incur significant losses and negative cash flows from operations for at least the next 12 months.
We have incurred net losses in each year since our inception, including net losses of $62.4 million and $75.4 million for the years ended September 30, 2025 and 2024, respectively. We have not generated material revenue from the sales of any product. During the fiscal year 2025, we recognized revenues of $1.4 million from sales of LYTENAVA in Germany and the UK, representing the shipments of product into Germany and the UK. Our success as a company is substantially dependent on our ability to generate revenue from the sales of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, which has been approved for the treatment of wet AMD in the EU and UK.
We have devoted substantially all of our financial resources to identify, develop and manufacture our product candidates, including conducting, among other things, analytical characterization, process development and manufacture, formulation and clinical trials, regulatory filing and communication activities and providing general and administrative support for these operations. To date, only one of our product candidates, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA , has been approved for sale in the EU and UK, and we have financed our operations primarily through the sale of equity securities and debt financings, as well as to a limited degree, payments under our co-development and license agreements. The amount of our future net losses will depend, in part, on our ability to generate revenue from product sales, the rate of our future expenditures and our ability to obtain funding through equity or debt financing or our ability to enter into and receive funding under strategic licensing or co-development collaborations.
We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses for at least the next 12 months. We anticipate that our expenses may increase substantially if and as we:
continue our product launch and market ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK, and in other countries if the product is approved in these territories;
continue the clinical development of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA;
advance ONS-5010/LYTENAVA into additional clinical trials;
change or add contract manufacturing providers, clinical research service providers, testing laboratories, device suppliers, legal service providers or other vendors or suppliers;
seek regulatory and marketing approvals for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the United States and other markets if we successfully complete clinical trials;
establish a sales, marketing and distribution infrastructure to commercialize any products for which we may obtain marketing approval and for which we retain such rights;
seek to identify, assess, acquire or develop other product candidates that may be complementary to ONS-5010/LYTENAVA;
make upfront, milestone, royalty or other payments under any license agreements;
seek to create, maintain, protect and expand our intellectual property portfolio;
engage in litigation, including the pending securities class action lawsuit, as well as any other pending or potential litigation;
seek to attract and retain skilled personnel;
Table of Contents
create additional infrastructure to support our operations as a public company and any future commercialization efforts; and
experience any delays or encounter issues with any of the above, including but not limited to failed clinical trials, conflicting results, safety issues or regulatory challenges that may require longer follow-up of existing studies, additional major studies or additional supportive studies in order to pursue marketing approval.
Our failure to become and remain profitable would decrease our value and could impair our ability to raise capital, maintain our research and development efforts, expand our business or continue our operations. A decline in our value could also cause you to lose all or part of your investment.
We have not generated material revenue from any product sales and may never be profitable.
We have one product, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, approved for commercialization in the EU and UK and we have not generated material revenue from the sales of any product. During the fiscal year 2025, we recognized revenues of $1.4 million from sales of LYTENAVA in Germany and the UK, representing the shipments of product into Germany and the UK. Our ability to generate revenue and achieve profitability depends on our ability, alone or with strategic collaboration partners, to successfully complete the development of, and obtain the regulatory and marketing approvals necessary to commercialize, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for the treatment of wet AMD, and our other targeted indications, and as appropriate, any of our other product candidates. Our ability to generate revenue depends heavily on our success in many areas, including but not limited to:
Securing capital sufficient to fund our commercialization efforts;
launching and commercializing ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidates for which we or our partners obtain regulatory and marketing approval;
maintaining and obtaining regulatory and marketing approvals for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidates for which we or our partners complete clinical trials;
retaining our manufacturing partner for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any approved product candidates to support clinical development, regulatory requirements and the market demand for any such approved product candidates;
obtaining third-party coverage and adequate reimbursements of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidates, if approved ;
obtaining market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidates for which we obtain regulatory and marketing approval as viable treatment options;
establishing or demonstrating in the medical community the safety and efficacy of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and its potential advantages over and side effects compared to existing products used to treat wet AMD;
negotiating favorable terms in any collaboration, licensing or other arrangements into which we may enter;
maintaining, protecting and expanding our portfolio of intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets and know-how;
attracting, hiring and retaining qualified personnel; and
completing clinical development of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for the treatment of wet AMD in the United States and the other targeted indications, and any other product candidates we may develop in the future.
Table of Contents
We anticipate incurring significant costs to commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any of our other product candidates that may be approved for commercialization in the future. Our expenses could increase beyond our expectations if we are required by the FDA, or other regulatory authorities, supranational, domestic or foreign, or by any unfavorable outcomes in intellectual property litigation filed against us, to change our manufacturing processes or assays or to perform clinical, preclinical or other types of studies in addition to those that we currently anticipate.
Our ability to generate revenue from the sales of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU, UK or in any other country where the product is approved, or in relation to any other product candidate that may be approved, will be dependent, in part, upon:
our ability to execute our sales and marketing strategy for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK;
our ability to maintain and manage the necessary sales, marketing and other capabilities and infrastructure that are required to successfully commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK;
the size of the markets in the territories for which we gain regulatory approval;
the number of competitors in such markets;
the market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidate that may be approved ;
the accepted price for the product;
the ability to obtain coverage and adequate reimbursement for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidate that may be approved ;
the quality and performance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidate that may be approved , including the relative safety and efficacy; and
whether we own, or have partnered, the commercial rights for that territory.
If the market for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidates we may develop in the future, or our share of that market, is not as large as we expect, the number of indications approved by regulatory authorities is narrower than we expect or the target population for treatment is narrowed by competition, physician choice or treatment guidelines, we may not generate significant revenue from sales of such products to become profitable. If we are unable to successfully complete development and obtain regulatory approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK , our business will be harmed.
There is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. We will need to raise substantial additional funding to complete the development of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK and support our operations until we are able to generate sufficient revenue from the sales of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK . This additional funding may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. Failure to obtain this necessary capital when needed may force us to delay, limit or terminate our product development efforts or other operations.
Developing product candidates is an expensive, risky and lengthy process. We have received a marketing authorization from the European Commission and the MHRA for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for the treatment of wet AMD in the EU and UK, respectively. We are currently advancing ONS-5010/LYTENAVA through additional clinical development and the regulatory approval process in the United States. Our expenses may increase in connection with our ongoing activities, particularly as we continue the research and development of, continue and initiate clinical trials of, and seek marketing approval for, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK .
As of September 30, 2025, our cash and cash equivalents balance was $8.1 million. We do not believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2025, together with $14.9 million in net proceeds from the sale of shares of
Table of Contents
common stock under an at-the-market sales program since September 30, 2025, are sufficient to fund our operations through one year from the Form 10-K filing date. On March 13, 2025, we issued a $33.1 million promissory note, or the March 2025 Note, to Avondale Capital, LLC, or Avondale. The March 2025 Note bears interest at the prime rate plus 3%, with a minimum rate of 9.5%, matures on July 1, 2026 and is convertible into common stock. We must repay at least $3,000,000 (by cash or conversions into common stock) of the outstanding balance on the March 2025 Note each quarter starting in the second calendar quarter of 2025 (subject to adjustments for conversions and to payment of a 7.5% exit fee) (the “Quarterly Debt Reduction Obligations”). Any amount converted by Avondale during a given calendar quarter in excess of the Quarterly Debt Reduction Obligations will be credited toward meeting the Quarterly Debt Reduction Obligations for the next quarter or quarters. See “Raising additional capital, including modifications to our existing convertible securities, may cause dilution to our securityholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies and product candidates” for additional information on the effects of an event of default under the terms of the March 2025 Note.
Because our cash and cash equivalents will not be adequate to fund our currently planned operations through at least the next 12 months from the date the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are issued, there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. We will require substantial additional capital to continue to operate as a going concern. Although we continue to pursue discussions with additional potential strategic partners for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside of the United States, there is no guarantee that we will be successful in reaching any such agreement, nor that such agreement, if successful, will cover the anticipated commercialization costs for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. Our operating plan may also change as a result of many factors currently unknown to us, and we may need to seek additional funds sooner than planned, through public or private equity or debt financings, third-party funding, marketing and distribution arrangements, as well as through other collaborations, strategic alliances and licensing arrangements, or a combination of these approaches. Even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans, we may seek additional capital if market conditions are or if we have specific strategic considerations. Additionally, we may not the expected benefits of these cost reduction measures and other cost reduction plans on the anticipated timeline, or at all, which could otherwise accelerate our liquidity needs and could us to further or our operations.
Any additional fundraising efforts may divert our management from their day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates. In addition, we cannot guarantee that future financing will be available in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us, if at all. We may experience difficulties in accessing the capital markets due to external factors beyond our control, such as volatility in the equity markets for emerging biotechnology companies and general economic and market conditions both in the United States and abroad. For example, our ability to raise additional capital may be adversely impacted by global economic conditions and disruptions to and volatility in the credit and financial markets in the United States and worldwide, such as has been experienced recently due in part to, among other things, the impacts of inflation, ongoing overseas conflict, and disruptions in access to bank deposits and lending commitments due to bank failure. We cannot be certain that we will be to obtain financing on terms acceptable to us, or at all. Our to obtain adequate and timely funding will affect our business and our ability to develop our technology and products candidates. Moreover, the terms of any financing may impact the holdings or the rights of our stockholders, and the issuance of additional securities, whether equity or debt, by us or the possibility of such issuance may cause the market price of our securities to . The incurrence of indebtedness could result in increased fixed payment obligations, and we may be required to agree to certain restrictive covenants, such as on our ability to incur additional debt, on our ability to acquire, sell or license intellectual property rights and other operating restrictions that could impact our ability to conduct our business. We may be required to rights to some of our technologies or product candidates or otherwise agree to terms to us, in order to obtain necessary funding, any of which may our business, operating results and prospects. Even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans, we may seek additional capital if market conditions are or for specific strategic considerations. If we are to obtain funding on a timely basis, we may be required to significantly , or one or more of our development programs or the commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any product candidates, if approved. We may also be to expand our operations or otherwise capitalize on our business , as , which could our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Table of Contents
Raising additional capital, including modifications to our existing convertible securities, may cause dilution to our securityholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates.
Until such time, if ever, as we can generate sufficient product revenues, we expect to finance our cash needs through a combination of equity and debt financings, as well as selectively continuing to enter into collaborations, strategic alliances and licensing arrangements. We do not currently have any committed external source of funding. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, your ownership interest will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a securityholder.
We are obligated to repay a minimum of $3,000,000 of the outstanding balance of the March 2025 Note each calendar quarter starting with the second calendar quarter of 2025, subject to adjustments for conversions by Avondale and the payment of an exit fee of 7.5%, or the Quarterly Debt Reduction Obligations. Any amount converted by Avondale during a given calendar quarter in excess of the Quarterly Debt Reduction Obligations will be credited toward meeting the Quarterly Debt Reduction Obligations for the next quarter or quarters.
Avondale may convert any portion of the March 2025 Note into common stock at a conversion price of $2.26, as further described in the March 2025 Note . In addition, we may convert the March 2025 Note if our stock trades at or above $3.00 per share for 30 consecutive days with an average daily trading volume of at least $1.0 millionTrigger Events (e.g., payment default, covenant breaches) may increase the Note balance by 5–10%. Unresolved issues after 10 trading days trigger default, accelerating the Note with 22% interest. If the Conversion Price drops below $0.404, conversions must be paid in cash. Conversions of amounts outstanding under the March 2025 Note may result in the issuance of a substantial number of shares of common stock.
Additional debt financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends, and may be secured by all or a portion of our assets. If we secure development funds for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate through entering into collaborations, strategic alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish additional valuable rights to our technologies, future revenue streams, research programs or product candidates or to grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds when needed, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or commercialization efforts, including for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA , or grant rights to develop and market ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or other product candidates that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves, terminate product development or future commercialization efforts, including for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA , or to operations altogether.
Risks Related to the Discovery and Development of Our Product Candidates
We are highly dependent on the success of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, our only product that has been approved in the EU and UK. If ONS-5010/LYTENAVA does not receive regulatory approval outside the EU and UK, or is not successfully commercialized, our business may be harmed.
We currently have one product, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA , that is approved for commercial sale in the EU and UK. We may never be able to obtain regulatory approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU or UK, commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU or UK, or develop other marketable products. We expect that a substantial portion of our efforts and expenditures in the foreseeable future will be devoted to the advancement of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, our only approved product and only product candidate in active development. We also expect that we will need to devote significant effort to the commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU, UK, and other markets following regulatory approval, if received. We cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully obtain regulatory approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside of the EU and UK and develop sufficient commercial capabilities for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA if and when necessary. Accordingly, our business currently depends heavily on the successful regulatory approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK, and commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA.
Table of Contents
We cannot be certain that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA will receive regulatory approval outside of the EU or UK, or be successfully commercialized even in the EU or UK, or any other targeted market in which we receive regulatory approval. The research, testing, manufacturing, labeling, approval, sale, marketing and distribution of products are, and will remain, subject to extensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the United States and other countries that each have differing regulations. We are not permitted to market ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the United States until we receive approval from the FDA, or in any foreign country until we receive the requisite approvals from the appropriate authorities in such countries for marketing authorization.
Obtaining approval from the FDA or similar regulatory approval is an extensive, lengthy, expensive and inherently uncertain process, and the FDA or other foreign regulatory authorities may delay, limit or deny approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for many reasons, including:
we may not be able to demonstrate that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA is effective as a treatment for any of our currently targeted indications to the satisfaction of the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities;
the relevant regulatory authorities may require additional pre-approval studies or clinical trials, which would increase our costs and prolong our development timelines;
the results of our clinical trials may not meet the level of statistical or clinical significance required by the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities for marketing approval;
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may disagree with the number, design, size, conduct or implementation of our clinical trials;
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may not find the data from nonclinical studies or clinical trials sufficient to demonstrate that the clinical and other benefits of these products outweigh their safety risks;
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data or significance of results from the nonclinical studies and clinical trials of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any future product candidate, or may require that we conduct additional trials;
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may require development of a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, or REMS, or its equivalent, as a condition of approval;
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may require additional post-marketing studies, which would be costly;
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may identify deficiencies in the manufacturing processes or facilities of our third-party manufacturers; or
the FDA or other relevant regulatory authorities may change their approval policies or adopt new regulations.
There can be no assurance that our BLA or MAAs of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for wet AMD, or planned future, clinical trials for other retina indications, will ultimately meet the requirements sufficient for us to receive regulatory approval outside of the EU and UK. For example, in May 2022, we voluntarily withdrew our BLA to provide additional information requested by the FDA. We re-submitted the BLA to the FDA for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in August 2022 and in August 2023, we received a CRL in which the FDA concluded it could not approve the BLA during this review cycle due to several CMC issues, open observations from pre-approval manufacturing inspections, and a lack of substantial evidence. At subsequent Type A meetings with the FDA, we learned that the FDA requires the successful completion of an additional adequate and well-controlled clinical trial evaluating ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, as well as additional requested CMC data indicated in the CRL to approve ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for use in wet AMD. We received agreement from FDA under the SPA for the NORSE EIGHT trial protocol and in November 2024, we reported that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA did not meet the pre-specified non-inferiority endpoint at week 8 set forth in the special protocol assessment (SPA) with the FDA.
Table of Contents
However, the preliminary data from the trial demonstrated an improvement in vision and the presence of biologic activity, as well as a continued favorable safety profile for ONS-5010. Upon receipt of the full month 3 efficacy and safety results for NORSE EIGHT, we resubmitted the BLA application for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA on February 27, 2025 and received a CRL on August 28, 2025. In September 2025, we conducted a Type A meeting with the FDA at which we received feedback on resubmitting the BLA. On November 3, 2025 we resubmitted the ONS-5010/LYTENAVA BLA and have received a PDUFA goal date of December 31, 2025 for a decision by the FDA. There can be no assurance that we will address the deficiencies identified in the CRL to the satisfaction of the FDA.
Due to our limited resources and access to capital, we have, and will continue to need to, prioritize development of certain product candidates; and these decisions may prove to have been wrong and may harm our business.
Because we have limited resources and access to capital to fund our operations, we must decide which product candidates to pursue and the amount of resources to allocate to each. We are currently focusing only on one active development program, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, and are no longer actively developing ONS-3010, ONS-1045 or the other biosimilar product candidates in our pipeline. We currently do not intend to actively develop such biosimilar product candidates. Our decisions concerning the allocation of research, collaboration, management and financial resources toward particular product candidates or therapeutic areas may not lead to the development of viable commercial products and may divert resources away from better opportunities. Similarly, our potential decisions to delay, terminate or collaborate with third parties in respect to certain product development programs may also prove not to be optimal and could cause us to miss valuable opportunities. If we make incorrect determinations regarding the market potential of our product candidates or misread trends in the pharmaceutical industry, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be .
Clinical drug development is a lengthy and expensive process and we may encounter substantial delays in our clinical trials or may fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of applicable regulatory authorities.
ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, our only product that has been approved for the treatment of wet AMD in the EU and UK, and our only product candidate in active development, required an additional adequate and well-controlled clinical trial evaluating ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, as well as additional requested CMC data indicated in the CRL, in advance of our resubmission of a BLA for approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA to treat wet AMD in the United States and extensive additional clinical testing before we are prepared to submit an application for regulatory approval for other indications. Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our product candidates, we and any collaboration partners must conduct clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the product candidates in humans .
We cannot guarantee that any future clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. For example, enrollment in the NORSE ONE and NORSE TWO studies was delayed from our original expectations. We could experience similar enrollment delays in the remaining NORSE trials (FOUR, FIVE, SIX, and SEVEN) once they are initiated. A failure of one or more clinical trials can occur at any stage of testing, and our future clinical trials may not be successful. Events that may prevent successful or timely completion of clinical development include but are not limited to:
inability to generate sufficient preclinical, toxicology or other in vivo or in vitro data to support the initiation of human clinical trials;
delays in reaching a consensus with regulatory authorities on study design;
delays in reaching agreement on acceptable terms with prospective contract research organizations, or CROs, and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and clinical trial sites;
delays in obtaining required IRB approval at each clinical trial site, or positive Ethics Committees opinions;
Table of Contents
imposition of a clinical hold by regulatory authorities, after review of an IND, application or amendment or equivalent filing, or an inspection of our clinical trial operations or trial sites, or as a result of adverse events reported during a clinical trial;
further delays in recruiting suitable patients to participate in our clinical trials;
difficulty collaborating with patient groups and investigators;
failure by our CROs, other third parties or us to adhere to clinical trial requirements;
failure to perform in accordance with the FDA’s good clinical practice, or GCP, requirements or applicable regulatory guidelines in other countries;
delays in having subjects complete participation in a study or return for post-treatment follow-up, or subjects dropping out of a study;
occurrence of adverse events associated with the product candidate that are viewed to outweigh its potential benefits;
changes in regulatory requirements and guidance that require amending or submitting new clinical protocols;
the cost of clinical trials of our product candidates being greater than we anticipate;
clinical trials of our product candidates producing negative or inconclusive results, which may result in us deciding or regulators requiring us to conduct additional clinical trials or abandon product development programs; and
delays in manufacturing, testing, releasing, validating or importing/exporting and/or distributing sufficient stable quantities of our product candidates for use in clinical trials or the inability to do any of the foregoing.
Any inability to successfully complete preclinical studies and clinical development could result in additional costs to us or impair our ability to generate revenue. In addition, if we make manufacturing or formulation changes to our product candidates, we may need to conduct additional clinical trials to bridge our modified product candidates to earlier versions.
The results of previous clinical trials may not be predictive of future results, and the results of our current and planned clinical trials may not satisfy the requirements of the FDA, EMA and the European Commission or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities.
Clinical failure can occur at any stage of clinical development. Clinical trials may produce negative or inconclusive results, and we or any of our current and future collaborators may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical or preclinical testing. We will be required to demonstrate with substantial evidence through well controlled clinical trials that our product candidates are as safe and effective for use in a specific patient population before we can seek regulatory approvals for their commercial sale. Success in early clinical trials does not mean that future larger registration clinical trials will be successful because product candidates in later-stage clinical trials may fail to demonstrate equivalent safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA, EMA and European Commission and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities despite having progressed through initial clinical trials. Product candidates that have shown promising results in early clinical trials may still in subsequent confirmatory clinical trials. Similarly, the outcome of preclinical testing and early clinical trials may not be predictive of the of later clinical trials, and interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including those with resources and experience than we have, have significant in advanced clinical trials, even after obtaining promising results in earlier clinical trials.
Table of Contents
In addition, the design of a clinical trial can determine whether its results will support approval of a product and flaws in the design of a clinical trial may not become apparent until the clinical trial is well advanced. We may be unable to design and execute a clinical trial to support regulatory approval. In some instances, there can be significant variability in safety or efficacy results between different trials of the same product candidate due to numerous factors, including but not limited to changes in trial protocols, differences in size and type of the patient populations, adherence to the dosing regimen and the rate of dropout among clinical trial participants.
Further, our product candidates may not be approved even if they achieve their primary endpoints in Phase 3 clinical trials or registration trials. The FDA, EMA or European Commission and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our trial design and our interpretation of data from preclinical studies and clinical trials. In addition, any of these regulatory authorities may change the requirements for the approval of a product candidate even after reviewing and providing comments or advice on a protocol for a Phase 3 clinical trial that has the potential to result in FDA or other authorities’ approval. For example, in May 2022, we voluntarily withdrew our BLA to provide additional information requested by the FDA. We re-submitted the BLA to the FDA for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in August 2022 and in August2023, we received a CRL in which the FDA concluded it could not approve the BLA during this review cycle due to several CMC issues, open observations from pre-approval manufacturing inspections, and a lack of substantial evidence. At subsequent Type A meetings with the FDA, we learned that the FDA requires the successful completion of an additional adequate and well-controlled clinical trial evaluating ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, as well as additional requested CMC data indicated in the CRL to approve ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for use in wet AMD. Although in January 2024 we reached agreement on a SPA with FDA, this agreement only indicated concurrence with trial design concepts; it did not imply that FDA had reviewed, or concurred with, protocol details that do not affect approvability. Moreover, the presence of a SPA agreement does not guarantee that a marketing application will be filed or approved, even if the trial is conducted in accordance with the protocol. In November 2024, we reported that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA did not meet the pre-specified non-inferiority endpoint at week 8 set forth in the SPA with the FDA.
We have received marketing authorization for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for the treatment of wet AMD in the EU and UK. We also intend to seek approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for the treatment of wet AMD outside the EU and UK. Any of the regulatory authorities may approve a product candidate for fewer indications than we request or may grant approval contingent on the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials.
ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any future product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that could delay or prevent their regulatory approval, limit the commercial profile of an approved label or result in significant negative consequences following marketing approval, if granted.
As with most pharmaceutical products, use of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any future product candidates could be associated with side effects or adverse events, which can vary in severity and frequency. Side effects or adverse events associated with the use of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any future product candidates may be observed at any time, including in clinical trials or when a product is commercialized. Undesirable side effects caused by ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any future product candidates could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or other foreign authorities. Results of our trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects, toxicity or other safety issues, and could require us to perform additional studies or halt development or sale of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates or us to product liability lawsuits that will our business. In such an event, we may be required by regulatory authorities to conduct additional animal or human studies regarding the safety and efficacy of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates that we have not planned or anticipated or our studies could be or , and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to further development of or or withdraw approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates for any or all targeted indications. There can be no assurance that we will any issues related to any product-related events to the of the FDA or any other regulatory authority in a timely manner, if ever, which could our business, prospects and financial condition.
Additionally, product quality characteristics have been shown to be sensitive to changes in process conditions, manufacturing techniques, equipment or sites and other related considerations, and as such, any manufacturing process changes we implement prior to or after regulatory approval could impact product safety.
Table of Contents
Additionally, if one or more of our product candidates receives marketing approval, such as ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by such products, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including but not limited to:
regulatory authorities may withdraw, vary, or suspend approvals of such product;
regulatory authorities may require additional warnings on the label;
we may be required to create a REMS plan, which could include a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to patients, a communication plan for healthcare providers and/or other elements to assure safe use, or foreign equivalent strategies;
we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients; and
our reputation may suffer.
Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other future product candidate that may be approved, and could significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.
We are required by the FDA, MHRA, EEA authorities and other comparable foreign regulatory authorities to report certain information about adverse medical events if those products may have caused or contributed to those adverse events. The timing of our obligation to report would be triggered by the date we become aware of the adverse event as well as the nature of the event. We may fail to report adverse events we become aware of within the prescribed timeframe. We may also fail to appreciate that we have become aware of a reportable adverse event, especially if it is not reported to us as an adverse event or if it is an adverse event that is unexpected or removed in time from the use of our products. If we fail to comply with our reporting obligations, the FDA, MHRA, the national competent authorities of EEA countries or other foreign regulatory authorities could take action including but not limited to , the imposition of civil monetary , seizure of our products, withdrawal, variation or of our approvals or in approval or clearance of future product candidates.
If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our current or future product candidates, and our existing insurance coverage may not be sufficient to satisfy any liability that may arise.
Drug-related side effects could affect patient recruitment for clinical trials, the ability of enrolled patients to complete our studies or result in potential product liability claims. We currently carry product liability insurance in the amount of $10.0 million per product candidate and we are required to maintain product liability insurance pursuant to certain of our license agreements. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in sufficient amounts to protect us against losses due to liability. A successful product liability claim or series of claims brought against us could negatively impact our results of operations and business. In addition, regardless of merit or eventual outcome, product liability claims may result in impairment of our business reputation, withdrawal of clinical trial participants, costs due to related litigation, distraction of management’s attention from our primary business, initiation of by regulators, substantial monetary awards to patients or other claimants, the to commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidate and decreased demand for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidate, if approved for commercial sale. Furthermore, we may also not be to take of on product liability lawsuits that apply to generic drug products, which could increase our exposure to liability for products deemed to be or .
Failure to obtain regulatory approval in any targeted jurisdiction would prevent us from marketing our products to a larger patient population and reduce our commercial opportunities.
In order to market our products in Europe, the United States and other jurisdictions, we and any collaboration partners must obtain separate regulatory approvals and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements. We have
Table of Contents
received a marketing authorization from the European Commission and from the MHRA for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for the treatment of wet AMD in the EU and UK, respectively. The EU marketing authorization is valid in all EU countries, as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The time required to obtain approval in other countries may differ from that required to obtain FDA approval. The foreign regulatory approval process may include all of the risks associated with obtaining FDA approval, and we may not obtain foreign regulatory approvals on a timely basis, if at all. Approval by the European Commission, MHRA or 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 foreign countries or by the FDA. We or any collaboration partners may not be able to file for regulatory approvals and may not receive necessary approvals to commercialize our products within other European countries, the United States or in other jurisdictions. Failure to obtain these approvals would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Even if we obtain regulatory approval for a product candidate, our products will remain subject to regulatory scrutiny.
ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates we may pursue that are approved, will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements for manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, advertising, promotion, sampling, record-keeping, conduct of post-marketing studies and submission of safety, efficacy and other post-market information, including requirements imposed by the EU, other EEA countries and the UK, as well as federal and state requirements in the United States and requirements of other comparable foreign regulatory authorities.
Manufacturers and manufacturing facilities are required to comply with extensive FDA, and comparable foreign regulatory authority, requirements, including ensuring that quality control and manufacturing procedures conform to cGMP regulations. As such, our current and future manufacturing partners will be subject to continual review and inspections to assess compliance with cGMP and adherence to commitments made in any non-disclosure agreement, marketing authorization, BLA or marketing authorization application. Accordingly, we and our collaborators and suppliers must continue to expend time, money and effort in all areas of regulatory compliance, including manufacturing, production and quality control.
Any regulatory approvals that we or any collaboration partners receive for our product candidates may be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or to the conditions of approval or may contain requirements for potentially costly additional clinical trials and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the product candidate. We will be required to report certain adverse reactions and production problems, if any, to the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Any new legislation addressing drug safety issues could result in delays in product development or commercialization or increased costs to assure compliance. We will have to comply with requirements concerning advertising and promotion for our products. Promotional communications with respect to prescription drugs are subject to a variety of legal and regulatory restrictions and must be consistent with the information in the product’s approved label. As such, we are not allowed to promote our products for indications or uses for which they do not have approval. We must submit new or supplemental applications and obtain approval for certain changes to the marketing authorizations that have been granted for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK, or for any other approved products, product labeling or manufacturing process. We could also be asked to conduct post-marketing clinical trials to verify the safety and efficacy of our products in general or in specific patient subsets. An post-marketing study or to complete such a study could result in the withdrawal, , or variation of marketing approval.
If a regulatory authority discovers previously unknown problems with an approved product, such as adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency or problems with our manufacturing facilities or disagrees with the promotion, marketing or labeling of a product, such regulatory authority may impose restrictions on that product or us, including requiring withdrawal of the product from the market. If we fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, a regulatory authority or enforcement authority may, among other things:
issue untitled and warning letters;
impose civil or criminal penalties;
suspend, vary or withdraw regulatory approval;
Table of Contents
suspend any of our ongoing clinical trials;
refuse to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications submitted by us;
total or partial suspension of production, distribution or manufacturing;
impose restrictions on our operations, including closing our manufacturing facilities;
suspension of licenses; or
seize or detain products or require a product recall.
Any government investigation of alleged violations of law could require us to expend significant time and resources in response and could generate negative publicity. Any failure to comply with ongoing regulatory requirements may significantly and adversely affect our ability to commercialize and generate revenue from our products. If regulatory sanctions are applied or if regulatory approval is withdrawn, suspended or varied, the value of our company and our operating results will be negatively impacted.
The development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products is subject to extensive regulation, and we may not obtain regulatory approvals for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside of the EU or UK or in any other indications for which we plan to develop the product, or any future product candidates, on a timely basis or at all.
The clinical development, manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, recordkeeping, advertising, promotion, export, import, marketing, distribution, adverse event reporting, including the submission of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, and other possible activities relating to ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, as well as any other product candidate that we may develop in the future, are subject to extensive regulation. Marketing approval of biologics in the United States requires the submission of a BLA to the FDA and we are not permitted to market any product candidate in the United States until we obtain approval from the FDA of the BLA for that product. A BLA must be supported by extensive clinical and preclinical data, as well as extensive information regarding pharmacology, chemistry, manufacturing and controls.
FDA approval of a BLA is not guaranteed, and the review and approval process is an expensive and uncertain process that may take several years. The FDA also has substantial discretion in the approval process. The number and types of preclinical studies and clinical trials that will be required for BLA approval varies depending on the product candidate, the disease or the condition that the product candidate is designed to treat and the regulations applicable to any particular product candidate. Despite the time and expense associated with preclinical studies and clinical trials, failure can occur at any stage. The results of preclinical and early clinical trials of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates may not be predictive of the results of our later-stage clinical trials.
Clinical trial failure may result from a multitude of factors including flaws in trial design, dose selection, placebo effect, patient enrollment criteria and failure to demonstrate favorable safety or efficacy traits, and failure in clinical trials can occur at any stage. Companies in the biopharmaceutical industry frequently suffer setbacks in the advancement of clinical trials due to lack of efficacy or adverse safety profiles, notwithstanding promising results in earlier trials. Based upon negative or inconclusive results, we may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical trials or preclinical studies. In addition, data obtained from clinical trials are susceptible to varying interpretations, and regulators may not interpret our data as favorably as we do, which may further , limit or prevent marketing approval.
The FDA could delay, limit or deny approval of a product candidate for many reasons, or request additional information, including because they:
may not deem our product candidate to be adequately safe and effective;
Table of Contents
may not agree that the data collected from clinical trials are acceptable or sufficient to support the submission of a BLA or other submission or to obtain regulatory approval, and may impose requirements for additional preclinical studies or clinical trials;
may determine that adverse events experienced by participants in our clinical trials represents an unacceptable level of risk;
may determine that population studied in the clinical trial may not be sufficiently broad or representative to assure safety in the full population for which we seek approval;
may not accept clinical data from trials which are conducted at clinical facilities or in countries where the standard of care is potentially different from that of the United States;
may disagree regarding the formulation, labeling and/or the specifications;
may not approve the manufacturing processes or facilities associated with our product candidate;
may change approval policies or adopt new regulations; or
may not accept a submission due to, among other reasons, the content or formatting of the submission.
For example, in May 2022, we voluntarily withdrew our BLA to provide additional information requested by the FDA. We re-submitted the BLA to the FDA for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA on August 30, 2022. On August 29, 2023, we received a CRL in which the FDA concluded it could not approve the BLA during this review cycle due to several CMC issues, open observations from pre-approval manufacturing inspections, and a lack of substantial evidence. At subsequent Type A meetings with the FDA, we learned that the FDA requires the successful completion of an additional adequate and well-controlled trial clinical trial evaluating ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, as well as additional requested CMC data indicated in the CRL to approve ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for use in wet AMD. In response to FDA’s CRL, we conducted the NORSE EIGHT clinical and, in November 2024, we reported that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA did not meet the pre-specified non-inferiority endpoint at week 8 set forth in the SPA with the FDA. However, we believe that the data from the trial, in total, demonstrated an improvement in vision and the presence of biologic activity, as well as a continued favorable safety profile for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, and subsequently resubmitted our BLA in February 2025, and received a CRL in August 2025. Following a September 2025 Type A meeting with the FDA, we resubmitted the ONS-5010/LYTENAVA BLA and have received a Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, goal date of December 31, 2025 for a decision by the FDA. Generally, public regarding the safety of pharmaceutical products could or limit our ability to obtain regulatory approval, result in the inclusion of information in our labeling, or require us to undertake other activities that may entail additional costs. We have not obtained FDA approval for any product. This of experience may our ability to obtain FDA approval in a timely manner, if at all, for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. We may not receive approval from the FDA at the conclusion of its review of the BLA, in which case our business, financial condition and results of operations would be further .
If we experience additional delays in obtaining approval or if we fail to obtain approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK , our commercial prospects will be harmed and our ability to generate revenues will be materially impaired which would adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Disruptions at the FDA and other government agencies caused by shutdowns or funding shortages could hinder their ability to hire, retain or deploy key leadership and other personnel, or otherwise prevent new or modified products from being developed, approved or commercialized in a timely manner or at all, which could negatively impact our business.
Disruptions at the FDA and other agencies may slow the time necessary for new products to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government agencies, which would adversely affect our business. For example, over the last several years, the United States government has shut down several times – including the most recent shutdown, which began October 1, 2025 and ended November 12, 2025 and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, have had to furlough critical FDA employees and stop critical activities.
Table of Contents
If a prolonged government shutdown occurs, it could significantly impact the ability of the FDA or other regulatory authorities to timely review and process our regulatory submissions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Any delays in the commencement or completion, or termination or suspension, of our planned or future clinical trials could result in increased costs to us, delay or limit our ability to generate revenue and adversely affect our commercial prospects.
Any delays in the commencement or completion, or termination or suspension, of our planned or future clinical trials could result in increased costs to us, delay or limit our ability to generate revenue and adversely affect our commercial prospects. Before we can initiate clinical trials in the United States in any distinct indication, we must submit the results of preclinical and/or other studies to the FDA along with other information, including information about chemistry, manufacturing and controls and our proposed clinical trial protocol, as part of an IND or similar regulatory filing.
Before obtaining marketing approval from the FDA for the sale of a product candidate in any indication, we must conduct extensive clinical studies to demonstrate its safety and efficacy. Clinical testing is expensive, time consuming and uncertain as to outcome. In addition, we expect to rely in part on preclinical, clinical and quality data generated by CROs, and other third parties for regulatory submissions for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. While we have or will have agreements governing these third parties’ services, we have limited influence over their actual performance. If these third parties do not make data available to us, or, if applicable, make regulatory submissions in a timely manner, in each case pursuant to our agreements with them, our development programs may be significantly delayed and we may need to conduct additional studies or collect additional data independently. In either case, our development costs would increase.
The FDA may require us to conduct additional studies for a product candidate before it allows us to initiate clinical trials under any IND, which could lead to additional delays and increase the costs of our development programs. Any such delays in the commencement or completion of our planned or future clinical trials could significantly affect our product development costs. We do not know whether planned trials will begin on time or be completed on schedule, if at all. The commencement and completion of clinical trials can be delayed for a number of reasons, including delays related to:
the FDA disagreeing as to the design or implementation of our clinical studies;
obtaining FDA authorizations to commence a trial or reaching a consensus with the FDA on trial design;
any failure or delay in reaching an agreement with CROs and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and trial sites;
obtaining approval from one or more IRBs;
IRBs refusing to approve, suspending or terminating the trial at an investigational site, precluding enrollment of additional subjects, or withdrawing their approval of the trial;
changes to clinical trial protocol;
clinical sites deviating from trial protocol or dropping out of a trial;
manufacturing sufficient quantities of product candidate or obtaining sufficient quantities of combination therapies for use in clinical trials;
subjects failing to enroll or remain in our trial at the rate we expect, or failing to return for post-treatment follow-up;
subjects choosing an alternative treatment, or participating in competing clinical trials;
Table of Contents
lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial;
subjects experiencing severe or unexpected drug-related adverse effects;
occurrence of serious adverse events in trials of the same class of agents conducted by other companies;
selection of clinical end points that require prolonged periods of clinical observation or analysis of the resulting data;
a facility manufacturing our product candidates or any of their components being ordered by the FDA to temporarily or permanently shut down due to violations of cGMP, regulations or other applicable requirements, or infections or cross-contaminations of product candidates in the manufacturing process;
any changes to our manufacturing process that may be necessary or desired;
third-party clinical investigators losing the licenses or permits necessary to perform our clinical trials, not performing our clinical trials on our anticipated schedule or consistent with the clinical trial protocol, GCP, or other regulatory requirements;
third-party contractors not performing data collection or analysis in a timely or accurate manner; or
third-party contractors becoming debarred or suspended or otherwise penalized by the FDA or other government or regulatory authorities for violations of regulatory requirements, in which case we may need to find a substitute contractor, and we may not be able to use some or all of the data produced by such contractors in support of our marketing applications.
We could also encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the IRBs or Ethics Committees of the institutions in which such trials are being conducted, by a Data Safety Monitoring Board for such trial or by the FDA or supranational or comparable foreign regulatory authorities.
Such authorities may impose such a suspension or termination due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a pharmaceutical, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. In addition, changes in regulatory requirements and policies may occur, and we may need to amend clinical trial protocols to comply with these changes. Amendments may require us to resubmit our clinical trial protocols to IRBs or Ethics Committees for reexamination, which may impact the costs, timing or successful completion of a clinical trial.
Any delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues which may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.
If we experience delays or difficulties in enrolling patients in our planned clinical trials, our receipt of necessary regulatory approvals of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK could be delayed or prevented.
We may not be able to initiate or continue our planned clinical trials if we are unable to identify and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials as required by the FDA. Some of our competitors may have ongoing clinical trials for product candidates that would treat the same indications as ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates we may develop, and patients who would otherwise be eligible for our clinical trials may instead enroll in clinical trials of our competitors’ product candidates. Patient enrollment is also affected by other factors, including:
severity of the disease under investigation;
Table of Contents
our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators of appropriate competencies and experience;
invasive procedures required to obtain evidence of the product candidate’s performance during the clinical trial;
availability and efficacy of approved medications for the disease under investigation;
eligibility criteria defined in the protocol for the trial in question;
the size of the patient population required for analysis of the trial’s primary endpoints;
perceived risks and benefits;
efforts to facilitate timely enrollment in clinical trials;
reluctance of physicians to encourage patient participation in clinical trials;
the ability to monitor patients adequately during and after treatment;
our ability to obtain and maintain patient consents; and
proximity and availability of clinical trial sites for prospective patients.
These factors can be exacerbated by other situations. Our inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials would result in significant delays or may require us to abandon one or more clinical trials altogether. Enrollment delays in our clinical trials may result in increased development costs, which would cause the value of our company to decline and limit our ability to obtain additional financing.
Adverse side effects or other safety risks associated with ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate could delay or preclude approval, cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials, abandon further development, limit the commercial profile of an approved label, or result in significant negative consequences following marketing approval, if any.
As is the case with pharmaceuticals generally, it is likely that there may be side effects and adverse events associated with a product candidate in planned clinical trials. Results of our clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Undesirable side effects caused by a product candidate could result in the delay, suspension or termination of clinical trials by us or the FDA or supranational or comparable foreign regulatory authorities for a number of reasons, or could result in a delay of FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority approval, similar to our withdrawal of our BLA in May 2022 to provide additional information requested by the FDA and subsequent CRLs. If we elect or are required to delay, suspend or terminate any clinical trial, the commercial prospects of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate will be and our ability to generate product revenues from this product candidate will be or eliminated. events observed in clinical trials could or prevent market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate. Any of these occurrences may our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations significantly.
Moreover, if ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate is associated with undesirable side effects in clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may elect to abandon or limit its development to more narrow uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk-benefit perspective, which may limit the commercial expectations, if approved. We may also be required to modify our study plans based on findings in our clinical trials. Many biologics that initially showed promise in early stage testing have later been found to cause side effects that prevented further development. In addition, regulatory authorities may draw different conclusions or require additional testing to confirm these determinations.
Table of Contents
It is possible that as we test a product candidate in larger, longer and more extensive clinical trials including for additional indications, or as the use of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate becomes more widespread following regulatory approval, illnesses, injuries, discomforts and other adverse events that were observed in earlier trials, as well as conditions that did not occur or went undetected in previous trials, will be reported by patients. If such side effects become known later in development or upon approval, if any, such findings may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.
In addition, if, following the marketing authorizations of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK, or if ONS-5010/LYTENAVA receives FDA approval, or if any future product candidate receives marketing approval, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:
regulatory authorities may withdraw, suspend, or vary approval of such product;
we may be required to recall a product or change the way such product is administered to patients;
regulatory authorities may require additional warnings on the label, such as a “black box” warning or a contraindication, or issue safety alerts, Dear Healthcare Provider letters, press releases or other communications containing warnings or other safety information about the product;
we may be required to implement a REMS, or create a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to patients, or comparable foreign strategies;
additional restrictions may be imposed on the marketing or promotion of the particular product or the manufacturing processes for the product or any component thereof;
we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients;
such product could become less competitive; and
our reputation may suffer.
Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidate that may be approved, and could significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.
Interim, “top-line” and preliminary results from our clinical trials that we announce or publish from time to time may change as more data become available and are subject to audit and verification procedures that could result in material changes in the final data.
From time to time, we may publish interim, top-line or preliminary results from our clinical trials. Interim results from clinical trials that we may complete are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. Preliminary or top-line results also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, interim and preliminary data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available. Differences between preliminary, top-line or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business prospects and may cause the trading price of our common stock to fluctuate significantly. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, and we may not have received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data. As a result, the top-line results that we report may differ from future results of the same studies, or different conclusions or considerations may qualify such results, once additional data have been received and fully evaluated.
Table of Contents
Further, others, including regulatory authorities may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular development program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular product candidate or product and our company in general. In addition, the information we choose to publicly disclose regarding a particular study or clinical trial is based on what is typically extensive information, and you or others may not agree with what we determine is the material or otherwise appropriate information to include in our disclosure. Any information we determine not to disclose may ultimately be deemed meaningful by you or others with respect to future decisions, conclusions, views, activities or otherwise regarding a particular product candidate or our business. If the interim, top-line or preliminary data that we report differ from actual results, or if others, including regulatory authorities, disagree with the conclusions reached, our ability to obtain approval for, and commercialize, product candidates may be harmed, which could significantly harm our business prospects.
Risks Related to Commercialization of Our Product Candidates
We face intense competition and rapid technological change and the possibility that our competitors may develop therapies that are similar, more advanced or more effective than ours. Other products may be approved and successfully commercialized before ours, which may adversely affect our financial condition and our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates.
We have entered and expect to continue to enter highly competitive pharmaceutical markets. Successful competitors in the pharmaceutical markets have demonstrated the ability to effectively discover, obtain patents, develop, test and obtain regulatory approvals for products, as well as an ability to effectively commercialize, market and promote approved products. Numerous companies, universities and other research institutions are engaged in developing, patenting, manufacturing and marketing of products competitive with those that we are developing. Many of these potential competitors are large, experienced pharmaceutical companies that enjoy significant competitive advantages, such as substantially greater financial, research and development, manufacturing, personnel and marketing resources. These companies also have greater brand recognition and more experience in conducting preclinical testing and clinical trials of product candidates and obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of products.
We have competition from established and emerging companies in the United States and internationally. Our competitors include major multinational pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies, and biotechnology companies. Notable competitors include Novartis, which markets Lucentis ® and Beovu ® ; Regeneron, with Eylea ® ; Genentech, which markets Vabysmo ® ; Biogen and Coherus, which offer biosimilar formulations of Lucentis ® ; and Amgen, which offers a biosimilar formulation of Eylea ® . All of these products are approved for use in patients with wet AMD. In addition, Roche’s cancer drug Avastin ® is widely used off-label for wet AMD despite not being approved for this indication. Our product ONS-5010/LYTENAVA™ is approved in the EU and UK as an alternative to off-label Avastin ® and higher-cost approved therapies and is being developed for similar purposes in other markets. These companies, along with other biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, are also developing new treatments for wet AMD at various stages of preclinical and clinical development. The wet AMD treatment landscape continues to advance with approved therapies such as ranibizumab (Lucentis ® , Genentech/Roche), aflibercept and high-dose aflibercept (Eylea ® , Regeneron/Bayer), faricimab (Vabysmo ® , Genentech/Roche), brolucizumab (Beovu ® , Novartis), and the Port Delivery System with ranibizumab (Genentech/Roche), redesigned for improved safety, as well as expanding global markets for ranibizumab and aflibercept biosimilars. The development pipeline includes gene therapies RGX-314 (Regenxbio/AbbVie) and ixoberogene soroparvovec (Adverum Biotechnologies), early CRISPR-based approaches, tyrosine kinase inhibitors CLS-AX (axitinib, Clearside Biomedical) and EYP-1901 (vorolanib, EyePoint Pharmaceuticals), WNT modulators such as MK-3000 (Merck), integrin inhibitors risuteganib (Allegro Ophthalmics) and THR-687 (Oxurion), and adjunctive VEGF-pathway agents, along with engineering to optimize long-term treatment options. These competitive dynamics could limit the adoption and commercial of our products.
Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and other resources, such as larger research and development staff and experienced marketing and manufacturing organizations. Additional mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical industry may result in even more resources being concentrated in our competitors. As a result, these companies may obtain regulatory approval in countries where we have not yet received approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA more rapidly than we are able to and may be more effective in selling and marketing their products.
Table of Contents
Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large, established companies, and we also compete against such companies for resources from and in securing partnering arrangements with, such large, established companies. Our competitors may succeed in developing, acquiring or licensing on an exclusive basis, products that are more effective or less costly than any product candidate that we may develop; they may also obtain patent protection that could block our products; and they may obtain regulatory approval in countries where we have not yet received approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, product commercialization and market penetration earlier than we do. Product candidates developed by our competitors may render ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any of our other potential product candidates uneconomical, less desirable or obsolete, and we may not be successful in marketing our product candidates against competitors.
We expect additional companies to seek approval to manufacture and market anti-VEGF therapies for ophthalmic indications. If other anti-VEGF therapies are approved in countries where we have not yet received approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and successfully commercialized before ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, we may never achieve significant market share for this product, our revenue would be reduced and, as a result, our business, prospects and financial condition could be harmed.
The commercial success of any current or future product candidate will depend upon the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community.
Even with the requisite approvals from the FDA, European Commission, MHRA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities, the commercial success of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidates we may pursue will depend in part on the medical community, patients and third-party payors accepting ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates as medically useful, cost-effective and safe. Even though we expect that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA will be priced responsibly, there is no guarantee that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product that we bring to the market directly or through a strategic partner will gain market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. The degree of market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:
the safety and efficacy of the product in clinical trials, and potential advantages over competing treatments;
the publication of unfavorable safety or efficacy data concerning our product by third-parties;
the prevalence and severity of any side effects, including any limitations or warnings contained in a product’s approved labeling;
the clinical indications for which approval is granted;
recognition and acceptance of our product candidates over our competitors’ products;
prevalence of the disease or condition for which the product is approved;
the cost of treatment, particularly in relation to competing treatments;
the willingness of the target patient population to try our therapies and of physicians to prescribe these therapies;
the strength of marketing and distribution support and timing of market introduction of competitive products;
the extent to which the product is approved for inclusion on formularies of hospitals and managed care organizations;
publicity concerning our products or competing products and treatments;
Table of Contents
the extent to which third-party payors provide coverage and adequate reimbursement for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates we may pursue that may be approved;
our ability to maintain compliance with regulatory requirements; and
labeling or naming imposed by FDA or other regulatory authorities.
Even if ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidate we may develop in the future displays an equivalent or more favorable efficacy and safety profile in preclinical and clinical trials, market acceptance of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidate will not be fully known until after it is launched and may be negatively affected by a potential poor safety experience and the track record of other product candidates. Our efforts, or those of any strategic licensing partner, to educate the medical community and third-party payors on the benefits of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our other future product candidates may require significant resources, may be under-resourced compared to large well-funded pharmaceutical entities and may never be successful. If ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidates we may develop in the future that are approved fail to achieve an adequate level of acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community, we will not be able to generate sufficient revenue to become or remain profitable.
Although ONS-5010/LYTENAVA is approved in the EU and the UK, off-label repackaging of Avastin at compounding pharmacies may continue, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.
In the United States, approximately 66.3% of new patient starts are off-label repackaged bevacizumab (ASRS 2022 Membership Survey Presented at ASRS NY 2022), notwithstanding that such use is off-label and requires repackaging at a compounding pharmacy. Although ONS-5010/LYTENAVA is approved for use as a treatment for wet AMD in the EU and the UK, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA has not yet been approved in the United States. Even though ONS-5010/LYTENAVA is approved for use as a treatment for wet AMD in the EU and UK, or even if it is approved in the United States or other countries for the same use, there is no guarantee that we will be effective in reducing the off-label use of Avastin and other drugs in the EU, UK, United States or other major markets where we plan to seek regulatory approval and commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, directly or through a strategic partner, if approved. If we are not successful in reducing off-label use of Avastin or other drugs with ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, our business and financial condition could be adversely affected.
We currently have no marketing and sales organization. If we are unable to establish and maintain sales and marketing capabilities in jurisdictions for which we choose to retain commercialization rights, we may be unable to generate any revenue.
We currently have no internal marketing or sales organization. We have one product, ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, for which we received a marketing authorization in the EU and the UK. We, as a company, have no experience selling and marketing any pharmaceutical products. To successfully commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other products for which we receive approvals, we will need to develop these capabilities, either on our own or with others. If we are not able to secure a strategic licensing partner who will commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product for which we receive approval, we may need to establish our own sales and marketing organization with technical expertise and supporting distribution capabilities to commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidates that are approved in major markets where we may choose to retain commercialization rights. Doing so will be expensive, difficult and time-consuming. We have entered into a strategic collaboration agreement with Cencora to support the commercial launch of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA globally, with a current focus on the EU, UK, as well as other regions outside of the US, if approved, pursuant to which Cencora would provide third-party logistics services and distribution, as well as medical information and pharmacovigilance services in the EEA and UK, as well as other regions outside the United States. Any failure or in the development of our internal sales, marketing and distribution capabilities or by Cencora to perform its services under our agreement would impact the commercialization of our products. Further, given our of prior experience in marketing and selling our products, our initial estimate of the size of the required sales may be materially more or less than the size of the sales actually required to effectively commercialize our product candidates. As such, we may be required to hire substantially more sales representatives and medical support liaisons to support the commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or we may incur excess
Table of Contents
costs as a result of hiring more sales representatives than necessary. With respect to certain geographical markets, we may enter into collaborations with other entities to utilize their local marketing and distribution capabilities, but we may be unable to enter into such agreements on favorable terms, if at all. If our future collaboration partners do not commit sufficient resources to commercialize our future products, if any, and we are unable to develop the necessary marketing capabilities on our own, we will be unable to generate sufficient product revenue to sustain our business. If we are unable to establish sales and marketing capabilities for any approved product, whether on our own or through collaborations, including through the strategic collaboration agreement with Cencora, our results of operations will be negatively impacted.
We may need to enter into alliances with other companies that can provide capabilities and funds for the development and commercialization of product candidates. If we are unsuccessful in forming or maintaining these alliances on favorable terms, our business could be harmed.
Because we have been a pre-commercial biopharmaceutical company, we have found it necessary to enter into alliances with other companies. For example, we entered into a strategic partnership agreement for consulting services for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, pursuant to which we paid a monthly fee prior to terminating such arrangement. We have also entered into service agreements for clinical trials, and co-development and license agreements for our biosimilar product candidates, and are potentially pursuing strategic partners for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. In the future, we may also find it necessary to form other alliances or joint ventures with major pharmaceutical companies to jointly develop and/or commercialize the inactive biosimilar product candidates in our pipeline and any other product candidates that we may develop. In such alliances, we would expect our collaboration partners to provide substantial capabilities in regulatory affairs, as well as sales and marketing. We may not be successful in entering into any such alliances, including reaching agreement with a potential partner for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. Even if we do succeed in securing such , we may not be to maintain them if, for example, development or approval of a product candidate is or sales of an approved product are . We may also have from time to time with our partners regarding our rights and obligations under such arrangements. If we are not to with our contract partners, it could impact our business or reputation. Further, if we are to secure or maintain such , we may not have the capabilities necessary to continue or complete development of our product candidates and bring them to market, which may have an effect on our business.
In addition to commercialization capabilities, we may depend on our alliances with other companies to provide substantial additional funding for development and potential commercialization of our product candidates. We may not be able to obtain funding on favorable terms from these alliances, and even if so, we may underestimate our development costs, and such fund may not be sufficient to develop a particular product candidate internally or to bring it to market. Failure to bring ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates we may develop in the future, to market will prevent us from generating sales revenue and this will substantially harm our business. Furthermore, any delay in entering into these alliances could delay the development and commercialization of our product candidates and reduce their competitiveness even if they reach the market. As a result, our business and operating results may be harmed.
The third-party coverage and reimbursement status of newly approved products is uncertain. Failure to obtain or maintain adequate coverage and reimbursement for new or current products could limit our ability to market those products and decrease our ability to generate revenue.
Pricing, coverage and reimbursement of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates we may develop in the future that may be approved, may not be adequate to support our commercial infrastructure. Our per-patient prices may not be sufficient to recover our development costs and potentially achieve profitability. The availability of coverage and adequacy of reimbursement by governmental and private payors are essential for most patients to be able to afford expensive treatments such as ours, if approved. Accordingly, sales of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates that may be approved, will depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any of our other product candidates that may be approved, will be paid for by third-party payors such as health maintenance, managed care organizations, pharmacy benefit and similar healthcare management organizations, private health insurers and other third-party payors. If coverage and reimbursement are not available, or are available only at insufficient levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates that may be approved. Coverage decisions may depend upon clinical and economic
Table of Contents
standards that disfavor new drug products when more established or lower cost therapeutic alternatives are already available or subsequently become available. Even if coverage is provided, the approved reimbursement amount may not be adequate to allow us to realize a return on our investment.
There is significant uncertainty related to third-party payor coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products. In the United States, third-party payors play an important role in determining the extent to which new drugs and biologics will be covered and reimbursed. The Medicare program covers certain individuals aged 65 or older or those who are disabled or suffering from end-stage renal disease. The Medicaid program, which varies from state to state, covers certain individuals and families who have limited financial means and/or certain disabilities. The Medicare and Medicaid programs increasingly are used as models for how third-party payors develop their coverage and reimbursement policies for drugs and biologics. It is difficult to predict at this time what third-party payors will decide with respect to the coverage and reimbursement for our biosimilar product candidates, if approved. In addition, in the United States, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for biologics exists among third-party payors. Therefore, coverage and reimbursement for biologics can differ significantly from payor to payor. As a result, the process for seeking favorable coverage determinations often is time-consuming and costly and may require us to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of our products to each payor separately, with no assurance that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be obtained. Our to promptly obtain coverage and reimbursement rates from third-party payors for any approved products that we develop could have an effect on our operating results, our ability to raise capital needed to commercialize products and our overall financial condition. Further, coverage policies and third-party payor reimbursement rates may change at any time. Therefore, even if coverage and reimbursement status is for one or more products for which we receive marketing approval, less coverage policies and reimbursement rates may be implemented in the future.
Outside the United States, pharmaceutical businesses are generally subject to extensive governmental price controls and other market regulations. Reimbursement and healthcare payment systems vary significantly by country, and many countries have instituted price ceilings on specific products and therapies. The EU provides options for EU Member States to restrict the range of medicinal products for which their national health insurance systems provide reimbursement and to control the prices of medicinal products for human use. An EU Member State may approve a specific price for the medicinal product, it may refuse to reimburse a product at the price set by the manufacturer or it may instead adopt a system of direct or indirect controls on the profitability of the company placing the medicinal product on the market. Many EU Member States also periodically review their reimbursement procedures for medicinal products, which could have an adverse impact on reimbursement status.
Moreover, in order to obtain reimbursement for our products in some European countries, including some EU Member States, we may be required to compile additional data comparing the cost-effectiveness of our products to other available therapies. This Health Technology Assessment, or HTA, of medicinal products is becoming an increasingly common part of the pricing and reimbursement procedures in some EU Member States, including those representing the larger markets. The HTA process is the procedure to assess therapeutic, economic and societal impact of a given medicinal product in the national healthcare systems of the individual country. The outcome of an HTA will often influence the pricing and reimbursement status granted to these medicinal products by the competent authorities of individual EU Member States. The extent to which pricing and reimbursement decisions are influenced by the HTA of the specific medicinal product currently varies between EU Member States.
We believe the increasing emphasis on cost-containment initiatives in the EU, Canada and other countries has and will continue to put pressure on the pricing and usage of our product candidates. Additional foreign price controls or other changes in pricing regulation could restrict the amount that we are able to charge for our product candidates. Accordingly, in markets outside the United States, the reimbursement for our products may be reduced compared with the United States and may be insufficient to generate commercially reasonable revenue and profits.
Moreover, increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors in the United States and abroad to control healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and the level of reimbursement for new products approved and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates we may develop in the future that may be approved. We expect to experience pricing pressures in connection with the sale of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates we may develop in the future, if approved, due to the trend
Table of Contents
toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations and additional legislative changes.
Off-label use or misuse of our products may harm our reputation in the marketplace, result in injuries that lead to costly product liability suits, and/or subject us to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or experience unanticipated problems with any product.
We may only promote or market ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EEA and the UK, or any other of our product candidates that may be approved, for their specifically approved indications. We will train our marketing and sales force against promoting ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates for uses outside of the approved indications for use, known as “off-label uses.” We cannot, however, prevent a physician from using our products off-label, when in the physician’s independent professional medical judgment he or she deems it appropriate. Furthermore, the use of our products for indications other than those approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may not effectively treat such conditions. Any such off-label use of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our future product candidates could harm our reputation in the marketplace among physicians and patients. There may also be increased risk of injury to patients if physicians attempt to use our products for these uses for which they are not approved, which could lead to product liability suits that that might require significant financial and management resources and that could harm our reputation.
Advertising and promotion of any product candidate that obtains approval in the United States will be heavily scrutinized by the FDA, the United States Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, or the DOJ, the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, state attorneys general, members of the United States Congress, and the public. Additionally, advertising and promotion of any product candidate that obtains approval outside of the United States will be heavily scrutinized by comparable foreign entities and stakeholders. In the EEA, the advertising and promotion of medicinal products are subject to both EU and EEA countries’ laws governing promotion of medicinal products, interactions with physicians and other healthcare professionals, misleading and comparative advertising and unfair commercial practices. General requirements for advertising and promotion of medicinal products, such as direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicinal products are established in EU law. However, the details are governed by regulations in individual EEA countries and can differ from one country to another. For example, applicable laws require that promotional materials and advertising in relation to medicinal products comply with the product’s Summary of Product Characteristics, or SmPC, which may require approval by the competent national authorities in connection with an MA. The SmPC is the document that provides information to physicians concerning the safe and use of the product. Promotional activity that does not comply with the SmPC is considered off-label and is prohibited in the EU. , including actual or promotion of our products for or off-label uses, are subject to enforcement letters, inquiries, and , and civil and sanctions by the FDA, DOJ, or comparable foreign authorities. Any actual or to comply with labeling and promotion requirements may result in , letters, mandates to corrective information to healthcare practitioners, , or civil or .
The affected populations for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any of our other future product candidates may be smaller than we or third parties currently project, which may affect the addressable markets for our product candidates.
Our projections of the number of people who have the diseases we are seeking to treat, as well as the subset of people with these diseases who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our product candidates, are estimates based on our knowledge and understanding of these diseases. These estimates may prove to be incorrect and new studies may further reduce the estimated incidence or prevalence of this disease. The number of patients in the United States, the EEA, the UK and elsewhere may turn out to be lower than expected, may not be otherwise amenable to treatment with our product candidates or patients may become increasingly difficult to identify and access, all of which would adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Further, even if we obtain approval for our product candidates, the FDA or other regulators may limit their approved indications to more narrow uses or subpopulations within the populations for which we are targeting development of our product candidates.
The total addressable market opportunity for our product candidates will ultimately depend upon a number of factors including the diagnosis and treatment criteria included in the final label, if approved for sale in specified indications,
Table of Contents
acceptance by the medical community, patient access and product pricing and reimbursement. Incidence and prevalence estimates are frequently based on information and assumptions that are not exact and may not be appropriate, and the methodology is forward-looking and speculative. The process we have used in developing an estimated incidence and prevalence range for the indications we are targeting has involved collating limited data from multiple sources. Accordingly, the incidence and prevalence estimates included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, should be viewed with caution. Further, the data and statistical information used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or our other filings with the SEC, including estimates derived from them, may differ from information and estimates made by our competitors or from current or future studies conducted by independent sources.
If the launch of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any of our other future product candidates is further delayed or unsuccessful, or if sales of our marketed products do not meet the levels currently expected, we may face costs related to excess inventory or unused capacity at our manufacturing facilities and at the facilities of third parties or our collaborators.
If our product candidates are discontinued or their clinical development is further delayed, if the launch of new indications for our marketed products or new product candidates is delayed or does not occur, or if such products are launched and the launch is unsuccessful or the product is subsequently recalled or marketing approval is rescinded, we may have to absorb one hundred percent of related overhead costs and inefficiencies, as well as similar costs of third-party contract manufacturers performing services for us. For example, in May 2022, we voluntarily withdrew our BLA to provide additional information requested by the FDA. We re-submitted the BLA to the FDA for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA on August 30, 2022. On August 29, 2023, we received a CRL in which the FDA concluded it could not approve the BLA during this review cycle due to several CMC issues, open observations from pre-approval manufacturing inspections, and a lack of substantial evidence. At subsequent Type A meetings with the FDA, we learned that the FDA requires the successful completion of an additional adequate and well-controlled clinical trial evaluating ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, as well as additional requested CMC data indicated in the CRL to approve ONS-5010/LYTENAVA for use in wet AMD. In response to this, we conducted an additional clinical trial, NORSE EIGHT. In November 2024, we reported that ONS-5010/LYTENAVA did not meet the pre-specified non-inferiority endpoint at week 8 set forth in the special protocol assessment (SPA) with the FDA. However, we believe that the data from the trial, in total, demonstrated an in vision and the presence of biologic activity, as well as a continued safety profile for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and we resubmitted the BLA application for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA on February 27, 2025, and received a subsequent CRL on August 27, 2025. Following a September 2025 Type A meeting with the FDA, we resubmitted the ONS-5010/LYTENAVA BLA on November 3, 2025 and received a PDUFA goal date of December 31, 2025 from the FDA. In addition, if we or our future experience excess inventory, it may be necessary to write down or write off such excess inventory or incur an charge with respect to the facility where such product is manufactured, which could affect our operating results.
Risks Related to Our Reliance on Third Parties
We rely on third parties to conduct our preclinical and clinical trials and perform other tasks for us. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines or comply with regulatory requirements, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK, or for any other of our product candidates, or commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates and our business could be harmed.
We have relied upon and plan to continue to rely upon CROs to monitor and manage data for our ongoing clinical development programs. We rely on these parties for execution of our preclinical and clinical trials and we can only control certain aspects of their activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific requirements and standards and our reliance on the CROs does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. We and our CROs and other vendors are required to comply with cGMP, GCP, and GLP, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA, the Competent Authorities of EEA countries and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for all of our product candidates in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce these regulations through periodic inspections of study sponsors, principal investigators, study sites and other contractors. If we, any of our CROs, service providers or investigators fail to comply with applicable
Table of Contents
regulations or GCPs, the data generated in our preclinical and clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA, MHRA, EMA, European Commission, or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional preclinical and clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. We cannot assure you that upon inspection by a given regulatory authority, such regulatory authority will determine that any of our clinical trials comply with GCP requirements. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with products produced under cGMP regulations. Failure to comply by any of the participating parties or ourselves with these regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process. Moreover, our business may be implicated if our CROs or any other participating parties violate supranational, national, federal or state fraud and abuse or false claims laws and regulations or healthcare privacy and security laws.
If any of our relationships with any of these third-party CROs terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative CROs or do so on commercially reasonable terms. In addition, our CROs are not our employees, and except for remedies available to us under our agreements with such CROs, we cannot control whether or not they devote sufficient time and resources to our on-going preclinical and clinical programs. If CROs do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines, if they need to be replaced or if the quality or accuracy of the data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our protocols, regulatory requirements or for other reasons, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize our product candidates. CROs may also generate higher costs than anticipated. As a result, our results of operations and the commercial prospects for our product candidates would be harmed, our costs could increase and our ability to generate revenue could be .
Changing or adding additional CROs involves additional cost and requires management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new CRO commences work. As a result, delays may occur, which can negatively impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines. We may encounter challenges or delays in the future and these delays or challenges may have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and prospects.
Because we may rely on third parties, some of which are or may be sole source vendors for manufacturing and supply of our drug candidates for preclinical and clinical development materials and commercial supplies, our supply may become limited or interrupted or may not be of satisfactory quantity or quality. Our business could be harmed if our current contract manufacturer is unable to manufacture our product candidates at the necessary quantity or quality levels for preclinical, clinical and commercial supply.
We currently rely on third-party contract manufacturers for our current and future clinical trial product materials and supplies and do not have the infrastructure or capability internally to manufacture supplies of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidate, for use in clinical development, and we lack the resources and the capability to manufacture ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any product candidates on a clinical or commercial scale. If we are unable to manufacture or have manufactured sufficient supplies of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidates, our development efforts would be delayed, which would adversely affect our business and prospects. We have selected FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, or FUJIFILM to manufacture and supply us with our product candidates for future clinical development, as well as to establish commercial supplies of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and our product candidates. If our need for contract manufacturing services increases during a period of industry-wide production capacity shortage, we may not be able to produce ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates on a timely basis or on commercially viable terms. Establishing additional or replacement vendors, including FUJIFILM, if required, may not be accomplished quickly. Any resulting from manufacturing or supply associated with our reliance on third-party manufacturing and supply partners could , , limit or prevent our drug development and commercialization efforts. Any significant or in the supply of a product candidate for an ongoing clinical trial due to the need to replace a third-party manufacturer could considerably completion of our clinical trials, product testing and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates, which could our business and results of operations.
Reliance on third-party manufacturers entails additional risks, including reliance on the third party for regulatory compliance and quality assurance, the possible breach of the manufacturing agreement by the third party and the possible termination or nonrenewal of the agreement by the third party at a time that is costly or inconvenient for us. In addition, third-party manufacturers may not be able to comply with cGMP or similar regulatory requirements outside the United States. Our failure or the failure of our third-party manufacturers to comply with applicable regulations could result in
Table of Contents
sanctions being imposed on us, including fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension, variation or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could adversely affect supplies of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other product candidates that we may develop. Any failure or refusal to supply the components for our product candidates that we may develop could delay, prevent or impair our clinical development or commercialization efforts. If our contract manufacturers were to breach or terminate their manufacturing arrangements with us, the development or commercialization of the affected products or product candidates could be , which could have an effect on our business. Any change in our manufacturers could be because the commercial terms of any new arrangement could be less and because the expenses relating to the transfer of necessary technology and processes could be significant.
We may need to enter into agreements with another third party for contract manufacturing of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any other product candidates that may be approved, in order to produce the quantities necessary to meet anticipated market demand. If we are unable to build and stock ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates that may be approved, in sufficient quantities to meet the requirements for the launch of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or these product candidates or to meet future demand, our revenue and gross margins could be adversely affected. Although we believe that we will not have any material supply issues, we cannot be certain that we will be able to obtain long-term supply arrangements for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates or materials used to produce them on acceptable terms, if at all. If we are unable to arrange for third-party manufacturing, or to do so on commercially reasonable terms, we may not be able to complete development or market ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates that may be approved.
Any adverse developments affecting the manufacture of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA could substantially increase our costs and limit supply for such product candidate.
The process of manufacturing our ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and our other monoclonal antibody product candidates is complex, highly regulated and subject to several risks, including but not limited to:
failure to establish contracts with CMOs, and device vendors where applicable;
product loss due to contamination, equipment failure or improper installation or operation of equipment or vendor or operator error;
infringing intellectual property rights of third parties relating to manufacturing and quality testing;
failure to achieve or maintain compliance with MHRA, EEA authorities’ or FDA’s requirements for acceptance of the applicable manufacturing facilities; and
labor shortages, natural disasters and power failures.
Even minor deviations from normal manufacturing processes for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any of our product candidates could result in reduced production yields, product defects and other supply disruptions. In addition, if we require a change in CMO, this will add time along with financial and personnel resources to change manufacturing sites. If microbial, viral or other contaminations are discovered in ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates or in our manufacturing facilities, our facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination.
Any adverse developments affecting manufacturing operations for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates may result in shipment delays, inventory shortages, lot failures, withdrawals or recalls or other interruptions in the supply of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates. We may also have to take inventory write-offs and incur other charges and expenses for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or product candidates that fail to meet specifications, undertake costly remediation efforts or seek more costly manufacturing alternatives.
Table of Contents
We depend on third parties for the commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU and UK, and may depend on third parties for the commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the United States, if approved. Failure to commercialize in the relevant markets could harm our business and operating results.
We continue to pursue discussions for the licensing and/or co-development rights to ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside of the United States. We may not be successful in reaching agreements with such parties on terms that are as favorable to our company as we would anticipate. We do not have in place any licensing agreements for commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and have only licensed ONS-5010/LYTENAVA to our PRC-joint venture, for commercialization in greater China. Our current arrangements are for our inactive biosimilar product candidates, and aside from one United States arrangement for ONS-3010, are for smaller ex-United States markets where we would not otherwise intend to commercialize our biosimilar product candidates, such as China and India, among others. If any entity with whom we enter into a commercialization arrangement fails to exercise commercially reasonable efforts to market and sell our approved products in their respective licensed jurisdictions or are otherwise ineffective in doing so, our business will be harmed and we may not be able to adequately remedy the harm through negotiation, , arbitration or of the license agreements.
We have also entered into a strategic relationship with Cencora for our commercial launch of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EEA, UK, and in preparation for the anticipated commercial launch in the United States, if approved by the FDA, pursuant to which Cencora would provide comprehensive launch support in the EEA and the UK including pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs, quality management, market access support, importation, field solutions, third-party logistics services and distribution, andmedical information, as well as other regions outside the United States. If Cencora is unable to provide services pursuant to the strategic relationship, or otherwise breaches the terms of our agreement with them, our commercialization efforts in the EEA and UK could be delayed or adversely impacted, and our business, financial condition and prospects may be adversely effected.
Moreover, any disputes with the third parties on which we rely concerning the adequacy of their commercialization efforts will substantially divert the attention of our senior management from other business activities and will require us to incur substantial legal costs to fund litigation or arbitration proceedings.
In the event that any of our license agreements or our strategic relationship with Cencora terminates, we may need to find another partner in those markets to commercialize and in certain instances, manufacture any product candidates. Further, upon any such termination, our contract counterparties may still have the right to commercialize these product candidates in such markets, which may affect our ability to commercialize in the same markets.
Our reliance on third parties requires us to share our trade secrets, which increases the possibility that a competitor will discover them or that our trade secrets will be misappropriated or disclosed.
Because we rely, and continue to expect to rely on third parties to manufacture our current and any future product candidates, and we expect to continue to collaborate with third parties on the development of our current and any future product candidates, we must, at times, share trade secrets with them. We seek to protect our proprietary technology in part by entering into confidentiality agreements and, if applicable, material transfer agreements, consulting agreements or other similar agreements with our advisors, employees, CROs, third-party contractors and consultants prior to beginning research or disclosing proprietary information. These agreements typically limit the rights of the third parties to use or disclose our confidential information, including our trade secrets. Despite the contractual provisions employed when working with third parties, the need to share trade secrets and other confidential information increases the risk that such trade secrets become known by our competitors, are inadvertently incorporated into the technology of others, or are disclosed or used in violation of these agreements. Any disclosure, either intentional or , by our employees, the employees of third parties with whom we share our facilities or third-party consultants and vendors that we engage to perform research, clinical trials or manufacturing activities, or by third parties (such as through a cybersecurity ) of our trade secrets or proprietary information could competitors to duplicate or our technological , thus our competitive position in our market. Further, adequate remedies may not exist in the event of use or disclosure. Given that our proprietary position is based, in part, on our know-how and trade secrets, a competitor’s discovery of our trade secrets or other use or disclosure would our competitive position and may have an effect on our business and results of operations.
Table of Contents
In addition, these agreements typically restrict the ability of our advisors, employees, third-party contractors and consultants to publish data potentially relating to our trade secrets, although our agreements may contain certain limited publication rights. Policing unauthorized use of our or our licensors’ intellectual property is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and we may be unable to determine the extent of any unauthorized use. Moreover, enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. Despite our efforts to protect our trade secrets, our competitors may discover our trade secrets, either through breach of our agreements with third parties, independent development or publication of information by any of our third-party . A competitor’s discovery of our trade secrets would our competitive position and have an impact on our business.
We currently engage single source suppliers for clinical trial services and multiple source suppliers for future drug substance manufacturing, fill-finish manufacturing and product testing of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. The loss of any of these suppliers, or any future single source suppliers, could harm our business.
ONS-5010/LYTENAVA is fill-finished by PCI San Diego, Inc., or PCI SD. As such, we are heavily dependent on PCI SD for supplying us with sufficient supply of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. Additionally, we selected FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies to conduct all future manufacturing of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA bulk drug substance. Although we believe that there are alternate sources for these services, we cannot assure you that identifying and establishing new relationships would not result in significant delay in the development of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA. Additionally, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative vendors on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. A delay in the development of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or having to enter into a new agreement with a different third party on less favorable terms than we have with our current suppliers could negatively impact our business.
Risks Related to Intellectual Property
If we infringe or are alleged to infringe intellectual property rights of third parties, our business could be harmed. Third-party claims of intellectual property infringement may prevent or delay our development and commercialization efforts.
Our commercial success depends in large part on avoiding infringement of the patents and proprietary rights of third parties. There have been many lawsuits and other proceedings involving patent and other intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry, including patent infringement lawsuits, interferences, oppositions and reexamination proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, and corresponding foreign patent offices. Numerous United States and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by third parties, exist in the fields in which we are developing product candidates. As the pharmaceutical industry expands and more patents are issued, the risk increases that our product candidates may be subject to claims of infringement of the patent rights of third parties.
Our research, development and commercialization activities may infringe or otherwise violate or be claimed to infringe or otherwise violate patents owned or controlled by other parties.
Third parties may assert that we are employing their proprietary technology without authorization. There may be third-party patents or patent applications with claims to compositions, formulations, methods of manufacture or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of our product candidates. We have conducted patent searches for third-party patents with respect to our lead product candidate, and are not aware of third-party patent families with claims that, if valid and enforceable, could be construed to cover such product candidates or their respective methods of manufacture or use. We cannot guarantee that any of our analyses are complete and thorough, nor can we be sure that we have identified each and every patent and pending application in the United States and abroad that is relevant or necessary to the commercialization of our product candidates. Moreover, because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications that may later result in issued patents covering our product candidates. The existence of any patent with valid and enforceable claims covering one or more of our product candidates could cause substantial delays in our ability to introduce a candidate into the United States market if the term of such patent extends beyond our desired product launch date.
Table of Contents
There may also be patent applications that have been filed but not published and if such applications issue as patents, they could be asserted against us. For example, in most cases, a patent filed today would not become known to industry participants for at least 18 months given patent rules applicable in most jurisdictions that do not require publication of patent applications until 18 months after filing. Moreover, we may face claims from non-practicing third-party entities that have no relevant product revenue and against whom our own patent portfolio may have no deterrent effect. In addition, the scope of patent claims is subject to interpretation by the courts, and the interpretation is not always uniform. If we are sued for patent infringement, we would need to demonstrate that our product candidates, products or methods either do not infringe the asserted patent claims or that the claims are invalid and/or unenforceable, and we may not be .
Proving that a patent is invalid or unenforceable is difficult. For example, in the United States, proving invalidity requires a showing of clear and convincing evidence to overcome the presumption of validity enjoyed by issued patents. In proceedings before courts in the EU, the burden of proving invalidity of a patent also usually rests on the party alleging invalidity. Even if we are successful in litigation, we may incur substantial costs and the time and attention of our management and scientific personnel could be diverted, which could harm our business. In addition, we may not have sufficient resources to bring these actions to a successful conclusion.
Third parties could bring claims against us that would cause us to incur substantial expenses and, if successful against us, could cause us to pay substantial monetary damages. The outcome of intellectual property litigation is subject to uncertainties that cannot be adequately quantified in advance. If a patent infringement suit were brought against us, we could be forced to stop or delay research, development, manufacturing or sales of the product or product candidate that is the subject of the suit. Ultimately, we could be prevented from commercializing a product or be forced to cease some aspect of our business operations if, as a result of actual or threatened patent infringement , we are to enter into licenses on commercially acceptable terms or at all. If, as a result of patent or to avoid potential , we choose or are required to seek licenses from third parties, these licenses may not be available on acceptable terms or at all. Even if we are to obtain a license, the license may obligate us to pay substantial license fees or royalties or both, and the rights granted to us might be nonexclusive, which could result in our competitors access to the same intellectual property.
Parties making claims against us may obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could effectively block our ability to further develop and commercialize one or more of our product candidates. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merit, would likely involve substantial litigation expense and would likely be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may, in addition to being blocked from the market, have to pay substantial monetary damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, pay royalties, redesign our infringing products or obtain one or more licenses from third parties, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure.
In addition to infringement claims against us, we may become a party to other patent litigation and other proceedings, including interference, derivation or post-grant proceedings declared or granted by the USPTO and similar proceedings in foreign countries, regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our current or future products. An unfavorable outcome in any such proceedings could require us to cease using the related technology or to attempt to license rights to it from the prevailing party or could cause us to lose valuable intellectual property rights. Our business could be harmed if the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms, if any license is offered at all. Litigation or other proceedings may fail and, even if successful, may result in substantial costs and our management and other employees. We may also become involved in with others regarding the ownership of intellectual property rights.
Third parties may submit applications for patent term extensions in the United States or other jurisdictions where similar extensions are available and/or Supplementary Protection Certificates in the EU states (including Switzerland) seeking to extend certain patent protection that, if approved, may interfere with or delay the launch of one or more of our product candidates.
The cost to us of any patent litigation or other proceeding, even if resolved in our favor, could be substantial. Patent litigation and other proceedings may fail, and even if successful, may result in substantial costs and distract our
Table of Contents
management and other employees. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent litigation or other proceedings could impair our ability to compete in the marketplace.
So called “submarine” patents may be granted to our competitors that may significantly alter our launch timing expectations, reduce our projected market size, cause us to modify our product or process or block us from the market altogether.
The term “submarine” patent has been used in the pharmaceutical industry and in other industries to denote a patent issuing from a United States application with an effective filing date prior to June 8, 1995 that was not published, publicly known or available prior to its grant. Submarine patents add substantial risk and uncertainty to our business. Submarine patents may be issued to our competitors covering our product candidates and thereby cause significant market entry delay, defeat our ability to market our product candidates or cause us to abandon development and/or commercialization of a product candidate.
The issuance of one or more submarine patents may harm our business by causing substantial delays in our ability to introduce a candidate into the United States market.
We may not identify relevant patents or may incorrectly interpret the relevance, scope or expiration of a patent, which might adversely affect our ability to develop and market our products.
We cannot guarantee that any of our patent searches or analyses, including but not limited to the identification of relevant patents, the scope of patent claims or the expiration of relevant patents, are complete and thorough, nor can we be certain that we have identified each and every patent and pending application in the United States and abroad that is relevant to or necessary for the commercialization of our product candidates in any jurisdiction.
The scope of a patent claim is determined by an interpretation of the law, the written disclosure in a patent and the patent’s prosecution history. Our interpretation of the relevance or the scope of a patent or a pending application may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to market our products or pipeline candidates. We may incorrectly determine that our products are not covered by a third party patent. Further, we may conclude that a well-informed court or other tribunal would find the claims of a relevant third-party patent to be invalid based on prior art, enablement, written description, or other ground, and that conclusion may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to market our products or pipeline molecules.
Many patents may cover a marketed product, including but not limited to the composition of the product, methods of use, formulations, cell line constructs, vectors, growth media, production processes and purification processes. The identification of all patents and their expiration dates relevant to the production and sale of a reference product is extraordinarily complex and requires sophisticated legal knowledge in the relevant jurisdiction. It may be impossible to identify all patents in all jurisdictions relevant to a marketed product. We may not identify all relevant patents, or incorrectly determine their expiration dates, which may negatively impact our ability to develop and market our products.
Our failure to identify and correctly interpret relevant patents may negatively impact our ability to develop, market and commercialize our products.
We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce any future patents, which could be expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful.
We have issued patents and when and if we do obtain additional issued patents, we may discover that competitors are infringing these patents. Expensive and time-consuming litigation may be required to enforce our patents. If we or one of our collaboration partners were to initiate legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent covering one of our product candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that the patent covering our product candidate is invalid and/or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity and/or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including but not limited to of novelty, obviousness or non-enablement. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could include an that someone involved in the of the patent withheld relevant or material
Table of Contents
information related to the patentability of the invention from the USPTO or made a misleading statement during prosecution. The outcome following legal assertions of invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable, and there is a risk that a court will decide that a patent of ours is invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, and that we do not have the right to stop the other party from using the invention at issue. There is also a risk that, even if the validity of such patents is upheld, the court will construe the patent’s claims narrowly and decide that we do not have the right to stop the other party from using the invention at issue on the grounds that our patent claims do not cover the invention. An adverse outcome in a or proceeding involving our patents could limit our ability to assert our patents those parties or other competitors and may or our ability to exclude third parties from making and selling similar or competitive products. Any of these occurrences could affect our competitive business position, business prospects and financial condition. Even if we establish , the court may decide not to grant an further activity and instead award only monetary , which may or may not be an adequate remedy.
Similarly, if we assert trademark infringement claims, a court may determine that the marks we have asserted are invalid or unenforceable, or that the party against whom we have asserted trademark infringement has superior rights to the marks in question. In this case, we could ultimately be forced to cease use of such trademarks.
Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during any litigation we initiate to enforce our patents. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a negative impact on the market price of our securities. Moreover, there can be no assurance that we will have sufficient financial or other resources to file and pursue such infringement claims, which typically last for years before they are concluded. Even if we ultimately prevail in such claims, the monetary cost of such litigation and the diversion of the attention of our management and scientific personnel could outweigh any benefit we receive as a result of the proceedings.
We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants or independent contractors have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information of third parties or that our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their former employers.
We employ individuals and retain independent contractors and consultants and members on our board of directors who were previously employed at universities or other pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants and independent contractors do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us and we are not currently subject to any claims that they have done so, we may in the future be subject to such claims. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel, which could adversely impact our business. Even if we are in such , could result in substantial costs and be a to management and other employees.
In addition, while we typically require our employees, consultants and contractors who may be involved in the development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who in fact develops intellectual property that we regard as our own, which may result in claims by or against us asserting ownership of such intellectual property. If we fail in prosecuting or defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights. Even if we are successful in prosecuting or defending against such claims, could result in substantial costs and be a to our senior management and scientific personnel.
If we are unable to obtain and maintain effective patent rights for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates, we may not be able to prevent competitors from using technologies we consider important in the development and commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any future product candidates, resulting in loss of any potential competitive advantage our patents may have otherwise afforded us.
While our principal focus in matters relating to intellectual property is to avoid infringing the valid and enforceable rights of third parties, we also rely upon a combination of patents, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect our own intellectual property related to our product candidates and development programs. Our ability to enjoy
Table of Contents
any competitive advantages afforded by our own intellectual property depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patents and other intellectual property protection in the United States and in other countries with respect to various proprietary elements of our product candidates, such as, for example, our product formulations and processes for manufacturing our products and our ability to maintain and control the confidentiality of our trade secrets and confidential information critical to our business.
We have sought to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our products that are important to our business. This process is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. There is no guarantee that any patent application we file will result in an issued patent having claims that protect our products; and, as a result, we may not be able to effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive products. Additionally, while the basic requirements for patentability are similar across jurisdictions, each jurisdiction has its own specific requirements for patentability. We cannot guarantee that we will obtain identical or similar patent protection covering our products in all jurisdictions where we file patent applications.
The patent positions of biopharmaceutical companies generally are highly uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions for which legal principles remain unresolved. As a result, the patent applications that we own or license may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our product candidates in the United States or in other foreign countries for many reasons. There is no assurance that all potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and patent applications has been found, considered or cited during patent prosecution, which can be used to invalidate a patent or prevent a patent from issuing from a pending patent application. Even if patents do successfully issue, and even if such patents cover our product candidates, third parties may challenge their validity, enforceability or scope, which may result in such patent claims being narrowed, found unenforceable or invalidated. Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, our patents and patent applications may not protect our intellectual property, provide for our product candidates or prevent others from designing around our . Any of these outcomes could our ability to prevent competitors from using the technologies claimed in any patents issued to us, which may have an impact on our business.
Patents granted by the European Patent Office may be opposed by any person within nine months from the publication of their grant and, in addition, may be challenged before national courts at any time.
Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, our patents and patent applications may not adequately protect our intellectual property or prevent others from designing around our claims. If the breadth or strength of protection provided by the patents and patent applications we hold, license or pursue with respect to our product candidates is threatened, it could threaten our ability to prevent third parties from using the same technologies that we use in our product candidates. In addition, recent changes to the patent laws of the United States provide additional procedures for third parties to challenge the validity of issued patents based on patent applications filed after March 15, 2013. If the breadth or strength of protection provided by the patents and patent applications we hold or pursue with respect to our current or future product candidates is challenged, then it could threaten our ability to prevent competitive products from using our proprietary technology. Further, because patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time, typically for 18 months after filing, we cannot be certain that we were the first to either (i) file any patent application related to our product candidates or (ii) any of the claimed in our patents or patent applications. Furthermore, for applications filed before March 16, 2013 or patents issuing from such applications, an proceeding can be by a third party or instituted by the USPTO to determine who was the first to any of the subject matter covered by the patent of our applications and patents. If third parties have filed such applications after March 15, 2013, a derivation proceeding in the United States can be initiated by such third parties to determine whether our was derived from theirs.
In addition to our issued patents, we have patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions, which are currently pending, directed to various aspects of our product candidates. We cannot offer any assurances about which, if any, patents will be issued, the breadth of any such patent or whether any issued patents will be found invalid and unenforceable or will be threatened or infringed by third parties. Any successful actions by third parties to challenge the validity or enforceability of any patents that may be issued to us could deprive us of the ability to prevent others from using the technologies claimed in such issued patents.
Table of Contents
Further, if we encounter delays in regulatory approvals, the period of time during which we could market a product candidate under patent protection could be reduced. We are currently experiencing delays in our anticipated timeline for FDA approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA due to the FDA requirement to successfully complete an additional adequate and well-controlled trial for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, which could result in a reduced period of time during which we could market ONS-5010/LYTENAVA under patent protection if ultimately approved by the FDA.
We have filed patent applications directed to our own proprietary formulations and processes for our product candidates when we have believed securing such patents may afford a competitive advantage. For example, the companies that originated Humira and Avastin ® (AbbVie and Genentech, respectively) own patents directed to formulations for these products. Rather than wait for the expiration of these formulation patents, we have developed our own proprietary formulations for these products that we believe are not covered by valid claims of third-party patents, including AbbVie or Genentech’s formulation patents; and we have filed patent applications directed to our formulations. We cannot guarantee that our proprietary formulations will avoid infringement of third-party patents. Moreover, because competitors may be able to develop their own proprietary product formulations, it is uncertain whether issuance of any of our pending patent applications directed to formulations of adalimumab (Humira) and bevacizumab (Avastin ® ) would cover the formulations of any competitors. For example, we are aware that Sandoz is developing biosimilar versions of adalimumab (Humira) and has filed patent applications directed to formulations of adalimumab (Humira). We are also aware that Boehringer is developing a biosimilar version of adalimumab (Humira) and has filed a patent application directed to formulations of adalimumab (Humira). We have patents and patent applications directed to aspects of our downstream manufacturing processes for various biosimilars, including ONS-3010. In contrast to our patent applications directed to formulations of ONS-3010, the proprietary technologies embodied in our process-related patent filings, while directed to we believe may provide us with competitive , were not developed by us to avoid third-party patents. As in the case of our formulation patent filings, it is highly uncertain and we cannot predict whether our patent filings on process will afford us a competitive third parties.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural requirements, document submissions, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies. Our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.
The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other provisions during the patent process. In many cases, an inadvertent lapse can be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules. However, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. In such an event, competitors might be able to enter the market earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.
Filing, prosecuting, defending and enforcing patents on product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States can be less extensive than those in the United States. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the United States. Further, licensing partners may choose not to file patent applications in certain jurisdictions in which we may obtain commercial rights, thereby precluding the possibility of later obtaining patent protection in these countries. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States or importing products made using our inventions into the United States or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and may also export infringing products to territories where we have patent protection, but the ability to enforce our patents is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our products and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be or sufficient to prevent them from competing.
Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, which could make it difficult for us to stop the
Table of Contents
infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions, whether or not successful, could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not being approved, and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Governments of some foreign countries may force us to license our patents to third parties on terms that are not commercially reasonable or acceptable to us. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial from the intellectual property that we develop or license.
Changes in United States patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our product candidates.
As is the case with other biopharmaceutical companies, our success is heavily dependent on intellectual property, particularly patents. Obtaining and enforcing patents in the biopharmaceutical industry involves both technological and legal complexity. Therefore, obtaining and enforcing biopharmaceutical patents is costly, time-consuming and inherently uncertain. In addition, the United States has recently enacted and is currently implementing wide-ranging patent reform legislation, including the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the America Invents Act, signed into law on September 16, 2011.
As of March 16, 2013, the United States transitioned to a “first-to-file” system for deciding which party should be granted a patent when two or more patent applications claiming the same invention are filed by different parties. A third party that files a patent application in the USPTO before us could therefore be awarded a patent covering an invention of ours even if we had made the invention before it was made by the third party. The change to “first-to-file” from “first-to-invent” is one of the changes to the patent laws of the United States resulting from the America Invents Act. Among some of the other significant changes to the patent laws are changes that limit where a patentee may file a patent infringement suit and provide opportunities for third parties to challenge any issued patent in the USPTO via procedures including post-grant and inter partes review. These adversarial actions at the USPTO review patent claims without the presumption of validity afforded to United States patents in lawsuits in United States federal courts, and use a lower of proof than used in in United States federal courts. Therefore, it is generally considered for a competitor or third party to have a patent in a Patent Office post-grant review or inter partes review proceeding than in a in a United States federal court. If any of our patents are by a third party in such a USPTO proceeding, there is no guarantee that we or our licensors or will be in the patent, which would result in a of the patent right. It is not yet clear what, if any, impact the America Invents Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the America Invents Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of any issued patents, all of which could our business and financial condition.
Further, recent court rulings in cases such as Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Myriad I); BRCA1- & BRCA2-Based Hereditary Cancer Test Patent Litig., (Myriad II); and Promega Corp. v. Life Technologies Corp. have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations.
In addition to increasing uncertainty with regard to our ability to obtain patents in the future, this combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents, once obtained. Depending on future actions by the United States Congress, the Federal Courts and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future.
If we are unable to maintain effective proprietary rights for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates or any future product candidates, we may not be able to compete effectively in our markets.
While we have filed patent applications to protect certain aspects of our own proprietary formulation and process developments, we also rely on trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect proprietary scientific,
Table of Contents
business and technical information and know-how that is not or may not be patentable or that we elect not to patent. However, confidential information and trade secrets can be difficult to protect. Moreover, the information embodied in our trade secrets and confidential information may be independently and legitimately developed or discovered by third parties without any improper use of or reference to information or trade secrets. We seek to protect the scientific, technical and business information supporting our operations, as well as the confidential information relating specifically to our product candidates by entering into confidentiality agreements with parties to whom we need to disclose our confidential information, such as, our employees, consultants, board members, contractors, potential collaborators and financial investors. However, we cannot be certain that such agreements have been entered into with all relevant parties. We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our data and trade secrets by maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems, but it is possible that these security measures could be breached. While we have confidence in these individuals, organizations and systems, agreements or security measures may be and we may not have adequate remedies for any . Our confidential information and trade secrets thus may become known by our competitors in ways we cannot prove or remedy.
Although we expect all of our employees and consultants to assign their inventions to us, and all of our employees, consultants, advisors and any third parties who have access to our proprietary know-how, information or technology to enter into confidentiality agreements, we cannot provide any assurances that all such agreements have been duly executed. We cannot guarantee that our trade secrets and other confidential proprietary information will not be disclosed or that competitors will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. For example, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose our proprietary information, including our trade secrets, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches.
Misappropriation or unauthorized disclosure of our trade secrets could impair our competitive position and may harm our business. Additionally, if the steps taken to maintain our trade secrets are deemed inadequate, we may have insufficient recourse against third parties for misappropriating any trade secret. We cannot guarantee that our employees, former employees or consultants will not file patent applications claiming our inventions. Because of the “first-to-file” laws in the United States, such unauthorized patent application filings may defeat our attempts to obtain patents on our own inventions.
We may be subject to claims challenging the inventorship of our patent filings and other intellectual property.
We may in the future be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators or other third parties have an interest in our patent applications or patents we may be granted or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. For example, we may have inventorship or ownership disputes arise from conflicting obligations of consultants or others who are involved in developing our product candidates. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging inventorship or ownership. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose intellectual property rights, such as ownership of or right to use intellectual property. Such an outcome could our business. Even if we are in such , could result in substantial costs and be a to management and other employees.
If we fail to comply with our obligations in the agreements under which we license intellectual property and other rights from third parties or otherwise experience disruptions to our business relationships with our licensors, we could lose license rights that are important to our business.
We are party to a non-exclusive worldwide commercial license agreements with Selexis, pertaining to clinical testing and sale of its cell line expression technology and we may enter into additional license agreements in the future. Our commercial license agreements with Selexis impose, and we expect that future license agreements will impose, various milestone payments, royalty payments and other obligations on us. If we fail to comply with our obligations under these agreements or if we are subject to a bankruptcy, we may be required to make certain payments to the licensor of our license or the licensor may have the right to terminate the license, in which event we would not be able to develop or market products covered by the license. Additionally, the milestone and other payments associated with these licenses will make it less profitable for us to develop our product candidates.
Table of Contents
In the event we breach any of our obligations under these agreements, we may incur significant liability to our licensing partners. Disputes may arise regarding intellectual property subject to a licensing agreement, including but not limited to:
the scope of rights granted under the license agreement and other interpretation-related issues;
the extent to which our technology and processes infringe on intellectual property of the licensor that is not subject to the licensing agreement;
the sublicensing of patents and other rights;
our diligence obligations under the license agreement and what activities satisfy those diligence obligations;
the ownership of inventions and know-how resulting from the joint creation or use of intellectual property by our licensors and us and our collaborators; and
the priority of invention of patented technology.
If disputes over intellectual property and other rights that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates and that could harm our business.
We may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining necessary rights to ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or our product candidates through acquisitions and in-licenses.
We currently have rights to certain intellectual property through licenses from third parties, including Selexis, to develop ONS-5010/LYTENAVA/ONS-1045 and ONS-3010. Because we may find that our programs require the use of proprietary rights held by third parties, the growth of our business may depend in part on our ability to acquire, in-license or use these proprietary rights. We may be unable to acquire or in-license compositions, methods of use, processes or other third-party intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify as necessary for our product candidates. The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and a number of more established companies are also pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, financial resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment.
If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third party intellectual property rights or maintain the existing intellectual property rights we have, we may have to abandon development of that program and our business and financial condition could suffer.
Risks Related to Our Business Operations
Our business could be materially and adversely affected in the future by the effects of disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.
Disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, in regions where we have concentrations of clinical trial sites and other business operations, could adversely affect our business, including by causing significant disruptions in our operations and/or in the operations of manufacturers and CROs upon whom we rely. Disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics may have negative impacts on our ability to initiate new clinical trial sites, enroll new patients and to maintain existing patients who are participating in clinical trials, which may result in increased clinical trial costs, longer timelines and delay in our ability to obtain regulatory approvals of our product candidates, if at all. For example, patient enrollment and recruitment of NORSE TWO was delayed due to local clinical trial site protocols designed to protect staff and patients from COVID-19 infection. Additionally, general supply chain issues may be exacerbated during disease outbreaks,
Table of Contents
epidemics or pandemics and may also impact the ability of our clinical trial sites to obtain basic medical supplies used in our trials in a timely fashion, if at all. Moreover, the extent to which disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics may impact our business, results of operations and financial position will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence. New health epidemics or pandemics may emerge that result in similar or more severe disruptions to our business. To the extent any future disease outbreak, epidemic or pandemic adversely affects our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects, it could also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks and uncertainties described in this “Risk Factors” section.
Unfavorable global economic and political conditions could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.
Our results of operations could be adversely affected by general conditions in the global economy, the global financial markets and the global political conditions. Global uncertainty due to tariffs and global macroeconomic conditions may have a material adverse effect on our commercialization efforts. The global financial markets recently have experienced significant disruptions due to various macroeconomic factors, including, among other things, the impacts of fluctuations in inflation and interest rates, tariffs and trade tensions, and ongoing overseas conflict. If these disruptions and slowdown deepen or persist, we may not be able to access additional capital on favorable terms, or at all, which could in the future negatively affect our ability to pursue our business strategy.There is inherent risk, based on the complex relationships among the United States and the countries in which we conduct our business, that political, diplomatic, and national security factors can lead to global trade restrictions and changes in trade policies and export regulations that may affect our business and operations. The current international trade and regulatory environment is subject to significant ongoing uncertainty. The United States. may continue to announce tariffs affecting a wide range of products and jurisdictions and has indicated an intention to continue developing new trade policies, including with respect to the pharmaceutical industry. In response, certain foreign governments have announced or implemented tariffs and other protectionist measures. These developments have created a dynamic and trade landscape, which may impact our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects. Current or future tariffs will result in increased research and development expenses, including with respect to increased costs associated with raw materials, laboratory equipment and research materials and components. In addition, such tariffs will increase our supply chain complexity and could also potentially our existing supply chain. Trade restrictions and tariffs affecting the import of materials necessary for clinical trials could result in to our development timelines. Increased development costs and extended development timelines could place us at a competitive compared to companies operating in regions with more trade relationships and could reduce investor confidence, impacting our ability to secure additional financing on terms or at all. In addition, as we continue to expand our commercialization efforts, tariffs and trade restrictions could our ability to establish cost- production capabilities, impacting our growth prospects. We currently manufacture ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the United States, which helps mitigate exposure to global tariff . However, this concentration of manufacturing may affect our pricing and competitiveness in the United Kingdom and the European Union.
We may not be successful in our efforts to identify, develop or commercialize additional product candidates.
Although a substantial amount of our current effort is focused on the potential approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA outside the EU and UK, and commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, the long-term success of our business also depends upon our ability to identify, develop and commercialize additional product candidates. Research programs to identify new product candidates require substantial technical, financial and human resources. We may focus our efforts and resources on potential programs or product candidates that ultimately prove to be unsuccessful. Our development efforts may fail to yield additional product candidates suitable for clinical development and commercialization for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the following:
we may not be successful in identifying potential product candidates that pass our strict screening criteria;
we may not be able to overcome technological hurdles to development or a product candidate may not be capable of producing commercial quantities at an acceptable cost, or at all;
we may not be able to assemble sufficient resources to acquire or discover additional product candidates;
Table of Contents
our product candidates may not succeed in preclinical or clinical testing;
competitors may develop alternatives that render our product candidates obsolete or less attractive or the market for a product candidate may change such that a product candidate may not justify further development.
If any of these events occur, we may be forced to abandon our development efforts for a program or programs or we may not be able to identify, develop or commercialize additional product candidates, which would harm our business and could potentially cause us to cease operations.
We are highly dependent on the services of our key executives and personnel, and if we are not able to retain these members of our management or recruit additional management, clinical and scientific personnel, our business will suffer.
We are highly dependent on the principal members of our management and scientific and technical staff. The loss of service of any of our management or key scientific and technical staff could harm our business and our prospects in the continued development and commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any future product candidates we may develop. In addition, we are dependent on our continued ability to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified additional management, clinical and scientific personnel. If we are not able to retain our management and to attract, on acceptable terms, additional qualified personnel necessary for the continued development of our business, we may not be able to sustain our operations or grow our product offering beyond ONS-5010/LYTENAVA.
On December 10, 2024, our board of directors approved a reduction of our workforce to reduce operating expenses and preserve capital. On December 13, 2024, we reduced our workforce by five people, or approximately 23% of our existing headcount. Our focus on the development of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and other potential future drug candidates will require adequate staffing. We may need to hire and retain new employees to execute our future clinical development and manufacturing plans. We cannot provide assurance that we will be able to hire or retain adequate staffing levels to develop our current and potential future drug candidates or to run our operations or to accomplish all of our objectives. We may experience delays or other difficulties effectuating the transition of certain responsibilities that were previously performed by employees impacted by the workforce reduction, which could result in significant disruptions to our business and delays in our development efforts and timelines. In addition, our workforce reduction could yield unanticipated consequences, such as reputational risk, litigation risk and expense, attrition beyond planned staff reductions, increased in our day-to-day operations and of institutional knowledge and expertise. The workforce reduction could also our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel who are to our operations. In addition, we may need to undertake additional workforce reductions or activities in the future.
We may not be able to attract or retain qualified personnel in the future due to the intense competition for qualified personnel among biotechnology, pharmaceutical and other businesses. Our industry has experienced a high rate of turnover of management personnel in recent years. If we are not able to attract, retain and motivate necessary personnel to accomplish our business objectives, we may experience constraints that will significantly impede the achievement of our development objectives, our ability to raise additional capital and our ability to implement our business strategy.
Our future performance will also depend, in part, on our ability to successfully integrate new executive officers into our management team and our ability to develop an effective working relationship among senior management. Our failure to integrate these individuals and create effective working relationships among them and other members of management could result in inefficiencies in the development and commercialization of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates, harming future regulatory approvals, sales of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any other of our product candidates that may be approved, and our results of operations. Additionally, we do not currently maintain “key person” life insurance on the lives of our executives or any of our employees.
Table of Contents
We and certain of our current and former officers have been named as defendants in a pending securities class action lawsuit. Certain of our current and former officers and directors have also been named as defendants in a pending shareholder derivative action. These lawsuits, and potential similar or related lawsuits, could result in substantial damages, divert management’s time and attention from our business, and have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. These lawsuits, and any other lawsuits to which we are subject, will be costly to defend or pursue and are uncertain in its outcome.
Securities-related class action lawsuits and/or derivative lawsuits have often been brought against companies, including biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, that experience volatility in the market price of their securities. This risk is especially relevant for us because we often experience significant stock price volatility in connection with our product development activities.
On November 3, 2023, a securities class action lawsuit was filed against us and certain of our officers in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. The class action complaint alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, in connection with allegedly false and misleading statements made by us related to our BLA during the period from August 3, 2021 through August 29, 2023. The complaint alleges, among other things, that we violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5 by failing to disclose that there was an alleged lack of evidence supporting ONS-5010/LYTENAVA as a treatment for wet AMD and that we and/or our manufacturing partner had CMC controls for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, which remained at the time our BLA was re-submitted to the FDA and, as a result, the FDA was unlikely to approve our BLA, and that our stock price when such information was . The in the class action seek and interest, and an award of reasonable costs, including attorneys’ fees. The ’ motion to the second amended is currently pending before the court.
On October 10, 2024, certain of the company’s officers and directors were named as defendants in a shareholder derivative action filed in the District Court of the District of Delaware. The derivative complaint alleges that defendants breached their fiduciary duties by causing and/or allowing the company to violate federal securities laws based on the same alleged misstatements as the securities class action. The derivative complaint also alleges defendants violated Section 14(a) of the Exchange Act, as well as claims for contribution, unjust enrichment, and waste of corporate assets. The derivative complaint seeks unspecified damages, corporate governance reforms, restitution, contribution, attorneys’ fees, and other costs. The derivative action is currently stayed, pending the final resolution of the securities class action pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
It is possible that additional lawsuits will be filed, or allegations received from stockholders, with respect to these same or other matters and also naming us and/or our officers and directors as defendants. Such lawsuits and any other related lawsuits are subject to inherent uncertainties, and the actual defense and disposition costs will depend upon many unknown factors. The outcome of such lawsuits is necessarily uncertain. We could be forced to expend significant resources in the defense of the pending lawsuits and any additional lawsuits, and we may not prevail. In addition, we may incur substantial legal fees and costs in connection with such lawsuits. We currently are not able to estimate the possible cost to us from this matter, as the pending lawsuits are currently at an early stage, and we cannot be certain how long it may take to resolve the pending lawsuits or the possible amount of any damages that we may be required to pay. Monitoring, initiating and defending against legal actions is time-consuming for our management, is likely to be expensive and may from our ability to fully focus our internal resources on our business activities. We could be to expend significant resources in the settlement or defense of the pending lawsuits and any potential future lawsuits, and we may not prevail in such lawsuits. Additionally, we may not be in having any such lawsuits or settled within the limits of our insurance coverage.
We have not established any reserve for any potential liability relating to the pending lawsuits or any potential future lawsuits. It is possible that we could, in the future, incur judgments or enter into settlements of claims for monetary damages. A decision adverse to our interests in the pending lawsuits, or in similar or related litigation, could result in the payment of substantial damages, or possibly fines, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, our stock price, cash flow, results of operations and financial condition.
Table of Contents
Healthcare legislative reform measures and other regulatory reforms may harm our business and results of operations.
In the United States, there have been and continue to be a number of legislative initiatives to improve the access to and quality of healthcare, and to contain healthcare costs. For example, in March 2010, the Affordable Care Act, was passed, which substantially changes the way health care is financed by both governmental and private insurers and significantly impacts the United States pharmaceutical industry. There have been judicial, Congressional and executive branch challenges and amendments to certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act. For example, on August 16, 2022, the IRA was signed into law, which among other things, extends enhanced subsidies for individuals purchasing health insurance coverage in Affordable Care Act marketplaces through plan year 2025. The IRA also eliminates the “donut hole” under the Medicare Part D program beginning in 2025 by significantly lowering the beneficiary maximum out-of-pocket cost through a newly established manufacturer discount program. It is possible that the Affordable Care Act will be subject to judicial or Congressional challenges in the future. It is unclear how such challenges and any additional healthcare reform measures of the current Trump administration will impact the Affordable Care Act and our business. Accordingly, we continue to evaluate the potential impact of the Affordable Care Act and its possible repeal or replacement on our business.In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted in the United States since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. For example, on August 2, 2011, the Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed into law, which, among other things, led to aggregate reductions of Medicare payments to providers up to 2% per fiscal year. These reductions went into effect on April 1, 2013 and, due to subsequent legislative amendments will stay in effect until 2032 unless additional Congressional action is taken.
In addition, there has been heightened governmental scrutiny recently over the manner in which drug manufacturers set prices for their marketed products, which have resulted in several Congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to product pricing, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs, and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for drug products. Additionally, the IRA, among other things, (i) directs HHS to negotiate the price of certain high-expenditure, single-source drugs and biologics covered under Medicare, and subject drug manufacturers to civil monetary penalties and a potential excise tax by offering a price that is not equal to or less than the negotiated “maximum fair price” under the law, and (ii) imposes rebates under Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D to penalize price increases that outpace inflation. The IRA permits HHS to implement many of these provisions through guidance, as opposed to regulation, for the initial years. These provisions will take effect progressively starting in fiscal year 2023. On August 15, 2024, HHS announced the agreed-upon reimbursement prices of the first ten drugs that were subject to price negotiations, although the Medicare drug price negotiation program is currently subject to legal . On January 17, 2025, HHS selected fifteen additional products covered under Part D for price negotiation in 2025. Each year thereafter more Part B and Part D products will become subject to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program. The IRA permits the Secretary of HHS to implement many of these provisions through guidance, as to regulation, for the initial years.
The current administration is pursuing policies to reduce regulations and expenditures across government including at HHS, the FDA, CMS and related agencies. These actions, presently directed by executive orders or memoranda from the Office of Management and Budget, may propose policy changes that create additional uncertainty for our business. For example, on September 30, 2025, the current administration has announced agreements with pharmaceutical companies that requires the drug manufacturers to offer, through a direct to consumer platform, U.S. patients and Medicaid programs prescription drug Most-Favored Nation pricing equal to or lower than those paid in other developed nations, with additional mandates for direct-to-patient discounts and repatriation of foreign revenues. Other recent actions, for example, include (1) directives to reduce agency workforce and cut programs; (2) directing HHS and other agencies to lower prescription drug costs through a variety of initiatives, including by improving upon the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program and establishing Most-Favored-Nation pricing for pharmaceutical products; (3) imposing tariffs on imported pharmaceutical products; and (4) as part of the MAHA Commission’s recent Strategy Report, working across government agencies to increase enforcement on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. These actions and policies may significantly reduce U.S. drug prices, potentially impacting manufacturers’ global pricing strategies and , while increasing their operational costs and compliance risks. In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision eliminated judicial deference to regulatory agencies, which could increase legal to federal regulations affecting our operations. Congress may introduce and ultimately pass health care related legislation that could impact the drug approval process and make changes to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program created under the IRA.
Table of Contents
At the state level, legislatures have increasingly passed legislation and implemented regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing.
We expect that the Affordable Care Act, the IRA, as well as other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and lower reimbursement, and additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any approved product. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government-funded programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. The implementation of cost containment measures or other healthcare reforms could result in reduced demand for our product candidates or additional pricing pressures, and may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability or commercialize our drugs.
In December 2021, Regulation No 2021/2282 on Health Technology Assessment was adopted in the EU. This Regulation, which entered into force in January 2022 will apply from January 2025. It is intended to boost cooperation among EU Member States in assessing health technologies, including new medicinal products, and providing the basis for cooperation at EU level for joint clinical assessments in these areas. The Regulation will permit EU Member States to use common HTA tools, methodologies, and procedures across the EU to identify promising technologies early, and continuing voluntary cooperation in other areas. Individual EU Member States will continue to be responsible for assessing non-clinical (e.g., economic, social, ethical) aspects of health technologies, and making decisions on pricing and reimbursement. If we are unable to maintain favorable pricing and reimbursement status in EU Member States for product candidates that we may successfully develop and for which we may obtain regulatory approval, any anticipated revenue from and growth prospects for those products in the EU could be negatively affected.
In addition, on April 26, 2023, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a new Directive and Regulation to revise the existing pharmaceutical legislation and on April 10, 2024, the Parliament adopted its related position. I f adopted in the form proposed, the recent European Commission proposals to revise the existing EU laws governing authorization of medicinal products may result in a decrease in data and market exclusivity opportunities for our product candidates in the EU and make them open to generic or biosimilar competition earlier than is currently the case with a related reduction in reimbursement status.
We are subject, directly and indirectly, to foreign, federal, and state healthcare laws and regulations, including fraud and abuse, false claims, physician payment transparency and health information privacy and security laws. If we are unable to comply or have not fully complied with such laws, we could face substantial penalties.
Our operations are directly and indirectly through our current and future arrangements with healthcare professionals, principal investigators, consultants, customers and third-party payors subject to various foreign, federal, and state fraud and abuse laws, including without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the civil False Claims Act and physician sunshine laws and regulations. These laws may impact, among other things, our clinical research, proposed sales, marketing, charitable donations and grants, education programs and patient assistance. In addition, we may be subject to patient data privacy and security regulation by both the federal government and the states in which we conduct our business. The healthcare laws that may affect our ability to operate include but are not limited to:
the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits, among other things, persons and entities from knowingly and willfully soliciting, receiving, offering or paying remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, to induce, reward, or in return for either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, recommendation, order or furnishing of an item or service reimbursable, in whole or in part, under a federal healthcare program, such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs;
federal civil and criminal false claims laws and civil monetary penalty laws, including the civil False Claims Act, which can be enforced by private individuals through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, which prohibit, among other things, individuals or entities from knowingly presenting or causing to be presented claims for payment from Medicare, Medicaid or other government health programs that are false or fraudulent;
Table of Contents
HIPAA, which created additional federal criminal statutes that prohibit covered entities and business associates from, among other things, executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program and making false statements relating to healthcare matters;
HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and their implementing regulations, which imposes certain requirements, including mandatory contractual terms, relating to the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information on health plans, certain healthcare providers, and healthcare clearinghouses, known as covered entities, and their business associates that provide services to the covered entity that involve individually identifiable health information and their subcontractors that use, disclose or otherwise process individually identifiable health information;
the federal legislation commonly referred to as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act under the Affordable Care Act, which requires certain manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, with specific exceptions, to report annually to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services information related to payments and other transfers of value made by such manufacturers to physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors), certain other healthcare providers (such as physicians assistants and nurse practitioners), and teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members; and
analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as anti-kickback and false claims laws that may apply to items or services reimbursed by any third-party payor, including commercial insurers; state and foreign laws that require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the government or otherwise restrict payments that may be made to healthcare providers and other potential referral sources; state and foreign laws that require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures or drug pricing; state, foreign and local laws that require the registration of pharmaceutical sales representatives; and state and foreign laws governing the privacy and security of health information in certain circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and may not have the same effect, thus complicating compliance efforts.
Because of the breadth of these laws and the narrowness of the statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors available, it is possible that some of our business activities could be subject to challenge under one or more of such laws. In addition, recent healthcare reform legislation has strengthened these laws. For example, the Affordable Care Act, among other things, amends the intent requirement of the federal anti-kickback and criminal healthcare fraud statutes. A person or entity no longer needs to have actual knowledge of these statutes or specific intent to violate them in order to commit a violation. Moreover, the Affordable Care Act provides that the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the civil False Act.
If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the laws described above or any other governmental regulations that apply to us, we may be subject to significant penalties, including civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid or comparable foreign programs, individual imprisonment, disgorgement, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, additional reporting requirements and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or similar agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws, and the curtailment or of our operations, any of which could affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations. any such actions can be , time-consuming and may require significant financial and personnel resources.
Therefore, even if we are successful in defending against any such actions that may be brought against us, our business may be impaired.
Table of Contents
The international aspects of our business expose us to business, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks associated with doing business outside of the United States.
We currently have limited international operations of our own and have several international collaborations. Doing business internationally involves a number of risks, including but not limited to:
multiple, conflicting and changing laws and regulations such as privacy regulations, tax laws, export and import restrictions, employment laws, regulatory requirements and other governmental approvals, permits and licenses;
failure by us or our collaboration partners to obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for the use of our products in various countries;
additional potentially relevant third-party patent rights;
complexities and difficulties in obtaining protection and enforcing our intellectual property;
difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations by us or our collaboration partners;
complexities associated with managing multiple payor reimbursement regimes, government payors or patient self-pay systems by our collaboration partners;
limits in our or our collaboration partners’ ability to penetrate international markets;
financial risks, such as longer payment cycles, difficulty collecting accounts receivable, the impact of local and regional financial crises on demand and payment for our products and exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations;
natural disasters, political and economic instability, including wars, terrorism and political unrest, outbreak of disease, boycotts, curtailment of trade and other business restrictions;
certain expenses including, among others, expenses for travel, translation and insurance; and
regulatory and compliance risks that relate to maintaining accurate information and control over sales and activities that may fall within the purview of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, its books and records provisions or its anti-bribery provisions, or comparable foreign requirements.
If we fail to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could harm our business.
Our third-party suppliers’ activities involve the controlled storage, use and disposal of hazardous materials, including the components of our product candidates and other hazardous compounds. We and our suppliers are subject to laws and regulations governing the use, manufacture, storage, handling and disposal of these hazardous materials. In some cases, these hazardous materials and various wastes resulting from their use are stored at our facilities pending their use and disposal. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination, which could cause an interruption of our commercialization efforts, research, development and manufacturing efforts and business operations, and environmental damage resulting in costly clean-up and liabilities under applicable laws and regulations governing the use, storage, handling and disposal of these materials and specified waste products. Although we believe that the safety procedures utilized by our suppliers for handling and disposing of these materials generally comply with the standards prescribed by these laws and regulations, we cannot guarantee that this is the case or eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or from these materials. In such an event, we may be held liable for any resulting and such liability could exceed our resources and state or federal or other applicable authorities may our use of certain materials and/or our business operations. Furthermore, environmental laws and regulations are complex, change frequently and have tended to become more
Table of Contents
stringent. We cannot predict the impact of such changes and cannot be certain of our future compliance. We do not currently carry biological or hazardous waste insurance coverage.
Acquisitions or joint ventures could disrupt our business, cause dilution to our stockholders and otherwise harm our business.
We actively evaluate various strategic transactions on an ongoing basis. We may acquire other businesses, products or technologies as well as pursue strategic alliances, joint ventures or investments in complementary businesses. Any of these transactions could be material to our financial condition and operating results and expose us to many risks, including:
disruption in our relationships with existing strategic partners or suppliers as a result of such a transaction;
unanticipated liabilities related to acquired companies or joint ventures;
difficulties integrating acquired personnel, technologies and operations into our existing business;
retention of key employees;
diversion of management time and focus from operating our business to management of strategic alliances or joint ventures or acquisition integration challenges;
increases in our expenses and reductions in our cash available for operations and other uses; and
possible write-offs or impairment charges relating to acquired businesses.
In addition, we face significant competition in seeking appropriate strategic partners and the negotiation process is time-consuming and complex. Moreover, we may not be successful in our efforts to establish a strategic alliance or other alternative arrangements for our product candidates because they may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaborative effort and third parties may not view our product candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy. Any delays in entering into new strategic transactions related to our product candidates could delay the development and commercialization of our product candidates in certain geographies for certain indications, which would harm our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
Foreign acquisitions involve unique risks in addition to those mentioned above, including those related to integration of operations across different cultures and languages, currency risks, potentially adverse tax consequences of overseas operations and the particular economic, political and regulatory risks associated with specific countries.
The anticipated benefit of any strategic alliance, joint venture or acquisition may not materialize or such strategic alliance, joint venture or acquisition may be prohibited. Additionally, future acquisitions or dispositions could result in potentially dilutive issuances of our equity securities, the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities or amortization expenses or write-offs of goodwill, any of which could harm our financial condition. We cannot predict the number, timing or size of future joint ventures or acquisitions, or the effect that any such transactions might have on our operating results.
We may pursue the development of our product candidates in combination with other approved therapeutics. If the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority revokes approval of any such therapeutic, or if safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues arise with any therapeutic that we use in combination with one of our product candidates in the future, we may be unable to further develop and/or market our product candidate or we may experience significant regulatory delays or supply shortages, and our business could be materially harmed.
We may pursue the development of our product candidates in combination with other approved therapeutics, and we may commence clinical trials of our product candidates in combination with other approved therapeutics, in the future. In such a case, we will not have developed or obtained regulatory approval for, nor will we manufacture or sell, any of these approved therapeutics. In addition, the combinations will likely not have been previously tested and may, among other
Table of Contents
things, fail to demonstrate synergistic activity, may fail to achieve superior outcomes relative to the use of single agents or other combination therapies, may exacerbate adverse events associated with one of our product candidates when used as monotherapy or may fail to demonstrate sufficient safety or efficacy traits in clinical trials to enable us to complete those clinical trials or obtain marketing approval for the combination therapy.
If the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority revokes its approval of any combination therapeutic, we would not be able to continue clinical development of or market any product candidate in combination with such revoked therapeutic. If safety or efficacy issues were to arise with therapeutics that we seek to combine with, we could experience significant regulatory delays, and the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority could require us to redesign or terminate the applicable clinical trials. In addition, we may need, for supply, data referencing or other purposes, to collaborate or otherwise engage with the companies who market these approved therapeutics. If we are unable to do so on a timely basis, on acceptable terms or at all, we may have to curtail the development of a product candidate or indication, reduce or delay its development program, delay its potential commercialization or reduce the scope of any sales or marketing activities.
Our employees, independent contractors, consultants, collaborators, principal investigators, CROs, suppliers and vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including non-compliance with regulatory standards and requirements.
We are exposed to the risk that our employees, independent contractors, consultants, collaborators, principal investigators, CROs, suppliers and vendors may engage in fraudulent conduct or other illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless and/or negligent conduct that violates FDA regulations, including those laws requiring the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to the FDA, manufacturing standards, federal and state healthcare laws and regulations, and laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data, and comparable foreign regulations. In particular, sales, marketing and business arrangements in the healthcare industry are subject to extensive laws and regulations intended to prevent fraud, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. These laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, sales commission, customer incentive programs and other business arrangements. by these parties could also involve the use of individually identifiable information, including, without , information obtained in the course of clinical trials, which could result in regulatory sanctions and to our reputation. It is not always possible to identify and , and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or or in protecting us from governmental or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a to be in compliance with such laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted us, and we are not in ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, including the imposition of significant civil, and administrative , including, without , , , , , exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid or comparable foreign programs, additional reporting requirements and oversight if we become subject to a corporate agreement or similar agreement to of non-compliance with these laws, and the or of our operations.
Our business activities will be subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws.
As we expand our business activities outside of the United States, including our clinical trial efforts, we will be subject to the FCPA and similar anti-bribery or anti-corruption laws, regulations or rules of other countries in which we operate. The FCPA generally prohibits offering, promising, giving, or authorizing others to give anything of value, either directly or indirectly, to a non-United States government official in order to influence official action, or otherwise obtain or retain business. The FCPA also requires public companies to make and keep books and records that accurately and fairly reflect the transactions of the corporation and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls. Our business is heavily regulated and therefore involves significant interaction with public officials, including officials of non-United States governments. Additionally, in many other countries, the healthcare providers who prescribe pharmaceuticals are employed by their government, and the purchasers of pharmaceuticals are government entities; therefore, our dealings with these prescribers and purchasers will be subject to regulation under the FCPA. Recently the SEC and Department of Justice have increased their FCPA enforcement activities with respect to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
Table of Contents
There is no certainty that all of our employees, agents, suppliers, manufacturers, contractors, or collaborators, or those of our affiliates, will comply with all applicable laws and regulations, particularly given the high level of complexity of these laws. Violations of these laws and regulations could result in fines, criminal sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees, the closing down of facilities, including those of our suppliers and manufacturers, requirements to obtain export licenses, cessation of business activities in sanctioned countries, implementation of compliance programs, and prohibitions on the conduct of our business. Any such violations could include prohibitions on our ability to offer our products in one or more countries as well as difficulties in manufacturing or continuing to develop our products, and could materially damage our reputation, our brand, our international expansion efforts, our ability to attract and retain employees, and our business, prospects, operating results, and financial condition.
We and the third parties with whom we work are subject to stringent and evolving U.S. and foreign laws, regulations, and rules, contractual obligations, industry standards, policies and other obligations related to data privacy and security. Our actual or perceived failure to comply with such obligations could lead to regulatory investigations or actions; litigation (including class claims) and mass arbitration demands; fines and penalties; disruptions of our business operations; reputational harm; loss of revenue or profits; and other adverse business consequences.
In the ordinary course of business, we collect, receive, store, process, generate, use, transfer, disclose, make accessible, protect, secure, dispose of, transmit, and share (collectively, process) personal data and other sensitive information, including proprietary and confidential business data, trade secrets, data we collect about trial participants in connection with clinical trials, intellectual property, sensitive third-party data, business plans, transactions, and financial information (collectively, sensitive data).
Our data processing activities subject us to numerous data privacy and security obligations, such as various laws, regulations, guidance, industry standards, external and internal privacy and security policies, contractual requirements, and other obligations relating to data privacy and security. In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have enacted numerous data privacy and security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal data privacy laws, consumer protection laws (e.g., Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act), and other similar laws (e.g., wiretapping laws). For example, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, imposes specific requirements relating to the privacy, security, and transmission of individually identifiable protected health information.
In the past few years, numerous U.S. states have enacted comprehensive privacy laws that impose certain obligations on covered businesses, including providing specific disclosures in privacy notices and affording residents with certain rights concerning their personal data. As applicable, such rights may include the right to access, correct, or delete certain personal data, and to opt-out of certain data processing activities, such as targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making. The exercise of these rights may impact our business and ability to provide our products and services. Certain states also impose stricter requirements for processing certain personal data, including sensitive information, such as conducting data privacy impact assessments. These state laws allow for statutory fines for noncompliance. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, or the CPRA, collectively, the CCPA, applies to personal data of consumers, business representatives, and employees who are California residents, and requires businesses to provide specific disclosures in privacy notices and honor requests of such individuals to exercise certain privacy rights. The CCPA provides for fines of up to $7,500 per intentional violation and allows private affected by certain data to recover significant statutory . The CCPA and other comprehensive United States state privacy laws exempt some data processed in the context of clinical trials, but these developments may further compliance efforts and increase legal risk and compliance costs for us and the third parties with whom we work. Similar laws are being considered in several other states, as well as at the federal and local levels, and we expect more states to pass similar laws in the future.
Outside the United States, an increasing number of laws, regulations, and industry standards govern data privacy and security. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or the EU GDPR, the United Kingdom’s GDPR, or the UK GDPR, collectively, the GDPR, Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais, or the LGPD) (Law No. 13,709/2018), and China’s Personal Information Protection Law, or thePIPL impose strict requirements for processing personal data.
For example, under the GDPR, in the event of any non-compliance, companies subject to the laws may face temporary or definitive bans on data processing and other corrective actions; fines of up to 20 million Euros under the EU GDPR, 17.5 million pounds sterling under the UK GDPR or, in each case, 4% of annual global revenue, whichever is greater; or private
Table of Contents
litigation related to processing of personal data brought by classes of data subjects or consumer protection organizations authorized at law to represent their interests. The Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, or the FADP, also applies to the collection and processing of personal data, including health-related information, by companies located in Switzerland, or in certain circumstances, by companies located outside of Switzerland.
Our employees and personnel use generative artificial intelligence, or AI, technologies to perform their work, and the disclosure and use of personal data in generative AI technologies is subject to various privacy laws and other privacy obligations. Governments have passed and are likely to pass additional laws regulating generative AI. Our use of this technology could result in additional compliance costs, regulatory investigations and actions, and lawsuits. If we are unable to use generative AI, it could make our business less efficient and result in competitive disadvantages.
In addition, we may be unable to transfer personal data from Europe and other jurisdictions to the United States or other countries due to data localization requirements or limitations on cross-border data flows. Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted laws requiring data to be localized or limiting the transfer of personal data to other countries. In particular, the European Economic Area, or the EEA, and the United Kingdom, or the UK, have significantly restricted the transfer of personal data to the United States and other countries whose privacy laws it generally believes are inadequate. Other jurisdictions may adopt similarly stringent interpretations of their data localization and cross-border data transfer laws. Although there are currently various mechanisms that may be used to transfer personal data from the EEA and UK to the United States in compliance with law, such as the EEA’s standard contractual clauses, the UK’s International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum, and the EU-United States Data Privacy Framework and the UK extension thereto (which allows for transfers to relevant U.S.-based organizations who self-certify compliance and participate in the Framework), these mechanisms are subject to legal challenges, and there is no assurance that we can satisfy or rely on these measures to lawfully transfer personal data to the United States. If there is no lawful manner for us to transfer personal data from the EEA, the UK, or other jurisdictions to the United States, or if the requirements for a legally-compliant transfer are too , we could face significant consequences, including the or of our operations, the need to relocate part of or all of our business or data processing activities to other jurisdictions (such as Europe) at significant expense, increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial and , the to transfer data and work with partners, vendors and other third parties, and our processing or transferring of personal data necessary to operate our business. Additionally, companies that transfer personal data out of the EEA and UK to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, are subject to increased from regulators, individual , and activities groups. Some European regulators have ordered certain companies to or permanently certain transfers of personal data out of Europe for the GDPR’s cross-border data transfer .
In addition to data privacy and security laws, we are contractually subject to certain industry standards adopted by industry groups and may become subject to such obligations in the future. We are also bound by other contractual obligations related to data privacy and security. Our efforts to comply with such contractual obligations may not be successful which may lead to claims against us.
We publish privacy policies, marketing materials, and other statements regarding data privacy and security. If these policies, materials or statements are found to be deficient, lacking in transparency, deceptive, unfair, or misrepresentative of our practices, we may be subject to investigation, enforcement actions by regulators, or other adverse consequences.
Obligations related to data privacy and security (and consumers’ data privacy expectations) are quickly changing, becoming increasingly stringent, and creating uncertainty. Additionally, these obligations may be subject to differing applications and interpretations, which may be inconsistent or conflict among jurisdictions. Preparing for and complying with these obligations requires us to devote significant resources and may necessitate changes to our services, information technologies, systems, and practices and to those of any third parties that process personal data on our behalf.
We may at times fail (or be perceived to have failed) in our efforts to comply with our data privacy and security obligations. Moreover, despite our efforts, our personnel or third parties with whom we work may fail to comply with such obligations, which could negatively impact our business operations. If we or the third parties on which we rely fail, or are perceived to have failed, to address or comply with applicable data privacy and security obligations, we could face significant consequences, including but not limited to: government enforcement actions (e.g., investigations, fines, penalties, audits, inspections, and similar); litigation (including class-action claims) and mass arbitration demands; additional reporting requirements and/or oversight; bans on processing personal data; and orders to or not use personal data. In particular, have become increasingly more active in bringing privacy-related companies, including class and mass arbitration demands. Some of these allow for the recovery of statutory on a per
Table of Contents
violation basis, and, if viable, carry the potential for monumental statutory damages, depending on the volume of data and the number of violations. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, or financial condition, including but not limited to: loss of customers; interruptions or stoppages in our business operations (including, our clinical trials); inability to process personal data or to operate in certain jurisdictions; limited expenditure of time and resources to defend any claim or inquiry; adverse publicity; or substantial changes to our business model or operations, including our clinical trials.
If our information technology systems or those of third parties with whom we work, or our data are or were compromised, we could experience adverse consequences resulting from such compromise, including but not limited to regulatory investigations or actions; litigation; fines and penalties; disruptions of our business operations; reputational harm; loss of revenue or profits; and other adverse consequences.
In the ordinary course of our business, we and the third parties with whom we work process sensitive data, and, as a result, we and the third parties upon which we rely face a variety of evolving threats that could cause security incidents. Cyber-attacks, malicious internet-based activity, online and offline fraud, and other similar activities threaten the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our sensitive data and information technology systems, and those of the third parties upon which we rely. Such threats are prevalent and continue to rise, are increasingly difficult to detect, and come from a variety of sources, including traditional computer “hackers,” threat actors, “hacktivists,” organized criminal threat actors, personnel (such as through theft or misuse), sophisticated nation states, and nation-state-supported actors.
Some actors now engage and are expected to continue to engage in cyber-attacks, including without limitation nation-state actors for geopolitical reasons and in conjunction with military conflicts and defense activities. During times of war and other major conflicts, we and the third parties with whom we work may be vulnerable to a heightened risk of these attacks, including retaliatory cyber-attacks, that could materially disrupt our systems and operations, supply chain, and ability to produce, sell and distribute our services.
We and the third parties with whom we work are subject to a variety of evolving threats, including but not limited to social-engineering attacks (including through deep fakes, which may be increasingly more difficult to identify as fake, and phishing attacks), malicious code (such as viruses and worms), malware (including as a result of advanced persistent threat intrusions), denial-of-service attacks, credential stuffing, credential harvesting, personnel misconduct or error, ransomware attacks, supply-chain attacks, software bugs, server malfunctions, software or hardware failures, loss of data or other information technology assets, adware, attacks enhanced or facilitated by AI, telecommunications failures, earthquakes, fires, floods, and other similar threats.
In particular, severe ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent and can lead to significant interruptions in our operations, ability to provide our products or services, loss of sensitive data and income, reputational harm, and diversion of funds. Extortion payments may alleviate the negative impact of a ransomware attack, but we may be unwilling or unable to make such payments due to, for example, applicable laws or regulations prohibiting such payments.
Remote work has become more common and has increased risks to our information technology systems and data, as more of our employees utilize network connections, computers, and devices outside our premises or network, including working at home, while in transit and in public locations. Additionally, future or past business transactions (such as acquisitions or integrations) could expose us to additional cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, as our systems could be negatively affected by vulnerabilities present in acquired or integrated entities’ systems and technologies. Furthermore, we may discover security issues that were not found during due diligence of such acquired or integrated entities, and it may be difficult to integrate companies into our information technology environment and security program.
In addition, our reliance on third-party service providers could introduce new cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, including supply-chain attacks, and other threats to our business operations. We rely on third-party service providers and technologies to operate critical business systems to process sensitive data (including data related to our clinical trials) in a variety of contexts, including, without limitation, contract research organizations, employee email, content delivery to customers, and other functions. Our ability to monitor these third parties’ information security practices is limited, and these third parties may not have adequate information security measures in place. If the third parties with whom we work experience a security incident or other interruption, we could experience adverse consequences. While we may be entitled to damages if these third parties fail to satisfy their privacy or security-related obligations to us, any award may be insufficient to cover our , or we may be to recover such award. In addition, supply-chain attacks have increased in frequency and , and we cannot guarantee that third parties’ infrastructure in our supply chain or our third-party partners’ supply chains have not been compromised.
Table of Contents
While we have implemented security measures designed to protect against security incidents, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective. We take steps designed to detect, mitigate, and remediate vulnerabilities in our information systems (such as our hardware and/or software, including that of third parties with whom we work). We may not, however, detect and remediate all such vulnerabilities including on a timely basis. Further, we may experience delays in deploying remedial measures or patches designed to address identified vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities could be exploited and result in a security incident.
Any of the previously identified or similar threats could cause a security incident or other interruption that could result in unauthorized, unlawful, or accidental acquisition, modification, destruction, loss, alteration, encryption, disclosure of, or access to our sensitive data or our information technology systems, or those of the third parties with whom we work. A security incident or other interruption could disrupt our ability (and that of third parties with whom we work) to operate our business, including conducting our clinical trials.
We may expend significant resources or modify our business activities (including our clinical trial activities) to try to protect against security incidents. Additionally, certain data privacy and security obligations may require us to implement and maintain specific security measures or industry-standard or reasonable security measures to protect our information technology systems and sensitive data.
Applicable data privacy and security obligations may require us, or we may voluntarily choose, to notify relevant stakeholders, including affected individuals, customers, regulators, and investors, of security incidents, or to take other actions, such as providing credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. Such disclosures and related actions can be costly, and the disclosure or the failure to comply with such applicable requirements could lead to adverse consequences.
Material security incidents (whether actual or perceived and whether experienced by us or a third party with whom we work) could cause material adverse consequences, such as government enforcement actions (for example, investigations, fines, penalties, audits, and inspections); additional reporting requirements and/or oversight; restrictions on processing sensitive data (including personal data or data related to our clinical trials); litigation (including class claims); indemnification obligations; negative publicity; reputational harm; monetary fund diversions; diversion of management attention; interruptions in our operations (including availability of data); financial loss; and other similar harms. Security incidents and attendant consequences may negatively impact our ability to grow and operate our business.
Our contracts may not contain limitations of liability, and even where they do, there can be no assurance that limitations of liability in our contracts are sufficient to protect us from liabilities, damages, or claims related to our data privacy and security obligations. We cannot be sure that our insurance coverage, if any, will be adequate or sufficient to protect us from or to mitigate liabilities arising out of our privacy and security practices, that such coverage will continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or that such coverage will pay future claims.
In addition to experiencing a security incident, third parties may gather, collect, or infer sensitive data about us from public sources, data brokers, or other means that reveals competitively sensitive details about our organization and could be used to undermine our competitive advantage or market position. Additionally, sensitive data of the Company could be leaked, disclosed, or revealed as a result of or in connection with our employees’, personnel’s, or vendors’ use of generative AI technologies.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Securities
The trading price of our securities is likely to be volatile, and purchasers of our securities could incur substantial losses.
The market price of our securities has been and will likely continue to be volatile. The stock market in general and the market in which we operate have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. As a result of this volatility, investors may not be able to sell their securities at a profit. The market price of our securities could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to a variety of factors, including but not limited to:
the success of competitive services, products or technologies;
adverse results or delays in preclinical or clinical trials;
Table of Contents
any inability to obtain additional funding;
any delay in filing an IND, BLA or other regulatory submission for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA, or any of our product candidates when planned, and any adverse development or perceived adverse development with respect to the applicable regulatory agency’s review of that IND, BLA or other regulatory submission;
the perception of limited market sizes or pricing for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any of our other product candidates;
failure to successfully develop and commercialize ONS-5010/LYTENAVA or any of our other product candidates;
post-marketing safety issues relating to our product candidates generally;
failure to maintain our existing strategic collaborations or enter into new collaborations;
failure by us or our licensors and strategic collaboration partners to prosecute, maintain or enforce our intellectual property rights;
changes in laws or regulations applicable to our products;
any inability to obtain adequate product supply for our product candidates or the inability to do so at acceptable prices;
adverse regulatory decisions;
introduction of new products, services or technologies by our competitors;
failure to meet or exceed financial projections we may provide to the public;
failure to meet or exceed the financial projections of the investment community;
the perception of the pharmaceutical industry by the public, legislatures, regulators and the investment community;
announcements of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments by us, our strategic collaboration partners or our competitors;
disputes or other developments relating to proprietary rights, including patents, litigation matters and our ability to obtain patent protection for our technologies;
additions or departures of key scientific or management personnel;
significant lawsuits, including stockholder litigation and litigation filed by us or filed against us pertaining to patent infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights;
the outcomes of any citizens petitions filed by parties seeking to restrict or limit the approval of ONS-5010/LYTENAVA in the EU or UK, or any of our product candidates that may be approved;
if securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business or if they issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding our stock;
Table of Contents
changes in the market valuations of similar companies;
general economic, industry or market conditions;
sales of our securities by us or our stockholders in the future;
trading volume of our securities;
issuance of patents to third parties that could prevent our ability to commercialize our product candidates;
the loss of one or more employees constituting our leadership team;
changes in regulatory requirements that could make it more difficult for us to develop our product candidates; and
the other factors described in this “Risk Factors” section.
As further discussed in the Risk Factor above entitled “We and certain of our current and former officers have been named as defendants in a pending securities class action lawsuit. Certain of our officers and directors have also been named as defendants in a pending shareholder derivative action. These lawsuits and potential similar or related lawsuits, could result in substantial damages, divert management’s time and attention from our business, and have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. These lawsuits, and any other lawsuits to which we are subject, will be costly to defend or pursue and are uncertain in its outcome”, we and two of our current and former officers have been named as defendants a class action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and certain of our current and former officers and directors were named as defendants in a shareholder derivative action filed in the District Court of the District of Delaware. Such lawsuits have often been instituted companies, including us, whose securities have experienced periods of in market price. The pending lawsuits and any lawsuits brought us in the future could result in substantial costs, which would our financial condition and results of operations and management’s attention and resources, which could or commercialization efforts.
In addition, biopharmaceutical companies in particular have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of these companies. Broad market and industry factors may negatively affect the market price of our securities, regardless of our actual operating performance.
GMS Ventures beneficially owns a significant percentage of our common stock and has the right to designate members to our board of directors and is able to exert significant control over matters subject to stockholder approval, which could prevent new investors from influencing significant corporate decisions.
As of September 30, 2025, GMS Ventures owned 13,552,359 shares of common stock and a warrant to acquire an additional 15,488,570 shares of common stock. Accordingly, GMS Ventures beneficially owned approximately 41.9% of our common stock as of such date. Under an amended and restated investor rights agreement with GMS Ventures, GMS Ventures also currently has the power to designate members of our board of directors proportionate to the aggregate holdings of GMS Ventures (including any of its affiliates), and two board members were designated by GMS Ventures. GMS Ventures’ interests may not coincide with the interests of other securityholders. GMS Ventures has the ability to influence our company through its ownership position and its representation on our board of directors, both of which may prevent or discourage unsolicited acquisition proposals or offers for our capital stock that you may believe are in your best interest as one of our securityholders.
Table of Contents
Our quarterly operating results may fluctuate significantly or may fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts, each of which may cause our stock price to fluctuate or decline.
Our quarterly operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes it difficult for us to predict our future operating results. These fluctuations may occur due to a variety of factors, many of which are out of our control and may be difficult to predict, including but not limited to:
our ability to successfully develop, market and sell ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidates;
the cost of clinical development for ONS-5010/LYTENAVA and any other product candidates;
the success of competitive products or technologies;
results of clinical trials of our product candidates or those of our competitors;
developments or disputes concerning patent applications, issued patents or other proprietary rights;
the recruitment or departure of key personnel;
the level of expenses related to any of our product candidates or clinical development programs;
the results of our efforts to discover, develop, manufacture, acquire or in-license additional product candidates;
actual or anticipated changes in estimates as to financial results, development timelines or recommendations by securities analysts;
variations in our financial results or those of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;
market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors;
general economic, industry and market conditions; and
the other factors described in this “Risk Factors” section.
If our quarterly operating results fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the market price of our securities could decline substantially. Furthermore, any quarterly fluctuations in our operating results may, in turn, cause the price of our securities to fluctuate substantially. We believe that quarterly comparisons of our financial results are not necessarily meaningful and should not be relied upon as an indication of our future performance.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research, or publish unfavorable research, about our business, the market price of our securities and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our securities depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business, our market and our competitors. We do not have any control over these analysts. If any analysts who cover us downgrade our securities or change their opinion of our securities, the market price of our securities would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause the market price of our securities or trading volume to decline.
Table of Contents
We are a “smaller reporting company” and, because we have opted to use the reduced reporting requirements available to us, certain investors may find investing in our securities less attractive.
We are a “smaller reporting company” under the SEC’s disclosure rules, meaning that we have either: (i) a public float of less than $250 million; or (ii) annual revenues of less than $100 million during the most recently completed fiscal year; and no public float; or a public float of less than $700 million.
As a smaller reporting company, we are permitted to comply with scaled-back disclosure obligations in our SEC filings compared to other issuers, including with respect to disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements. We have elected to adopt the accommodations available to smaller reporting companies. Until we cease to be a smaller reporting company, the scaled-back disclosure in our SEC filings will result in less information about our company being available than for other public companies. If investors consider our common shares less attractive as a result of our election to use the scaled-back disclosure permitted for smaller reporting companies, there may be a less active trading market for our common shares and our share price may be more volatile.
We are also a non-accelerated filer under the Exchange Act, and we are not required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Therefore, our internal controls over financial reporting will not receive the level of review provided by the process relating to the auditor attestation included in annual reports of issuers that are subject to the auditor attestation requirements. In addition, we cannot predict if investors will find our common shares less attractive because we are not required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements. We cannot predict if investors will find our securities less attractive because we rely on these available exemptions. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and the market price of our securities may be more volatile.
We have and will continue to incur significant costs and demands upon management as a result of complying with the laws and regulations affecting public companies in the United States, which may harm our operating results.
As a public company listed in the United States, we have and will continue to incur significant additional legal, accounting and other expenses. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as rules subsequently implemented by the SEC, and The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC, or Nasdaq, have imposed various requirements on public companies. In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure, including regulations implemented by the SEC and Nasdaq, or as a result of stockholder activism, may increase legal and financial compliance costs and make some activities more time-consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, and as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective internal controls for financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. In particular, we are required to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404. Our testing may reveal deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses. Our compliance with Section 404 requires us to incur substantial accounting expense and expend significant management efforts. We currently do not have an internal audit group and rely on independent contractors for control monitoring and for the preparation and review of our consolidated financial statements. If we are not to comply with the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner or if we identify or our independent registered public accounting firm identifies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material , the market price of our stock could and we could be subject to sanctions or by Nasdaq, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If, notwithstanding our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards, we to comply, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings us, and our business may be .
Further, failure to comply with these laws, regulations and standards might also make it more difficult for us to obtain certain types of insurance, including director and officer liability insurance, and we might be forced to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. The impact of these
Table of Contents
events could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, on committees of our board of directors or as members of senior management.
Future sales and issuances of our common stock or rights to purchase securities, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans or exercise of warrants, could result in additional dilution of the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause the market price of our securities to fall.
We will need additional capital in the future to continue our planned operations. To the extent we raise additional capital by issuing equity securities, our stockholders may experience substantial dilution. We may sell common stock, convertible securities or other equity securities in one or more transactions at prices and in a manner we determine from time to time. If we sell common stock, convertible securities or other equity securities in more than one transaction, investors may be materially diluted by subsequent sales. These sales may also result in material dilution to our existing stockholders, and new investors could gain rights superior to our existing stockholders.
Pursuant to the 2024 Equity Incentive Plan, or the 2024 Plan, our management is authorized to grant stock options and other equity-based awards to our employees, directors and consultants. Under the 2024 Plan, the number of shares of our common stock reserved for future issuance as of September 30, 2025 was 4,357,084 shares. In addition, we have reserved shares for issuance under our 2016 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or the ESPP, which similarly provides for an annual “evergreen” increase unless determined otherwise by our board of directors. If our board of directors does not elect to reduce the annual increases in the number of shares available for future grant under the 2024 Plan or the ESPP, our stockholders may experience additional dilution, which could cause the market price of our securities to fall. We also currently have issued and outstanding a number of warrants to purchase an aggregate of 35,989,085 shares of our common stock, at prices ranging from $1.40 to $31.25 per share. Additionally, on March 13, 2025, we issued an unsecured promissory note, the March 2025 Note, to Avondale. The March 2025 Note is convertible into shares of common stock at the option of the Lender or the Company under certain conditions described in more detail under “Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources—Description of Indebtedness.”
Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.
We have incurred substantial losses during our history and do not expect to become profitable in the near future, and we may never achieve profitability. Unused federal net operating losses, or NOLs, for taxable years beginning before January 1, 2018 may be carried forward to offset future taxable income, if any, until such unused NOLs expire. Under current law, federal NOLs incurred in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017, can be carried forward indefinitely, but the deductibility of such federal NOLs is limited to 80% of taxable income. It is uncertain if and to what extent various states will conform to the federal tax laws.
In addition, under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage point change (by value) in its equity ownership by certain stockholders over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change NOLs and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research tax credits) to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. We may have experienced ownership changes in the past and may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership (some of which shifts are outside our control). As a result, if we earn net taxable income, our ability to use our pre-change NOLs to offset such taxable income will be subject to limitations. Similar provisions of state tax law may also apply to limit our use of accumulated state tax attributes. In addition, at the state level, there may be periods during which the use of NOLs is suspended or otherwise limited, which could accelerate or permanently increase state taxes owed. As a result, even if we attain profitability, we may be unable to use a material portion of our NOLs and other tax attributes, which could affect our future cash flows or results of operations.
The enactment of proposed or future tax legislation may adversely impact our financial condition and results of operations.
The tax regimes to which we are subject or under which we operate are unsettled and may be subject to significant change. The issuance of additional guidance related to existing or future tax laws, or changes to tax laws or regulations proposed
Table of Contents
or implemented by the current or a future United States presidential administration, Congress, or taxing authorities in other jurisdictions could materially affect our tax obligations. For example, beginning in 2022, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated the option to deduct research and development expenditures in the year incurred and instead requires taxpayers to capitalize and subsequently amortize such expenditures over five years for research activities conducted in the United States and over 15 years for research activities conducted outside the United States. In addition, United States federal, state and local tax laws are extremely complex and subject to various interpretations. Although we believe that our tax estimates and positions are reasonable, there can be no assurance that our tax positions will not be challenged by relevant tax authorities. If the relevant tax authorities assess additional taxes on us, this could result in adjustments to, or impact the timing or amount of, taxable income, deductions or other tax allocations, which may adversely affect our results of operations and financial position.
Our international operations may subject us to greater than anticipated tax liabilities.
The amount of taxes we may pay in different jurisdictions depends on the application of the tax laws of various jurisdictions, including the United States, to our international business activities, changes in tax rates, new or revised tax laws or interpretations of existing tax laws and policies, and our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements. The taxing authorities of the jurisdictions in which we operate may challenge our methodologies for pricing intercompany transactions pursuant to any future intercompany arrangement or disagree with our determinations as to the income and expenses attributable to specific jurisdictions. If such a challenge or disagreement were to occur, and our position was not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest and penalties, which could result in one-time tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows, and lower overall profitability of our operations. Our financial statements could fail to reflect adequate reserves to cover such a contingency. Similarly, a taxing authority could assert that we are subject to tax in a jurisdiction where we believe we have not established a taxable connection, often referred to as a “permanent establishment” under international tax treaties, and such an assertion, if , could increase our expected tax liability in one or more jurisdictions.
We do not intend to pay dividends on our capital stock, and as such any returns will be limited to the value of our securities.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain future earnings for the development, operation and expansion of our business and do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. Any return to securityholders will therefore be limited to the appreciation of their securities.
Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws, as well as provisions of Delaware law, could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us or increase the cost of acquiring us, even if doing so would benefit our securityholders or remove our current management.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, as amended, amended and restated bylaws and Delaware law contain provisions that may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control of us or changes in our management. Our charter documents also contain other provisions that could have an anti-takeover effect, such as:
establishing a classified board of directors so that not all members of our board of directors are elected at one time;
permitting the board of directors to establish the number of directors and fill any vacancies and newly created directorships;
providing that directors may only be removed for cause;
prohibiting cumulative voting for directors;
requiring super-majority voting to amend some provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws;
Table of Contents
authorizing the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our board of directors could use to implement a stockholder rights plan;
eliminating the ability of stockholders to call special meetings of stockholders; and
prohibiting stockholder action by written consent, which requires all stockholder actions to be taken at a meeting of our stockholders.
These provisions, alone or together, could delay, deter or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our management.
In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which limits the ability of stockholders owning in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock to merge or combine with us.
Any provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or amended and restated bylaws, each as amended, or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our securityholders to receive a premium for their securities and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our securities.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws, each as amended, provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws, each as amended, provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for the following types of actions or proceedings under Delaware statutory or common law: any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf; any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty; any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws, each as amended, or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine. This provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the United States federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction.
The choice of forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and other employees. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or in our amended and restated bylaws, as amended, to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business and financial condition.
Sales of substantial amounts of our outstanding common stock in the public market could cause our common stock price to fall.
Our common stock price could decline as a result of sales of a large number of shares of common stock or the perception that these sales could occur. These sales, or the possibility that these sales may occur, might also make it more difficult for us to sell equity securities in the future at a time and price that we deem appropriate.
In addition, in the future, we may issue shares of common stock, or other equity or debt securities convertible into common stock, in connection with a financing, acquisition, employee arrangement or otherwise. Any such issuance, including pursuant to any at-the-market agreements, could result in substantial dilution to our existing stockholders and could cause the price of our common stock to decline.
Table of Contents
