Item 1A. Risk Factors
An investment in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risk factors and all the other information in this Annual Report before you decide to buy our common stock. If any of the following risks actually occur, our business, financial condition, operating results, and prospects would be adversely affected, and you may lose all or part of your investment.
Risks Related to Our Business, Financial Condition and Capital Requirements
Our consolidated financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis, which contemplates the realization of assets and the satisfaction of liabilities and commitments in the normal course of business; our ability to continue as a going concern is dependent upon our ability to raise additional equity or debt financing to fund our operations.
Our consolidated financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis, which contemplates the realization of assets and the satisfaction of liabilities and commitments in the normal course of business. The Company has incurred losses since inception and had a net loss of approximately $11.7 million and no revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025, with working capital deficit of approximately $7.5 million as of December 31, 2025. These conditions, and the Company’s ability to comply with such conditions, raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern within one year after the date that the consolidated financial statements are issued.
Recent and future acquisitions may have a material adverse effect on our ability to manage our business and our results of operations and financial condition.
We may acquire assets, businesses, technologies, services, or products which are complementary to our operations. Recent and future acquisitions, including the now completed asset acquisition of Molecule.ai pursuant to that certain Asset Purchase Agreement with 1563868 B.C. Ltd., a Canadian limited corporation, and the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, 1542770 BC Ltd., a Canadian limited corporation, and the related employment contract with Zhitian (Andy) Zhang, an individual residing in Vancouver, Canada (the “Asset Purchase”), may expose us to potential risks, including risks associated with our inability to realize the intended benefits of the Asset Purchase, the costs and expenses incurred in connection with such acquisitions, or the potential loss of or harm to relationships with future suppliers, employees, and potential customers resulting from our integration of a new asset class. If any of these risks were to occur, our operations could be materially and adversely affected.
If we are unable to acquire and retain customers for our Molecule.ai platform or if any of such customers renew licenses at lower prices, our future revenues may be negatively impacted.
Currently, we do not have any customers for our Molecule.ai platform. We expect to derive a significant portion of our revenues from future license agreements with new customers related to our Molecule.ai platform. As a result, acquiring new customers and maintaining the renewal rate of those new customers is critical to our future operating results. Factors that may affect the acquisition of new customers and renewal rates for future customers include:
the price, performance, and functionality of our platform;
the availability, price, performance, and functionality of competing software solutions;
the success of competitive products or technologies;
the stability, performance, and security of our technological infrastructure; and
the business environment of our future customers.
If we fail to acquire customers, and once acquired, if we are unable to successfully renew agreements with such clients or if clients renew such agreements upon less favorable terms or at lower fee levels, our future revenues may be negatively impacted.
While our Company’s management is working to improve our internal controls and procedures, at present management has determined that our internal controls were deemed to be inadequate, which could cause our financial reporting to be unreliable and lead to misinformation being disseminated to the public.
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. As defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), internal control over financial reporting is a process designed by, or under the supervision of, the principal executive and principal financial officer and effected by the board of directors, management and other personnel, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and includes those policies and procedures that:
pertain to the maintenance of records that in reasonable detail accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of our assets;
provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the Company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and/or directors of the Company; and
provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use or disposition of the Company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.
We are required to include in our Annual Report on Form 10-K a report of management on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. We expect to incur additional expenses and diversion of management’s time as a result of performing the system and process evaluation, testing and remediation required in order to comply with the management certification requirements.
Presently, we have identified financial reporting internal control weaknesses relating to segregation of duties, information technology general controls and various accounting processes. While we have improved our organizational capabilities, we still may not have a sufficient number of employees to segregate responsibilities and may be unable to afford further enhancements to our staff or engaging outside consultants or professionals further to fully mitigate these internal control deficiencies. During the course of our testing, we may identify other deficiencies that we may not be able to timely remediate. If we cannot provide reliable financial reports or prevent fraud, our business and operating results could be harmed, investors could lose confidence in our reported financial information, and the trading price of our common stock, if a market ever develops, could drop significantly.
Failure of our information technology systems could significantly disrupt the operation of our business.
Our business increasingly depends on the use of information technologies, which means that certain key areas such as research and development and sales are to a large extent dependent on our information systems or those of third-party providers. Our ability to execute our business plan and to comply with regulatory requirements with respect to data control and data integrity, depends, in part, on the continued and uninterrupted performance of our information technology systems, or IT systems and the IT systems supplied by third-party service providers. These systems are vulnerable to damage from a variety of sources, including telecommunications or network failures, malicious human acts and natural disasters. Moreover, despite network security and backup measures, some of our servers are potentially vulnerable to physical or electronic break-ins, computer viruses and similar disruptive problems. Despite the precautionary measures we and our third-party service providers have taken to prevent unanticipated problems that could affect our IT systems, sustained or repeated system failures or problems arising during the upgrade of any of our IT systems that interrupt our ability to generate and maintain data, and in particular to operate our proprietary technology platform, could adversely affect our ability to operate our business.
Risks Related to our Common Stock
If we fail to comply with the continued listing requirements of The Nasdaq Stock Market, it could result in our common stock being delisted, which could adversely affect the market price and liquidity of our securities and could have other adverse effects.
On December 31, 2024, the Company received a letter from Nasdaq stating that for the 30 consecutive business day period between November 15, 2024 to December 30, 2024 the Company’s common stock had failed to maintain a Minimum Bid Price Requirement of $1.00 per share, as required for continued listing on The Nasdaq Capital Market pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5550(a)(2).
In addition, on September 10, 2024, the Company received a letter from Nasdaq, notifying the Company that it was no longer in compliance with the Stockholders’ Equity Requirement In the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2024, the Company reported stockholders’ equity of $801,434, which is below the minimum stockholders’ equity required for continued listing pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5550(b)(1).
On October 15, 2024, the Company submitted a plan to Nasdaq to regain compliance, which was accepted by Nasdaq. As a result, the Company had until March 10, 2025 to complete a follow on equity raise to bring the Company’s stockholders’ equity above the minimum requirement of $2.5 million.
Following the March 2025 $5.75 million equity financing, on March 14, 2025, Nasdaq acknowledged that we had regained compliance with the Listing Rule 5550(b)(1) but indicated that if we failed to evidence compliance upon filing the March 31, 2025 Form 10-Q, we may have been subject to delisting.
On June 16, 2025, in order to maintain the Minimum Bid Price Requirement, we effectuated a 1-for-25 reverse stock split of our issued and outstanding common stock, rounding up to account for any fractional shares. The reverse stock split had no effect on our authorized shares of common stock or preferred stock and the par value will remain unchanged at $0.00001, respectively. All common stock share, option, warrant and per share amounts (except our authorized but unissued shares and previously reserved shares) have been retroactively adjusted in these consolidated financial statements and related disclosures. We evidenced compliance through maintaining a minimum closing bid price of our common stock of $1.00 per share or greater from June 16, 2025 to July 1, 2025. Accordingly, we regained compliance with Listing Rule 5550(a)(2).
On July 2, 2025, we received notification from Nasdaq acknowledging that we maintained the requisite minimum closing bid price of our common stock of $1.00 per share or greater. Accordingly, we regained compliance with Listing Rule 5550(a)(2), and the matter was closed.
We reported stockholders’ equity of $1,394,161 in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2025, and, as a result, were not in compliance with the Stockholders’ Equity Requirement. We believe as of November 17, 2025, we regained compliance with the Stockholders’ Equity Requirement based upon our private placement consummated on November 4, 2025, pursuant to which we raised aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $2.5 million, before deducting placement agent fees and offering expenses payable by us.
For the year ended December 31, 2025, we report herein stockholders’ equity of $2,254,446, and, as a result, were not in compliance with the Stockholders’ Equity Requirement. We believe, as of March 9, 2026, we regained compliance with the Stockholders’ Equity Requirement based upon our underwritten public offering of 2,238,800 shares of our common stock at a public offering price of $0.50 per share, resulting in gross proceeds of $3,500,000 and net proceeds of approximately $3,360,000 after deducting underwriting discounts, commissions, and estimated offering expenses of $140,000. The offering included 4,761,000 pre-funded warrants at a price of $0.499 per warrant, each exercisable for one share of common stock at a nominal exercise price of $0.001 per share.
Should we fail to satisfy the continued listing requirements for remaining listed on Nasdaq Capital Market, such as the minimum closing bid price requirement or the stockholders’ equity requirement, Nasdaq may take steps to delist our common stock. Such a delisting would likely have a negative effect on the price of our common stock and would impair your ability to sell or purchase our common stock when you wish to do so. In the event of a delisting, we would take actions to restore our compliance with Nasdaq’s listing requirements, but we can provide no assurance that any such action taken by us would allow our common stock to become listed again, stabilize the market price or improve the liquidity of our common stock, prevent our common stock from dropping below Nasdaq’s minimum bid price requirement or prevent future non-compliance with such listing requirements.
If we cannot maintain the listing of our common stock for trading on Nasdaq, we could face significant material adverse consequences, including:
a limited availability of market quotations for our common stock;
reduced liquidity for our common stock;
a determination that our common stock is a “penny stock” which will require brokers trading in our common stock to adhere to more stringent rules and possibly result in a reduced level of trading activity in the secondary trading market for our common stock;
a limited amount of news and analyst coverage; and
a decreased ability to issue additional common stock or obtain additional financing in the future.
The National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996, which is a federal statute, prevents or preempts the states from regulating the sale of certain securities, which are referred to as “covered securities.” Because our common stock is listed on Nasdaq, such securities will be deemed covered securities. Although the states will be preempted from regulating the sale of our securities, the federal statute does allow states to investigate companies if there is a suspicion of fraud and, if there is a finding of fraudulent activity, then the states can regulate or bar the sale of covered securities in a particular case. Further, if we were no longer listed on Nasdaq, our securities would not be covered securities and we would be subject to regulations in each state in which we offer our securities.
Our stock price may be volatile, and purchasers of our common stock could incur substantial losses.
Since commencement of trading on Nasdaq, our stock price has been extremely volatile. As a result of this volatility, investors may not be able to sell their common stock at or above the price when they purchased our common stock. The market price for our common stock may be influenced by many factors, including the other risks described in this section of this Annual Report entitled “Risk Factors” and the following:
the success of competitive products or technologies;
regulatory or legal developments in the U.S. and other countries, especially changes in laws or regulations applicable to our products;
introductions and announcements of new products by us, our commercialization partners, or our competitors, and the timing of these introductions or announcements;
actions taken by regulatory agencies with respect to our products or sales and marketing terms;
actual or anticipated variations in our financial results or those of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;
the success of our efforts to acquire or in-license additional technologies, products or product candidates;
announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;
developments or disputes concerning patents or other proprietary rights, including patents, litigation matters and our ability to obtain patent protection for our products;
our ability or inability to raise additional capital and the terms on which we raise it;
the recruitment or departure of key personnel;
changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;
market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors;
actual or anticipated changes in earnings estimates or changes in stock market analyst recommendations regarding our common stock, other comparable companies or our industry generally;
our failure or the failure of our competitors to meet analysts’ projections or guidance that we or our competitors may give to the market;
fluctuations in the valuation of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;
announcement and expectation of additional financing efforts;
speculation in the press or investment community;
trading volume of our common stock;
sales of our common stock by us or our stockholders;
the concentrated ownership of our common stock;
changes in accounting principles;
terrorist acts, acts of war or periods of widespread civil unrest;
natural disasters and other calamities; and
general economic, industry and market conditions.
In addition, the stock markets in particular have experienced extreme volatility that has been often unrelated to the operating performance of the issuer. These broad market and industry factors may seriously harm the market price of our common stock, regardless of our operating performance.
The future issuance of equity or of debt securities that are convertible into common stock will dilute our share capital.
We may choose to raise additional capital in the future, depending on market conditions, strategic considerations and operational requirements. To the extent that additional capital is raised through the issuance of shares or other securities convertible into shares of our common stock, our stockholders will be diluted. Future issuances of our common stock or other equity securities, or the perception that such sales may occur, could adversely affect the trading price of our common stock and impair our ability to raise capital through future offerings of shares or equity securities. No prediction can be made as to the effect, if any, that future sales of common stock or the availability of common stock for future sales will have on the trading price of our common stock.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding our stock, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. We do not currently have and may never obtain research coverage by securities and industry analysts. If no or few securities or industry analysts commence coverage of us, the trading price for our stock would be negatively impacted. In the event we obtain securities or industry analyst coverage, if any of the analysts who cover us issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding us, our business model, our intellectual property or our stock performance, or if our target studies and operating results fail to meet the expectations of analysts, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
Our board of directors has the authority, without stockholder approval, to issue preferred stock with terms that may not be beneficial to holders of our common stock and such issuance could potentially adversely affect stockholders’ voting power and perpetuate their control over us.
Our Certificate of Incorporation, as amended to date, allows us to issue shares of preferred stock without any vote or further action by our stockholders. Our board of directors has the authority to fix and determine the relative rights and preferences of any preferred stock. As a result, our board of directors could authorize the issuance of a series of preferred stock that would grant to holders the preferred right to our assets upon liquidation, the right to receive dividend payments before dividends are distributed to the holders of common stock and the right to the redemption of the shares, together with a premium, prior to the redemption of shares of our common stock. These rights and preferences could negatively affect the holders of our common stock.
Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws, each as amended to date, provide for indemnification of officers and directors at the expense of the Company and limit their liability that may result in a major cost to us and hurt the interests of our stockholders because corporate resources may be expended for the benefit of officers and/or directors.
Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws, each as amended to date, provide for the indemnification of our officers and directors. We have been advised that, in the opinion of the SEC, indemnification for liabilities arising under federal securities laws is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act and is therefore, unenforceable.
Our Certificate of Incorporation, as amended to date, provides that disputes must be resolved in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, except for cases brought under the Securities Act or Exchange Act.
Our Certificate of Incorporation, as amended to date, provides that the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware will be the exclusive forum for dispute resolution for certain enumerated actions, excluding any actions brought under the Securities Act or Exchange Act, or unless the Company consents in writing to an alternative jurisdiction. This exclusive forum selection clause may cause inconvenience of our stockholders or other stakeholders, should they need to bring suit against the Company for an action other than one arising under the Securities Act or Exchange Act.
We do not expect to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future.
We have never paid cash dividends on our common stock. We do not expect to pay cash dividends on our common stock at any time in the foreseeable future. The future payment of dividends on our common stock directly depends upon our future earnings, capital requirements, financial requirements and other factors that our board of directors will consider. Since we do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our common stock, return on your investment, if any, will depend solely on an increase, if any, in the market value of our common stock.
Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, as amended, and bylaws, as amended, as well as Delaware law, might discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management and, therefore, depress the market price of our common stock.
Our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws, each as amended to date, and bylaws contain provisions that could depress the market price of our common stock by acting to discourage, delay, or prevent a change in control of our company or changes in our management that the stockholders of our company may deem advantageous. These provisions, among other things:
permit the board of directors to establish the number of directors;
provide that directors may only be removed “for cause” and only with the approval of 66 2/3 percent of our stockholders;
require super-majority voting to amend some provisions in our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws;
authorize the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our board of directors could use to implement a stockholder rights plan (also known as a “poison pill”);
eliminate the ability of our stockholders to call special meetings of stockholders;
prohibit stockholder action by written consent, which requires all stockholder actions to be taken at a meeting of our stockholders;
provide that the board of directors is expressly authorized to make, alter or repeal our bylaws; and
establish advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at annual stockholder meetings.
In addition, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law may discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our company. Section 203 imposes certain restrictions on merger, business combinations and other transactions between us and holders of 15% or more of our common stock.
Sales of substantial amounts of our securities in the public market could depress the market price of our common stock.
Our common stock is listed for trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market. If our stockholders sell substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market, or the market perceives that such sales may occur, the market price of our securities could fall and we may be unable to sell our securities in the future.
Although we have no preferred stock outstanding as of the date hereof and we have currently no intention to issue any preferred stock, our common stockholders could be adversely affected by the issuance by us of preferred stock in the future, if any.
Our certificate of incorporation does not restrict our ability to offer one or more series of preferred stock, any or all of which could rank equally with or have preferences over our common stock as to dividend payments, voting rights, rights upon liquidation or other types of rights. Our board of directors has the authority, without further action by the stockholders, to issue shares of preferred stock in one or more series and to fix the rights, preferences and the number of shares constituting any series or the designation of such series. In the case our board of directors decides to issue any preferred stock, we would have no obligation to consider the specific interests of the holders of common stock in creating any such series of preferred stock or engaging in any such offering or transaction. Our creation of any series of preferred stock or our engaging in any such offering or transaction could have a material adverse effect on holders of our common stock.
Trading of our common stock may be limited, making it difficult for our stockholders to sell their shares, and future sales of common stock could reduce our stock price.
Our common stock currently trades on Nasdaq under the ticker “SHPH.” The liquidity of our common stock may be limited, including in terms of the number of shares that can be bought and sold at a given price and reduction in security analysts’ and the media’s coverage of us, if any. These factors may result in different prices for our common stock than might otherwise be obtained in a more liquid market and could also result in a larger spread between the bid and asked prices for our common stock. In addition, in the absence of a large market capitalization, our common stock is less liquid than the stock of companies with broader public ownership, and, as a result, the trading prices of our common stock may be more volatile. In the absence of an active public trading market, an investor may be unable to liquidate his/her investment in our common stock. Trading of a relatively small volume of our common stock may have a greater impact on the trading price of our stock. We cannot predict the prices at which our common stock will trade in the future, if at all.
FINRA sales practice requirements may limit a stockholder’s ability to buy and sell our securities.
Effective June 30, 2020, the SEC implemented Regulation Best Interest requiring that “A broker, dealer, or a natural person who is an associated person of a broker or dealer, when making a recommendation of any securities transaction or investment strategy involving securities (including account recommendations) to a retail customer, shall act in the best interest of the retail customer at the time the recommendation is made, without placing the financial or other interest of the broker, dealer, or natural person who is an associated person of a broker or dealer making the recommendation ahead of the interest of the retail customer.” This is a significantly higher standard for broker-dealers to recommend securities to retail customers than before under FINRA “suitability rules.” FINRA suitability rules do still apply to institutional investors and require that in recommending an investment to a customer, a broker-dealer must have reasonable grounds for believing that the investment is suitable for that customer. Prior to recommending securities to their customers, broker-dealers must make reasonable efforts to obtain information about the customer’s financial status, tax status, investment objectives and other information, and for retail customers determine the investment is in the customer’s “best interest” and meet other SEC requirements. As a result, fewer broker-dealers may be willing to make a market in our common stock, reducing a stockholder’s ability to resell shares of our common stock.
We are an emerging growth company and a smaller reporting company within the meaning of the Securities Act, and if we take advantage of certain exemptions from disclosure requirements available to emerging growth companies or smaller reporting companies, this could make our securities less attractive to investors and may make it more difficult to compare our performance with other public companies.
We are an “emerging growth company” within the meaning of the Securities Act, as modified by the JOBS Act, and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies, including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor internal controls attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. As a result, our shareholders may not have access to certain information they may deem important. We could be an emerging growth company for up to five years following our initial public offering, although circumstances could cause us to lose that status earlier, including if the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates exceeds $700,000,000 as of any June 30 before that time, in which case we would no longer be an emerging growth company as of the following December 31. We cannot predict whether investors will find our securities less attractive because we will rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result of our reliance on these exemptions, the trading prices of our securities may be lower than they otherwise would be, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and the trading prices of our securities may be more volatile.
Further, Section 102(b)(1) of the JOBS Act exempts emerging growth companies from being required to comply with new or revised financial accounting standards until private companies (that is, those that have not had a Securities Act registration statement declared effective or do not have a class of securities registered under the Exchange Act) are required to comply with the new or revised financial accounting standards. The JOBS Act provides that a company can elect to opt out of the extended transition period and comply with the requirements that apply to non-emerging growth companies but any such an election to opt out is irrevocable. We have elected not to opt out of such extended transition period which means that when a standard is issued or revised and it has different application dates for public or private companies, we, as an emerging growth company, can adopt the new or revised standard at the time private companies adopt the new or revised standard. This may make comparison of our financial statements with another public company which is neither an emerging growth company nor an emerging growth company which has opted out of using the extended transition period difficult or impossible because of the potential differences in accounting standards used.
Additionally, we are a “smaller reporting company” as defined in Item 10(f)(1) of Regulation S-K. Smaller reporting companies may take advantage of certain reduced disclosure obligations, including, among other things, providing only two years of audited financial statements. We will remain a smaller reporting company until the last day of the fiscal year in which (1) the market value of our ordinary shares held by non-affiliates is equal to or exceeds $250,000,000 as of the prior June 30, or (2) our annual revenues equaled or exceeded $100,000,000 during such completed fiscal year and the market value of our ordinary shares held by non-affiliates is equal to or exceeds $700,000,000 as of the prior June 30.
