Item 1A. Risk Factors.
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks described below, as well as the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our financial statements and the related notes and the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” before deciding whether to invest in our common stock. The occurrence of any of the events or developments described below or other risks we face could materially and adversely affect our business, competitive position, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and growth prospects. In such an event, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial also may impair our business operations and the market price of our common stock.
Risks related to our limited operating history, financial position and need for additional capital
We are a clinical-stage precision oncology company with a limited operating history and no products approved for commercial sale. We have incurred significant losses since our inception. We expect to incur losses for at least the next several years and may never achieve or maintain profitability, which, together with our limited operating history, makes it difficult to assess our future viability.
Biopharmaceutical product development is a highly speculative undertaking and involves a substantial degree of risk. We are a clinical-stage precision oncology company, and we have only a limited operating history upon which you can evaluate our business and prospects. We currently have no products approved for commercial sale, have not generated any revenue from sales of products and have incurred losses in each year since our inception in October 2014. In addition, we have not yet demonstrated an ability to successfully overcome many of the risks and uncertainties frequently encountered by companies in new and rapidly evolving fields, particularly in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Since our inception, we have incurred significant net losses. Our net losses were $1.1 billion, $600.1 million and $436.4 million, for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively. As of December 31, 2025, we had an accumulated deficit of $2.9 billion. We have funded our operations to date primarily with proceeds from the sale of common stock and preferred stock, the acquisition of EQRx, and the Royalty Purchase Agreement, as well as upfront payments and research and development cost reimbursement received under the Sanofi Agreement. The Sanofi Agreement was terminated in June 2023, and Sanofi has no further reimbursement obligations following this termination. To date, we have devoted substantially all of our resources to organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, acquiring and discovering development programs, securing intellectual property rights and conducting discovery, research and development activities for our programs. We have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete any clinical trials, including pivotal clinical trials, obtain marketing approvals, manufacture a commercial-scale product, or arrange for a third party to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful product commercialization. Our product candidates will require additional development time and resources before we will be to apply for or receive regulatory approvals and, if approved, begin generating revenue from product sales. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating for the foreseeable future.
We have never generated revenue from product sales and may never be profitable.
We have never generated revenue from product sales and our ability to generate future revenue from product sales and achieve profitability depends heavily on our, and any potential future collaborators’, success in:
completing clinical and preclinical development of product candidates and programs and identifying and developing new product candidates;
seeking and obtaining marketing approvals for our product candidates;
launching and commercializing product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval by establishing a sales force, marketing, medical affairs and distribution infrastructure or, alternatively, collaborating with a commercialization partner;
achieving adequate coverage and reimbursement by third-party payors for our product candidates;
establishing and maintaining supply and manufacturing relationships with third parties that can provide adequate, in both amount and quality, products and services to support clinical development and the market demand for our product candidates, if approved;
obtaining market acceptance of our product candidates as viable treatment options, if approved;
addressing any competing technological and market developments;
negotiating favorable terms in any collaboration, licensing or other arrangements into which we may enter and performing our obligations under such collaborations;
maintaining, protecting, enforcing and expanding our portfolio of intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, trade secrets and know-how;
defending against third-party interference, infringement or other intellectual property-related claims, if any; and
attracting, hiring and retaining qualified personnel.
Even if one or more of our product candidates is approved for commercial sale, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with commercializing any approved product candidate, including prior to a potential launch of any approved product candidate. Our expenses could increase beyond expectations if we are required by the FDA, the European Medicines Agency (the EMA) or other regulatory agencies to perform clinical trials or studies in addition to those that we currently anticipate. Even if we are able to generate revenue from the sale of any approved products, we may not become profitable and may need to obtain additional funding to continue operations.
We will require substantial additional financing to achieve our goals, which may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all. A failure to obtain this necessary capital when needed could force us to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or commercialization efforts.
Our operations have consumed substantial amounts of cash since our inception. Since our inception, we have invested a significant portion of our efforts and financial resources in research and development activities for our initial preclinical and clinical product candidates.
Preclinical studies, clinical trials and additional research and development activities will require substantial funds to complete. As of December 31, 2025, we had cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $2.0 billion. Through December 31, 2025, we have raised $2.1 billion in underwritten public offerings, net of underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses and have completed sales generating $599.9 million in gross proceeds pursuant to at-the-market equity offering programs. In June 2025, we received $250.0 million of gross proceeds under the Royalty Purchase Agreement, and subject to our meeting certain terms and conditions, including certain commercial milestones and other trigger events, additional capital may be available under the Loan Agreement and the Royalty Purchase Agreement (see “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements” contained in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information).The EQRx Acquisition added $1.1 billion to our working capital in 2023. We expect to continue to spend substantial amounts to continue the preclinical and clinical development of our current and future programs and to prepare for their potential commercialization. If we are able to gain marketing approval for our product candidates, we will require significant additional amounts of cash in order to launch and commercialize our product candidates, if approved, to the extent that their launch and commercialization are not the responsibility of another collaborator that we may contract with in the future. In addition, other costs may arise. Because the design and outcome of our current, planned and potential future clinical trials is highly uncertain, we cannot reasonably estimate the actual amounts necessary to complete the development and commercialization of our product candidates.
The timing and amount of our future funding requirements depends on many factors, including:
the scope, progress, results and costs of researching and developing our product candidates and programs, and of conducting preclinical studies and clinical trials;
the cost of manufacturing our current and future product candidates for clinical trials in preparation for marketing approval and in preparation for commercialization;
the timing of, and the costs involved in, obtaining marketing approvals for our product candidates if clinical trials are successful;
the cost of commercialization activities for our product candidates, whether alone or in collaboration, including marketing, sales and distribution costs if any product candidate is approved for sale;
our ability to establish and maintain strategic licenses or other arrangements and the financial terms of such agreements;
the costs involved in preparing, filing, prosecuting, maintaining, expanding, defending and enforcing patent claims, including litigation costs and the outcome of such litigation;
the timing, receipt and amount of sales of, profit share or royalties on, our product candidates, if approved;
the emergence of competing cancer therapies or other adverse market developments; and
any plans to acquire or in-license other programs or technologies.
We will require substantial additional funds for our development efforts for our current and future programs and to prepare for their potential commercialization. Other than the Royalty Purchase Agreement and the Term Loan Facility (which provide for additional funding subject to certain terms and conditions and trigger events), we do not have any committed external source of funds or other support for these activities, and we may finance our cash needs through additional funding under the Royalty Purchase Agreement, the Term Loan Facility and/or a combination of public or private equity offerings, debt financings, other credit or loan facilities, acquisitions, collaborations, strategic alliances, licensing arrangements and other marketing or distribution arrangements. In addition, we may seek additional capital due to favorable market conditions or strategic considerations even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans. See “Item 1. Management’s Discussion and Analysis—Liquidity and Capital Resources” for additional information.
Our ability to raise additional funds will depend on financial, economic and other factors, many of which are beyond our control.
If we need to raise additional capital to fund our operations, funding may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing when needed, we may have to:
delay, limit, reduce the scope of or terminate one or more of our preclinical studies, clinical trials, or other research and development activities or eliminate one or more of our development programs altogether; or
delay, limit, reduce the scope of or terminate our efforts to establish manufacturing and sales and marketing capabilities or other activities that may be necessary to commercialize any future approved products, or reduce our flexibility in developing or maintaining our sales and marketing strategy.
The Royalty Pharma Agreements place restrictions on our operating and financial flexibility. If we fail to comply with certain covenants in the Royalty Pharma Agreements, our financial condition and results of operations may be harmed.
In June 2025, we entered into the Royalty Purchase Agreement with Royalty Pharma and the Loan Agreement with an affiliate of Royalty Pharma and Wilmington Trust, National Association, as the administrative agent (collectively, the Royalty Pharma Agreements). The Royalty Pharma Agreements contain various customary covenants that impose on us certain obligations with respect to payment, reporting, intellectual property, certain license agreements, and certain other actions, as well as indemnification obligations. Compliance with these covenants may limit our flexibility in operating our business and our ability to take actions that might otherwise be advantageous to us and our stockholders.
Under the Royalty Purchase Agreement, we have diligence obligations with respect to certain clinical trials, regulatory submissions and marketing approvals. There are also covenants that, among other things and subject to certain conditions, limit our ability to create or incur certain liens or dispose of certain assets related to the RMC-6236 Products. Pursuant to the Royalty Purchase Agreement, we have granted to Royalty Pharma a back-up security interest in certain assets to secure our obligations under the Royalty Purchase Agreement. If we are unable to comply with our obligations, Royalty Pharma may be entitled to take possession of such assets, which could significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The Loan Agreement also subjects us to various customary covenants that limit our ability to, among other activities (but subject to certain customary exceptions): (i) pay dividends, redeem stock or make other distributions or investments; (ii) incur additional debt; (iii) transfer or sell assets; (iv) create liens; (v) engage in certain transactions with affiliates; (vi) create restrictions on dividends or other payments by our subsidiaries; and (vii) merge, consolidate or effect other fundamental changes.
Any indebtedness we incur, including under the Loan Agreement, combined with our other financial obligations and contractual commitments could have significant adverse consequences, including:
requiring us to dedicate a portion of our cash resources to the payment of interest and principal, reducing money available to fund working capital, capital expenditures, product candidate development and other general corporate purposes;
increasing our vulnerability to adverse changes in general economic, industry and market conditions;
subjecting us to restrictive covenants that may reduce our ability to take certain corporate actions or obtain further debt or equity financings;
increasing our need to meet minimum net sales requirements when our future sales are uncertain;
limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we compete; and
placing us at a competitive disadvantage compared to our competitors that have less debt or better debt servicing options.
We intend to satisfy our current and future debt service obligations with our then-existing cash and cash equivalents. However, we may not have sufficient funds, and may be unable to arrange for additional financing, to pay the amounts due under the Loan Agreement or any other debt instruments. Failure to satisfy our current and future debt obligations, including covenants to take or avoid specific actions, under the Loan Agreement could result in an event of default and, as a result, the lender(s) could accelerate all of the amounts due, and the lender(s) could seek to enforce their security interests in any collateral securing such indebtedness. The lender(s) under the Loan Agreement have rights senior to our stockholders in receiving proceeds from a liquidation. In addition, the covenants under the Loan Agreement, and the pledge of our assets (including our intellectual property) as collateral could limit our ability to obtain additional debt financing. If we raise any additional debt financing, the terms of such additional debt could further restrict our operating and financial flexibility.
Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which will make our future results difficult to predict and could cause our results to fall below expectations.
Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate significantly, which will make it difficult for us to predict our future results. These fluctuations may occur due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control and may be difficult to predict, including:
the timing and cost of, and level of investment in, research, development and commercialization activities, which may change from time to time;
the timing and status of enrollment for our clinical trials;
the timing of regulatory approvals, if any, in the United States and internationally;
the timing of expanding our operational, financial and management systems and personnel, including personnel to support our clinical development, quality control, manufacturing and commercialization efforts and our operations as a public company;
the cost of manufacturing, as well as building out our supply chain, which may vary depending on the quantity of productions, the terms of any agreements we enter into with third-party suppliers and tariffs that may apply;
the timing and amount of any milestone, royalty or other payments due under any current or future collaboration or license agreements;
the timing and level of royalty payments under the Royalty Purchase Agreement;
coverage and reimbursement policies with respect to any future approved products, and potential future drugs that compete with our products;
the timing and costs to establish sales, marketing, medical affairs and distribution infrastructure to commercialize any products for which we may obtain marketing approval and intend to commercialize on our own or jointly with one or more collaborators;
expenditures that we may incur to acquire, develop or commercialize additional products and technologies;
the level of demand for any future approved products, which may vary significantly over time;
future accounting pronouncements or changes in our accounting policies; and
the timing and success or failure of preclinical studies and clinical trials for our product candidates or competing product candidates, or any other change in the competitive landscape of our industry, including consolidation among our competitors or collaboration partners.
The cumulative effects of these factors could result in large fluctuations and unpredictability in our quarterly and annual operating results. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Investors should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance.
This variability and unpredictability could also result in our failing to meet the expectations of industry or financial analysts or investors for any period. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of analysts or investors or below any forecasts we may provide to the market, or if the forecasts we provide to the market are below the expectations of analysts or investors, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Such a stock price decline could occur even when we have met any previously publicly stated revenue or operating guidance we may provide.
Risks related to product development and regulatory process
Our business is dependent on the successful development of our current and future product candidates. If we, alone or in collaboration, are unable to advance our current or future product candidates through clinical trials, obtain marketing approval and ultimately commercialize any of our product candidates, or we experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be materially harmed.
Our business is dependent on the successful development of our current and future product candidates. We are evaluating certain of our product candidates in both exploratory and pivotal clinical trials, both as monotherapy and in combination regimens, including the RASolute 302, RASolute 303, RASolute 304, RASolute 305, and RASolve 301. The remainder of our programs are in the preclinical stage, and the clinical development of these programs is subject to our continuing assessment of our portfolio priorities. The success of our business, including our ability to finance our company and generate revenue from products in the future, which we do not expect will occur for several years, if ever, will depend heavily on the successful development and eventual commercialization of our product candidates, which may never occur. Our current product candidates, and any of our future product candidates, will require additional preclinical and clinical development, management of clinical, preclinical and manufacturing activities, marketing approval in the United States and other markets, demonstrating effectiveness to pricing and reimbursement authorities, obtaining sufficient manufacturing supply for both clinical development and commercial production, building of a commercial organization, and substantial investment and significant marketing efforts before we generate any revenues from product sales.
We have not previously submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA or similar applications to a comparable foreign regulatory authority, for any product candidate. An NDA or other relevant regulatory application must include extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to establish that the product candidate is safe and effective for each desired indication. The NDA or other relevant application must also include significant information regarding the CMC for the product. We cannot be certain that our current or future product candidates will be successful in clinical trials or receive regulatory approval. Further, even if they are successful in clinical trials, our product candidates or any future product candidates may not receive regulatory approval. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for current or future product candidates, we may not be able to continue our operations. Even if we successfully obtain regulatory approval to market a product candidate, our revenue will depend, in part, upon the size of the markets in the territories for which we or collaborators gain regulatory approval and have commercial rights, as well as the availability of competitive products, whether there is sufficient third-party reimbursement and adoption by physicians.
We plan to seek regulatory approval to commercialize our product candidates both in the United States and in select foreign countries, alone or in collaboration. While the scope of regulatory approval generally is similar in other countries, in order to obtain separate regulatory approval in other countries we must comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements of such countries regarding safety and efficacy. Other countries also have their own regulations governing, among other things, clinical trials and commercial sales, as well as pricing and distribution of drugs, and we may be required to expend significant resources to obtain regulatory approval and to comply with ongoing regulations in these jurisdictions.
The success of our current and future product candidates will depend on several factors, including the following:
successful completion of clinical trials and preclinical studies;
sufficiency of our financial and other resources to complete the necessary preclinical studies and clinical trials;
allowance to proceed with clinical trials under Investigational New Drug applications (INDs) by the FDA or under comparable applications by comparable regulatory authorities for our planned clinical trials or future clinical trials;
successful enrollment and completion of clinical trials, particularly where competitors may also be recruiting patients;
data from our clinical programs that supports an acceptable risk-benefit profile of our product candidates in the intended populations;
receipt and maintenance of marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities;
establishing agreements with third-party manufacturers for clinical supply for our clinical trials and commercial manufacturing, if one of our product candidates is approved;
entry into collaborations to further the development of our product candidates;
obtaining and maintaining our portfolio of intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets and know-how;
enforcing and defending intellectual property rights and claims;
obtaining and maintaining regulatory exclusivity for our product candidates;
successfully launching commercial sales of our product candidates, if approved;
acceptance of the product candidate’s benefits and uses, if approved, by patients, the medical community and third-party payors;
the prevalence, duration and severity of potential side effects or other safety issues experienced with our product candidates prior to or following any approval;
effectively competing with other therapies; and
obtaining and maintaining healthcare coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors.
If we or our collaborators are not successful with respect to one or more of these factors in a timely manner or at all, we could experience significant delays or an inability to successfully commercialize our current or future product candidates, which would materially harm our business. If we or our collaborators do not receive marketing approvals for any of our product candidates, we may not be able to continue our operations.
Preclinical development is uncertain. Our preclinical programs may experience delays or may never advance to clinical trials, which would adversely affect our ability to obtain regulatory approvals or commercialize our product candidates on a timely basis or at all, which would have an adverse effect on our business.
In order to obtain approval from the FDA or comparable foreign authorities to market a new small molecule product, we must demonstrate proof of safety and efficacy in humans. To meet these requirements, we will have to conduct adequate and well-controlled clinical trials. Before we can commence clinical trials for a product candidate, we must complete extensive preclinical studies that support our planned INDs in the United States. We cannot be certain of the timely completion or outcome of our preclinical studies and cannot predict if the FDA or foreign authorities will accept our proposed clinical programs or if the outcome of our preclinical studies will ultimately support further development of our programs. As a result, we cannot be sure that we will be able to submit INDs or similar applications on the timelines we expect, if at all, and we cannot be sure that submission of INDs or similar applications will result in the FDA or other regulatory authorities allowing additional clinical trials to begin.
Conducting preclinical testing is a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive process. The length of time may vary substantially according to the type, complexity and novelty of the program, and often can be several years or more per program. Delays associated with programs for which we are directly conducting preclinical studies may cause us to incur additional operating expenses. Moreover, we may be affected by delays or decisions to discontinue development associated with the studies of certain programs that are the responsibility of our current or potential future collaborators over which we have no control. The commencement and rate of completion of preclinical studies and clinical trials for a product candidate may be delayed by many factors, including, for example:
inability to generate sufficient preclinical or other in vivo or in vitro data to support the initiation of clinical studies;
delays in reaching a consensus with regulatory agencies on study design and obtaining regulatory allowance or authorization to commence clinical trials; and
obtaining sufficient quantities of starting materials, intermediate materials and our product candidates for use in preclinical studies and clinical trials from third-party suppliers on a timely basis.
Moreover, even if clinical trials do begin for our preclinical programs, our development efforts may not be successful, and clinical trials that we conduct or that third parties conduct on our behalf may not demonstrate sufficient safety or efficacy to obtain the requisite regulatory approvals for any of our product candidates. Even if we obtain positive results from preclinical studies or initial clinical trials, we may not achieve the same success in future trials.
The results of preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of future results.
The results of preclinical studies may not be predictive of the results of clinical trials, and the results of early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of the results of the later-stage clinical trials. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials. For example, historically, targeted therapies have been susceptible to resistance mutations in cancer cells that facilitate escape from anti-tumor response. Should such resistance mutations arise in patients being treated with our product candidates, the clinical benefit associated with those candidates may be compromised.
We are evaluating our product candidates in registrational trials, including RASolute 302, RASolute 303, RASolute 304, RASolute 305, and RASolve 301, and are currently planning additional registrational clinical trials for daraxonrasib and our other RAS(ON) inhibitors. These studies may not produce results that are consistent with expectations or that are predicted by our earlier clinical
observations for these compounds. Our plans for these and future planned registrational trials are, and will be based on our observations from the results of early-stage clinical trials using the same product candidates. Based on data from early-stage clinical trials, we will select, subject to regulatory feedback, the proposed indication, line of therapy, study design and dose and dose schedule for our registrational studies. However, these registrational studies, if initiated, may not be successful and may not produce results that are consistent with our expectations, based on our earlier clinical observations, including because other trial designs may have greater likelihood of development success.
There can be no assurance that any of our current or future clinical trials will ultimately be successful or support further clinical development of any of our product candidates. There is a high failure rate for product candidates proceeding through clinical trials. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in clinical development even after achieving promising results in earlier studies. Even if clinical trials with our product candidates are completed, the results may not be sufficient to obtain regulatory approval of any products.
If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.
The timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on the ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who remain in the trial until its conclusion. We may not be able to initiate or continue clinical trials for our product candidates if we are unable to locate and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials to such trial’s conclusion as required by the FDA or other comparable regulatory authorities. We or our future collaborators may experience difficulties in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons. The enrollment of patients depends on many factors, including:
the patient eligibility criteria defined in the protocol;
our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients with mutations in the signaling pathways that our therapies are designed to target;
the size of the patient population required for analysis of the trial’s primary endpoints;
the proximity of patients to study sites;
the design of the trial;
the ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience;
clinicians’ and patients’ perceptions as to the potential advantages of our product candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new products that may be approved for the indications we are investigating;
the ability to obtain and maintain patient consents for participation in our clinical trials and, where appropriate, biopsies for future patient enrichment efforts;
the risk that patients enrolled in clinical trials will not remain on the trial through the completion of evaluation; and
the ability of clinical trial investigators to enroll patients in cases of outbreak of disease, geopolitical or other conflicts or natural disasters, including as a result of the ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine or in the Middle East.
In addition, our clinical trials will compete with approved therapies, including sotorasib and adagrasib, as well as other clinical trials for product candidates that are in the same therapeutic areas (and that seek to evaluate patients with cancer cells having the same mutations), particularly for patients having KRAS G12C, KRAS G12D, KRAS G12V mutations, as our current and potential future product candidates. See “Item 1. Business—Competition” for additional information regarding our competitors. This competition and competition with approved therapies will reduce the number and types of patients available for clinical trials involving our product candidates, because some patients who might have opted to enroll in our trials may instead opt to pursue a treatment regimen using an approved therapy or enroll in a trial conducted by one of our competitors. Because the number of qualified clinical investigators is limited, we conduct some of our clinical trials at the same clinical trial sites that some of our competitors use, which will reduce the number of patients who are available for our clinical trials at such sites. Moreover, because our current and potential future product candidates may represent a departure from more commonly used methods for cancer treatment, potential patients and their doctors may be inclined to use conventional therapies, such as chemotherapy, rather than enroll patients in our ongoing or any future clinical trials.
Delays in patient enrollment may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or outcome of clinical trials, which could prevent completion of these trials and adversely affect our ability to advance the development of our product candidates.
We and our collaborators are currently developing, and may in the future develop, our product candidates in combination with other therapies, which exposes us to additional risks.
Some of our or our collaborators’ development efforts involve combinations of our product candidates with their own product candidates and therapeutics that have been approved for marketing by the FDA. For example, the development of our RAS(ON) inhibitors includes combinations with existing therapies, including chemotherapy agents, a PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody, PRMT5 inhibitors, an anti-EGFR agent and a PD-1 inhibitor. In the future our product candidates may be developed in combination with one or more additional approved therapies. Even if any of our product candidates were to receive marketing approval or be commercialized for use in combination with other existing therapies, we would continue to be subject to the risks that the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside of the United States could revoke approval of the other therapy used in combination with our product candidate, or that safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues could arise with these other therapies. Combination therapies are commonly used for the treatment of cancer, and we would be subject to similar risks if we develop any of our product candidates for use in combination with other drugs or for indications other than cancer. This could result in our own products being removed from the market or being less successful commercially. In addition, developing combination therapies using approved therapeutics, which we are doing and may continue to do for our product candidates, us to additional clinical risks, such as the requirement that we demonstrate the safety and efficacy of each active component of any combination regimen we may develop, including any incremental benefits associated with our product candidates, which may prove .
We or our collaborators may also evaluate our current or future product candidates in combination with one or more other cancer therapies that have not yet been approved for marketing by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside of the United States or with approved cancer therapies at an unapproved dose and/or schedule, and/or with approved cancer therapies in unapproved indications. For example, the development of our RAS(ON) inhibitors includes combinations with other product candidates in our portfolio, including other RAS(ON) inhibitors. We will not be able to market and sell any of our product candidates in combination with any such cancer therapies, outside existing approved labels that do not ultimately obtain marketing approval.
If the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside of the United States do not approve the other therapies we choose to evaluate in combination with any of our product candidates or revoke their approval of these other therapies, or if safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues arise with these other therapies, we may be unable to obtain approval of or market or our product candidates.
We face significant competition, and if our competitors develop and market products that are more effective, safer or less expensive than our product candidates, our commercial opportunities will be negatively impacted.
The life sciences industry is highly competitive. We are currently developing therapies that will compete, if approved, with other products and therapies that currently exist or are being developed. Products we may develop in the future are also likely to face competition from other products and therapies, some of which we may not currently be aware of. We have competitors both in the United States and internationally, including major multinational pharmaceutical companies, established biotechnology companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies, universities and other research institutions. Many of our competitors have significantly greater financial, manufacturing, marketing, product development, technical and human resources than we do. Large pharmaceutical companies, in particular, have extensive experience in clinical testing, obtaining marketing approvals, recruiting patients and manufacturing pharmaceutical products. These companies also have significantly greater research and marketing capabilities than we do and may also have products that have been approved or are in late stages of development, and collaborative arrangements in our target markets with leading companies and research institutions. Established pharmaceutical companies may also invest heavily to accelerate discovery and development of novel compounds or to in-license novel compounds that could make our product candidates obsolete. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. As a result of all of these factors, our competitors may in obtaining patent protection and/or marketing approval or discovering, developing and commercializing products in our field before we do.
There are a number of companies developing or marketing treatments for cancer, including many major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. These treatments consist of small molecule drug products, biologics, cell-based therapies and traditional chemotherapy. Smaller and other early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors. In addition, academic research departments and public and private research institutions may be conducting research on compounds that could prove to be competitive.
We are aware of several pharmaceutical companies developing products in the same class as our investigational products. See “Item 1. Business—Competition” for additional information regarding our competitors.
Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe effects, are more convenient, have a broader label, are marketed more effectively, are reimbursed or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other marketing
approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. Even if our product candidates achieve marketing approval, they may be priced at a significant premium over competitive products if any have been approved by then, resulting in reduced competitiveness.
Third parties compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel, establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs. In addition, the biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by rapid technological change. If we fail to stay at the forefront of technological change, we may be unable to compete effectively. Technological advances or products developed by our competitors may render our product candidates obsolete, less competitive or not economical.
The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, the EMA and comparable foreign authorities are lengthy, time-consuming and inherently unpredictable, and if we or our potential future collaboration partners are ultimately unable to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates, our business will be substantially harmed.
The time required to obtain approval by the FDA and comparable foreign authorities is unpredictable but typically takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. In addition, approval policies, regulations, or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. We have not obtained regulatory approval for any product candidate, and it is possible that none of our current or future product candidates will ever obtain regulatory approval.
Our current and future product candidates could fail to receive regulatory approval for many reasons, including the following:
the FDA, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with the design or implementation of our clinical trials;
we may be unable to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FDA, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities that a product candidate is safe or effective for its proposed indication or indications;
the results of clinical trials may not meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities for approval;
we may be unable to demonstrate that a product candidate’s clinical and other benefits outweigh its safety risks;
the FDA, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data from clinical trials or preclinical studies;
the data collected from clinical trials of our product candidates may not be sufficient to support the submission of an NDA to the FDA or other submission or to obtain regulatory approval in the United States, the European Union (EU) or elsewhere;
the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may find deficiencies with or fail to approve the manufacturing processes or facilities of third-party manufacturers with which we contract for clinical and commercial supplies; and
the approval policies or regulations of the FDA, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may significantly change in a manner rendering our clinical data insufficient for approval.
This lengthy approval process as well as the unpredictability of clinical trial results may result in our or our future collaborators’ failure to obtain regulatory approval to market any of our product candidates. The FDA, the EMA and other comparable foreign authorities have substantial discretion in the approval process, and determining when or whether regulatory approval will be obtained for any product candidate that we develop. Even if we believe the data collected from future clinical trials of our product candidates are promising, this data may not be sufficient to support approval by the FDA or any other regulatory authority.
In addition, even if we or our future collaborators were to obtain approval, regulatory authorities may approve any of our product candidates for fewer or more limited indications than we have sought, may not approve the prices we may desire to charge for our products, may grant approvals contingent on the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials, or may approve a product candidate with a label that does not include the labeling claims necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of that product candidate. Any of the foregoing scenarios could materially harm the prospects for our product candidates.
Further, we have not previously submitted an NDA to the FDA, or a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) to the EMA or any other regulatory authority. We cannot be certain that any of our programs will be successful in clinical trials or receive regulatory approval. Further, our product candidates may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in clinical trials. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for our product candidates, we may not be able to continue our operations.
Clinical product development involves a lengthy and expensive process, with uncertain outcomes. We or our potential future collaboration partners may experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete, the development and commercialization of our current and future product candidates.
To obtain the requisite regulatory approvals to commercialize any of our product candidates, we must demonstrate through extensive preclinical studies and clinical trials that our products are safe or effective in humans. Clinical testing is expensive and can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process, and future clinical trials involving our product candidates may not be successful.
We may experience delays in completing our clinical trials or preclinical studies and initiating or completing additional clinical trials. We may also experience numerous unforeseen events during our clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to complete these clinical trials on the timelines we expect or otherwise delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates, including:
actions by regulators, institutional review boards (IRBs) or ethics committees, which may cause us or our investigators to not commence or conduct a clinical trial at a prospective trial site or at all sites and cause us to pause or stop an in-process clinical trial;
delays in reaching, or failing to reach, agreement on acceptable terms with prospective trial sites and prospective contract research organizations (CROs);
delays in identifying, recruiting and training suitable clinical investigators;
the number of patients required for clinical trials being larger than we anticipate;
difficulty enrolling a sufficient number of patients for our clinical trials or enrollment in our trials being slower than we anticipate, including in both cases because appropriate patients must have the relevant mutations in the signaling pathways our therapies are designed to target;
participants dropping out of our clinical trials or failing to return for post-treatment follow-up at a higher rate than we anticipate;
patients or investigators not complying with our clinical trial protocols, particularly with respect to intermittent dosing, which we are evaluating for our product candidates;
subjects experiencing severe or serious unexpected drug-related adverse effects;
occurrence of serious adverse events in trials of the same class of agents conducted by other companies that could be considered similar to our product candidates;
selection of clinical endpoints that require prolonged periods of clinical observation or extended analysis of the resulting data;
our third-party contractors may fail to comply with regulatory requirements or meet their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner, or at all, or may deviate from the clinical trial protocol or drop out of the trial, which may require that we add new clinical trial sites or investigators;
the supply or quality of materials for our product candidates or other materials necessary to conduct clinical trials may be insufficient or inadequate;
lack of adequate funding to continue a clinical trial, or costs being greater than we anticipate; and
our collaborators may delay the development process by waiting to take action or focusing on other priorities.
We could encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the IRBs or ethics committees of the institutions in which any such trial is being conducted, by the data safety monitoring board for such trial or by the FDA or other regulatory authorities. Such authorities may impose such a suspension or termination due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA or other regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a product, changes in government regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. Many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the of marketing approval of our product candidates.
Further, conducting clinical trials in foreign countries, as we or our collaborators may do for our current or future product candidates, presents additional risks that may delay completion of our clinical trials. These risks include the failure of enrolled subjects in foreign
countries to adhere to clinical protocols as a result of differences in healthcare services or cultural customs, managing additional administrative burdens associated with foreign regulatory schemes, and political and economic risks, including war, relevant to these foreign countries.
Principal investigators for our clinical trials may serve as scientific advisors or consultants to us from time to time and receive compensation in connection with their services. Under certain circumstances, we may be required to report some of these relationships to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may conclude that a financial relationship between us and a principal investigator has created a conflict of interest or otherwise affected interpretation of the study. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may therefore question the integrity of the data generated at the applicable clinical trial site and the utility of the clinical trial itself may be jeopardized. This could result in a delay in approval, or rejection, of marketing applications by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority, as the case may be, for our product candidates and may ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of one or more of our product candidates.
If we or our collaborators experience delays in the completion of, or termination of, any clinical trial of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of our product candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate revenues from any of these product candidates will be delayed. In addition, any delays in completing clinical trials for our product candidates will increase our costs, slow down our product candidate development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues. Clinical trial delays could also allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do or shorten any periods during which we have the exclusive right to commercialize our product candidates and impair our ability to commercialize our product candidates.
In addition, the FDA’s and other regulatory authorities’ policies with respect to clinical trials may change, and additional government regulations may be enacted. For instance, the regulatory landscape related to clinical trials in the EU recently evolved. The EU Clinical Trials Regulation (CTR), which was adopted in April 2014 and repealed the EU Clinical Trials Directive, became applicable on January 31, 2022, with a three-year transition period. The CTR provides for a centralized process and only requires the submission of a single application for multi-center trials. The CTR allows sponsors to make a single submission to both the competent authority and an ethics committee in each member state, leading to a single decision per member state. The assessment procedure of the clinical trial application (CTA) has been harmonized as well, including a joint assessment by all member states concerned, and a separate assessment by each member state with respect to specific requirements related to its own territory, including ethics rules. Each member state’s decision is communicated to the sponsor via the centralized EU portal. Once the CTA is approved, clinical study development may proceed. As of February 1, 2025, all clinical trials (including those which are ongoing) in the EU are subject to the provisions of the CTR. Compliance with the CTR requirements by us and our third-party service providers, such as our CROs, may impact our development plans.
The United Kingdom’s (UK) regulatory framework in relation to clinical trials is derived from pre-existing EU legislation (as implemented into UK law, through secondary legislation). In April 2025, the UK government the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Amendment Regulations 2024. The amendment, which will take full effect from April 2026, aims to provide a more flexible regime to make it easier to conduct clinical trials in the UK, increase the transparency of clinical trials conducted in the UK and make clinical trials more patient centered.
If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies governing clinical trials, our development plans may be impacted.
Many of the factors described above that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates or result in the development of our product candidates being stopped early.
Interim, “topline” and preliminary data from our clinical trials may differ materially from the final data.
From time to time, we may disclose interim data from our clinical trials. For example, we have reported interim Phase 1 single agent clinical data for daraxonrasib, elironrasib and zoldonrasib. In each case, this interim data included a limited number of patients and time of exposure to the study drug. Interim data from clinical trials are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more data on existing patients become available. When a clinical trial is ongoing, the final results from the trial may be materially different from those reflected in any interim data we report.
From time to time, we may also publicly disclose preliminary or “topline” data from our clinical trials, which are based on a preliminary analysis of then-available data, and the results and related findings and conclusions are subject to change following a more comprehensive review of the data related to the particular trial. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, including decisions to initiate pivotal clinical trials based on then-available data, and we may not have
received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data. As a result, the topline results that we report may differ from future results of the same clinical trials, or different conclusions or considerations may qualify such topline results once additional data have been received and fully evaluated. Topline data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, topline data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available.
Further, others, including regulatory agencies, may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular product candidate or product and the value of our company in general. In addition, the information we choose to publicly disclose regarding a particular study or clinical trial is typically a summary of 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 significant with respect to future decisions, conclusions, views, activities or otherwise regarding a particular product, product candidate or our business. If the topline 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, our product candidates may be harmed.
Our current or future product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties when used alone or in combination with other approved products or investigational new drugs that could delay or halt their clinical development, prevent their marketing approval, limit their commercial potential or result in significant negative consequences.
Results of our trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Undesirable or clinically unmanageable side effects could occur and 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 marketing approval by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Any treatment-related side effects could also affect patient recruitment in the relevant trial or other current or future trials involving the same product candidate or other product candidates, or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the trial, and could result in potential product liability claims.
For example, the safety and tolerability data we have released from the daraxonrasib, elironrasib and zoldonrasib studies included adverse events (AEs), including serious adverse events (SAEs) and AEs that led to dose interruption or reduction.
Although our current and future product candidates will undergo safety testing to the extent possible and, where applicable, under such conditions discussed with regulatory authorities, not all adverse effects of drugs can be predicted or anticipated.
Unforeseen side effects could arise either during clinical development or, if such side effects are rarer, following approval or commercialization after exposure to additional patients. So far, we have not demonstrated that our product candidates are safe in humans, and we cannot predict if ongoing or future clinical trials will do so.
Furthermore, certain of our product candidates are currently being, and may in the future be, co-administered with approved or experimental therapies. These combinations may have additional side effects, including those that could lead us to discontinue the studies. The uncertainty resulting from the use of our product candidates in combination with other therapies may make it difficult to accurately predict side effects in future clinical trials.
If any of our product candidates receives marketing approval and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by such products, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:
regulatory authorities may withdraw their approval of the product;
we may be required to recall a product or change the way such product is administered to patients;
additional restrictions may be imposed on the marketing of the particular product or the manufacturing processes for the product or any component thereof;
regulatory authorities may require the addition of labeling statements, such as a “black box” warning or a contraindication;
we may be required to implement a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) or create a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to patients;
we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients;
the product may become less competitive; and
our reputation may suffer.
Any of the foregoing events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular product candidate, if approved. In addition, if one or more of our product candidates prove to be unsafe, our entire technology platform and pipeline could be affected.
Even if we complete the necessary preclinical studies and clinical trials, the marketing approval process is expensive, time-consuming and uncertain and may prevent us or any of our existing or potential future collaboration partners from obtaining approvals for the commercialization of any of our product candidates.
Any of our current or future product candidates and the activities associated with their development and commercialization, including their design, testing, manufacture, safety, efficacy, recordkeeping, labeling, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale, and distribution, are subject to comprehensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the United States and by comparable authorities in other countries. Failure to obtain marketing approval for a product candidate will prevent us from commercializing the product candidate in a given jurisdiction. We have not received approval to market any product candidates from regulatory authorities in any jurisdiction, and it is possible that none of our current or future product candidates will ever obtain regulatory approval. We have no experience submitting and supporting the applications necessary to gain marketing approvals and expect to rely on third-party CROs or regulatory consultants to assist us in this process. Securing regulatory approval requires the submission of extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to the various regulatory authorities for each therapeutic indication to establish the product candidate’s safety and efficacy. Securing regulatory approval also requires the submission of information about the product manufacturing process to, and inspection of manufacturing facilities by, the relevant regulatory authority. Any of our product candidates may not be effective, may be only moderately effective, or may prove to have or side effects, toxicities or other characteristics that may our obtaining marketing approval or prevent or limit commercial use.
The process of obtaining marketing approvals, both in the United States and abroad, is expensive, may take many years if additional clinical trials are required, if approval is obtained at all, and can vary substantially based upon a variety of factors, including the type, complexity, and novelty of the product candidates involved. Changes in marketing approval policies during the development period, changes in or the enactment of additional statutes or regulations, or changes in regulatory review for each submitted product application, may cause delays in the approval or rejection of an application. For instance, the EU pharmaceutical legislation has been undergoing a complete review process, in the context of the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe initiative, launched by the European Commission in November 2020. The European Commission’s proposal for revision of several legislative instruments related to medicinal products was published on April 26 2023. The proposed changes were since discussed and negotiated by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU as part of the EU ordinary legislative process. A provisional agreement was reached by the European Parliament and Council of the EU on the proposed revisions in December 2025. The proposed revisions (affecting the duration of regulatory data protection and market protection, including for orphan medicinal products and revising the eligibility for expedited pathways) remain to be formally adopted by the two institutions, which is not anticipated before early 2026. The proposed changes are not expected to enter into application before 2028 and may, however, have a significant long-term impact on the biopharmaceutical industry.
The FDA and comparable authorities in other countries have substantial discretion in the approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our data are insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other studies. In addition, varying interpretations of the data obtained from preclinical and clinical testing could delay, limit, or prevent marketing approval of a product candidate. Any marketing approval we or our potential future collaboration partners ultimately obtain may be limited or subject to restrictions or post-approval commitments that render the approved product not commercially viable.
If we or potential future collaboration partners experience delays in obtaining approval or if we fail to obtain approval of any of our current or future product candidates, the commercial prospects for those product candidates may be harmed.
Obtaining and maintaining marketing approval of our current and future product candidates in one jurisdiction does not mean that we or our potential future collaboration partners will be successful in obtaining marketing approval of our current and future product candidates in other jurisdictions.
Obtaining and maintaining marketing approval of our current and future product candidates in one jurisdiction does not guarantee that we or our potential future collaboration partners will be able to obtain or maintain marketing approval in any other jurisdiction, while a failure or delay in obtaining marketing approval in one jurisdiction may have a negative effect on the marketing approval process in others. For example, even if the FDA grants marketing approval of a product candidate, comparable regulatory authorities in foreign jurisdictions must also approve the manufacturing, marketing and promotion of the product candidate in those countries. Approval procedures vary among jurisdictions and can involve requirements and administrative review periods different from, and greater than, those in the United States, including additional preclinical studies or clinical trials as clinical studies conducted in one jurisdiction may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions outside the United States, a product candidate must be approved for reimbursement before it can be approved for sale in that jurisdiction. In some cases, the price that may be charged for the products is also subject to approval.
We and our potential future collaboration partners may also submit marketing applications in other countries. Regulatory authorities in jurisdictions outside of the United States have requirements for approval of product candidates with which we must comply prior to marketing in those jurisdictions. Obtaining foreign marketing approvals and compliance with foreign regulatory requirements could result in significant delays, difficulties and costs for us and could delay or prevent the introduction of our products in certain countries. If we or our potential future collaboration partners fail to comply with the regulatory requirements in international markets or receive applicable marketing approvals in international markets, the target market for our product candidates will be reduced, and our ability to realize the full market potential of our product candidates will be harmed.
Adverse events in the field of oncology or the biopharmaceutical industry could damage public perception of our current or future product candidates and negatively affect our business.
The commercial success of our products will depend in part on public acceptance of the use of targeted cancer therapies. While a number of targeted cancer therapies have received regulatory approval and are being commercialized, our approach to targeting cancer cells carrying tumor causing mutations, including oncogenic RAS(ON) pathway mutations, is novel and unproven. Adverse events in clinical trials of our product candidates, or post-marketing activities, or in clinical trials of others developing similar products or that are related to approved targeted therapies, particularly those targeting oncogenic RAS pathway mutations, including sotorasib and adagrasib and the resulting publicity, as well as any other adverse events in the field of oncology that may occur in the future, could result in a decrease in demand for any product that we may develop. If public perception is influenced by claims that the use of cancer therapies is unsafe, whether related to our therapies or those of our competitors, our product candidates or products, if approved, may not be accepted by the general public or the medical community.
Future adverse events in oncology or the biopharmaceutical industry could also result in greater government regulation, stricter labeling requirements and potential regulatory delays in the testing or approvals of our products. Any increased scrutiny could delay or increase the costs of obtaining marketing approval for our current or future product candidates.
Even if we or our potential future collaboration partners receive marketing approval of a product candidate, we will be subject to ongoing regulatory obligations and continued regulatory review, which may result in significant additional expense, and we may be subject to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or experience unanticipated problems with our products, if approved.
Any marketing approvals that we or our potential future collaboration partners receive for any current or future product candidate may be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or the conditions of approval, or contain requirements for potentially costly post-market testing and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the product candidate. The FDA may also require REMS as a condition of approval of any product candidate, which could include requirements for a medication guide, physician communication plans or additional elements to ensure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. In addition, if the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority approves a product candidate, the manufacturing processes, labeling, packaging, distribution, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion, import and export and record keeping for the product will be subject to extensive and ongoing regulatory requirements. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, registration, as well as continued compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) or similar foreign requirements and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval. Later discovery of previously unknown with any
approved candidate, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with our third-party manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in, among other things:
restrictions on the marketing or manufacturing of the product, withdrawal of the product from the market, or product recalls;
restrictions on product distribution or use, or requirements to conduct post-marketing studies or clinical trials;
fines, untitled and warning letters, or holds on clinical trials;
refusal by the FDA or comparable foreign authorities to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications or suspension or revocation of approvals;
product seizure or detention, or refusal to permit the import or export of the product; and
injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties.
The occurrence of any event or penalty described above may inhibit our or our potential future collaboration partners’ ability to commercialize our product candidates and generate revenue and could require us to expend significant time and resources in response and could generate negative publicity.
The FDA’s and other regulatory authorities’ policies may change, and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay marketing approval of a product. We cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action, either in the United States or abroad. If we or our collaborators are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may lose any marketing approval that we may have obtained.
Even if a current or future product candidate receives marketing approval, it may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.
If any of our current or future product candidates receives marketing approval, whether as a single agent or in combination with other therapies, it may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors, and others in the medical community to be a viable product. For example, current approved immunotherapies, and other cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy, are well established in the medical community, and doctors may continue to rely on these therapies. The degree of market acceptance of any product candidate, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including:
efficacy and potential advantages compared to alternative treatments;
the ability to offer our products, if approved, for sale at competitive prices;
convenience and ease of administration compared to alternative treatments;
the willingness of the target patient population to try new therapies and of physicians to prescribe these therapies;
the strength of marketing and distribution support;
the ability to obtain sufficient third-party coverage and adequate reimbursement, including with respect to the use of the approved product as a combination therapy;
adoption of a companion diagnostic and/or complementary diagnostic (if any); and
the prevalence and severity of any side effects.
The number of patients who have the cancers we are targeting, including those with the necessary mutations, may turn out to be lower than expected. Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for our current programs or future product candidates may be limited, if and when approved. Even if we obtain significant market share for any product candidate, if and when approved, if the potential target populations are small, we may never achieve commercial success without obtaining marketing approval for additional indications, including to be used as first-line therapy.
Even if we are able to commercialize any product candidates, such products may become subject to unfavorable pricing regulations or third-party coverage and reimbursement policies.
The regulations that govern marketing approvals, pricing and reimbursement for new products vary widely from country to country. Some countries require approval of the sale price of a product before it can be marketed. In many countries, the pricing review period
begins after marketing approval is granted. In some foreign markets, prescription pharmaceutical pricing remains subject to continuing government control even after initial approval is granted. As a result, we or our potential future collaboration partners might obtain marketing approval for a product candidate in a particular country, but then be subject to price regulations that delay the commercial launch of the product candidate, possibly for lengthy time periods, and negatively impact the revenues we are able to generate from the sale of the product candidate in that country. Adverse pricing limitations may hinder our ability to recoup our investment in one or more product candidates, even if our product candidates obtain marketing approval.
Our and our potential future collaboration partners’ ability to commercialize any product candidates, whether as a single agent or combination therapy, successfully will also depend in part on the extent to which coverage and reimbursement for these product candidates and related treatments will be available from government authorities, private health insurers and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels.
It is difficult to predict at this time what government authorities and third-party payors will decide with respect to coverage and reimbursement for our programs.
There may be significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs, as the process is time-consuming and costly, and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the drug is approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Additionally, no uniform policy requirement for coverage and reimbursement for drug products exists among third-party payors in the United States, which may result in coverage and reimbursement for drug products that can differ significantly from payor to payor. Moreover, eligibility for reimbursement does not imply that any drug will be paid for in all cases or at a rate that covers our costs, including research, development, manufacture, sale and distribution. Interim reimbursement levels for new drugs, if applicable, may also not be sufficient to cover our costs and may not be made permanent. Reimbursement rates may vary according to the use of the drug and the clinical setting in which it is used, may be based on reimbursement levels already set for lower cost drugs and may be incorporated into existing payments for other services. Net prices for drugs may be reduced by mandatory discounts or rebates required by government healthcare programs or private payors and by any future relaxation of existing laws that restrict imports of drugs from countries where they may be sold at lower prices than in the United States. Third-party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement policies.
A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party payors have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular products and requiring substitutions of generic products and/or biosimilars. Increasingly, third-party payors are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for drugs. We cannot be sure that coverage will be available for any of our product candidates, even if approved, and, if coverage is available, the level of reimbursement. These third-party payors are also examining the cost-effectiveness of drugs in addition to their safety and efficacy. Reimbursement may impact the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval. If reimbursement is not available or is available only to limited levels, we or our potential third party collaborators may not be able to successfully commercialize any product candidate even if approved.
The U.S. presidential administration has stated that it is pursuing a two-fold strategy to reduce drug costs in the U.S. While it is unclear whether and how these proposals will be implemented, they are likely to have a negative impact on the pharmaceutical industry and on our ability to receive adequate revenues for any product candidate that we commercialize. On the one hand, the administration has threatened to impose significant tariffs on pharmaceutical manufacturers that do not adopt pricing policies such as most favored nation pricing, which would tie the price for drugs in the U.S. to the lowest price in a group of other countries. In response, multiple manufacturers have reportedly entered into confidential pricing agreements with the federal government. On the other hand, the administration is pursuing traditional regulatory pathways to impose drug pricing policies, and published two proposed regulations in December 2025, referred to as Globe and Guard. If finalized, these regulations would implement mandatory payment models under which manufacturers of eligible drugs would be required to pay rebates to the federal government on a portion of the units of their drugs that are reimbursed by Medicare, with the rebate amount based on most favored nation pricing. Imposing a rebate in the U.S. that is based on drug prices outside the U.S. would mark a and unprecedented shift in the U.S. pharmaceutical market, and while the impact of the Globe and Guard proposed regulations, if finalized, cannot yet be determined, it is likely to be significant. Even if such initiatives are modified, , or , the uncertainty surrounding these policy proposals may our ability to forecast revenues, plan commercial launch activities, negotiate contracts with payors, or make investment decisions regarding manufacturing scale-up and commercialization infrastructure.
We may fail to select or capitalize on the most scientifically, clinically and commercially promising or profitable drug candidates including mutant RAS(ON) targets.
We have limited technical, managerial and financial resources to determine which of our potential assets, including our RAS(ON) inhibitors, should be advanced into further preclinical development, initial clinical trials, later-stage clinical development and potential commercialization. From our RAS(ON) inhibitors, we have selected daraxonrasib, elironrasib and zoldonrasib for clinical evaluation. In making these prioritization decisions and selecting development candidates from our preclinical assets, we may make incorrect determinations. Our decisions to allocate our research and development, management and financial resources toward particular development candidates or therapeutic areas, including RASolute 302, RASolute 303, RASolute 304, RASolute 305, RASolve 301 and other pivotal trials, may not lead to the development of viable commercial products and may divert resources from better opportunities. Similarly, our decisions to delay or terminate development programs may also be incorrect and could cause us to miss valuable opportunities.
We may not be successful in our efforts to identify or discover other product candidates and may fail to capitalize on programs, product candidates or indications or lines of therapy for which there is a greater likelihood of success or that may present a greater commercial opportunity.
The success of our business depends upon our ability to identify, develop and commercialize product candidates. Research programs to identify new product candidates require substantial technical, financial and human resources, and we may fail to identify potential product candidates for numerous reasons.
Additionally, because we have limited resources and because of the decisions we make based on our observations from the results of earlier-stage clinical trials, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with certain programs or product candidates or for indications or lines of therapy that later prove to have a greater likelihood of success or for which there is greater commercial potential. For example, we may design our clinical trials, including our pivotal clinical trials, based on our observations from earlier-stage clinical trials. In doing so, we may make decisions regarding our study design, including our selection of the inclusion and exclusion criteria and endpoints, as well as our selection of dose and dose schedule and other factors, for those trials, while other study designs and dosing regimens may have a greater likelihood of success.
However, the advancement of a particular product candidate may ultimately prove to be unsuccessful or less successful than another program in our pipeline that we might have chosen to pursue on a less aggressive basis. Our estimates regarding the potential market for our product candidates could be inaccurate, and our spending on current and future research and development programs may not yield any commercially viable products. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential for a particular product candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that product candidate through collaboration, licensing or other arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights to such product candidate. Alternatively, we may allocate internal resources to a product candidate in a therapeutic area in which it would have been more advantageous to enter into a partnering arrangement.
If any of these events occur, we may be forced to abandon or delay our development efforts with respect to a particular product candidate or fail to develop a potentially successful product candidate.
We may need to use existing commercial diagnostic tests or develop, or enter into a collaboration or partnership to develop, novel complementary diagnostics and/or novel companion diagnostics for some of our current or future product candidates. If we or our partners are unable to successfully develop these companion diagnostics or complementary diagnostics, or experience significant delays in doing so, we may not realize the full commercial potential of our future product candidates.
As one of the key elements of our product development strategy, we seek to identify cancer patient populations that may derive meaningful benefit from our current or future product candidates. Because predictive biomarkers may be used to identify the right patients for our programs and our current or future product candidates, we believe that our success may depend, in part, on our ability to use existing diagnostic tests from third parties or develop novel complementary diagnostics and/or novel companion diagnostics in collaboration with partners.
In the event that novel tests will need to be developed, we have little experience in the development of diagnostics. We expect to rely on partners in developing appropriate diagnostics to pair with our current or future product candidates. We may be unsuccessful in entering into or maintaining collaborations for the development of companion diagnostics for use with our current or future product candidates in our markets of interest.
Complementary diagnostics and companion diagnostics are subject to regulation by the FDA and similar regulatory authorities outside the United States as medical devices and require separate regulatory approval, clearance or certification prior to commercialization. In addition, if the FDA determines that a companion diagnostic device is essential to the safe and effective use of a novel therapeutic product or indication, the FDA generally will not approve the therapeutic product or new therapeutic product indication if the companion diagnostic is not also approved or cleared for that indication. Companion diagnostics are developed in conjunction with clinical programs for the associated therapeutic product, and the FDA has generally required premarket approval of companion diagnostics for cancer therapies. The approval or clearance of a companion diagnostic as part of the therapeutic product’s further labeling limits the use of the therapeutic product to only those patients who express the specific characteristic, such as a biomarker, that the companion diagnostic was developed to detect.
If we, our partners, or any third parties that we engage to assist us, are unable to successfully develop complementary diagnostics and/or companion diagnostics for our product candidates and any future product candidates, or we experience delays in doing so:
the development of our product candidates and any other future product candidates may be adversely affected if we are unable to appropriately select patients for enrollment in our clinical trials;
we may be unable to obtain approval for any of our product candidates for which the FDA or foreign regulatory authority has determined a companion diagnostic is required; and
we may not realize the full commercial potential of our product candidates and any other future product candidates that receive marketing approval if, among other reasons, we are unable to appropriately identify, or it takes us longer to identify, patients who are likely to benefit from therapy with our products, if approved.
Even if we or our current or future partners are successful in the development of diagnostics for use with our current or future product candidates, there are also risks associated with the commercial supply of these diagnostics.
We may seek and fail to obtain fast track or breakthrough therapy designations for our current or future product candidates. Even if we are successful, these programs may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review process, and they do not guarantee we will receive approval for any product candidate.
If a product is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition, and preclinical or clinical data demonstrate the potential to address an unmet medical need for this condition, the product sponsor may apply for fast track designation. Specifically, drugs are eligible for fast track designation if they are intended, alone or in combination with one or more drugs or biologics, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and demonstrate the potential to address unmet medical needs for the disease or condition. Fast track designation applies to the combination of the product candidate and the specific indication for which it is being studied. The sponsor of a fast track product candidate has opportunities for more frequent interactions with the applicable FDA review team during product development and, once an NDA is submitted, the application may be eligible for priority review. An NDA submitted for a fast track product candidate may also be eligible for rolling review, where the FDA may consider for review sections of the NDA on a rolling basis before the complete application is submitted, if the sponsor provides a schedule for the submission of the sections of the NDA, the FDA agrees to accept sections of the NDA and determines that the schedule is acceptable, and the sponsor pays any required user fees upon submission of the first section of the application.
The FDA has broad discretion whether to grant fast track designation, so, even if we believe a particular product candidate is eligible for this designation, the FDA may reach a different conclusion and not grant it. Even if we do receive fast track designation, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures. The FDA may rescind any fast track designation if it believes that the designation is no longer supported by data from our clinical development program.
We may also seek breakthrough therapy designation for our product candidates. A breakthrough therapy is defined as a drug that is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over currently existing therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. For product candidates that have been designated as breakthrough therapies, increased interaction and communication between the FDA and the sponsor of the trial can help to identify the most efficient path for clinical development while minimizing the number of patients placed in ineffective control regimens. Drugs and biologics designated as breakthrough therapies also receive the same benefits associated with fast track designation, including eligibility for rolling review of a submitted NDA, if the relevant criteria are met. Like fast track designation, breakthrough therapy designation is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe one of our product candidates meets the criteria for designation as a therapy, the FDA may and instead determine not to make such designation. We have received multiple through therapy designations for our product candidates: daraxonrasib has been granted therapy designation in previously treated, metastatic PDAC patients with KRAS G12 mutations,
zoldonrasib was granted breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of adult patients with KRAS G12D-mutated locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC who have been previously treated with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy and platinum-based chemotherapy; and elironrasib was granted breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of adult patients with KRAS G12C-mutated locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC who have received prior chemotherapy and immunotherapy but have not been previously treated with a KRAS G12C inhibitor . The receipt of these breakthrough therapy designation (and any future designations we may receive for a product candidate) may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to drugs considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures and does not assure ultimate approval by the FDA. In addition, even if a product candidate qualifies as a breakthrough therapy, the FDA may later decide that the drug no longer meets the conditions for qualification and rescind the designation.
Jurisdictions where we may seek to pursue product candidates outside of the United States have processes similar to the breakthrough designation and fast track processes described above, and to the extent we or our collaborators desire to enter these markets, we will face similar risks and challenges as those described in the United States.
We may attempt to secure approval from the FDA through the use of the accelerated approval pathway. If we are unable to obtain this approval, we may be required to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials beyond those that we contemplate, which could increase the expense of obtaining, and delay the receipt of, necessary regulatory approvals. Even if we receive accelerated approval from the FDA, if our confirmatory trials do not verify clinical benefit, or if we do not comply with rigorous post-marketing requirements, the FDA may seek to withdraw any accelerated approval we have obtained.
We may in the future seek accelerated approval for one or more of our product candidates. Under the accelerated approval program, the FDA may grant accelerated approval to a product candidate designed to treat a serious or life-threatening condition that provides meaningful therapeutic benefit over available therapies upon a determination that the product candidate has an effect on a surrogate endpoint or intermediate clinical endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. The FDA considers a clinical benefit to be a positive therapeutic effect that is clinically meaningful in the context of a given disease, such as irreversible morbidity or mortality. For the purposes of accelerated approval, a surrogate endpoint is a marker, such as a laboratory measurement, radiographic image, physical sign, or other measure that is thought to predict clinical benefit, but is not itself a measure of clinical benefit. An intermediate clinical endpoint is a clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than an effect on irreversible morbidity or mortality that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on morbidity or mortality or other clinical .
The accelerated approval pathway may be used in cases in which the advantage of a new drug over available therapy may not be a direct therapeutic advantage, but is a clinically important improvement from a patient and public health perspective. If granted, accelerated approval is usually contingent on the sponsor’s agreement to conduct, in a diligent manner, additional confirmatory studies to verify and describe the drug’s clinical benefit. If such post-approval studies fail to confirm the drug’s clinical benefit or are not completed in a timely manner, the FDA may withdraw its approval of the drug on an expedited basis. In addition, in December 2022, President Biden signed an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the U.S. government through fiscal year 2023. The omnibus bill included the Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act of 2022, which, among other things, provided the FDA new statutory authority to mitigate potential risks to patients from continued marketing of ineffective drugs previously granted accelerated approval. Under these provisions, the FDA may require a sponsor of a product seeking accelerated approval to have a confirmatory trial underway prior to such approval being granted.
Prior to seeking accelerated approval for any of our product candidates, we intend to seek feedback from the FDA and will otherwise evaluate our ability to seek and receive accelerated approval. There can be no assurance that after our evaluation of the feedback and other factors we will decide to pursue or submit an NDA for accelerated approval or any other form of expedited development, review or approval. Furthermore, if we decide to submit an application for accelerated approval for our product candidates, there can be no assurance that such application will be accepted or that any expedited development, review or approval will be granted on a timely basis, or at all. The FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities could also require the conduct of further studies prior to considering our (or one of our potential future collaboration partners’) applications or granting approval of any type. A failure to obtain accelerated approval or any other form of expedited development, review or approval for our product candidate would result in a longer time period until commercialization of such product candidate, if at all, could increase the cost of development of such product candidate and could harm our competitive position in the marketplace.
We may seek orphan drug designation for our product candidates, and we may be unsuccessful or may be unable to maintain the benefits associated with orphan drug designation, including the potential for market exclusivity.
As part of our business strategy, we may seek orphan drug designation for our product candidates. Regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions, including the United States, may designate drugs for relatively small patient populations as orphan drugs or, in the EU, orphan medicinal products. Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may designate a drug as an orphan drug if it is a drug intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which is generally defined as a patient population of fewer than 200,000 individuals annually in the
United States, or a patient population greater than 200,000 in the United States where there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing the drug will be recovered from sales in the United States. In the United States, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as opportunities for grant funding towards clinical trial costs, tax advantages and user-fee waivers.
Similarly, in the EU, the European Commission grants orphan medicinal product designation after receiving the opinion of the EMA Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products on an orphan medicinal product designation application. Orphan medicinal product designation is intended to promote the development of medicines (1) that are intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of life-threatening or chronically debilitating conditions where (2) either (a) such conditions affect no more than 5 in 10,000 persons in the EU when the application is made, or (b) the product, without the benefits derived from orphan status, would not generate sufficient return in the EU to justify the investment needed for its development; and (3) for which no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention, or treatment has been authorized (or if such method exists, the product would be a significant benefit to those affected). In the EU, orphan designation entitles a party to a number of incentives, such as protocol assistance and scientific advice specifically for designated orphan medicines, and potential fee reductions depending on the status of the sponsor.
Generally, if a drug with an orphan drug designation subsequently receives the first marketing approval for the disease or condition for which it has such designation, the drug is entitled to a period of marketing exclusivity, which precludes the FDA or foreign authorities from approving another marketing application for the same drug for the same approved use or indication within such disease or condition for that time period, except in limited circumstances. The applicable period is seven years in the United States and ten years in the EU. The European exclusivity period can be reduced to six years if a drug no longer meets the criteria for orphan drug designation or if the drug is sufficiently profitable such that market exclusivity is no longer justified.
We may be unsuccessful in obtaining orphan drug designation for our product candidates. In addition, while the FDA has granted orphan drug designation to daraxonrasib for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, the corresponding marketing exclusivity for such designation (and any future designations we may receive for a product candidate) may not effectively protect the product candidate from competition because different therapies can be approved for the same approved use or indication within the applicable disease or condition. Even after an orphan drug is approved, the FDA or comparable foreign authorities can subsequently approve the same drug for the same approved use or indication within the relevant disease or condition if the FDA or comparable foreign authorities conclude that the later drug is clinically superior in that it is shown to be safer, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care. In addition, a designated orphan drug may not receive orphan drug exclusivity if it is approved for a use that is broader than the disease or condition for which it received orphan designation. Moreover, orphan drug exclusive marketing rights in the United States may be lost if the FDA later determines that the request for designation was materially or if the manufacturer is to sufficient quantity of the drug to meet the needs relating to the approved use or indication of patients with the relevant rare disease or condition. Orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug nor gives the drug any in the regulatory review or approval process. While we may seek orphan drug designation for applicable indications for our current and any future product candidates, we may never receive such designations. Even if we do receive such designations, there is no guarantee that we will the benefits of those designations, including marketing .
We have received a Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher (CNPV) from FDA for daraxonrasib, but we may not realize any benefit from our participation in the FDA’s CNPV Pilot Program, and any changes to or termination of the CNPV Pilot Program could delay or adversely affect development and review of our product candidates.
In June 2025, the FDA announced the CNPV Pilot Program to test an expedited review process for certain drugs and biologics that are designed to address certain national priorities identified by the FDA, including drugs of biologics that are intended to address a U.S. public health crisis, deliver more innovative cures for the American people, address a large unmet medical need, onshore drug development and manufacturing, or increase affordability. Drugs or biologics accepted into the CNPV Pilot Program will receive a CNPV, which according to the FDA, entitles the recipient to accelerated FDA review of a marketing application or supplement for a drug or biologic that aligns with the CNPV Pilot Program’s goals, along with enhanced communication through the application review process, multidisciplinary team-based evaluation and potential for accelerated approval, if the relevant requirements are met. As described by the FDA, CNPVs may not be transferred, and must be applied within two years of being issued. Further, CNPVs do not change the FDA’s standards for review and approval of a Biologics License Application, NDA or supplement, as applicable. In October 2025, the FDA included daraxonrasib in its initial group of CNPV recipients.
The CNPV program, however, is new, limited in scope, and subject to evolving guidance, and available FDA resources. The FDA retains broad discretion to modify the criteria, processes, or benefits of the pilot and may rescind participation or alter timelines or the intended benefits at any time.
In addition, the CNPV for daraxonrasib is non-transferable and requires that we meet specific procedural and data-submission milestones; failure to do so could eliminate anticipated benefits or result in revocation or expiration of the CNPV. Accordingly, participation in the CNPV Pilot Program does not ensure that our product candidates will be accepted for filing, reviewed on a
shortened timeline, or ultimately approved. If FDA modifies or terminates the CNPV Pilot Program for any reason, or if we are unable to comply with its requirements, our current development plans and anticipated timelines could be adversely affected.
If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of any approved products.
We face an inherent risk of product liability as a result of the clinical testing of product candidates and will face an even greater risk if we commercialize any products. For example, we may be sued if any of our product candidates causes or is perceived to cause injury or is found to be otherwise unsuitable during clinical testing, manufacturing, marketing or sale. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the product, negligence, strict liability or a breach of warranties. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection acts. If we cannot successfully ourselves product liability , we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit commercialization of any approved products. Even defense would require significant financial and management resources.
Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:
decreased demand for any approved product;
injury to our reputation;
withdrawal of clinical trial participants;
initiation of investigations by regulators;
costs to defend the related litigation;
a diversion of management’s time and our resources;
substantial monetary awards to trial participants or patients;
product recalls, withdrawals or labeling, marketing or promotional restrictions;
exhaustion of available insurance and our capital resources and potential increases in our insurance premiums and/or retention amounts; and
our inability, or limitations on our ability, to commercialize any product.
Our inability to obtain sufficient product liability insurance at an acceptable cost to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the commercialization of products we develop, alone or with collaboration partners.
Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise, if at all. Our insurance policy contains various exclusions, and we may be subject to a product liability claim for which we have no coverage. We may have to pay any amounts awarded by a court or negotiated in a settlement that exceed our coverage limitations or that are not covered by our insurance, and we may not have, or be able to obtain, sufficient capital to pay such amounts. Even if our agreements with any current or future collaborator entitle us to indemnification against losses, such indemnification is limited and may not be available or adequate should any claim arise.
Healthcare legislative reform measures may significantly impact our business and results of operations.
In the United States, there have been and continue to be a number of legislative initiatives to contain healthcare costs and reduce prescription drug spending. These initiatives may increase pricing pressure, reduce the amounts we are able to charge and receive for any products we may commercialize, limit the availability and level of reimbursement from third-party payors (including government payors), require us to provide additional discounts or rebates, and otherwise adversely affect patient access and demand.
Additionally, there has been increasing legislative and enforcement interest in the United States with respect to specialty drug pricing practices. Specifically, there have been several recent Congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to drug pricing, reduce the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs, and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for drugs.
For example, in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) was signed into law. Among other things, the IRA requires manufacturers of certain drugs to engage in price negotiations with Medicare, with prices that can be negotiated subject to a cap; imposes rebates under Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D to penalize price increases that outpace inflation (first due in 2023); and
replaces the Part D coverage gap discount program with a new manufacturer discounting program (which began in 2025). The IRA permits the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement many of these provisions through guidance, as opposed to regulation, for the initial years. HHS has and will continue to issue and update guidance as these programs are implemented. HHS announced the negotiated prices for the initial ten drugs, which became effective in 2026, and the subsequent 15 drugs, which will first be effective in 2027. Because the Medicare drug price negotiation program is currently subject to legal challenges, and for other reasons, it is currently unclear how the IRA will be effectuated, and the impact of the IRA on our business and the pharmaceutical industry cannot yet be fully determined.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was enacted in July 2025, imposes significant reductions in the funding of the Medicaid program. Such reductions are expected to decrease the number of persons enrolled in Medicaid and reduce the services covered by Medicaid, which could adversely affect our sales of any product candidate that we commercialize.
The U.S. presidential administration has stated that it is pursuing a two-fold strategy to reduce drug costs in the U.S. See “Even if we are able to commercialize any product candidates, such products may become subject to unfavorable pricing regulations or third-party coverage and reimbursement policies” above for more information.
We expect that additional state and federal healthcare reform measures will be adopted in the future, any of which could limit the amounts that federal and state governments will pay for healthcare products and services, which could result in reduced demand for our product candidates, complementary diagnostics or companion diagnostics, or impose additional pricing pressures.
In addition, FDA regulations and guidance may be revised or reinterpreted by the FDA in ways that may significantly affect our business. Any new regulations or guidance, or revisions or reinterpretations of existing regulations or guidance, may impose additional costs or lengthen FDA review times for our product candidates. We cannot determine how changes in regulations, statutes, policies, or interpretations when and if issued, enacted or adopted may affect our business in the future.
Disruptions at the FDA and other government agencies caused by funding shortages, staffing limitations or global health concerns could hinder their ability to hire and retain key leadership and other personnel, prevent new products and services from being developed or commercialized in a timely manner or otherwise prevent those agencies from performing normal business functions on which the operation of our business may rely, which could negatively impact our business.
The ability of the FDA and foreign regulatory agencies to review and approve new products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, ability to hire and retain key personnel and accept the payment of user fees, and statutory, regulatory, and policy changes. Average review times at the FDA and foreign regulatory agencies have fluctuated in recent years as a result.
Disruptions at the FDA and other agencies may also slow the time necessary for new drugs to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government agencies, which would adversely affect our business. For example, in recent years, including in 2025, the U.S. government has shut down several times and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, have had to furlough critical employees and stop critical activities. In addition, the current U.S. Presidential administration has issued certain policies and Executive Orders directed towards reducing the employee headcount and costs associated with U.S. administrative agencies, including the FDA, which have led to substantial personnel changes, and it remains unclear the degree to which these efforts may limit or otherwise adversely affect the FDA’s ability to conduct routine activities. If a prolonged government shutdown occurs or the FDA or other agencies experience other delays due to funding shortages, staffing or otherwise, it could significantly impact the ability of those agencies to timely review and process our regulatory submissions.
We are subject to stringent privacy laws, information security policies and contractual obligations governing the use, processing and transfer of personal information.
The global data protection landscape is rapidly evolving, and we are or may become subject to numerous federal, state and foreign laws, requirements and regulations governing the collection, use, disclosure, retention and security of personal information, such as information that we may collect in connection with clinical trials in the United States and abroad. Implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and we cannot yet determine the impact future laws, regulations, standards or perception of their requirements may have on our business. This evolution may create uncertainty in our business, affect our ability to operate in certain jurisdictions or to collect, store, transfer use and share personal information, necessitate the acceptance of more onerous obligations in our contracts, result in liability or impose additional costs on us. The cost of compliance with these laws, regulations and standards is high and is likely to increase in the future. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with federal, state or foreign laws or regulations, our internal policies and procedures or our contracts governing our
processing of personal information could result in negative publicity, government investigations and enforcement actions, claims by third parties and damage to our reputation.
As our operations and business grow, we may become subject to or affected by new or additional data protection laws and regulations and face increased scrutiny or attention from regulatory authorities. In the United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) imposes, among other things, certain standards relating to the privacy, security, transmission and breach reporting of individually identifiable health information. We may obtain health information from third parties (including research institutions from which we obtain clinical trial data) that are subject to privacy and security requirements under HIPAA. While we do not believe that we are currently acting as a covered entity or business associate under HIPAA and thus are not directly regulated under HIPAA, any person may be prosecuted under HIPAA’s criminal provisions either directly or under aiding-and-abetting or conspiracy principles. Consequently, depending on the facts and circumstances, we could face substantial criminal penalties if we knowingly receive individually identifiable health information from a HIPAA-covered healthcare provider or research institution that has not HIPAA’s requirements for disclosure of individually identifiable health information. Additionally in the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and many state Attorneys General continue to enforce federal and state consumer protection laws companies for online collection, use, dissemination and security practices that appear to be or . Further, in 2024, the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a rule in 2024—referred to as the “Data Security Program” (DSP)—to implement Executive Order 14117 aimed at access to “bulk U.S. sensitive personal data” and “government-related data” by “countries of ” (including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela) and “covered persons” (as all such terms are defined in the DSP). as of April 2025, and fully enforceable as of July 2025, the DSP imposes obligations on companies within its scope and prohibits or restricts “covered data transactions” that grant countries of or covered persons access to bulk U.S. sensitive personal data or any amount of government-related data. The DSP is new, complex and has yet to be enforced, and as such, there is a risk that our interpretation of its applicability, scope, and requirements is , , or . Compliance with the DSP may require us to invest heavily in data security and compliance measures, such as implementing and complying with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s guidelines and other recordkeeping, reporting, and auditing requirements. It may also require us to implement new processes, stop or restrict certain data transfers, alter the geographic scope of our operations, doing business with certain third parties or using certain tools or vendors, or change how data flows throughout our business, any of which could materially impact our business operations or our ability to grow our business. Finally, non-compliance with the DSP could result in significant civil or , which could materially affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
In addition, various states have implemented certain data privacy and security laws and regulations that impose restrictive requirements regulating the use and disclosure of health-related and other personal information. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, the CCPA) requires certain businesses that process personal information of California residents to, among other things: provide certain disclosures to California residents regarding the business’s collection, use, and disclosure of their personal information; receive and respond to requests from California residents to access, delete and correct their personal information, or opt-out of certain disclosures of their personal information; and enter into specific contractual provisions with service providers that process California resident personal information on the business’s behalf. Similar laws have been passed in other states, and are continuing to be proposed at the state and the federal level, reflecting a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation in the United States. The enactment of such laws could have potentially conflicting requirements that would make compliance challenging. In the event that we are subject to or affected by HIPAA or the CCPA or other domestic privacy and data protection laws, any liability from failure to comply with the requirements of these laws could affect our financial condition.
State laws and regulations are not necessarily preempted by federal laws and regulations, such as HIPAA, particularly if a state affords greater protection to individuals than federal law. Where state laws are more protective, we must comply with the stricter provisions. In addition to fines and penalties imposed upon violators, some of these state laws also afford private rights of action to individuals who believe their personal information has been misused. The interplay of federal and state laws may be subject to varying interpretations by courts and government agencies, creating complex compliance issues for us and data we receive, use and share, potentially exposing us to additional expense, adverse publicity and liability. Legal requirements relating to the collection, storage, handling, and transfer of personal information and personal data continue to evolve and may result in increased public scrutiny and escalating levels of enforcement, sanctions and increased costs of compliance.
The processing of personal data in the European Economic Area (EEA) is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR). The GDPR imposes stringent requirements for controllers and processors of personal data. The GDPR applies extraterritorially, and we may be subject to the GDPR because of our data processing activities that involve the personal data of individuals located in the EEA, or in the context of our activities within the EEA, such as in connection with any EEA clinical trials. The GDPR imposes comprehensive data privacy compliance obligations in relation to our collection and use of personal data, including a principle of accountability and the obligation to demonstrate compliance through policies, procedures, training and audit. If we or our vendors fail to comply with the GDPR and the applicable national data protection laws of the EEA member states, or if
regulators assert we have failed to comply with these laws, it may lead to regulatory enforcement actions, which can result in, among other things, monetary penalties of up to €20,000,000 or up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the noncompliant undertaking for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, and other administrative penalties. The GDPR also imposes strict rules on the transfer of personal data out of the EEA to the United States and other third countries that have not been found to provide adequate protection to such personal data, and the efficacy and longevity of current transfer mechanisms between the EEA and the United States remains uncertain. Case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union states that reliance on the standard contractual clauses – a standard form of contract approved by the European Commission as an adequate personal data transfer mechanism – alone may not necessarily be sufficient in all circumstances, and that transfers must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
The European Commission adopted its Adequacy Decision in relation to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (the DPF) in July 2023, rendering the DPF effective as a GDPR transfer mechanism to U.S. entities self-certified under the DPF. We currently rely in part on the EU standard contractual clauses and the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, as relevant, to transfer personal data outside the EEA and the UK, including to the United States. We expect the existing legal complexity and uncertainty regarding international personal data transfers to continue and international transfers to the U.S. and to other jurisdictions more generally to continue to be subject to enhanced scrutiny by regulators. As the regulatory guidance and enforcement landscape in relation to data transfers continue to develop, we could suffer additional costs, we may have to make operational changes and/or it could adversely affect our business, operations and financial condition.
We must also comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation, which, together with the UK Data Protection Act 2018, retains the GDPR in UK national law (collectively, the UK GDPR). The UK GDPR mirrors the fines under the GDPR, i.e., fines up to the greater of £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover of a noncompliant undertaking’s global annual revenue for the preceding financial year. On October 12, 2023, the UK Extension to the DPF came into effect (as approved by the UK Government), as a data transfer mechanism from the UK to U.S. entities self-certified under the DPF. We may incur liabilities, expenses, costs and other operational losses under the GDPR and privacy laws of the applicable EU and EEA Member States and the UK in connection with any measures we take to comply with them. As we continue to expand into other foreign countries and jurisdictions, we may also be subject to additional laws and regulations that may affect how we conduct business.
Compliance with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices and compliance procedures in a manner adverse to our business. Penalties for violations of these laws vary and may be significant. Moreover, complying with these various laws could require us to take on more onerous obligations in our contracts, restrict our ability to collect, use and disclose data, or in some cases, impact our ability to operate in certain jurisdictions. In addition, we rely on third-party vendors to collect, process and store data on our behalf and we cannot guarantee that such vendors are in compliance with all applicable data protection laws and regulations. Our or our vendors’ failure to comply with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could result in government investigations and enforcement actions (which could include civil or criminal penalties), private litigation and publicity. that we have individuals’ privacy rights, to comply with data protection laws, or our contractual obligations, even if we are not found liable, could be expensive and time consuming to and could result in publicity.
Our business may be affected by the evolving regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automated decision-making technologies, as well as the operational, cybersecurity and confidentiality risks associated with our use of such technologies.
We use artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and automated decision-making technologies (collectively, AI Technologies) throughout our business, and are making investments in this area. We expect that increased investment will be required in the future to continuously improve our use of AI Technologies. As with many technological innovations, there are significant risks involved in developing, maintaining and deploying these technologies, including that AI-generated content, analyses, or recommendations we utilize could be deficient, that our competitors may more quickly or effectively adopt AI capabilities, or that our use of AI or other emerging technologies increases regulatory, cybersecurity and other significant risks. In addition, the use of certain AI Technologies, including third-party solutions, may involve the input, processing or storage of proprietary, confidential or personal information, and any failure to appropriately protect such information, or any unauthorized disclosure or use of such information, could adversely affect our business, harm our reputation and subject us to liability. There can be no assurance that the usage of or our investments in such technologies will always enhance our products or services or be to our business, including our or .
In particular, if the models underlying our AI Technologies are incorrectly designed or implemented; trained or reliant on incomplete, inadequate, inaccurate, biased or otherwise poor quality data, or on data to which we do not have sufficient rights or in relation to which we and/or the providers of such data have not implemented sufficient legal compliance measures; used without sufficient oversight and governance to ensure their responsible use; and/or adversely impacted by unforeseen defects, technical challenges, cybersecurity threats or material performance issues, the performance of our products, services and business, as well as our reputation, could suffer or we could incur liability resulting from the violation of laws or contracts to which we are a party or civil claims. We are
in varying stages of development in relation to our products and internal business processes involving AI Technologies. The continuous development, maintenance and operation of our AI Technologies is expensive and complex, and may involve unforeseen difficulties including material performance problems, undetected defects or errors. For instance, the models underlying AI Technologies can experience decay (also known as “model drift”) in which their performance and accuracy decreases over time without further human intervention to correct such decay.
We may not be successful in our ongoing development and maintenance of these technologies in the face of novel and evolving technical, reputational and market factors. Our efforts to develop proprietary AI models could increase our operating costs. Our ability to develop proprietary AI models may be limited by our access to processing infrastructure or training data, and we may be dependent on third-party providers for such resources.
The regulatory framework for AI Technologies is rapidly evolving as many federal, state, and foreign government bodies and agencies have introduced or are currently considering additional laws and regulations. Additionally, existing laws and regulations may be interpreted in ways that would affect the operation of our AI Technologies. As a result, implementation standards and enforcement practices are likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future, and we cannot yet determine the impact future laws, regulations, standards, or market perception of their requirements may have on our business and may not always be able to anticipate how to respond to these laws or regulations. Failure to appropriately respond to this evolving landscape may result in reputational, competitive and business harm as well as litigation and regulatory action and fines, penalties and expenses related thereto.
It is possible that new laws and regulations will be adopted in the United States and in other non-U.S. jurisdictions, or that existing laws and regulations, including competition and antitrust laws, may be interpreted in ways that would limit our ability to use AI Technologies for our business, or require us to change the way we use AI Technologies in a manner that negatively affects the performance of our products, services, and business and the way in which we use AI Technologies. We may need to expend resources to adjust our products or services in certain jurisdictions if the laws, regulations, or decisions are not consistent across jurisdictions. Further, the cost to comply with such laws, regulations, or decisions and/or guidance interpreting existing laws, could be significant and would increase our operating expenses (such as by imposing additional reporting obligations regarding our use of AI Technologies). Such an increase in operating expenses, as well as any actual or perceived failure to comply with such laws and regulations, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business and operations, or those of our CROs or other third parties, may suffer in the event of information technology system failures, cyberattacks or deficiencies in our cybersecurity, which could materially affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We receive, generate and store significant and increasing volumes of sensitive information, such as health-related information, clinical trial data, proprietary business information and the personal information of our employees and contractors (collectively, Confidential Information). We face a number of risks related to protecting the information technology systems we rely on and this Confidential Information, including loss of access risk, inappropriate use or disclosure, inappropriate modification and the risk of our being unable to adequately monitor, audit and modify our controls over our Confidential Information. This risk extends to the information technology systems and information of any collaboration partners, medical institutions, clinical investigators, CROs, contract laboratories and other third parties involved in our business. There can be no assurance that our cybersecurity risk management program and processes, including our policies, controls or procedures, will be fully implemented, complied with or effective in protecting our systems and Confidential Information.
Despite the implementation of security measures, our information technology systems, as well as those of CROs or other third parties with which we have relationships, are vulnerable to attack, interruption and damage from computer viruses and malware (e.g., ransomware), malicious code, misconfigurations, “bugs” or other vulnerabilities, unauthorized access, natural and manmade disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures, malfeasance by external or internal parties, fraud, denial or degradation of service attacks, sophisticated nation-state and nation-state-supported actors and human error (e.g., social engineering and phishing). Attacks upon information technology systems are increasing in their frequency, levels of , sophistication and intensity, and are being conducted by sophisticated and organized groups and individuals with a wide range of motives and expertise. Furthermore, because technologies (such as AI) that are used to obtain access to, or to or , systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched a target, we may be to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. We may also experience security that may remain for an extended period. We may not be to anticipate all types of security , and, even if identified, we may be to or remediate or due to attackers increasingly using tools and techniques that are designed to controls, to avoid detection, and to remove or obfuscate forensic evidence. We may also face increased cybersecurity risks due to our reliance on internet technology and the number of our and our service providers’ employees who are (and may continue to be) working remotely, which may create additional for to . The White House, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) and other regulators have also increased their focus on companies’ cybersecurity and risks.
Further, any integration of AI in our or any third party’s operations, products or services is expected to pose new or unknown cybersecurity risks and challenges. Although we have implemented policies regarding limited permitted use of generative AI by our employees, Confidential Information could be leaked, disclosed or revealed as a result of or in connection with our employees’ use of generative AI Technologies.
We, our CROs and certain of our service providers are, from time to time, subject to cyberattacks and security incidents that threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information technology systems and Confidential Information. While we have not to our knowledge experienced any significant system failure, accident or security breach to date, if such an event were to occur and cause interruptions in our or our critical third parties’ operations, it could result in delays and/or material disruptions of our research and development programs, our operations and ultimately, our financial results. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from completed, ongoing or planned clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. Likewise, we rely on third parties for the manufacture of our product candidates and to conduct clinical trials, and similar events relating to their information technology systems could also impact our business. Further, due to the current political uncertainty involving Russia and Ukraine, there is an increased likelihood that the tensions could result in or cybersecurity that could either directly or indirectly impact our or our third parties’ operations. To the extent that any or security were to result in a of or to data or applications, or disclosure of Confidential Information, the costs associated with the , remediation and potential notification of the to counterparties and data subjects could be material, we could incur liability due to in the development and commercialization of our product candidates or other business activities, and we may be to reputational , (including class actions), regulatory and enforcement, and , or increased costs of compliance and system remediation.
Our existing general liability and cyber liability insurance policies may not cover, or may cover only a portion of, any potential claims related to security breaches to which we are exposed or may not be adequate to indemnify us for all or any portion of liabilities that may be imposed. We also cannot be certain that our existing insurance coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or in amounts sufficient to cover the potentially significant losses that may result from a security incident or breach or that the insurer will not deny coverage of any future claim. If the information technology systems of our CROs or other service providers were to fail, or become subject to disruptions or security breaches, we may have insufficient recourse against such third parties and we may have to expend significant resources to mitigate the impact of such an event, and to develop and implement protections to prevent future events of this nature from occurring.
Risks related to reliance on third parties
We may depend on collaborations with other third parties for the development and commercialization of our product candidates in the future. If our collaborations are not successful, we may not be able to capitalize on the market potential of these product candidates.
In the future, we may form or seek other strategic alliances, joint ventures or collaborations, or enter into additional licensing arrangements with third parties that we believe will complement or augment our development and commercialization efforts with respect to our product candidates.
Collaborations involving our current and future product candidates may pose the following risks to us:
collaborators have significant discretion in determining the efforts and resources that they will apply to these collaborations and may have incentives that are different than ours;
collaborators may delay clinical trials, provide insufficient funding for a clinical trial program, stop a clinical trial, abandon a product candidate, repeat or conduct new clinical trials or require a new formulation of a product candidate for clinical testing;
collaborators could independently develop, or develop with third parties, products that compete directly or indirectly with our products or product candidates;
collaborators with marketing, manufacturing or distribution rights to one or more products may not commit sufficient resources to or otherwise not perform satisfactorily in carrying out these activities as it relates to our product candidates or products;
collaborators may not properly prosecute, maintain, enforce or defend our intellectual property rights or may use our proprietary information in a way that gives rise to actual or threatened litigation that could jeopardize or invalidate our intellectual property or proprietary information or expose us to potential litigation, or other intellectual property proceedings;
collaborators may own or co-own intellectual property covering products that result from our collaboration with them, and in such cases, we may not have the exclusive right to develop, license or commercialize this intellectual property;
disputes may arise with respect to ownership of any intellectual property developed pursuant to our collaborations;
disputes may arise between a collaborator and us that cause the delay or termination of the research, development or commercialization of the product candidate, or that result in costly litigation or arbitration that diverts management attention and resources; and
if a current or future collaborator of ours were to be involved in a business combination, the continued pursuit and emphasis on our product development or commercialization program under our collaboration could be delayed, diminished or terminated, including if the partner in such a business combination has products that compete with ours.
As a result, if we enter into additional collaboration agreements and strategic partnerships or license our intellectual property, products or businesses, we may not be able to realize the benefit of such transactions if we are unable to successfully integrate them with our or their existing operations, which could delay our timelines or otherwise adversely affect our business. We also cannot be certain that, following entry into a strategic transaction or license, we will achieve the revenue or specific net income that justifies such transaction. Any delays in entering into new collaborations or strategic partnership agreements related to our current or future product candidates could delay the development and commercialization of our product candidates, which would harm our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
We may seek to establish additional collaborations, and, if we are not able to establish them on commercially reasonable terms, we may have to alter our development and commercialization plans.
The advancement of our product candidates and development programs and the potential commercialization of our current and future product candidates will require substantial additional cash to fund expenses. For some of our programs, we may decide to collaborate with additional pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with respect to development and potential commercialization. Any of these relationships may require us to incur non-recurring and other charges, increase our near- and long-term expenditures, issue securities that dilute our existing stockholders, or disrupt our management and business.
We face significant competition in seeking appropriate strategic partners, and the negotiation process is time-consuming and complex. Whether we reach a definitive agreement for other collaborations will depend, among other things, upon our assessment of the collaborator’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and the proposed collaborator’s evaluation of a number of factors. Those factors may include the design or results of clinical trials, the progress of our clinical trials, the likelihood of approval by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States, the potential market for the subject product candidate, the costs and complexities of manufacturing and delivering such product candidate to patients, the potential of competing products, the existence of uncertainty with respect to our ownership of technology, which can exist if there is a challenge to such ownership without regard to the merits of the challenge and industry and market conditions generally. The collaborator may also consider alternative product candidates or technologies for similar indications that may be available to on and whether such a could be more than the one with us for our product candidate. Further, we may not be in our efforts to establish one or more strategic partnerships or other alternative arrangements for future product candidates because they may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for effort and third parties may not view them as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy.
The terms of any collaboration agreement we enter into may restrict us from entering into future agreements on certain terms with potential collaborators, which may limit our ability to find additional collaborators in the future or adversely impact the terms of these future collaborations.
In addition, business combinations among pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have in the past and may in the future result in a reduced number of potential future collaborators.
We may not be able to negotiate collaborations on a timely basis, on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to do so, we may have to curtail the development of the product candidate for which we are seeking to collaborate, reduce or delay its development program or one or more of our other development programs, delay its potential commercialization or reduce the scope of any sales or marketing activities, or increase our expenditures and undertake development or commercialization activities at our own expense. If we elect to increase our expenditures to fund development or commercialization activities on our own, we may need to obtain additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we do not have sufficient funds, we may not be able to further develop our product candidates or bring them to market and generate product revenue.
If conflicts arise between us and our collaborators or strategic partners, these parties may act in a manner adverse to us and could limit our ability to implement our strategies.
If conflicts arise between our corporate or academic collaborators or strategic partners and us, the other party may act in a manner adverse to us and could limit our ability to implement our strategies. Amgen or future collaborators or strategic partners may develop, either alone or with others, products in related fields that are competitive with the products or potential products that are the subject of these collaborations. Competing products, either developed by the collaborators or strategic partners or to which the collaborators or strategic partners have rights, may result in the withdrawal of partner support for our product candidates. Our current or future collaborators or strategic partners may preclude us from entering into collaborations with their competitors, fail to obtain timely regulatory approvals, terminate their agreements with us , or to devote sufficient resources to the development and commercialization of products. Any of these developments could our product development efforts.
We rely on third parties to conduct the clinical trials for our product candidates. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, comply with regulatory requirements or meet expected deadlines, we may not be able to obtain marketing approval for or commercialize our product candidates.
We do not have the ability to independently conduct clinical trials. We and any collaboration partners who may conduct clinical trials involving our product candidates rely on medical institutions, clinical investigators, CROs, contract laboratories, and other third parties to conduct or otherwise support these clinical trials, all of which we refer to herein as our clinical trials. We and our collaborators rely heavily on these parties for execution of clinical trials and control only certain aspects of their activities. In addition, we have limited control over the activities of our collaborators who may conduct clinical trials involving our product candidates. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal and regulatory requirements and scientific standards, and our reliance on third parties does not relieve us of these responsibilities. For any violations of laws and regulations during the conduct of our clinical trials, we could be subject to untitled and warning letters or enforcement actions that may include civil penalties or criminal prosecution.
We, our collaborators and the other third parties involved in our clinical trials are required to comply with regulations and requirements, including GCP, for conducting, monitoring, recording and reporting the results of clinical trials to ensure that the data and results are scientifically credible and accurate, and that the trial patients are adequately informed of the potential risks of participating in clinical trials and their rights are protected. These regulations are enforced by the FDA, the competent authorities of the EU member states and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for any drugs in clinical development. The FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities enforce GCP requirements through periodic inspections of clinical trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we, our collaborators or other third parties fail to comply with applicable GCP, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable, and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. Upon inspection, the FDA or comparable foreign authorities may determine that any of our current or future clinical trials do not comply with GCP. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with product candidates produced under cGMP regulations and similar regulatory requirements outside the United States. Our or the of third parties to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would the marketing approval process and could also subject us to enforcement action. We also are required to register certain ongoing clinical trials and provide certain information, including information relating to the trial’s protocol, on a United States government-sponsored database, ClinicalTrials.gov, within specific timeframes. Similar disclosure requirements may exist in foreign jurisdictions. to do so can result in , publicity and civil and sanctions.
We have participated and in the future may participate in clinical collaborations where a partner is responsible for conducting a clinical trial involving our product candidates. These collaborators may be commercial entities or investigator-sponsored or initiated studies that use our product candidates. Although we intend to design the clinical trials for our product candidates, or be involved in the design when other parties sponsor the trials, because these collaborators will have primary responsibility for the conduct of these trials, many important aspects of our clinical development for these trials, including their conduct and timing, is outside of our direct control.
Our reliance on third parties to conduct future clinical trials will also result in less direct control over the management of data developed through clinical trials than would be the case if we were relying entirely upon our own staff. Communicating with third parties can also be challenging, potentially leading to mistakes as well as difficulties in coordinating activities. Third parties may:
have staffing difficulties;
fail to comply with contractual obligations;
experience regulatory compliance issues;
have incentives that are different than ours;
undergo changes in priorities or become financially distressed; or
form relationships with other entities, some of which may be our competitors.
These factors may materially adversely affect the willingness or ability of third parties to conduct our clinical trials and may subject us to unexpected cost increases that are beyond our control. If the CROs or other third parties involved in our clinical trials do not perform these trials in a satisfactory manner, breach their obligations to us, or fail to comply with regulatory requirements, the development, marketing approval and commercialization of our product candidates may be delayed, we may not be able to obtain marketing approval and commercialize our product candidates, or our development program may be materially and irreversibly harmed. If we are unable to rely on clinical data collected by third parties involved in our clinical trials, we could be required to repeat, extend the duration of, or increase the size of our clinical trials and this could significantly delay commercialization and require significantly greater expenditures.
If any of our relationships with our CROs or other third parties involved in our clinical trials terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative CROs or other third parties on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If CROs or other third parties 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 clinical data they obtain are compromised due to the failure to adhere to our clinical protocols, regulatory requirements or for other reasons, any clinical trials such CROs or other third parties are associated with may be extended, delayed or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain marketing approval for or successfully commercialize our product candidates.
We rely on third parties to manufacture preclinical and clinical drug supplies, and we intend to rely on third parties to produce commercial supplies of any approved product, which increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of these product candidates or products or such quantities at an acceptable cost, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.
We do not own or operate manufacturing facilities for the production of preclinical, clinical or commercial supplies of the product candidates that we are developing or evaluating in our development programs. We have limited personnel with experience in drug manufacturing and lack the resources and the capabilities to manufacture any of our product candidates on a preclinical, clinical or commercial scale. We rely on third parties for supply of our preclinical and clinical drug supplies (including key starting and intermediate materials), and our strategy is to outsource all manufacturing of our product candidates and products to third parties.
In order to conduct clinical trials of product candidates, we will need to have them manufactured in potentially large quantities. Our third-party manufacturers may be unable to successfully increase the manufacturing capacity for any of our clinical drug supplies (including key starting and intermediate materials) in a timely or cost-effective manner, or at all. In addition, quality issues may arise during scale-up activities and at any other time. For example, ongoing data on the stability of our product candidates may shorten the expiry of our product candidates and lead to clinical trial material supply shortages, and potentially clinical trial delays. Further, the current U.S. Presidential administration has announced significant tariffs on imports from other countries on a wide range of goods. Any such tariffs that apply to drug supplies that we or our third-party suppliers import would result in our clinical trials being more costly to run than anticipated, and could have a substantial impact on our financial projections as well as timelines and plans for our clinical trials and commercialization efforts. If these third-party manufacturers are unable to scale up the manufacture of our product candidates in sufficient quality and quantity, the development, testing and clinical trials of that product candidate may be or infeasible, and regulatory approval or commercial launch of that product candidate may be or not obtained.
Some of our third-party suppliers are currently our sole source of drug supplies (including key starting and intermediate materials) and, as a result, an issue with one of these suppliers may impact our development or commercial plans. Our use of new third-party manufacturers or suppliers increases the risk of delays in production or insufficient supplies of our product candidates (and the key starting and intermediate materials for such product candidates) as we transfer our manufacturing technology to these manufacturers or suppliers and as they gain experience manufacturing or producing our product candidates (and the key starting and intermediate materials for these product candidates).
Even after a third-party manufacturer has gained significant experience in manufacturing our product candidates (or the key starting and intermediate materials for such product candidates), or even if we believe we have succeeded in optimizing the manufacturing process, there can be no assurance that such manufacturer will produce sufficient quantities of our product candidates (or the key starting and intermediate materials for such product candidates) in a timely manner or continuously over time, or at all. We may be delayed if we need to change the manufacturing process used by a third party. Further, if we change an approved manufacturing process, then we may be delayed if the FDA or a comparable foreign authority needs to review the new manufacturing process before it may be used.
Reliance on third-party manufacturers for preclinical, clinical and commercial supplies entails risks, including:
reliance on the third party for regulatory compliance and quality assurance;
the possible breach of the manufacturing agreement by the third party;
the possible misappropriation of our proprietary information, including our trade secrets and know-how; and
the possible termination or non-renewal of the agreement by the third party at a time that is costly or inconvenient for us.
We do not currently have any agreements with third-party manufacturers for long-term commercial supply. In the future, we may be unable to enter into agreements with third-party manufacturers for commercial supplies of any of our product candidates, or may be unable to do so on acceptable terms. Even if we are able to establish and maintain arrangements with third-party manufacturers for commercial supply, reliance on third-party manufacturers entails risks, including those described above.
Third-party manufacturers may not be able to comply with cGMP requirements or similar regulatory requirements outside the United States. Our failure, or the failure of our third-party manufacturers, to comply with applicable requirements could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of product candidates or products, operating restrictions and/or criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect supplies of our product candidates.
Our future product candidates and any products that we may develop may compete with other product candidates and products for access to manufacturing facilities. There are a limited number of manufacturers that operate under cGMP requirements particularly for the development of monoclonal antibodies, and that might be capable of manufacturing for us.
Additionally, in recent years, U.S. legislative and policy initiatives have increasingly focused on the national security implications of foreign involvement in biotechnology, particularly with respect to China. For example, in January 2024, there was Congressional activity, including the introduction of the BIOSECURE Act in the House of Representatives and a substantially similar Senate bill. In September 2024, the House of Representatives of the prior Congress (the 118th Congress) passed the BIOSECURE Act, but the Senate never voted on it. In 2025, Congress revisited the BIOSECURE Act concept. A revised version of the legislation was proposed as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2026. This updated draft removed specific company names previously targeted and instead would rely on an existing Department of Defense list of companies with national security concerns. Congress ultimately included the BIOSECURE provisions in the finalized NDAA, effectively making the restrictions part of law as of December 2025, subject to further regulatory implementation and designation processes.
Under the enacted provisions, agencies are prohibited from procuring biotechnology equipment or services from entities designated as “biotechnology companies of concern” and may impose limitations on recipients of federal funding that engage such entities. The statute authorizes the Office of Management and Budget to identify companies of concern based on existing Department of Defense lists of military-linked firms and other criteria tied to national security risk, including ties to foreign adversaries and sensitive data risks.
We currently do business with companies in China, including some that have been referenced in earlier versions of the BIOSECURE Act and related policy discussions, and certain counterparties could be impacted by these legislative actions or regulatory lists. Changes in laws, regulations, or executive orders — or the issuance of lists identifying covered entities — could materially affect our collaborations, supply chains, research partnerships, manufacturing relationships, and access to certain services or technologies.
If the third parties that we engage to supply any materials or manufacture product for our preclinical tests and clinical trials should cease to continue to do so for any reason, we likely would experience delays in advancing these tests and trials while we identify and qualify replacement suppliers or manufacturers, and we may be unable to obtain replacement supplies on terms that are favorable to us or at all. In addition, if we are not able to obtain adequate supplies of our product candidates or the substances used to manufacture them, it will be more difficult for us to develop our product candidates and compete effectively.
Our current and anticipated future dependence upon others for the manufacture of our product candidates (or the key starting and intermediate materials for such product candidates) may adversely affect our future profit margins and our ability to develop product candidates and commercialize any products that receive marketing approval on a timely and competitive basis.
Our future relationships with customers and third-party payors in the United States and elsewhere may be subject, directly or indirectly, to applicable anti-kickback, fraud and abuse, false claims, transparency, and other healthcare laws and regulations, which could expose us to criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm, administrative burdens and diminished profits and future earnings.
Healthcare providers, physicians and third-party payors in the United States and elsewhere will play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our future arrangements with third-party payors and customers may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, including, without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and the federal False Claims Act (FCA), which may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we sell, market and distribute any products for which we obtain marketing approval. The applicable federal, state and foreign healthcare laws and regulations that may affect our ability to operate include:
the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits, among other things, knowingly and willfully soliciting, receiving, offering or paying any remuneration (including any kickback, bribe or rebate), directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, to induce, or in return for, either the referral of an individual, or the purchase, lease, order or recommendation of any good, facility, item or service for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under the Medicare and Medicaid programs or other federal healthcare programs. A person or entity can be found guilty of violating the statute without actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it. The Anti-Kickback Statute has been interpreted to apply to arrangements between pharmaceutical manufacturers on the one hand and prescribers, purchasers and formulary managers on the other. There are a number of statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors protecting some common activities from ;
the federal civil and criminal false claims laws, including the FCA, and civil monetary penalty laws, which prohibit any person or entity from, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, a false, fictitious or fraudulent claim for payment to, or approval by, the federal government or knowingly making, using or causing to be made or used a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim to the federal government. In addition, 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 claim for purposes of the FCA;
HIPAA, which created federal criminal statutes that prohibit knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or obtain, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, any of the money or property owned by, or under the custody or control of, any healthcare benefit program, regardless of the payor (e.g., public or private) and knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up by any trick or device a material fact or making any materially false statements in connection with the delivery of, or payment for, healthcare benefits, items or services relating to healthcare matters. Similar to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, a person or entity can be found of HIPAA without actual knowledge of the statutes or specific intent to them;
the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, created under the ACA, and its implementing regulations, which requires manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (with certain exceptions) to report annually to CMS information related to payments or other transfers of value made to physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors), certain non-physician practitioners (defined to include physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologist assistants and certified nurse midwives), and teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members;
federal consumer protection and unfair competition laws, which broadly regulate marketplace activities and activities that potentially harm consumers; and
analogous or related foreign, state or local laws and regulations, including anti-kickback and false claims laws, which may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-government third-party payors, including private insurers; state laws that require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government or otherwise restrict payments that may be made to healthcare providers; and state 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.
Because of the breadth of the laws described above and the narrowness of the statutory exceptions and regulatory safe harbors available under them, it is possible that some of our business activities could be subject to challenge under one or more of these laws.
The scope and enforcement of each of these laws is uncertain and subject to rapid change in the current environment of healthcare reform, especially in light of the lack of applicable precedent and regulations. Federal and state enforcement bodies have recently increased their scrutiny of interactions between healthcare companies and healthcare providers, which has led to a number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions and settlements in the healthcare industry. Ensuring that our business arrangements with third parties comply with applicable healthcare laws, as well as responding to investigations by government authorities, can be time- and resource-consuming and can divert management’s attention from the business.
If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the laws described above or any other government regulations that apply to us, we may be subject to penalties, including civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, individual imprisonment, possible exclusion from participation in federal and state funded healthcare programs, contractual damages and the curtailment or restricting of our operations, as well as additional reporting obligations and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or other agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws, any of which could harm our ability to operate our business and our financial results. Further, if the physicians or other providers or entities with whom we expect to do business are found not to be in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to , civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs. In addition, the approval and commercialization of any of our product candidates outside the United States will also likely subject us to foreign equivalents of the healthcare laws mentioned above, among other foreign laws.
Risks related to intellectual property
If we and our collaborators are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient patent and other intellectual property protection for our product candidates and technology, our competitors could develop and commercialize products and technology similar or identical to ours, and we may not be able to compete effectively in our market or successfully commercialize any of our current or future product candidates.
Our success depends in significant part on our ability and the ability of our collaborators to obtain, maintain, enforce and defend patents and other intellectual property rights with respect to our product candidates and technology and to operate our business without infringing, misappropriating, or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of others. If we and our collaborators are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient intellectual property protection for our product candidates or the product candidates that we may identify, or if the scope of the intellectual property protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors and other third parties could develop and commercialize product candidates similar or identical to ours, and our ability (and the ability of our collaborators) to successfully commercialize our product candidates may be impaired. Our patent coverage with respect to our clinical and preclinical programs is limited, and we can provide no assurance that any of our current or future patent applications will result in issued patents or that any issued patents will provide us with any competitive . to obtain such issued patents could impact our and our ’ ability to develop or commercialize any of our product candidates or technology.
We seek to protect our proprietary positions by, among other things, filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our current product candidates and the product candidates that we may identify. Obtaining, maintaining, defending and enforcing pharmaceutical patents is costly, time consuming and complex, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications, or maintain, enforce and license any patents that may issue from such patent applications, at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. It is also possible that we have failed or will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. We may not have the right to control the preparation, filing, prosecution and maintenance of patent applications, or to maintain the rights to patents licensed to or from third parties.
Although we enter into confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to confidential or patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, collaborators, CROs, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose such output before a patent application is filed, thereby jeopardizing our ability to seek patent protection. Further, we may not be aware of all third-party intellectual property rights potentially relating to our product candidates. Publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until approximately 18 months after filing or, in some cases, not at all. Therefore, we cannot know with certainty whether we were the first to make the inventions claimed in our patents or pending patent applications, or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions.
The patent position of pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal, technological and factual questions and has, in recent years, been the subject of much debate and litigation throughout the world. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, or vice versa. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. The subject matter claimed in a patent application can be significantly reduced before the patent is issued, and its scope can be reinterpreted after issuance. Therefore, our
pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued in relevant jurisdictions that protect our product candidates, in whole or in part, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive product candidates, and, even if our patent applications issue as patents in relevant jurisdictions, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection for our product candidates or technology, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Additionally, our competitors may be able to circumvent our patents by developing similar or alternative product candidates or technologies in a non-infringing manner.
The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and our patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. We may be subject to a third-party pre-issuance submission of prior art to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the USPTO) or applicable foreign offices or become involved in opposition, derivation, revocation, reexamination, inter partes review, post-grant review or interference proceedings challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others, or other proceedings in the USPTO or applicable foreign offices that challenge priority of invention or other features of patentability. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could result in loss of exclusivity or freedom to operate, patent being narrowed, or held unenforceable, in whole or in part, or limits on the scope or duration of the patent protection of our product candidates, all of which could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical product candidates or technology to compete directly with us, without payment to us, or result in our to manufacture or commercialize products without third-party patent rights. In addition, if the breadth or of protection provided by our patents and patent applications were , regardless of the outcome, it could dissuade companies from with us to license, develop or commercialize current or future product candidates, or could impact our ability to raise funds necessary to continue our research programs or clinical trials. Such proceedings could also result in substantial cost and require significant time from our scientists and management, even if the eventual outcome is to us.
In addition, given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products or technology similar or identical to ours for a meaningful amount of time, or at all. Moreover, some of our owned or licensed patents and patent applications are, and may in the future be, co-owned with third parties. If we are unable to obtain exclusive licenses to any such co-owners’ interest in such patents or patent applications, such co-owners may be able to license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners in order to enforce such patents against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us. Any of the foregoing could harm our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We have entered into license agreements with third parties. If we or a third party fail to comply with the obligations in the agreements under which we license intellectual property rights to or from third parties, or these agreements are terminated, or we otherwise experience disruptions to business relationships with our licensors or licensees, our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be harmed.
In addition to patent and other intellectual property rights we own or co-own, we have licensed, and may in the future license, patent and other intellectual property rights to and from other parties. Licenses may not provide us with exclusive rights to use the applicable intellectual property and technology in all relevant fields of use and in all territories in which we may wish to develop or commercialize our products and technology in the future. As a result, we may not be able to prevent competitors from developing and commercializing competitive products or technologies.
In addition, in some circumstances, we may not have the right to control the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications or to maintain, defend and enforce the patents that we license to or from third parties, and we may have to rely on our partners to fulfill these responsibilities.
If we fail to comply with our obligations in the agreements under which we license intellectual property rights from third parties, the licensor may have the right to terminate the license. If these agreements are terminated, the underlying patents fail to provide the intended exclusivity or we otherwise experience disruptions to our business relationships with our licensors, we could lose intellectual property rights that are important to our business or be prevented from developing and commercializing our product candidates, and competitors could have the freedom to seek regulatory approval of, and to market, products identical to ours. Termination of these agreements or reduction or elimination of our rights under these agreements may also result in our having to negotiate new agreements with less favorable terms, cause us to lose our rights under these agreements, including our rights to important intellectual property or technology, or impede, or prohibit the further development or commercialization of one or more product candidates that rely on such agreements. It is possible that we may be to obtain any additional licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to redesign our product candidates or the methods for manufacturing them or to develop or license replacement technology, all of which may not be feasible on a technical or commercial basis.
In addition, some of the intellectual property rights we have in-licensed, including certain rights licensed in the agreements described above, may have been generated through the use of U.S. government funding. If any of the research resulting in certain of our owned and/or in-licensed patent rights and technology were funded in part by the U.S. federal or state governments, the government would have certain rights, including march-in rights, to such patent rights and technology. When new technologies are developed with government funding, the government generally obtains certain rights in any resulting patents, including a non-exclusive license authorizing the government to use the invention for noncommercial purposes. These rights may permit the government to disclose our confidential information to third parties or allow third parties to use our licensed technology. The government can exercise its march-in rights if it determines that action is necessary because we fail to achieve practical application of the government-funded technology, because action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs, to meet requirements of federal regulations, or to give preference to U.S. industry. In addition, a failure to comply with specific administrative requirements and deadlines under the Bayh-Dole Act can result in government taking title to the . In addition, our rights in such may be subject to certain requirements to manufacture products embodying such in the United States. Any of the foregoing could our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Licensing of intellectual property is of critical importance to our business and involves complex legal, business and scientific issues and certain provisions in intellectual property license agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. Disputes may arise between us and our licensing partners regarding intellectual property subject to a license agreement, including:
the scope of rights granted under the license agreement and other interpretation-related issues;
whether and the extent to which technology and processes of one party infringe on intellectual property of the other party that are not subject to the license agreement;
rights to sublicense patent and other rights to third parties;
rights to transfer or assign the license;
any diligence obligations with respect to the use of the licensed technology in relation to development and commercialization of our product candidates, and what activities satisfy those diligence obligations;
the ownership of inventions and know-how resulting from the joint creation or use of intellectual property; and
the effects of termination.
The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement, either of which could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Moreover, if disputes over intellectual property 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.
In addition, if our licensors or licensees failed to abide by the terms of the license or failed to prevent infringement by third parties or if the licensed patents or other rights were found to be invalid or unenforceable, our business, competitive position, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed.
If we are unable to obtain licenses from third parties on commercially reasonable terms or at all, our business could be harmed.
It may be necessary for us to use the patented or proprietary technology of third parties to commercialize our products, in which case we would be required to obtain a license from these third parties. The licensing of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and more established companies may pursue strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive or necessary. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, capital resources and greater 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 or at all. If we are unable to obtain a necessary license, we may be unable to develop or commercialize the affected product candidates, and the third parties owning such intellectual property rights could seek either an injunction prohibiting our sales, or, with respect to our sales, an obligation on our part to pay royalties or other forms of compensation. Even if we are to obtain a license, it may be non-, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. If we are to license needed technology, or if we are to license this technology on terms, our business could be materially .
We may not identify relevant third-party patents or may incorrectly interpret the relevance, scope or expiration of a third-party patent, which might subject us to infringement claims or adversely affect our ability to develop and market our product candidates.
We cannot guarantee that any of our or our licensors’ patent searches or analyses, including the identification of relevant patents, the scope of patent claims or the expiration of relevant patents, are complete or thorough, nor can we be certain that we have identified each and every third-party patent and pending patent application in the United States and abroad that is relevant to or necessary for the commercialization of our product candidates in any jurisdiction. For example, U.S. patent applications filed before November 29, 2000 and certain U.S. patent applications filed after that date that will not be filed outside the United States remain confidential until patents issue. Patent applications in the United States and elsewhere are published approximately 18 months after the earliest filing for which priority is claimed, with the earliest filing date being commonly referred to as the priority date. Therefore, patent applications covering our product candidates could have been filed by third parties without our knowledge. Additionally, pending patent applications that have been published can, subject to certain limitations, be later amended in a manner that could cover our product candidates or the use of our product candidates. 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 , which may impact our ability to market our product candidates. We may determine that our product candidates are not covered by a third-party patent or may predict whether a third party’s pending application will issue with of relevant scope. Our determination of the expiration date of any patent in the United States or abroad that we consider relevant may be , which may impact our ability to develop and market our product candidates. Our to identify and correctly interpret relevant patents may impact our ability to develop and market our product candidates.
If we fail to identify and correctly interpret relevant patents, we may be subject to infringement claims. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to successfully settle or otherwise resolve any infringement claims. If we fail in any of these disputes, in addition to being forced to pay damages, which may be significant, we may be temporarily or permanently prohibited from commercializing any of our product candidates that are held to be infringing. We might, if possible, also be forced to redesign product candidates so that we no longer infringe the third-party intellectual property rights. Any of these events, even if we were ultimately to prevail, could require us to substantial financial and management resources that we would otherwise be to devote to our business.
Patent terms may be inadequate to protect our competitive position on our product candidates for an adequate amount of time.
Patents have a limited lifespan. If all maintenance fees are timely paid, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional filing date. Various extensions may be available, but the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Even if patents covering our current and future product candidates are obtained, once the patent life has expired for a product candidate, we may be open to competition from competitive medications, including generic medications and biosimilars. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such product candidates might expire before or shortly after such product candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing product candidates similar or identical to ours for a meaningful amount of time, or at all.
Depending upon the timing, duration and conditions of any FDA marketing approval of our product candidates, one or more of our owned or licensed U.S. patents may be eligible for limited patent term extension under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, referred to as the Hatch-Waxman Amendments, and similar legislation in the European Union and certain other countries. The Hatch-Waxman Amendments permit a patent term extension of up to five years for a patent covering an approved product as compensation for effective patent term lost during product development and the FDA regulatory review process. However, we may not receive an extension if we fail to exercise due diligence during the testing phase or regulatory review process, fail to apply within applicable deadlines, fail to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents or otherwise fail to satisfy applicable requirements. Moreover, the length of the extension could be less than we request. Only one patent per approved product can be extended, the extension cannot extend the total patent term beyond 14 years from approval and only those claims covering the approved drug, a method for using it or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. If we are to obtain patent term extension or the term of any such extension is less than we request, the period during which we can enforce our patent rights for the applicable product candidate will be shortened and our competitors may obtain approval to market competing products sooner. As a result, our revenue from applicable products could be reduced. Further, if this occurs, our competitors may take of our investment in development and trials by referencing our clinical and preclinical data and launch their product earlier than might otherwise be the case.
In addition, there are detailed rules and requirements regarding the patents that may be submitted to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority for listing in the Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (the Orange Book) or foreign equivalent. We may be unable to obtain patents covering our product candidates that contain one or more claims that satisfy the requirements for listing in the Orange Book or foreign equivalent. Even if we submit a patent for listing in the Orange Book or
foreign equivalent, the FDA or relevant foreign regulatory authority may decline to list the patent, or a manufacturer of generic drugs may challenge the listing. If one of our product candidates is approved and a patent covering that product candidate is not listed in the Orange Book or foreign equivalent, a manufacturer of generic drugs would not have to provide advance notice to us of any abbreviated NDA filed with the FDA or relevant foreign regulatory authority to obtain permission to sell a generic version of such product candidate.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.
Filing, prosecuting, maintaining, defending and enforcing patents on our 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 and enforcement practices of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the United States. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine may also make it difficult or impossible to continue to prosecute patent applications or maintain patents in those countries or other affected territories. For example, in March 2022, a decree was adopted by the Russian government allowing Russian companies and individuals to exploit inventions owned by patentees from the United States without consent or compensation. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States, or from selling or importing products made using our in and 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 export otherwise products to territories where we have patent protection, but enforcement rights are not as as those in the United States. These products may compete with our product candidates 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 some countries do not favor the enforcement or protection of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our intellectual property and proprietary rights generally. We may need to share our trade secrets and proprietary know-how with current or future partners, collaborators, contractors and others located in countries at heightened risk of theft of trade secrets, including through direct intrusion by private parties or foreign actors, and those affiliated with or controlled by state actors. Proceedings to enforce our intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could third parties to assert us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful.
Many foreign countries, including some European Union countries, India, Japan and China, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled under specified circumstances to grant licenses to third parties. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against government agencies or government contractors. In those countries, we may have limited remedies if patents are infringed or if we (or one of our collaborators) are compelled to grant a license (or sublicense) to a third party, which could materially diminish the value of the applicable patents. This could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.
Changes in patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our product candidates.
Obtaining and enforcing patents in the pharmaceutical industry is inherently uncertain, due in part to ongoing changes in the patent laws. For example, in the United States, depending on decisions by Congress, the federal courts and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents, and interpretation thereof, could change in ways that could weaken our and our licensors’ or collaborators’ ability to obtain new patents or to enforce existing or future patents, or that affect the term of our or our licensors’ or collaborators’ patents. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on several patent cases in recent years, either narrowing the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances or weakening the rights of patent owners in certain situations. Therefore, there is increased uncertainty with regard to our and our licensors’ or collaborators’ ability to obtain patents in the future, as well as uncertainty with respect to the value of patents once obtained.
Patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our and our licensors’ or collaborators’ patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our or our licensors’ or collaborators’ issued patents. For example, assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, prior to March 2013, in the United States, the first to invent the claimed invention was entitled to the patent, while outside the United States, the first to file a patent application was entitled to the patent. After March 2013, under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (the Leahy-Smith Act) enacted in September 2011, the United States transitioned to a first inventor to file system in which, assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, the first
inventor to file a patent application will be entitled to the patent on an invention regardless of whether a third party was the first to invent the claimed invention. The Leahy-Smith Act also includes a number of significant changes that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. These include allowing third-party submission of prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution and additional procedures to challenge the validity of a patent by USPTO-administered post-grant proceedings, including post-grant review, inter partes review and derivation proceedings. The USPTO has developed regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act, particularly the first inventor-to-file provisions. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the of our or our licensors’ patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our or our licensors’ issued patents. Similarly, statutory or judicial changes to the patent laws of other countries may increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the of patent applications and the enforcement or defense of issued patents.
On June 1, 2023, the European Patent Package (the EU Patent Package) regulations were implemented with the goal of providing a single pan-European Unitary Patent and a new European Unified Patent Court (the UPC), for litigation involving European patents. Under the UPC, all European patents, including those issued prior to ratification of the European Patent Package, will by default automatically fall under the jurisdiction of the UPC. The UPC provides our competitors with a new forum to centrally revoke our European patents, and allows for the possibility of a competitor to obtain pan-European injunctions. It will be several years before we will understand the scope of patent rights that will be recognized and the strength of patent remedies provided by the UPC. As the UPC is a relatively new court system, there is limited precedent for the court, increasing the uncertainty of any litigation. We will have the right to opt our patents out of the UPC over the first seven years of the court’s existence, but doing so may preclude us from realizing the benefits, if any, of the new unified court.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by government patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated if we fail to comply with these requirements.
Periodic maintenance fees, renewal fees, annuity fees and various other fees are required to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of a patent. In certain circumstances, we rely on our licensors and collaborators to pay these fees. The USPTO and various foreign patent agencies also require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar requirements during the patent application and prosecution process. Non-compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include failure to respond to official communications within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. While an inadvertent lapse can in some cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which non-compliance can result in irrevocable abandonment or of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. If we or our licensors or to maintain the patents and patent applications covering our product candidates, our competitors might be to enter the relevant market(s) with similar or identical products or technology, which would our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents or other intellectual property, which could be expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful, and issued patents covering our technology and product candidates could be found invalid or unenforceable if challenged.
Competitors and other third parties may infringe or otherwise violate our issued patents or other intellectual property or the patents or other intellectual property of our licensors. In addition, our patents or the patents of our licensors may become involved in inventorship or priority disputes. Our pending patent applications cannot be enforced against third parties practicing the technology claimed in such applications unless and until a patent issues from such applications. To counter infringement or other unauthorized use, we may be required to file infringement claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Our ability to enforce patent rights also depends on our ability to detect infringement. It may be difficult to detect infringers who do not advertise the components or methods that are used in connection with their products and services. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain evidence of in a competitor’s or potential competitor’s product or service. Any we assert perceived infringers could these parties to assert us that we their patents or that our patents are or unenforceable. In a patent proceeding, a court may decide that a patent of ours is or unenforceable, in whole or in part, construe the patent’s narrowly or to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology. An result in any proceeding could put one or more of our owned or licensed patents at risk of being , held unenforceable or interpreted narrowly. Additionally, we may determine it is or to enforce our intellectual property some third parties.
If we were to initiate legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent directed to our product candidates, or one of our future product candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that our patent is invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United
States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of novelty, obviousness, non-enablement or insufficient written description. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld relevant information from the USPTO or made a misleading statement during prosecution. Third parties may also raise similar claims before the USPTO or an equivalent foreign body, even outside the context of litigation. Potential proceedings include re-examination, post-grant review, inter partes review, proceedings, derivation proceedings and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., proceedings). Such proceedings could result in the of, of, or amendment to our patents in such a way that they no longer cover our technology or any product candidates that we may develop. The outcome following legal of and unenforceability is . With respect to the validity , for example, we cannot be certain that there is no prior art of which we and the patent examiner were during . If a were to prevail on a legal assertion of or unenforceability, we would at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on the applicable product candidates or technology covered by the patent rendered or unenforceable.
Interference proceedings provoked by third parties or brought by us or declared by the USPTO may be necessary to determine the priority of inventions with respect to our patents or patent applications. An unfavorable outcome could require us to cease using the related technology or to attempt to license rights to it from the prevailing party. Our business could be materially harmed if the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms or at all.
Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation.
Some of our competitors are larger than we are and have substantially greater resources. They are, therefore, likely to be able to sustain the costs of complex patent litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their greater financial resources and more mature and developed intellectual property portfolios. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing upon, misappropriating or otherwise violating our intellectual property. Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to intellectual property claims could result in substantial costs and diversion of management attention and other resources, which could harm our business. In addition, the uncertainties associated with litigation could compromise our ability to raise the funds necessary to continue our clinical trials, continue our internal research programs, or in-license needed technology or other product candidates. There could also be public announcements of the results of the hearing, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive those results to be , it could cause the price of shares of our common stock to .
Third parties may initiate legal proceedings alleging that we are infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating their intellectual property rights, the outcome of which would be uncertain and could negatively impact the success of our business.
Our commercial success depends upon our ability to develop, manufacture, market and sell our product candidates and use our proprietary technologies without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the intellectual property and other proprietary rights of third parties. There is considerable intellectual property litigation in the pharmaceutical industry.
We may become party to, or threatened with, future adversarial proceedings or litigation regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our product candidates and their manufacture and our other technology, including re-examination, interference, post-grant review, inter partes review or derivation proceedings before the USPTO or an equivalent foreign body. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications owned by third parties exist in the fields in which we are developing our product candidates. Third parties may assert infringement claims against us based on existing patents or patents that may be granted in the future, regardless of their merit.
Even if we believe third-party intellectual property claims are without merit, there is no assurance that a court would find in our favor on questions of infringement, validity, enforceability or priority. A court of competent jurisdiction could hold that third-party patents asserted against us are valid, enforceable and infringed, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to commercialize any of our product candidates and any other product candidates or technologies covered by the asserted third-party patents. In order to successfully challenge the validity of a U.S. patent in federal court, we would need to overcome a presumption of validity. As this burden is a high one requiring us to present clear and convincing evidence as to the invalidity of a U.S. patent claim, there is no assurance that a court of competent jurisdiction would invalidate the of any such U.S. patent. If we are found to , or otherwise a third party’s intellectual property rights, and we are in demonstrating that these rights are or unenforceable, we could be required to obtain a license from such a third party in order to continue developing and marketing our products and technology. However, we may not be to obtain any required license on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we were to obtain a license, it could be non-, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. We could be , including by court order, to commercializing the technology or
product. A finding of infringement could prevent us from commercializing our product candidates or force us to cease some of our business operations. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, pay royalties and other fees, redesign our infringing product candidate or obtain one or more licenses from third parties, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. Claims that we have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could have a similar negative impact on our business.
We may be subject to claims by third parties asserting that we or our employees have infringed upon, misappropriated or otherwise violated their intellectual property rights, or claiming ownership of what we regard as our own intellectual property.
Many of our employees were previously employed at other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, and our consultants and advisors may work for other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies in addition to us. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants and advisors do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these individuals have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any of these individuals’ former or concurrent employers or clients. We may also be subject to claims that patents and applications we have filed to protect inventions of our employees, consultants and advisors, even those related to one or more of our product candidates, are rightfully owned by their former or concurrent employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims.
If we fail in prosecuting or defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in prosecuting or defending against these claims, litigation could result in substantial costs, delay development of our product candidates and be a distraction to management.
We may be subject to claims challenging the inventorship of our patents and other intellectual property.
We or our licensors may be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators or other third parties have an interest in our owned or in-licensed patents, trade secrets, or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. For example, we or our licensors may have inventorship disputes that arise from conflicting obligations of employees, consultants or others who are involved in developing our product candidates. While it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning this intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who in fact develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. Our and their assignment agreements may not be self-executing or may be breached, and litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other inventorship or our or our licensors’ ownership of our owned or in-licensed patents, trade secrets or other intellectual property. If we or our licensors in any such , in addition to paying monetary , we may intellectual property rights, such as ownership of, or right to use, intellectual property that is important to our product candidates. Even if we are in such , could result in substantial costs and be a to management and other employees.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.
We rely on trade secrets and confidentiality agreements to protect our unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information (including unpatented know-how associated with Warp Drive Bio, Inc.) and to maintain our competitive position. Trade secrets and know-how can be difficult to protect. We seek to protect these trade secrets and other proprietary technology, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, collaborators, CROs, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We also enter into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants. We cannot guarantee that we have entered into these agreements with each party that may have or has had access to our trade secrets or proprietary technology and processes. Despite our efforts, 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. Unauthorized parties may also attempt to copy or reverse engineer certain aspects of our products that we consider proprietary. Monitoring uses and disclosures is , and we do not know whether the steps we have taken to protect our proprietary information will be .
We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our confidential proprietary information 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. 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. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor or other third party, we would have no right to prevent them from using that technology or information to compete with us.
If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to, or independently developed by, a competitor or other third party, our competitive position would be materially and adversely harmed.
If our trademarks and trade names are not adequately protected, then we may not be able to build name recognition in our markets of interest, and our business may be adversely affected.
Our registered and unregistered trademarks and trade names may be challenged, infringed, circumvented or declared generic or determined to be infringing on other marks. We may not be able to protect our rights to these trademarks and trade names, which we need to build name recognition among potential collaborators or customers in our markets of interest. At times, competitors may adopt trade names or trademarks similar to ours, thereby impeding our ability to build brand identity and possibly leading to market confusion. In addition, there could be potential trade name or trademark infringement claims brought by owners of other trademarks or trademarks that incorporate variations of our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names. Over the long term, if we are unable to establish name recognition based on our trademarks and trade names, then we may not be to compete effectively, and our business may be affected. We may license our trademarks and trade names to third parties, such as distributors or licensees. Although these license agreements may provide conditions and guidelines for how our trademarks and trade names may be used, a of these agreements or of our trademarks and tradenames by these third parties may our rights in or the goodwill associated with our trademarks and trade names. Our efforts to enforce or protect our proprietary rights related to trademarks, trade names, trade secrets, domain names, copyrights or other intellectual property may be and could result in substantial costs and of resources.
Intellectual property rights do not necessarily address all potential threats.
The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations and may not adequately protect our business or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. For example:
others may be able to make products that are similar to our current or future product candidates or utilize similar technology but that are not covered by the claims of our patents or the patents that we license or may own in the future;
we, or our current or future collaborators might not have been the first to make the inventions covered by an issued patent or pending patent application that we license or may own in the future;
we or our current or future collaborators might not have been the first to file patent applications covering certain of our or their inventions;
others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our owned or licensed intellectual property rights;
generative AI Technologies are a relatively novel development with evolving regulatory regimes that may not offer intellectual property protections;
our pending owned or licensed patent applications or those that we may own or license in the future may not lead to issued patents;
issued patents that we hold rights to may be held invalid or unenforceable, including as a result of legal challenges by our competitors;
our competitors might conduct research and development activities in countries where we do not have patent rights and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our major commercial markets;
we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;
the patents of others may harm our business; and
we may choose not to file a patent in order to maintain certain trade secrets or know-how, and a third party may subsequently file a patent covering such intellectual property.
Risks related to employee matters and managing our growth
We are highly dependent on our key personnel, and if we are not successful in attracting, motivating and retaining highly qualified personnel, we may not be able to successfully implement our business strategy.
We are highly dependent on members of our executive team. The loss of the services of any of them may adversely impact the achievement of our objectives. Any of our executive officers could leave our employment at any time, as all of our employees are
“at-will” employees. We currently do not have “key person” insurance on any of our employees. The loss of the services of one or more of our key personnel might impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives.
Recruiting and retaining qualified employees, consultants and advisors for our business, including scientific and technical personnel, is critical to our success. Competition for skilled personnel is intense and the turnover rate can be high. We may not be able to attract and retain personnel on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and academic institutions for skilled individuals. In addition, failure to succeed in preclinical studies, clinical trials or applications for marketing approval may make it more challenging to recruit and retain qualified personnel. The inability to recruit, or the loss of services of certain executives, key employees, consultants or advisors may impede the progress of our research, development and commercialization objectives.
We will need to increase the size of our organization, and we may experience difficulties in managing this growth.
As of December 31, 2025, we had 883 full-time employees, including 673 employees engaged in research and development. As our development and commercialization plans and strategies develop, and as we operate as a public company, we expect to need additional managerial, research and development, operational, sales, marketing, financial and other personnel. Future growth would impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, including:
identifying, recruiting, integrating, retaining and motivating additional employees;
managing our internal development efforts effectively, including the clinical and FDA review process for our product candidates, while complying with our contractual obligations to contractors and other third parties; and
improving our operational, financial and management controls, reporting systems and procedures.
Our future financial performance and our ability to advance development of and, if approved, commercialize our product candidates will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth, and our management may also have to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from day-to-day activities in order to devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities.
We currently rely, and for the foreseeable future will continue to rely, in substantial part on certain independent organizations, advisors and consultants to provide certain services, including substantially all aspects of marketing approval, clinical management and manufacturing. The services of these independent organizations, advisors and consultants may not continue to be available to us on a timely basis when needed, on economically reasonable terms, or at all, and we may be unable to find qualified replacements. In addition, if we are unable to effectively manage our outsourced activities or if the quality or accuracy of the services provided by consultants is compromised for any reason, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain marketing approval of any current or future product candidates or otherwise advance our business.
If we are not able to effectively expand our organization by hiring new employees and expanding our groups of consultants and contractors, we may not be able to successfully implement the tasks necessary to further develop and commercialize any of our product candidates and, accordingly, may not achieve our research, development and commercialization goals.
We are currently building out our commercial organization. If we are unable to establish sufficient sales and marketing capabilities on our own or through third parties, we may not be able to market and sell any products effectively, if approved, or generate product revenue.
We are currently building out our commercial organization. In order to commercialize any product, if approved, in the United States and foreign jurisdictions, we must build our marketing, sales, distribution, market access, analytics, managerial and other non-technical capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services, and we may not be successful in doing so. We expect to establish a sales organization with technical expertise as well as supporting distribution capabilities to commercialize each such product candidate, which will be expensive and time-consuming. Our Company has no prior experience in the marketing, sale and distribution of pharmaceutical products. There are significant risks involved in building and managing a sales organization, including our ability to hire, retain, and incentivize qualified individuals, generate sufficient sales leads, provide adequate training to sales and marketing personnel, and effectively manage a geographically dispersed sales and marketing team. Any failure or delay in the development of our internal sales, marketing and distribution capabilities would adversely impact the commercialization of these products. We may choose to collaborate with third parties that have direct sales forces and established distribution systems, either to augment our own sales force and distribution systems or in lieu of our own sales and distribution systems. If we are to enter into such arrangements on acceptable terms or at all, we may not be to commercialize our product candidates.
We have in the past engaged and may in the future engage in strategic transactions; these transactions could affect our liquidity, dilute our existing stockholders, increase our expenses and present significant challenges in focus and energy to our management or prove not to be successful.
From time to time, we may consider strategic transactions, such as acquisitions of companies, asset purchases and out-licensing or in-licensing of intellectual property, products or technologies. For example, in October 2018, we acquired all of the outstanding shares of Warp Drive Bio, Inc., which became our direct wholly owned subsidiary, and in November 2023, we completed the EQRx Acquisition.
Additional potential transactions that we may consider in the future include a variety of business arrangements, including spin-offs, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, restructurings, divestitures, business combinations and investments. Any future transactions could result in potentially dilutive issuances of our equity securities, including our common stock, or the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities, amortization expenses or acquired in-process research and development expenses, any of which could affect our financial condition, liquidity and results of operations. Future acquisitions may also require us to obtain additional financing, which may not be available on favorable terms or at all. These transactions may never be successful and may require significant time and attention of management. In addition, the integration of any business that we may acquire in the future may disrupt our existing business and may be a complex, risky and costly endeavor for which we may never realize the full benefits of the acquisition.
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 negatively impact our business.
We are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. Our operations involve the use of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological and radioactive materials. Our operations also produce hazardous waste products. We generally contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and wastes. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination or injury from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from our use of hazardous materials, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We also could incur significant costs associated with civil or criminal fines and penalties.
Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of biological, hazardous or radioactive materials.
We or the third parties upon whom we depend are subject to risk from earthquakes, outbreak of disease, other natural disasters and catastrophic events and may be subject to disruption as a result of war, terrorism, political unrest and other causes.
Our corporate headquarters and other facilities are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, which in the past has experienced severe earthquakes, wildfires and flooding. We do not carry earthquake insurance. Earthquakes, wildfires or other natural disasters could severely disrupt our operations, and negatively impact our business.
A significant natural disaster, power outage, or other catastrophic event, such as telecommunications failure, cyberattack, war, terrorist attack, sabotage, geopolitical event, pandemic, or other public health crisis or other catastrophic occurrence that prevented us from using all or a significant portion of our headquarters, that damaged critical infrastructure, such as our enterprise financial systems or manufacturing resource planning and enterprise quality systems, or that otherwise disrupted operations, may make it difficult or, in certain cases, impossible, for us to continue our business for a substantial period of time. The disaster recovery and business continuity plans we have in place currently are limited and are unlikely to prove adequate in the event of a or similar event. We may incur substantial expenses as a result of the limited nature of our recovery and business continuity plans, which, particularly when taken together with our of earthquake insurance, could impact our business.
Furthermore, escalation of geopolitical tensions, including as a result of the ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine or in the Middle East, could impact our current or planned clinical operations and our business partners and suppliers, which could adversely affect our business, partners, suppliers or the economy as a whole. The extent and duration of the military action, sanctions and resulting market disruptions could be significant and have substantial impact on the global economy and our business for an unknown period of time, including limiting our ability to include European or Middle Eastern sites as clinical trial locations in the future, as a result of which we may have to delay, reduce the scope of or suspend one or more of our clinical trials.
Despite any precautions we may take, the occurrence of a natural disaster or other unanticipated problems could result in lengthy interruptions to our business or disruptions in our activities or the activities of our partners, suppliers or the economy as a whole. All of the aforementioned risks may be further increased if our disaster recovery plans prove to be inadequate.
Our employees, independent contractors, vendors, principal investigators, CROs and consultants may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including non-compliance with regulatory standards and requirements and insider trading.
We are exposed to the risk that our employees, independent contractors, vendors, principal investigators, CROs and consultants may engage in fraudulent conduct or other illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless or negligent conduct or disclosure of unauthorized activities to us that violate the regulations of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, including those laws requiring the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to such authorities; healthcare fraud and abuse laws and regulations in the United States and abroad; or laws that require the reporting of financial information or data accurately. In particular, sales, marketing and business arrangements in the healthcare industry are subject to extensive laws and regulations intended to prevent fraud, misconduct, , self-dealing and other 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. Activities subject to these laws also involve the use of information obtained in the course of clinical trials or creating data in our preclinical studies or clinical trials, which could result in regulatory sanctions and cause to our reputation. It is not always possible to identify and by employees and other third parties, 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 government or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a to comply with these laws or regulations. Additionally, we are subject to the risk that a person could or other , even if none occurred. 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 civil, and administrative , , monetary , possible exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs, contractual , reputational , and of our operations.
Risks related to our common stock and warrants
The price of our common stock is volatile and fluctuates substantially, which could result in substantial losses for investors.
Our stock price is highly volatile. The stock market in general, and the market for biopharmaceutical companies in particular, have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies.
The market price for our common stock may be influenced by many factors, including:
our research and development efforts and our ability to discover and develop product candidates;
results of our clinical trials and preclinical studies or those of our competitors;
the success of competitive products or technologies;
regulatory or legal developments in the United States and other countries;
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 our product candidates or clinical development programs;
the results of our efforts to discover, develop, acquire or in-license product candidates or companion diagnostics;
any adverse developments or disagreements or perceived adverse developments or disagreements with our partners;
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;
changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;
market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors; and
general economic, industry and market conditions.
In addition, stock markets with respect to public companies, particularly companies in the biotechnology industry, have experienced significant price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect, the stock prices of these companies. Stock prices of many companies, including biotechnology companies, have fluctuated in a manner often unrelated to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the trading price of their securities have been subject to securities class action litigation.
An active and liquid market for our common stock may not be sustained.
Our common stock is currently listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “RVMD”. The price for our common stock may vary, and an active and liquid market in our common stock may not be sustained. The lack of an active market may impair the value of your shares, your ability to sell your shares at the time you wish to sell them and the prices that you may obtain for your shares. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital by selling our common stock and our ability to acquire other companies, products or technologies by using our common stock as consideration.
We do not intend to pay dividends on our common stock so any returns will be limited to the value of our stock.
We do not currently intend to pay any cash dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future. We currently intend to invest our future earnings, if any, to fund our growth. Additionally, the terms of our Loan Agreement restrict our ability to pay dividends, except for certain customary exceptions. Therefore, stockholders are not likely to receive any dividends on their common stock for the foreseeable future. Since we do not intend to pay dividends, stockholders’ ability to receive a return on their investment will depend on any future appreciation in the market value of our common stock. There is no guarantee that our common stock will appreciate or even maintain the price at which our holders have purchased it.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could cause our stock price to fall.
If our existing stockholders sell, or indicate an intention to sell, substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market, the market price of our common stock could decline.
As of December 31, 2025, 28.6 million shares of common stock were subject to outstanding options, warrants, or restricted stock units and were eligible, or expected to become eligible, for sale in the public market to the extent permitted by the provisions of various vesting schedules and Rule 144 and Rule 701 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act). If these additional shares of common stock are sold, or if it is perceived that they will be sold, in the public market, the market price of our common stock could decline.
There is no guarantee that the warrants will ever be in the money, and they may expire worthless.
The warrants entitle registered holders to purchase 0.1112 shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $11.50 per such fractional share of common stock. There is no guarantee that the warrants will ever be in the money prior to their expiration, and as such, the warrants could expire worthless.
We may amend the terms of the warrants in a manner that may be adverse to holders with the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding warrants. As a result, the exercise price of a holder’s warrants could be increased, the exercise period could be shortened and the number of shares of our common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant could be decreased, all without the approval of that warrant holder.
Our warrants were issued in registered form under a Warrant Agreement between Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, as warrant agent, and EQRx, Inc. Following the EQRx Acquisition, the warrants became exercisable for shares of our common stock, and we appointed Equiniti Trust Company, LLC as the warrant agent. The Warrant Agreement provides that the terms of the warrants may be amended without the consent of any holder to cure any ambiguity or correct any defective provision, but requires the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding warrants to make any change that adversely affects the interests of the registered holders. Accordingly, we may only amend the terms of the warrants in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding warrants approve of the amendment, including to, among other things, increase the exercise price of the warrants, convert the warrants into cash or stock, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of shares of common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant.
We may redeem unexpired warrants prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to warrant holders, thereby making their warrants worthless.
We have the ability to redeem our outstanding public warrants at any time prior to their expiration in December 2026 (A) at a price of $0.01 per public warrant; provided that the last reported sales price of our common stock equals or exceeds $161.87 per share (as adjusted for stock splits, stock dividends, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading-day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we give notice of such redemption to the public warrant holders and provided certain other conditions are met, and (B) at a price of $0.10 per public warrant; provided that (i) holders will be able to exercise their public warrants on a cashless basis prior to redemption and receive that number of shares determined by reference to an agreed table based on the redemption date and the “fair market value” of the common stock, (ii) if the last reported sales price of Common Stock equals or exceeds $89.93 per share (as adjusted for adjustments to the number of shares issuable upon exercise or the exercise price of a public warrant as described in the “Description of Securities” filed as Exhibit 4.3 hereto under the heading “Public warrants — Anti-dilution Adjustments”) for any 20 trading days within the 30-trading day period ending three trading days before we send the notice of redemption to the public warrant holders, (iii) if the closing price of our common stock for any 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period ending three trading days before we send the notice of redemption to the public warrant holders is less than $161.87 per share (as adjusted), the private warrants must also be concurrently called for redemption on the same terms as the outstanding public warrants and (iv) provided certain other conditions are met. A redemption in accordance with (B) above may result in public warrant holders having to exercise the public warrants at a time when they are out-of-the-money or receive nominal consideration from the Company for them.
As of the filing of this report, the last reported sales price of our common stock has exceeded $89.93 per share for at least 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period, satisfying the conditions that would permit us to redeem outstanding public and private warrants at a price of $0.10 per warrant as described in clause (B) above. We may elect to exercise this redemption right at any time that it remains available to us, in our sole discretion, subject to the notice and other procedural requirements set forth in the warrant agreement, including at a time and under circumstances that we believe are in the best interests of the Company and its stockholders, even if doing so is disadvantageous to warrant holders.
The terms of the private warrants are substantially the same as to the public warrants; provided, that, except as described above in the discussion of the redemption of public warrants when the price per share of our common stock equals or exceeds $89.93, the private warrants are exercisable on a cashless basis and are non-redeemable for cash so long as they are held by the initial purchasers or their permitted transferees. If the private warrants are held by someone other than the initial purchasers or their permitted transferees, the private warrants are redeemable by the Company and exercisable by such holders on the same basis as the public warrants. Please see Exhibit 4.3 “Description of Securities — Warrants — Public Warrants” for additional information.
If and when the warrants become redeemable by us, we may exercise our redemption right even if we are unable to register or qualify the underlying securities for sale under all applicable state securities laws. Redemption of the outstanding warrants could force the warrant holders: (i) to exercise their warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for them to do so; (ii) to sell their warrants at the then-current market price when they might otherwise wish to hold their warrants; or (iii) to accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding warrants are called for redemption, is likely to be substantially less than the market value of their warrants.
Our ability to utilize our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes has been limited by “ownership changes” and may be further limited.
Under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the Code), and corresponding provisions of state law, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change” (generally defined as a greater than 50 percentage point change (by value) in its equity ownership over a rolling three-year period), the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research and development tax credits) to offset its post-change income or taxes may be limited. We have experienced ownership changes in the past, and we may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of our public offerings or other changes in our stock ownership (some of which are not in our control). Use of our federal and state net operating loss carryforwards has been limited as a result of ownership changes and could be further limited if we experience additional ownership changes.
Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could discourage a takeover that stockholders may consider favorable and may lead to entrenchment of management.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent changes in control or changes in our management without the consent of our board of directors. These provisions include the following:
a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which may delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of our board of directors;
no cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
the exclusive right of our board of directors to appoint a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of the board of directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;
the ability of our board of directors to authorize the issuance of shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquiror;
the ability of our board of directors to alter our amended and restated bylaws without obtaining stockholder approval;
the required approval of at least 66 2/3% of the shares entitled to vote at an election of directors to adopt, amend or repeal our amended and restated bylaws or repeal the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation regarding the election and removal of directors;
a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by our chief executive officer or president or by our board of directors, which may delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors; and
advance notice procedures that stockholders must comply with in order to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquiror from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquiror’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
We are also subject to the anti-takeover provisions contained in Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. Under Section 203, a corporation may not, in general, engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its capital stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other exceptions, the board of directors has approved the transaction.
Claims for indemnification by our directors and officers may reduce our available funds to satisfy successful third-party claims against us and may reduce the amount of money available to us.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide that we will indemnify our directors and officers, in each case, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law.
In addition, as permitted by Section 145 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated bylaws and our indemnification agreements that we have entered into with our directors and officers provide that:
we will indemnify our directors and officers for serving us in those capacities or for serving other business enterprises at our request, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Delaware law provides that a corporation may indemnify such person if such person acted in good faith and in a manner such person reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to our best interests and, with respect to any criminal proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe such person’s conduct was unlawful;
we may, in our discretion, indemnify employees and agents in those circumstances where indemnification is permitted by applicable law;
we are required to advance expenses, as incurred, to our directors and officers in connection with defending a proceeding, except that such directors or officers shall undertake to repay such advances if it is ultimately determined that such person is not entitled to indemnification;
we are not obligated pursuant to our amended and restated bylaws to indemnify a person with respect to proceedings initiated by that person against us or our other indemnitees, except with respect to proceedings authorized by our board of directors or brought to enforce a right to indemnification;
the rights conferred in our amended and restated bylaws are not exclusive, and we are authorized to enter into indemnification agreements with our directors, officers, employees and agents and to obtain insurance to indemnify such persons; and
we may not retroactively amend our amended and restated bylaws to reduce our indemnification obligations to our directors, officers, employees and agents.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws provide for an exclusive forum in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware for certain 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 amended and restated bylaws provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for any state law 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, any action to interpret, apply, enforce, or determine the validity of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws, or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine; provided that the exclusive forum provision will not apply to suits brought to enforce any liability or duty created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction; and provided further that if and only if the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware any such action for of subject matter jurisdiction, such action may be brought in another state or federal court sitting in the State of Delaware. Our amended and bylaws also provide that the federal district courts of the United States of America will be the forum for the resolution of any asserting a cause or causes of action under the Securities Act. Such provision is intended to and may be enforced by us, our officers and directors, by the underwriters to any offering giving rise to such and any other professional or entity whose profession gives authority to a statement made by that person or entity and who has prepared or certified any part of the documents underlying the offering. Nothing in our amended and certificate of incorporation or amended and bylaws stockholders that assert under the Exchange Act from bringing such in state or federal court, subject to applicable law.
We believe these provisions may benefit us by providing increased consistency in the application of Delaware law and federal securities laws by chancellors and judges, as applicable, particularly experienced in resolving corporate disputes, efficient administration of cases on a more expedited schedule relative to other forums and protection against the burdens of multi-forum litigation. This 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 any of our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders, which may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims, although our stockholders will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. Furthermore, the enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that a court could find these types of provisions to be inapplicable or unenforceable. While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than those designated in the -forum provisions, and there can be no assurance that such provisions will be enforced by a court in those other jurisdictions. If a court were to find the choice of forum provision in our amended and certificate of incorporation or amended and bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
General risk factors
Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies.
To date, we have primarily financed our operations through the sale or issuance of preferred stock and common stock and upfront payments and research and development cost reimbursement received in connection with our prior collaboration with Sanofi and the EQRx Acquisition. We will be required to seek additional funding in the future to achieve our goals and may do so through a combination of public or private equity offerings, debt financings, credit or loan facilities, collaborations, strategic alliances, licensing arrangements and other marketing or distribution arrangements. If we raise additional capital through marketing and distribution arrangements or other collaborations, strategic alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish certain valuable rights to our product candidates, technologies, future revenue streams or research programs or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we raise additional funds by issuing equity securities, our stockholders may suffer dilution and the terms of any financing may affect the rights of our stockholders. For example, the EQRx Acquisition, an all-stock
transaction pursuant to which we issued shares of our common stock according to a blended formula, resulted in substantial dilution to our stockholders. In addition, as a condition to providing additional funds to us, future investors may demand, and may be granted, rights superior to those of existing stockholders. Debt financing, if available, is likely to involve restrictive covenants limiting our flexibility in conducting future business activities, and, in the event of insolvency, debt holders would be repaid before holders of our equity securities would receive any distribution of our corporate assets. Attempting to secure additional financing may also divert our management from our day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop our product candidates.
Litigation or other legal proceedings, including proceedings related to intellectual property and securities class action lawsuits and derivative lawsuits, could cause us to spend substantial resources and distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities.
Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings, may cause us to incur significant expenses, and could distract our technical and management personnel from their normal responsibilities. There is considerable intellectual property litigation in the pharmaceutical industry. Additionally, securities class action lawsuits and derivative lawsuits are often brought against public companies that have entered into merger agreements or as a result of stock price volatility. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock. Such litigation or proceedings could result in substantial costs and monetary damages and thus substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or distribution activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such or proceedings . As noted above, some of our competitors may be to sustain the costs of such or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their financial resources. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent or other proceedings could compromise our ability to compete in the marketplace, including compromising our ability to raise the funds necessary to continue our clinical trials, continue our research programs, license necessary technology from third parties, or enter into development that would help us commercialize our product candidates, if approved. See the description of certain current legal proceedings in “Legal Proceedings” contained in Item 3 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
We are subject to certain U.S. and foreign anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, export control, sanctions, and other trade laws and regulations. We can face serious consequences for violations.
Among other matters, U.S. and foreign anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, export control, sanctions, and other trade laws and regulations (collectively, Trade Laws), prohibit companies and their employees, agents, clinical research organizations, legal counsel, accountants, consultants, contractors, and other partners from authorizing, promising, offering, providing, soliciting, or receiving directly or indirectly, corrupt or improper payments or anything else of value to or from recipients in the public or private sector. Violations of Trade Laws can result in substantial criminal fines and civil penalties, imprisonment, the loss of trade privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational , and other consequences. We have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or government-affiliated hospitals, universities, and other organizations. We also expect our non-U.S. activities to increase in time. We plan to engage third parties for clinical trials and/or to obtain necessary permits, licenses, patent registrations, and other regulatory approvals and we can be held liable for the or other activities of our personnel, agents, or partners, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have prior knowledge of such activities.
We may be adversely affected by events in the global economy and events adversely affecting the financial services industry.
We may be adversely affected by general conditions in the global economy and in the global financial markets, including the current inflationary environment and the imposition of tariffs and other trade protection measures. Increased inflation and costs of production may result in decreased demand for our products (if approved), increased operating costs (including our labor costs), reduced liquidity and limitations on our ability to access credit or otherwise raise debt and equity capital. In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised, and may again in the future raise, interest rates in response to inflation. Increases in interest rates, especially if coupled with reduced government spending and volatility in financial markets, could have the effect of further increasing economic uncertainty and heightening these risks.
Adverse developments that affect financial institutions or concerns or rumors about these events have in the past and may in the future lead to market-wide liquidity problems. For example, in March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which appointed the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. Similarly, other institutions have been and may continue to be swept into receivership. Uncertainty may remain over liquidity concerns in the broader financial services industry, and there may be unpredictable impacts to our business and our industry. We cannot anticipate all the ways in which the global financial market conditions could adversely impact our business in the future.
Although we assess our banking relationships as we believe necessary or appropriate, our access to deposits or other financial assets on a timely basis or in adequate amounts could be significantly impaired by factors that affect the financial institutions with which we have banking relationships or the financial markets or financial services industry generally. These factors could include, among others, events such as liquidity constraints or failures, the ability to perform obligations under various types of financial, credit or liquidity agreements or arrangements, disruptions or instability in the financial services industry or financial markets, or concerns or negative expectations about the prospects for companies in the financial services industry.
We maintain our cash at financial institutions, in balances that may exceed federally insured limits.
We maintain the majority of our cash and cash equivalents in accounts at banking institutions in the United States that we believe are of high quality. Cash held in these accounts may exceed the FDIC insurance limits. If these banking institutions were to fail, we could lose all or a portion of amounts held in excess of these insurance limitations. In the event of failure of any of the financial institutions where we maintain our cash and cash equivalents, there can be no assurance that we would be able to access uninsured funds in a timely manner or at all.
We incur significantly increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management devotes substantial time to new compliance initiatives. We may fail to comply with the rules that apply to public companies, which could result in sanctions or other penalties that would harm our business.
We incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses as a public company, including costs resulting from public company reporting obligations under the Exchange Act, and regulations regarding corporate governance practices. The listing requirements of the Nasdaq Global Select Market and the rules of the SEC require that we satisfy certain corporate governance requirements relating to director independence, filing annual and interim reports, stockholder meetings, approvals and voting, soliciting proxies, conflicts of interest and a code of conduct. Our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to comply with all of these requirements. Moreover, the reporting requirements, rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and make some activities more time-consuming and costly. Any changes we make to comply with these obligations may not be sufficient to allow us to satisfy our obligations as a public company on a timely basis, or at all. These reporting requirements, rules and regulations, coupled with the increase in potential litigation exposure associated with being a public company, could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors or board committees or to serve as executive officers, or to obtain certain types of insurance, including directors’ and officers’ insurance, on acceptable terms. Stockholder activism, the current political environment and the current high level of government intervention and regulatory reform may lead to substantial new regulations and disclosure obligations, which may lead to additional compliance costs and impact the manner in which we operate our business in ways we cannot currently anticipate.
If securities analysts do not continue to publish research or reports about our business or if they publish negative evaluations of our stock, the price of our stock could decline.
The trading market for our common stock relies, in part, on the research and reports that industry or financial analysts publish about us or our business. If few analysts publish research or reports about us, the trading price of our stock would likely decrease. If one or more of the analysts covering our business downgrades their evaluations of our stock, the price of our stock could decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases to cover our stock, we could lose visibility in the market for our stock, which, in turn, could cause our stock price to decline.
If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal controls over financial reporting, our ability to produce accurate and timely financial statements could be impaired, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and the trading price of our common stock may decline.
As a public company, we are subject to Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley and the related rules of the SEC, which generally require our management and independent registered public accounting firm to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
In order to provide the reports required by these rules we must conduct reviews and testing of our internal controls. During the course of our review and testing, we may identify deficiencies and be unable to remediate them before we must provide the required reports. Furthermore, if we have a material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting, we may not detect errors on a timely basis, and our financial statements may be materially misstated. Further, failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets. We or our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to conclude on an ongoing basis that we have effective internal control over financial reporting, which could harm our operating results, cause investors to confidence in our reported financial information and cause the trading price of our stock to fall. In addition, as a
public company, we are required to file accurate and timely quarterly and annual reports with the SEC under the Exchange Act. In order to report our results of operations and financial statements on an accurate and timely basis, we will depend on third-party vendors to provide timely and accurate notice of their costs to us. Any failure to report our financial results on an accurate and timely basis could result in sanctions, lawsuits, delisting of our shares and public warrants from the Nasdaq Global Select Market or other adverse consequences.
Item 1B. Unresolve d Staff Comments.
None.
Item 1C. Cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy
We have developed and implemented a cybersecurity risk management program intended to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our critical systems and information.
Our cybersecurity program is designed to align with industry standards and best practices for similarly situated companies in our industry and at our stage of development, and includes benchmarking against standards such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (the NIST CSF). This does not imply that we meet any particular technical standards, specifications or requirements, only that we use the NIST CSF as a guide to help us identify, assess and manage cybersecurity risks relevant to our business. We also monitor and evaluate our cybersecurity posture and performance on an ongoing basis through periodic vulnerability scans, penetration tests and threat intelligence feeds. We use various tools and methodologies to manage cybersecurity risk that are tested on a periodic cadence.
In 2025, we achieved ISO/IEC 27001 certification for our cybersecurity systems and processes, which, along with other recognized frameworks, informs our approach to identifying, assessing, and managing cybersecurity risks.
Our cybersecurity risk management program is integrated into our overall risk management program, and shares common methodologies, reporting channels and governance processes that apply across the risk management program to other legal, compliance, strategic, operational and financial risk areas.
Key elements of our cybersecurity risk management program include but are not limited to the following:
risk assessments designed to help identify material risks from cybersecurity threats to our critical systems and information;
a security team principally responsible for managing (1) our cybersecurity risk assessment processes, (2) our security controls and (3) our response to cybersecurity incidents;
the use of external service providers, where appropriate, to assess, test or otherwise assist with aspects of our security processes;
cybersecurity awareness training that is provided to our employees and contractors, including those who are involved in incident response;
a cybersecurity incident response plan that includes procedures for responding to cybersecurity incidents; and
assessment of cybersecurity risks posed by third parties, including current and potential collaborators, as well as key service providers (based on our assessment of their criticality to our operations and respective risk profile) .
We have not identified risks from known cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any prior cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected us, including our operations, business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. We face risks from cybersecurity threats that, if realized, are reasonably likely to materially affect us, including our operations, business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. For more information, see the section titled “Risk Factor— Risks related to product development and regulatory process— Our business and operations, or those of our CROs or other third parties, may suffer in the event of
information technology system failures, cyberattacks or deficiencies in our cybersecurity, which could materially affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.”.
Cybersecurity Governance
Our board of directors considers cybersecurity risk as part of its risk oversight function and has delegated to the Audit Committee oversight of cybersecurity risks, including oversight of management’s implementation of our cybersecurity risk management program.
The Audit Committee receives scheduled semi-annual reports from management on our cybersecurity risks, our cybersecurity risk management program and other cybersecurity-related educational topics. In addition, management updates the Audit Committee as necessary, regarding other cybersecurity incidents it considers to be significant or potentially significant .
The Audit Committee reports to the full Board regarding its activities, including those related to cybersecurity. Our full board of directors also receives briefings from management where it deems appropriate regarding cybersecurity.
Our management team—including our Chief Information Officer and our Vice President, Information Security, Risk and Compliance—is responsible for assessing and managing our material risks from cybersecurity threats. The team has primary responsibility for our overall cybersecurity risk management program and supervises both our internal cybersecurity personnel and our retained external cybersecurity consultants. Our Chief Information Officer and our Vice President, Information Security, Risk and Compliance have more than 40 years of combined experience in the field of IT.
Our management team takes steps to stay informed about and monitor efforts to prevent, detect, mitigate, and remediate cybersecurity risks and incidents through various means, which may include briefings from internal information security personnel; threat intelligence and other information obtained from government, public or private sources, including external consultants engaged by us; and alerts and reports produced by security tools deployed in our IT environment.
Item 2. Pro perties.
Our corporate headquarters is located in Redwood City, California, where we lease and occupy approximately 293,906 square feet of office and laboratory space. The term of our Redwood City lease expires in December 2035.
We believe our existing facilities are sufficient for our needs for the foreseeable future. To meet the future needs of our business, we may lease additional or alternate space, and we believe suitable additional or alternative space will be available in the future on commercially reasonable terms.
