UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
Form 8-K
CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): September 26, 2017
Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Commission File Number: 001-36274
| Delaware | 36-4742850 | |
| (State or other jurisdiction of incorporation) |
(IRS Employer Identification No.) |
430 East 29th Street
New York, New York 10016
(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)
(646) 440-9333
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)
Not applicable
(Former name or former address, if changed since last report)
Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions:
| ☐ | Written communications pursuant to Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425) |
| ☐ | Soliciting material pursuant to Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12) |
| ☐ | Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)) |
| ☐ | Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c)) |
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933 (§230.405 of this chapter) or Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (§240.12b-2 of this chapter).
Emerging growth company ☐
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
| ITEM 8.01 | Other Events. |
On September 26, 2017, Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (the “Company”) issued a press release announcing it has commenced an underwritten public offering of $150 million of shares of its common stock, and its intention to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the shares of common stock offered in the public offering. All of the shares in the offering will be sold by the Company. A copy of the press release is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.1, and is incorporated herein by reference.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Leerink Partners LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.
On September 26, 2017, the Company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a preliminary prospectus supplement to its effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (the “Preliminary Prospectus Supplement”) pursuant to Rule 424 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, relating to the aforementioned proposed public offering of shares of the Company’s common stock. The Preliminary Prospectus Supplement contains updated risk factors in the section entitled “Risk Factors,” which is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.2 and incorporated herein by reference.
This Current Report on Form 8-K, including the exhibits hereto, shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities of the Company, which is being made only by means of a written prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, nor shall there be any offer, solicitation, or sale of the securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.
| ITEM 9.01 | Financial Statements and Exhibits. |
| (d) | Exhibits |
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
| INTRA-CELLULAR THERAPIES, INC. | ||
| By: | /s/ Lawrence J. Hineline | |
| Lawrence J. Hineline | ||
| Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer | ||
Date: September 26, 2017
Exhibit 99.1
Intra-Cellular Therapies Announces Proposed Public Offering of Common Stock
NEW YORK, September 26, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (Nasdaq:ITCI), a biopharmaceutical company, today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of $150 million of shares of its common stock. In connection with the offering, Intra-Cellular Therapies intends to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the shares of common stock offered in the public offering. All of the shares in the offering will be sold by Intra-Cellular Therapies.
J. P. Morgan Securities LLC and Leerink Partners LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. The offering is subject to market and other conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.
The public offering will be made pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form S-3 that was previously filed with and declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). A preliminary prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus relating to and describing the terms of the offering has been filed with the SEC and is available on the SEC’s website located at http://www.sec.gov. The offering is being made only by means of a prospectus and related prospectus supplement, copies of which may be obtained from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention: Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, telephone: 1-866-803-9204 or email: prospectus-eq_fi@jpmchase.com, or Leerink Partners LLC, Attention: Syndicate Department, One Federal Street, 37th Floor, Boston, MA, 02110, or by e-mail at Syndicate@Leerink.com, or by phone at 800-808-7525, ext. 6132. The final terms of the offering will be disclosed in a final prospectus supplement to be filed with the SEC.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor will there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.
About Intra-Cellular Therapies
Intra-Cellular Therapies is developing novel drugs for the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases and diseases of the elderly, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. The Company is developing its lead drug candidate, lumateperone (also known as ITI-007), for the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, behavioral disturbances in patients with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, depression and other neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. Lumateperone, a first-in-class molecule, is in Phase 3 clinical development for the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar depression and agitation associated with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. The Company is also utilizing its phosphodiesterase (PDE) platform and other proprietary chemistry platforms to develop drugs for the treatment of CNS and other disorders. The lead molecule in the Company’s PDE1 portfolio, ITI-214, is in development for the treatment of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Contact
Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc.
Juan Sanchez, M.D.
Vice President, Corporate Communications and Investor Relations
646-440-9333
Burns McClellan, Inc.
Lisa Burns
Justin Jackson (Media)
jjackson@burnsmc.com
212-213-0006
Exhibit 99.2
Risks related to our business
We have never generated revenue from product sales and do not expect to do so for the next several years, if ever.
Our ability to generate revenue from product sales and achieve profitability depends on our ability to successfully complete the development of and obtain regulatory approvals necessary to commercialize lumateperone and our other product candidates. We have a limited operating history on which to evaluate our business and prospects. To date, we have not generated any product revenues from our product candidates currently in development. We cannot guarantee that any of our product candidates currently in development will ever become marketable products.
We must demonstrate that our product candidates satisfy rigorous standards of safety and efficacy for their intended uses before the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the European Union and elsewhere will approve them for commercialization. Significant additional research, preclinical testing and clinical testing is required before we can file applications with the FDA or other regulatory authorities for premarket approval of our drug candidates. In addition, to compete effectively, our drugs must be easy to administer, cost-effective and economical to manufacture on a commercial scale. We may not achieve any of these objectives.
Our lead product candidate, lumateperone, is in Phase 3 clinical development as a novel treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar depression and agitation associated with dementia, including AD. In September 2016, we announced top-line results from the second Phase 3 clinical trial (ITI-007-302) of lumateperone for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. In this trial, neither dose of lumateperone separated from placebo on the primary endpoint, change from baseline on the PANSS total score, in the pre-defined patient population. While the FDA has confirmed that the results of Study ITI-007-302 do not preclude us from submitting an NDA based on the efficacy studies we have conducted to date, including the two positive well controlled clinical trials we have conducted (Study ITI-007-005 and Study ITI-007-301), with supportive evidence from Study ITI-007-302, there can be no assurance that any NDA that we submit to the FDA will be acceptable to or approved by the FDA or that, if approved, we will be able to successfully commercialize lumateperone for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. In addition, in response to questions raised by the FDA relating to certain findings observed in nonclinical toxicology studies of lumateperone in an animal species, based on feedback from the FDA, we will incorporate additional monitoring in our long-term safety study for metabolites seen in animal species but not seen to date in humans, and also will continue to monitor for toxicities in our nonclinical studies. If we are unable to complete our long-term safety study or the results of our long-term safety study do not demonstrate the safety and tolerability of long-term use of lumateperone, we would not be able to file an NDA for lumateperone for a chronic condition such as schizophrenia.
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Our bipolar depression program consists of two Phase 3 multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials: one to evaluate lumateperone as a monotherapy and the other to evaluate lumateperone as an adjunctive therapy with lithium or valproate. We also plan to initiate a third trial in bipolar depression conducted globally. We have also initiated Phase 3 development of lumateperone for the treatment of agitation in patients with dementia, including AD. Our ITI-007-201 trial is a Phase 3 multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial in patients with a clinical diagnosis of probable AD and clinically significant symptoms of agitation.
In addition, we intend to pursue the development of our PDE program, including ITI-214 for the treatment of several CNS and non-CNS conditions, including cardiovascular disease. Following the positive safety and tolerability results in our Phase 1 program, we have initiated our development program for ITI-214 for Parkinson’s disease.
We cannot be certain that the clinical development of these or any other drug candidates in preclinical testing or clinical development will be successful, that we will receive the regulatory approvals required to commercialize them or that any of our other research and drug discovery programs will yield a drug candidate suitable for investigation through clinical trials. Our commercial revenues from our product candidates currently in development, if any, will be derived from sales of drugs that will not become marketable until at least 2018, if at all.
There is no guarantee that our planned clinical trials for lumateperone will be successful.
The historical rate of failures for product candidates in clinical development and late-stage clinical trials is high. While we will need to successfully complete our long-term safety study and we may be required to conduct further clinical trials in patients with schizophrenia, and we plan to conduct further clinical trials in other indications beyond schizophrenia, there is no guarantee that we will have the same level of success in these trials as we have had in certain of our earlier clinical trials, or be successful at all.
In addition, although we believe that lumateperone and follow-on compounds may also have clinical utility in indications other than schizophrenia, such as behavioral disturbances in dementia, bipolar disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, non-motor disorders associated with Parkinson’s disease, obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder, we have never tested lumateperone in Phase 2 clinical trials in the patient population for these other indications, except for ITI-007-200, a Phase 1/2 clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of low doses of lumateperone in healthy geriatric subjects and in patients with dementia, including AD, for which we announced top-line data in the fourth quarter of 2014.
If we do not successfully complete clinical development of lumateperone, we will be unable to market and sell products derived from it and to generate product revenues. Even though we have successfully completed certain clinical trials for lumateperone in patients with schizophrenia, those results are not necessarily predictive of results of future trials that may be needed before we may submit an NDA to the FDA for the initial or other future indications. Of the vast number of drugs in development, only a small percentage result in the submission of an NDA to the FDA, and even less result in the NDA ultimately being approved by the FDA for commercialization.
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The FDA may ultimately determine that our Phase 3 clinical trials and non-clinical studies, even if certain of the trials are successfully completed, are not sufficient for regulatory approval. If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials and non-clinical studies, our development of lumateperone for schizophrenia will be more time-consuming and costly than we presently anticipate, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
The FDA may not agree with our belief that the lumateperone late-stage clinical development program, including two large, well-controlled positive studies and supportive evidence from this second Phase 3 study, collectively provide evidence of the efficacy and safety of lumateperone for the treatment of schizophrenia. In addition, the FDA may not agree with one or more aspects of our clinical trial designs, including the duration of the trials, clinical endpoints, controls, dose ranges, collection of safety data, or adequacy of our non-clinical studies. If we submit an NDA and the FDA does not agree with our clinical and non-clinical designs, our development of lumateperone in schizophrenia and other indications may be delayed, and we may incur additional costs and devote additional resources to address any concerns the FDA may have with our trial designs. In addition, we may be required to conduct additional clinical trials or studies, which could result in additional delays and costs.
There is no assurance that we will complete the other clinical and non-clinical studies within the timeframes and the costs that we currently expect, or at all, or in a manner that is acceptable to the FDA. Any delays or unplanned costs resulting from our Phase 3 clinical trials of lumateperone in schizophrenia may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. Even if we eventually submit an NDA and receive approval of lumateperone, the FDA may grant approval contingent on the performance of costly additional post-approval clinical trials. The FDA may also approve lumateperone for a more limited indication or a narrower patient population than we originally requested, and the FDA may not approve the labeling that we believe is necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of lumateperone or our other product candidates. Any delay in obtaining, or inability to obtain, applicable regulatory approval for lumateperone would delay or prevent commercialization of lumateperone and would materially adversely impact our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
If we are unable to complete our long-term safety study or the results of our long-term safety study do not demonstrate the safety and tolerability of long-term use of lumateperone, we would not be able to file an NDA for lumateperone for a chronic condition such as schizophrenia.
The FDA had raised questions relating to certain findings observed in nonclinical toxicology studies of lumateperone in an animal species and requested additional information to confirm that the nonclinical findings are not indicative of a safety risk associated with long term exposure in humans. The data we presented supports the position that there are significant species differences in the metabolism of lumateperone. Based on the FDA’s agreement that we presented adequate data indicating that the toxicity seen in the animal species is not relevant to humans, we are proceeding with our long-term safety study of lumateperone in patients with schizophrenia. Further, based on feedback from the FDA, we will incorporate additional monitoring in its long-term safety study for metabolites seen in animal species but not seen to date in humans, and also will continue to monitor for toxicities in its nonclinical studies. The results of the long-term safety study will be required to support an NDA approval for a chronic condition such as schizophrenia. If we are unable to complete our long-term study or the results of our long-term safety study do not demonstrate the safety and tolerability of long-term use of lumateperone, we would not be able to file an NDA for lumateperone for a chronic condition such as schizophrenia. Any failure to complete our long-term safety study or to file an NDA for lumateperone for schizophrenia or any other chronic condition would have a significant adverse effect on our business.
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We expect our net losses to continue for at least several years and are unable to predict the extent of future losses or when we will become profitable, if ever.
We have experienced significant net losses since our inception. As of June 30, 2017, we had an accumulated deficit of approximately $354.2 million. We expect to incur net losses over the next several years as we advance our programs and incur significant clinical development costs. We have not received, and do not expect to receive until at least 2019, any revenues from the commercialization of our product candidates. Substantially all of our revenues to date were from our license and collaboration agreement with Takeda and our agreements with various U.S. governmental agencies and other parties, including our research and development grants. In October 2014, we entered into the Takeda Termination Agreement, which terminated our license and collaboration agreement with Takeda, pursuant to which all rights with respect to ITI-214 that we previously granted to Takeda were returned to us. We will not, therefore, receive any further milestone payments from Takeda and we cannot be certain that we will enter into additional collaboration agreements. To obtain revenues from our product candidates, we must succeed, either alone or with others, in developing, obtaining regulatory approval for, and manufacturing and marketing drugs with significant market potential. We may never succeed in these activities, and may never generate revenues that are significant enough to achieve profitability.
We will require substantial additional funding, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all, and, if not so available, may require us to delay, limit, reduce or cease our operations.
We have consumed substantial amounts of capital since our inception. Our cash, cash equivalents and investment securities totaled $342.6 million at June 30, 2017. While we believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents and investment securities, together with interest on cash balances, will be sufficient to fund our operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements through the middle of 2019, the amount and timing of our actual expenditures will depend upon numerous factors, including the ongoing status of our planned NDA submission for lumateperone in patients with schizophrenia and the results of our long-term safety study of lumateperone in patients with schizophrenia; the ongoing status of our Phase 3 clinical trials of lumateperone in patients with bipolar depression and dementia, including AD; the continued development of our PDE program, including ITI-214 for the treatment of several CNS and non-CNS conditions; and our other planned clinical and non-clinical trials. We may require additional funds to obtain regulatory approval for lumateperone for patients with bipolar disorder. Furthermore, we anticipate that we will need to secure additional funding to obtain regulatory approval for lumateperone in patients with dementia, including AD, for further development of lumateperone in other programs including in patients with depressive disorders and other indications, and for development of our other product candidates. If the FDA requires that we perform additional preclinical studies or clinical trials, or we experience delays or other setbacks in our clinical trials, our expenses would further increase beyond what we currently expect and the anticipated timing of any potential NDA would likely be delayed.
With the remaining proceeds from our public offerings in February 2014, March 2015 and September 2015, we intend to fund the following: the initiation of other planned clinical and non-clinical trials, including manufacturing, needed for anticipated regulatory approval of lumateperone in patients with acute exacerbated schizophrenia and other potential additional indications; pre-launch activities for lumateperone for the treatment of schizophrenia and, if it receives regulatory approval, to fund our initial commercialization efforts; the completion of our clinical trials of lumateperone in bipolar disorder as a monotherapy and as an adjunctive therapy with lithium or valproate, a program we initiated in the third quarter of 2015; clinical trials of lumateperone for the treatment of behavioral disturbances in dementia, including AD, a program we initiated in the second quarter of 2016; preclinical and clinical development of our ITI-007 long acting injectable development program; other clinical trials of lumateperone; the continued clinical development of our PDE1 program, including ITI-214; and research and preclinical development of our other product candidates and the
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continuation of manufacturing activities in connection with the development of lumateperone. The remaining proceeds, if any, will be used to fund new and ongoing research and development activities, new business opportunities, general corporate purposes, including general and administrative expenses, capital expenditures and working capital. Accordingly, we will continue to require substantial additional capital beyond the net proceeds from these offerings to continue our clinical development and commercialization activities. Because successful development of our product candidates is uncertain, we are unable to estimate the actual funds we will require to complete research and development and commercialize our products under development.
Our future capital requirements will depend on, and could increase significantly as a result of, many factors, including:
| • | the progress in, and the costs of, our preclinical studies and clinical trials and other research and development programs; |
| • | the scope, prioritization and number of our research and development programs; |
| • | the ability of any future collaborators and us to reach the milestones, and other events or developments, triggering payments under any future collaboration agreements or to otherwise make payments under such agreements; |
| • | our ability to enter into new, and to maintain any existing, collaboration and license agreements; |
| • | the extent to which any future collaborators are obligated to reimburse us for clinical trial costs under any future collaboration agreements; |
| • | the costs involved in filing, prosecuting, enforcing and defending patent claims and other intellectual property rights; |
| • | the costs of securing manufacturing arrangements for clinical or commercial production; |
| • | the costs of preparing applications for regulatory approvals for our product candidates; |
| • | the costs of preparing for and establishing, or contracting for, sales and marketing capabilities if we obtain regulatory clearances to market our product candidates; and |
| • | the costs associated with litigation. |
Until we can generate significant continuing revenues, we expect to satisfy our future cash needs through our existing cash, cash equivalents and investment securities, strategic collaborations, private or public sales of our securities, debt financings, grant funding, or by licensing all or a portion of our product candidates or technology. Turmoil and volatility in the financial markets have adversely affected the market capitalizations of many biotechnology companies, and generally made equity and debt financing more difficult to obtain. This, coupled with other factors, may limit our access to additional financing. This could have a material adverse effect on our ability to access sufficient funding. We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all. If we do obtain additional funding through equity offerings, the ownership of our existing stockholders and purchasers of shares of our common stock in any such offering will be diluted, and the terms of any financing may adversely affect the rights of our stockholders. In addition, the issuance of additional shares by us, or the possibility of such issuance, may cause the market price of our shares to decline. If funds are not available, we will be required to delay, reduce the scope of, or eliminate one or more of our research or development programs or our commercialization efforts. We also could be required to seek funds through arrangements with collaboration partners or otherwise that may require us to relinquish rights to some of our technologies or product candidates or otherwise agree to terms unfavorable to us.
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Our management has broad discretion over the use of our cash and we may not use our cash effectively, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Our management has significant flexibility in applying our cash resources, including the net proceeds from our public offerings completed in February 2014, March 2015 and September 2015, and could use these resources for corporate purposes that do not increase our market value, or in ways with which our stockholders may not agree. We may use our cash resources for corporate purposes that do not yield a significant return or any return at all for our stockholders, which could adversely affect our future growth prospects.
We may encounter substantial delays in our clinical trials for lumateperone or we may fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA.
Before obtaining marketing approval from the FDA for the sale of lumateperone, we must conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the drug candidate for its proposed indications. Clinical trials are time-consuming, expensive and unpredictable processes that can be subject to delays. It may take several years to complete the preclinical testing and clinical development necessary to commercialize a drug, and delays or failure can occur at any stage. Interim results of clinical trials do not necessarily predict final results, and success in preclinical testing and early clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials will be successful. A number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials, even after promising results in earlier trials.
In connection with clinical trials, we face risks that a product candidate may not prove to be efficacious; patients may die or suffer other adverse effects for reasons that may or may not be related to the product candidate being tested; the results may not confirm the positive results of our earlier preclinical studies and clinical trials; and the results may not meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA or other regulatory agencies. If we do not successfully complete preclinical and clinical development, we will be unable to market and sell products derived from our product candidates and to generate product revenues. Even if we do successfully complete clinical trials, those results are not necessarily predictive of results of additional trials that may be needed before an NDA may be submitted to the FDA or the FDA may approve the NDA.
Additionally, the FDA may not agree with our belief that the lumateperone late-stage clinical development program collectively provide evidence of the efficacy and safety of lumateperone for the treatment of schizophrenia, which may require us to conduct additional trials, which would be expensive and time-consuming, would delay our ability to file an NDA with the FDA, and may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
Delays, suspensions and terminations in our clinical trials could result in increased costs to us, delay our ability to generate product revenues and therefore may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and future growth prospects.
The commencement of clinical trials can be delayed for a variety of reasons, including delays in: demonstrating sufficient safety and efficacy to obtain regulatory approval to commence a clinical trial; reaching agreement on acceptable terms with prospective contract research organizations and clinical trial sites; manufacturing sufficient quantities of a product candidate; obtaining clearance from the FDA to commence clinical trials pursuant to an IND; obtaining institutional review board approval to conduct a clinical trial at a prospective clinical trial site; and patient enrollment, which is a function of many factors, including the size of the patient population, the nature of the protocol, the proximity of patients to clinical trial sites, the availability of effective treatments for the relevant disease and the eligibility criteria for the clinical trial.
Once a clinical trial has begun, it may be delayed, suspended or terminated due to a number of factors, including: ongoing discussions with regulatory authorities regarding the scope or design of our clinical trials or
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requests by them for supplemental information with respect to our clinical trial results; failure to conduct clinical trials in accordance with regulatory requirements; lower than anticipated screening or retention rates of patients in clinical trials; serious adverse events or side effects experienced by participants; and insufficient supply or deficient quality of product candidates or other materials necessary for the conduct of our clinical trials.
Many of these factors may also ultimately lead to denial of regulatory approval of a current or potential product candidate. If we experience delays, suspensions or terminations in a clinical trial, our costs will increase, the commercial prospects for the related product candidate will be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenues will be delayed.
Safety issues with our product candidates, or with product candidates or approved products of third parties that are similar to our product candidates, could give rise to delays in the regulatory approval process, restrictions on labeling or product withdrawal after approval.
Problems with product candidates or approved products marketed by third parties that utilize the same therapeutic target or that belong to the same therapeutic class as our product candidates could adversely affect the development, regulatory approval and commercialization of our product candidates. In 2012, the FDA released draft guidance recommending that prospective suicidality assessments be performed in clinical trials of any drug being developed for a psychiatric indication. Our development programs are focused on psychiatric indications. Our PDE program is a novel target and may have unexpected safety effects that do not appear until late in clinical development or after commercial approval. To date, none of our product candidates have experienced any serious and unexpected suspected adverse reactions that resulted in the submission of an IND safety report to the FDA; however, some approved products marketed by third parties for psychiatric indications that utilize different therapeutic targets or are in a different therapeutic class have experienced significant safety issues. As we continue the development and clinical trials of our product candidates, there can be no assurance that our product candidates will not experience significant safety issues.
Discovery of previously unknown class effect problems may prevent or delay clinical development and commercial approval of product candidates or result in restrictions on permissible uses after their approval, including withdrawal of the medicine from the market. Many drugs acting on the CNS include boxed warnings and precautions related to suicidal behavior or ideation, driving impairment, somnolence/sedation and dizziness, discontinuation, weight gain, non-insulin dependent (type II) diabetes, cardiovascular side effects, sleep disturbances, and motor disturbances. If we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by the mechanisms of action or classes of our product candidates or specific product candidates:
| • | we may be required to conduct additional clinical trials or implement a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies program prior to or following approval; |
| • | regulatory authorities may not approve our product candidates or, as a condition of approval, may require specific warnings and contraindications; |
| • | regulatory authorities may withdraw their approval of the product and require us to take our drug off the market; |
| • | we may have limitations on how we promote our drugs; |
| • | sales of products may decrease significantly; |
| • | we may be subject to litigation or product liability claims; and |
| • | our reputation may suffer. |
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Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the affected product or could substantially increase our commercialization costs and expenses, which, in turn, could delay or prevent us from generating significant revenues from its sale.
Finally, if the FDA determines that a drug may present a risk of substance abuse, it can recommend to the Drug Enforcement Administration that the drug be scheduled under the Controlled Substances Act. Any failure or delay in commencing or completing clinical trials or obtaining regulatory approvals for our product candidates would delay commercialization of our product candidates, and severely harm our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
If we seek to enter into strategic alliances for our drug candidates, but fail to enter into and maintain successful strategic alliances, we may have to reduce or delay our drug candidate development or increase our expenditures.
An important element of a biotechnology company’s strategy for developing, manufacturing and commercializing its drug candidates may be to enter into strategic alliances with pharmaceutical companies or other industry participants to advance its programs and enable it to maintain its financial and operational capacity. We may face significant competition in seeking appropriate alliances. If we seek such alliances, we may not be able to negotiate alliances on acceptable terms, if at all. In addition, these alliances may be unsuccessful. On October 31, 2014, we entered into the Termination Agreement with Takeda, which terminated the Takeda License Agreement, pursuant to which all rights granted under the Takeda License Agreement were returned to us. If we seek such alliances and then fail to create and maintain suitable alliances, we may have to limit the size or scope of, or delay, one or more of our drug development or research programs. If we elect to fund drug development or research programs on our own, we will have to increase our expenditures and will need to obtain additional funding, which may be unavailable or available only on unfavorable terms.
To the extent we are able to enter into collaborative arrangements or strategic alliances, we will be exposed to risks related to those collaborations and alliances.
Biotechnology companies at our stage of development sometimes become dependent upon collaborative arrangements or strategic alliances to complete the development and commercialization of drug candidates, particularly after the Phase 2 stage of clinical testing. If we elect to enter into collaborative arrangements or strategic alliances, these arrangements may place the development of our drug candidates outside our control, may require us to relinquish important rights or may otherwise be on terms unfavorable to us.
Dependence on collaborative arrangements or strategic alliances would subject us to a number of risks, including the risk that:
| • | we may not be able to control the amount and timing of resources that our collaborators may devote to the drug candidates; |
| • | our collaborators may experience financial difficulties; |
| • | we may be required to relinquish important rights, such as marketing and distribution rights; |
| • | business combinations or significant changes in a collaborator’s business strategy may also adversely affect a collaborator’s willingness or ability to complete its obligations under any arrangement; |
| • | a collaborator could independently move forward with a competing drug candidate developed either independently or in collaboration with others, including our competitors; and |
| • | collaborative arrangements are often terminated or allowed to expire, which would delay the development and may increase the cost of developing our drug candidates. |
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Preliminary and interim data from our clinical studies that we may announce or publish from time to time may change as more patient data become available.
From time to time, we may announce or publish preliminary or interim data from our clinical studies. Preliminary and interim results of a clinical trial are not necessarily predictive of final results. Preliminary and interim data are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. As a result, preliminary and interim data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available. Material adverse changes in the final data compared to the interim data could significantly harm our business prospects.
We rely on third parties to conduct our clinical trials and perform data collection and analysis, which may result in costs and delays that prevent us from successfully commercializing our product candidates.
Although we design and manage our current preclinical studies and clinical trials, we do not now have the ability to conduct clinical trials for our product candidates on our own. In addition to our collaborators, we rely on contract research organizations, medical institutions, clinical investigators, and contract laboratories to perform data collection and analysis and other aspects of our clinical trials. In addition, we also rely on third parties to assist with our preclinical studies, including studies regarding biological activity, safety, absorption, metabolism, and excretion of product candidates.
Our preclinical activities or clinical trials may be delayed, suspended, or terminated if: the quality or accuracy of the data obtained by the third parties on whom we rely is compromised due to their failure to adhere to our clinical protocols or regulatory requirements or if for other reasons, these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or fail to meet regulatory obligations or expected deadlines, or these third parties need to be replaced.
If the third parties on whom we rely fail to perform, our development costs may increase, our ability to obtain regulatory approval, and consequently, to commercialize our product candidates may be delayed or prevented altogether. We currently use several contract research organizations to perform services for our preclinical studies and clinical trials. While we believe that there are numerous alternative sources to provide these services, in the event that we seek such alternative sources, we may not be able to enter into replacement arrangements without delays or incurring additional expenses.
Even if we successfully complete the clinical trials of one or more of our product candidates, the product candidates may fail for other reasons.
Even if we successfully complete the clinical trials for one or more of our product candidates, the product candidates may fail for other reasons, including the possibility that the product candidates will:
| • | fail to receive the regulatory approvals required to market them as drugs; |
| • | be subject to proprietary rights held by others requiring the negotiation of a license agreement prior to marketing; |
| • | be difficult or expensive to manufacture on a commercial scale; |
| • | have adverse side effects that make their use less desirable; or |
| • | fail to compete with product candidates or other treatments commercialized by our competitors. |
If we are unable to receive the required regulatory approvals, secure our intellectual property rights, minimize the incidence of any adverse side effects or fail to compete with our competitors’ products, our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.
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Following regulatory approval of any of our drug candidates, we will be subject to ongoing regulatory obligations and restrictions, which may result in significant expense and limit our ability to commercialize our potential products.
With regard to our drug candidates, if any, approved by the FDA or by another regulatory authority, we are held to extensive regulatory requirements over product manufacturing, labeling, packaging, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion and record keeping. Regulatory approvals may also be subject to significant limitations on the indicated uses or marketing of the drug candidates. Potentially costly follow-up or post-marketing clinical studies may be required as a condition of approval to further substantiate safety or efficacy, or to investigate specific issues of interest to the regulatory authority. Previously unknown problems with the drug candidate, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, may result in restrictions on the marketing of the drug, and could include withdrawal of the drug from the market.
In addition, the law or regulatory policies governing pharmaceuticals may change. New statutory requirements or additional regulations may be enacted that could prevent or delay regulatory approval of our drug candidates. We cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of adverse government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action, either in the United States or elsewhere. If we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we might not be permitted to market our drugs and our business could suffer.
Our product candidates may not gain acceptance among physicians, patients, or the medical community, thereby limiting our potential to generate revenues, which will undermine our future growth prospects.
Even if our product candidates are approved for commercial sale by the FDA or other regulatory authorities, the degree of market acceptance of any approved product candidate by physicians, health care professionals and third-party payors, and our profitability and growth will depend on a number of factors, including:
| • | our ability to provide acceptable evidence of safety and efficacy; |
| • | pricing and cost effectiveness, which may be subject to regulatory control; |
| • | our ability to obtain sufficient third-party insurance coverage or reimbursement; |
| • | effectiveness of our or our collaborators’ sales and marketing strategy; |
| • | relative convenience and ease of administration; |
| • | prevalence and severity of any adverse side effects; and |
| • | availability of alternative treatments. |
If any product candidate that we develop does not provide a treatment regimen that is at least as beneficial as the current standard of care or otherwise does not provide some additional patient benefit over the current standard of care, that product will not achieve market acceptance and we will not generate sufficient revenues to achieve profitability.
The failure to attract and retain skilled personnel and key relationships could impair our drug development and commercialization efforts.
We are highly dependent on our senior management and key clinical development, scientific and technical personnel. Competition for these types of personnel is intense. The loss of the services of any member of our senior management, clinical development, scientific or technical staff may significantly delay or prevent the achievement of drug development and other business objectives and could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. We also rely on consultants and advisors to assist us in formulating our strategy. All of our consultants and advisors are either self-employed or employed by other organizations, and they may have conflicts of interest or other commitments, such as consulting or advisory contracts with other organizations, that may affect their ability to contribute to us. We intend to expand and develop new drug candidates, and will need additional funding to grow our business. We will need to hire
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additional employees in order to continue our research and clinical trials and to market our drugs when approved. This strategy will require us to recruit additional executive management and clinical development, regulatory, scientific, technical and sales and marketing personnel. There is currently intense competition for skilled executives and employees with relevant clinical development, scientific, technical and sales and marketing expertise, and this competition is likely to continue. The inability to attract and retain sufficient clinical development, scientific, technical and managerial personnel, due to intense competition and our limited resources, would limit or delay our product development efforts, which would adversely affect the development of our drug candidates and commercialization of our potential drugs and growth of our business.
We may not be able to continue or fully exploit our partnerships with outside scientific and clinical advisors, which could impair the progress of our clinical trials and our research and development efforts.
We work with scientific and clinical advisors at academic and other institutions who are experts in the field of CNS disorders. They advise us with respect to our clinical trials. These advisors are not our employees and may have other commitments that would limit their future availability to us. If a conflict of interest arises between their work for us and their work for another entity, we may lose their services, which may impair our reputation in the industry and delay the development or commercialization of our product candidates.
Our product candidates have never been manufactured on a commercial scale, and there are risks associated with scaling up manufacturing to commercial scale. In particular, we will need to develop a larger scale manufacturing process that is more efficient and cost-effective to commercialize lumateperone and other product candidates, which may not be successful, and we plan to transfer our production to one or more other third-party manufacturers in addition to our current third-party manufacturer, potentially delaying regulatory approval and commercialization.
Our product candidates have never been manufactured on a commercial scale, and there are risks associated with scaling up manufacturing to commercial scale including, among others, cost overruns, potential problems with process scale-up, process reproducibility, stability issues, lot consistency and timely availability of raw materials. On January 4, 2017, we entered into a supply agreement with Siegfried. Under the Siegfried Agreement, Siegfried has agreed to manufacture and supply the API for lumateperone in commercial quantities. There is no assurance that Siegfried or other manufacturers will be successful in establishing a larger-scale commercial manufacturing process for lumateperone which achieves our objectives for manufacturing capacity and cost of goods. Even if we could otherwise obtain regulatory approval for any product candidate, there is no assurance that our manufacturers will be able to manufacture the approved product to specifications acceptable to the FDA or other regulatory authorities, to produce it in sufficient quantities to meet the requirements for the potential launch of the product or to meet potential future demand. If our manufacturers are unable to produce sufficient quantities of the approved product for commercialization, our commercialization efforts would be impaired, which would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects.
We rely on third-party manufacturers to manufacture and supply our product candidates for us. If one of our suppliers or manufacturers fails to perform adequately or fulfill our needs, we may be required to incur significant costs and devote significant efforts to find new suppliers or manufacturers. We may also face significant delays in our clinical trials, regulatory approvals and product introductions and commercialization.
We have no manufacturing facilities and have limited experience in the manufacturing of drugs or in designing drug-manufacturing processes. We have contracted with third-party manufacturers to produce, in collaboration with us, our product candidates, including lumateperone, for clinical trials. For example, on January 4, 2017, we entered into a supply agreement with Siegfried under which Siegfried has agreed to manufacture and supply the API for lumateperone in commercial quantities. Each month, we will provide Siegfried with a rolling forecast
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of our anticipated requirements for supply of the API, with the first 12 months of each forecast being binding on us. Under the Siegfried Agreement, we have the right to and may purchase the API for lumateperone from other suppliers, including if Siegfried cannot fulfill our requirements. In addition, we expect to have an additional third party source of supply of the API for lumateperone in commercial quantities. While we believe that there are alternative sources available to manufacture our product candidates, in the event that we seek such alternative sources, we may not be able to enter into replacement arrangements without delays or additional expenditures. We cannot estimate these delays or costs with certainty but, if they were to occur, they could cause a delay in our development and commercialization efforts. If our existing or planned third party manufacturing arrangements are terminated or if the sources of supply from such arrangements are inadequate and we must seek supply agreements from alternative sources, we may be unable to enter into such agreements or do so on commercially reasonable terms, which could delay a product launch or subject our commercialization efforts to significant supply risk.
Manufacturers of our product candidates are obliged to operate in accordance with FDA-mandated current good manufacturing practices, or cGMPs. The manufacture of pharmaceutical products in compliance with the cGMPs requires significant expertise and capital investment, including the development of advanced manufacturing techniques and process controls. Manufacturers of pharmaceutical products often encounter difficulties in production, including difficulties with production costs and yields, quality control, including stability of the product candidate and quality assurance testing, shortages of qualified personnel, as well as compliance with strictly enforced cGMP requirements, other federal and state regulatory requirements and foreign regulations. If our manufacturers were to encounter any of these difficulties or otherwise fail to comply with their obligations to us or under applicable regulations, our ability to provide product candidates in our clinical trials would be jeopardized. Any delay or interruption in the supply of clinical trial materials could delay the completion of our clinical trials, increase the costs associated with maintaining our clinical trial programs and, depending upon the period of delay, require us to commence new clinical trials at significant additional expense or terminate the clinical trials completely.
In addition, the facilities used by our contract manufacturers or other third party manufacturers to manufacture our product candidates must be approved by the FDA pursuant to inspections that will be conducted after we request regulatory approval from the FDA. These requirements include, among other things, quality control, quality assurance and the maintenance of records and documentation. Manufacturers of our product candidates may be unable to comply with these cGMP requirements and with other FDA, state and foreign regulatory requirements. The FDA or similar foreign regulatory agencies may also implement new standards at any time, or change their interpretation and enforcement of existing standards for manufacture, packaging or testing of products. We have little control over our manufacturers’ compliance with these regulations and standards. A failure of any of our current or future contract manufacturers to establish and follow cGMPs and to document their adherence to such practices may lead to significant delays in clinical trials or in obtaining regulatory approval of product candidates or the ultimate launch of products based on our product candidates into the market. Failure by our current or future third-party manufacturers or us to comply with applicable regulations could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including fines, injunctions, civil penalties, failure of the government to grant pre-market approval of drugs, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, seizures or recalls of products, operating restrictions, and criminal prosecutions. If the safety of any product supplied is compromised due to our manufacturers’ failure to adhere to applicable laws or for other reasons, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize our products and we may be held liable for any injuries sustained as a result. Any of these factors could cause a delay of clinical studies, regulatory submissions, approvals or commercialization of our product candidates, entail higher costs or impair our reputation.
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We will need to continue to manage our organization and we may encounter difficulties with our staffing and any future transitions, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
We will need to manage our operations and facilities effectively in order to advance our drug development programs (including lumateperone and ITI-214), facilitate any future collaborations, and pursue other development activities. It is possible that our infrastructure may be inadequate to support our future efforts and growth. In particular, we may have to develop internal sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities if we decide to market any drug that we may successfully develop. We may not successfully manage our operations and, accordingly, may not achieve our research, development, and commercialization goals.
Our ability to generate product revenues will be diminished if our products do not receive coverage from payors or sell for inadequate prices, or if patients are unable to obtain adequate levels of reimbursement.
Patients who are prescribed medicine for the treatment of their conditions generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the costs associated with their prescription drugs. Adequate coverage and reimbursement from governmental health care programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and commercial payors is critical to new product acceptance. Coverage decisions may depend upon clinical and economic standards that disfavor new drug products when more established or lower cost therapeutic alternatives are already available or subsequently become available. Even if we obtain coverage for any approved products, the resulting reimbursement payment rates might not be adequate or may require co-payments that patients find unacceptably high. Patients are unlikely to use any products we may market unless coverage is provided and reimbursement is adequate to cover a significant portion of the cost of those products.
In addition, the market for any products for which we may receive regulatory approval will depend significantly on access to third-party payors’ drug formularies, or lists of medications for which third-party payors provide coverage and reimbursement. The industry competition to be included in such formularies often leads to downward pricing pressures on pharmaceutical companies. Also, third-party payors may refuse to include a particular branded drug in their formularies or otherwise restrict patient access to a branded drug when a less costly generic equivalent or other alternative is available.
Third-party payors, whether foreign or domestic, governmental or commercial, are developing increasingly sophisticated methods of controlling health care costs. In addition, in the United States, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for drug products exists among third-party payors. Therefore, coverage and reimbursement for drug products can differ significantly from payor to payor. As a result, the coverage determination process is often a time-consuming and costly process that will require us to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of our product candidates to each payor separately, with no assurance that coverage will be obtained. If we are unable to obtain coverage of, and adequate payment levels for, our products from third-party payors, physicians may limit how much or under what circumstances they will prescribe or administer them and patients may decline to purchase them. This in turn could affect our ability to successfully commercialize any approved products and thereby adversely impact our profitability, results of operations, financial condition, and future success.
In the future, if we have products that are approved, health care legislation may make it more difficult to receive revenues from those products.
In both the United States and certain foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory proposals in recent years to change the health care system in ways that could impact our ability to sell our products profitably. In March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act, or collectively, ACA, became law in the United States. The ACA substantially changed the way health care is financed by both governmental and private
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insurers and significantly affects the health care industry. Among the provisions of ACA of importance to our potential product candidates are the following:
| • | imposition of an annual, nondeductible fee on any entity that manufactures or imports certain branded prescription drugs and biologic agents, apportioned among these entities according to their market share in certain government health care programs; |
| • | an increase in the statutory minimum rebates a manufacturer must pay under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, retroactive to January 1, 2010, to 23% and 13% of the average manufacturer price for most branded and generic drugs, respectively; |
| • | expansion of health care fraud and abuse laws, including the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute, new government investigative powers, and enhanced penalties for noncompliance; |
| • | a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program, in which manufacturers must agree to offer 50% point-of-sale discounts off negotiated prices of applicable brand drugs to eligible beneficiaries during their coverage gap period, as a condition for the manufacturer’s outpatient drugs to be covered under Medicare Part D; |
| • | extension of manufacturers’ Medicaid rebate liability to covered drugs dispensed to individuals who are enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations; |
| • | expansion of eligibility criteria for Medicaid programs; |
| • | expansion of the entities eligible for discounts under the Public Health Service pharmaceutical pricing program; |
| • | requirements to report certain financial arrangements with physicians and teaching hospitals, including reporting any “payments or transfers of value” made or distributed to prescribers, teaching hospitals and other health care providers and reporting any ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members and applicable group purchasing organizations during the preceding calendar year; |
| • | a requirement to annually report drug samples that manufacturers and distributors provide to physicians; and |
| • | a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to oversee, identify priorities in, and conduct comparative clinical effectiveness research, along with funding for such research. |
Many of the details regarding the implementation of the ACA are yet to be determined and, at this time, it remains unclear what the full effect that the ACA will have on our business. In January 2017, Congress voted to adopt a budget resolution for fiscal year 2017, or the Budget Resolution, that authorizes the implementation of legislation that would repeal portions of the ACA. Further, on January 20, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing federal agencies with authorities and responsibilities under the ACA to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision of the ACA that would impose a fiscal or regulatory burden on states, individuals, healthcare providers, health insurers, or manufacturers of pharmaceuticals or medical devices. Congress also could consider subsequent legislation to replace elements of the ACA that are repealed. We expect that healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and lower reimbursement, and in additional downward pressure on the price that may be charged for any of our product candidates, if approved.
In addition, in many foreign countries, particularly the countries of the European Union, the pricing of prescription drugs is subject to government control. In some non-U.S. jurisdictions, the proposed pricing for a
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drug must be approved before it may be lawfully marketed. The requirements governing drug pricing vary widely from country to country. For example, the European Union provides options for its member states to restrict the range of medicinal products for which their national health insurance systems provide reimbursement and to control the prices of medicinal products for human use. A member state may approve a specific price for the medicinal product or it may instead adopt a system of direct or indirect controls on the profitability of the company placing the medicinal product on the market. We may face competition from lower-priced products in foreign countries that have placed price controls on pharmaceutical products. In addition, there may be importation of foreign products that compete with any products we may market, which could negatively impact our profitability.
We expect that the ACA, as well as other health care reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and in additional downward pressure on the price that we may receive for any approved product. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. The implementation of cost containment measures or other health care reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability, or commercialize any products for which we receive regulatory approval.
If we are unable to establish sales and marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to sell and market any products we may develop, we may not be able to generate product revenue.
We do not currently have an organization for the sales, marketing or distribution of pharmaceutical products. In order to market any products that may be approved by the FDA, we must build our sales, marketing, managerial, and related capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these critical commercial services. There are risks involved with both establishing our own sales, marketing, managerial and related capabilities and entering into arrangements with third parties to perform these services. For example, recruiting and training a sales force is expensive and time-consuming and could delay any product launch. If the commercial launch of a product candidate for which we recruit a sales force and establish marketing capabilities is delayed or does not occur for any reason, we would have prematurely or unnecessarily incurred these commercialization expenses. This may be costly, and our investment would be lost if we cannot retain or reposition our sales and marketing personnel.
We also may not be successful entering into arrangements with third parties to sell and market our product candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. We likely will have little control over such third parties, and any of them may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our products effectively, which could damage our reputation. If we do not establish adequate sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities, whether independently or in collaboration with third parties, we will not be successful in commercializing our product candidates, may not be able to generate product revenue and may not become profitable.
We are currently subject to a consolidated securities class action lawsuit, the unfavorable outcome of which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
On May 12, 2017, a purported class action lawsuit was filed against us and certain of our executive officers alleging violations of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. On May 26, 2017, a second purported class action lawsuit was filed against us and certain of our executive officers alleging violations of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. Each of these lawsuits is premised upon allegations that the defendants made false and misleading statements and/or omissions by failing to earlier disclose findings related to toxicity in animals treated with lumateperone. Additionally, the complaints allege that, as a result of the foregoing, certain of the defendants’ statements about our business, operations, and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. In July 2017, these two actions were
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consolidated into a single action and a purported individual investor in the Company was appointed as lead plaintiff to represent the proposed class. In September 2017, counsel for the lead plaintiff filed a request that the consolidated action be voluntarily dismissed without prejudice. If the Court does not order the dismissal of this consolidated action, we intend to vigorously defend against this action, and there is no assurance that we will be successful in the defense or that insurance will be available or adequate to fund any settlement or judgment or the litigation costs of the action. This action may divert management resources, we may incur substantial costs, and any unfavorable outcome may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
There are possible limitations on our use of net operating losses.
As of June 30, 2017, we had net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, of approximately $124.0 million which is available to reduce any future federal and state taxable income and will begin to expire in the year 2034. The use of our NOLs may be restricted due to changes in our ownership.
Under Section 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, substantial changes in our ownership may limit the amount of NOLs and tax credit carryforwards that could be utilized annually in the future to offset taxable income.
For the year ended December 31, 2015 we performed a Section 382 ownership analysis and determined that an ownership change occurred (within the meaning of Section 382 of the Code) in 2015. Based on the analysis performed, however, we do not believe that the Section 382 annual limitation will impact our ability to utilize the tax attributes that existed as of the date of the ownership change in a material manner. If we experience an ownership change in the future, the tax benefits related to the NOLs and tax credit carryforwards may be further limited or lost.
In September 2016, we licensed certain intellectual property rights to our wholly-owned subsidiary, ITI Limited, which was formed in the third quarter of 2016. The costs to develop, test, manufacture and perform other activities related to the ITI-007 program will be the responsibility of ITI Limited and will be incurred outside of the United States. Therefore, the majority of expected losses that we incur during the next several years will not result in additional NOLs in the U.S. to be carried forward and used against future net income.
Security breaches, loss of data and other disruptions could compromise sensitive information related to our business, prevent us from accessing critical information or expose us to liability, which could adversely affect our business and our reputation.
In the ordinary course of our business, we, our clinical research organizations and other third parties on which we rely collect and store sensitive data, including legally protected patient health information, personally identifiable information about our employees, intellectual property, and proprietary business information. We manage and maintain our applications and data utilizing on-site systems. These applications and data encompass a wide variety of business critical information including research and development information and business and financial information.
The secure processing, storage, maintenance and transmission of this critical information is vital to our operations and business strategy, and we devote significant resources to protecting such information. Although we take measures to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access or disclosure, our information technology and infrastructure may be vulnerable to attacks by hackers, viruses, breaches, interruptions due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions, lapses in compliance with privacy and security mandates, or damage from natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. Any such event could compromise our networks and the information stored there could be accessed by unauthorized parties, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen. We have measures in place that are designed to detect and respond to such
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security incidents and breaches of privacy and security mandates. Any such access, disclosure or other loss of information could result in legal claims or proceedings, liability under laws that protect the privacy of personal information, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, government enforcement actions and regulatory penalties. Unauthorized access, loss or dissemination could also disrupt our operations, including our ability to conduct research and development activities, process and prepare company financial information, manage various general and administrative aspects of our business and damage our reputation, any of which could adversely affect our business. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from completed or 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. In addition, there can be no assurance that we will promptly detect any such disruption or security breach, if at all. To the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss of or damage to our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and the further development of our product candidates could be delayed.
Risks related to our intellectual property
Our ability to compete may be undermined if we do not adequately protect our proprietary rights.
Our commercial success depends on obtaining and maintaining proprietary rights to our product candidates and technologies and their uses, as well as successfully defending these rights against third-party challenges. We will only be able to protect our product candidates, proprietary technologies, and their uses from unauthorized use by third parties to the extent that valid and enforceable patents, or effectively protected trade secrets, cover them. We have patent rights under issued patents in many cases covering our lumateperone and ITI-002 development programs. Nonetheless, the issued patents and patent applications covering our primary technology programs remain subject to uncertainty and continuous monitoring and action by us due to a number of factors, including:
| • | we may not have been the first to make the inventions covered by our pending patent applications or issued patents; |
| • | we may not have been the first to file patent applications for our product candidates or the technologies we rely upon; |
| • | others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies; |
| • | our disclosures in patent applications may not be sufficient to meet the statutory requirements for patentability; |
| • | any or all of our pending patent applications may not result in issued patents; |
| • | we may not seek or obtain patent protection in all countries that will eventually provide a significant business opportunity; |
| • | any patents issued to us or our collaborators may not provide a basis for commercially viable products, may not provide us with any competitive advantages or may be challenged by third parties; |
| • | our proprietary technologies may not be patentable; |
| • | others may design around our patent claims to produce competitive products which fall outside of the scope of our patents; |
| • | others may identify prior art which could invalidate our patents; and |
| • | changes to patent laws may limit the exclusivity rights of patent holders. |
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Even if we have or obtain patents covering our product candidates or technologies, we may still be barred from making, using and selling our product candidates or technologies because of the patent rights of others. Others have or may have filed, and in the future are likely to file, patent applications covering compounds, assays, genes, gene products and therapeutic products that are similar or identical to ours. There are many issued U.S. and foreign patents relating to genes, nucleic acids, polypeptides, chemical compounds or therapeutic products, and some of these may encompass reagents utilized in the identification of candidate drug compounds or compounds that we desire to commercialize. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications owned by others exist in the area of central nervous system disorders and the other fields in which we are developing products. These could materially affect our ability to develop our product candidates or sell our products. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending applications, unknown to us, that may later result in issued patents that our product candidates or technologies may infringe. These patent applications may have priority over patent applications filed by us.
We regularly conduct searches to identify patents or patent applications that may prevent us from obtaining patent protection for our proprietary compounds or that could limit the rights we have claimed in our patents and patent applications. Disputes may arise regarding the ownership or inventorship of our inventions. It is difficult to determine how such disputes would be resolved. Others may challenge the validity of our patents. If our patents are found to be invalid, we will lose the ability to exclude others from making, using or selling the inventions claimed in our patents.
Some of our academic institutional licensors, research collaborators and scientific advisors have rights to publish data and information to which we have rights. If we cannot maintain the confidentiality of our technology and other confidential information in connection with our collaborations, then our ability to receive patent protection or protect our proprietary information will be impaired. Additionally, any employee whose employment with us terminates, whether voluntarily by the employee or by us in connection with restructurings or otherwise, may seek future employment with our competitors. Although each of our employees is required to sign a confidentiality agreement with us at the time of hire, we cannot guarantee that the confidential nature of our proprietary information will be maintained in the course of such future employment. In addition, technology that we may license-in may become important to some aspects of our business. We generally will not control the patent prosecution, maintenance or enforcement of in-licensed technology.
Confidentiality agreements with employees and others may not adequately prevent disclosure of our trade secrets and other proprietary information and may not adequately protect our intellectual property, which could limit our ability to compete.
Because we operate in the highly technical field of drug discovery and development of small molecule drugs, we rely in part on trade secret protection in order to protect our proprietary technology and processes. However, trade secrets are difficult to protect. We enter into confidentiality and intellectual property assignment agreements with our corporate partners, employees, consultants, outside scientific collaborators, sponsored researchers, and other advisors. These agreements generally require that the other party keep confidential and not disclose to third parties any confidential information developed by the party or made known to the party by us during the course of the party’s relationship with us. These agreements also generally provide that inventions conceived by the party in the course of rendering services to us will be our exclusive property. However, these agreements may not be honored and may not effectively assign intellectual property rights to us. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally obtained and is using our trade secrets is difficult, expensive and time consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, courts outside the United States may be less willing to protect trade secrets. The failure to obtain or maintain trade secret protection could adversely affect our competitive position.
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A dispute concerning the infringement or misappropriation of our proprietary rights or the proprietary rights of others could be time consuming and costly, and an unfavorable outcome could harm our business.
There is significant litigation in our industry regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. While we are not currently subject to any pending intellectual property litigation, and are not aware of any such threatened litigation, we may be exposed to future litigation by third parties based on claims that our product candidates, technologies or activities infringe the intellectual property rights of others. If our drug development activities are found to infringe any such patents, we may have to pay significant damages or seek licenses to such patents. We may need to resort to litigation to enforce a patent issued to us, protect our trade secrets or determine the scope and validity of third-party proprietary rights. From time to time, we may hire scientific personnel formerly employed by other companies involved in one or more areas similar to the activities conducted by us. Either we or these individuals may be subject to allegations of trade secret misappropriation or other similar claims as a result of their prior affiliations. If we become involved in litigation, it could consume a substantial portion of our managerial and financial resources, regardless of whether we win or lose. We also may not be able to afford the costs of litigation.
The patent applications of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies involve highly complex legal and factual questions, which, if determined adversely to us, could negatively impact our patent position.
The patent positions of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies can be highly uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s, or USPTO’s, standards are uncertain and could change in the future. Consequently, the issuance and scope of patents cannot be predicted with certainty. Patents, if issued, may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented. U.S. patents and patent applications may also be subject to interference proceedings, and U.S. patents may be subject to reexamination proceedings in the USPTO (and foreign patents may be subject to opposition or comparable proceedings in the corresponding foreign patent office), which proceedings could result in either loss of the patent or denial of the patent application or loss or reduction in the scope of one or more of the claims of the patent or patent application. Similarly, opposition or invalidity proceedings could result in loss of rights or reduction in the scope of one or more claims of a patent in foreign jurisdictions. In addition, such interference, reexamination and opposition proceedings may be costly. Accordingly, rights under any issued patents may not provide us with sufficient protection against competitive products or processes.
In addition, changes in or different interpretations of patent laws in the United States and foreign countries may permit others to use our discoveries or to develop and commercialize our technology and products without providing any compensation to us or may limit the number of patents or claims we can obtain. In particular, there have been proposals to shorten the exclusivity periods available under U.S. patent law that, if adopted, could substantially harm our business. The product candidates that we are developing are protected by intellectual property rights, including patents and patent applications. If any of our product candidates becomes a marketable product, we will rely on our exclusivity under patents to sell the compound and recoup our investments in the research and development of the compound. If the exclusivity period for patents is shortened, then our ability to generate revenues without competition will be reduced and our business could be materially adversely impacted. The laws of some countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as U.S. laws, and those countries may lack adequate rules and procedures for defending our intellectual property rights. For example, some countries, including many in Europe, do not grant patent claims directed to methods of treating humans and, in these countries, patent protection may not be available at all to protect our product candidates. In addition, U.S. patent laws may change, which could prevent or limit us from filing patent applications or patent claims to protect our products and/or technologies or limit the exclusivity periods that are available to patent holders. For example, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy-Smith Act, was recently signed into law and includes a number of significant changes to U.S. patent law. These include changes to transition from a “first-to-invent” system to a “first-to-file” system and to the way issued patents are challenged. These changes may favor larger and more
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established companies that have more resources to devote to patent application filing and prosecution. The USPTO has been in the process of implementing regulations and procedures to administer the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act may affect our ability to obtain, enforce or defend our patents. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will ultimately have on the cost of prosecuting our patent applications, our ability to obtain patents based on our discoveries and our ability to enforce or defend our issued patents.
If we fail to obtain and maintain patent protection and trade secret protection of our product candidates, proprietary technologies and their uses, we could lose our competitive advantage and competition we face would increase, reducing our potential revenues and adversely affecting our ability to attain or maintain profitability.
Risks relating to the transfer of certain intellectual property rights to our foreign subsidiary
We may need to utilize all of our available net operating losses, and we may be subject to additional income taxes or an alternative minimum tax, in connection with our transfer of certain intellectual property rights to our foreign subsidiary.
In September 2016, the Company licensed certain intellectual property rights to our wholly-owned subsidiary, ITI Limited for $125 million and other consideration. The fair value of the intellectual property rights were determined by an independent third party. The proceeds from this license represent a current year gain for U.S. tax purposes and will be offset partially by current year losses. However, the Internal Revenue Service, or the IRS, could challenge the valuation of the intellectual property rights and assess a greater valuation, which would require us to utilize a portion, or all, of our available NOLs in the future. If an IRS valuation exceeds our available NOLs, we could incur additional income taxes in the future. Our ability to use our NOLs is subject to the limitations of IRS Section 382, as well as expiration of federal and state net operating loss carryforwards. Additionally, in the event our NOLs were sufficient to offset the regular income taxes associated with an IRS revaluation of the intellectual property transferred to our Bermuda subsidiary, we may be subject to alternative minimum tax.
Risks related to our industry
We will be subject to stringent regulation in connection with the marketing of any products derived from our product candidates, which could delay the development and commercialization of our products.
The pharmaceutical industry is subject to stringent regulation by the FDA and other regulatory agencies in the United States and by comparable authorities in other countries. Neither we nor our collaborators can market a pharmaceutical product in the United States until it has completed rigorous preclinical testing and clinical trials and an extensive regulatory clearance process implemented by the FDA. Satisfaction of regulatory requirements typically takes many years, depends upon the type, complexity and novelty of the product, and requires substantial resources. Even if regulatory approval is obtained, it may impose significant restrictions on the indicated uses, conditions for use, labeling, advertising, promotion, and/or marketing of such products, and requirements for post-approval studies, including additional research and development and clinical trials. These limitations may limit the size of the market for the product or result in the incurrence of additional costs. Any delay or failure in obtaining required approvals could have a material adverse effect on our ability to generate revenues and continue our business.
Outside the United States, the ability to market a product is contingent upon receiving approval from the appropriate regulatory authorities. The requirements governing the conduct of clinical trials, marketing
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authorization, pricing, and reimbursement vary widely from country to country. Only after the appropriate regulatory authority is satisfied that adequate evidence of safety, quality, and efficacy has been presented will it grant a marketing authorization. Approval by the FDA does not automatically lead to the approval by regulatory authorities outside the United States and, similarly, approval by regulatory authorities outside the United States will not automatically lead to FDA approval.
Many of our competitors have greater resources and capital than us, putting us at a competitive disadvantage. If our competitors develop and market products that are more effective than our product candidates, they may reduce or eliminate our commercial opportunity.
Competition in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries is intense and increasing. We face competition from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as numerous academic and research institutions and governmental agencies, both in the United States and abroad. Some of these competitors have products or are pursuing the development of drugs that target the same diseases and conditions that are the focus of our drug development programs.
For example, our potential products for the treatment of schizophrenia would compete with, among other branded products, Abilify®, marketed jointly by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Fanapt®, marketed by Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Seroquel XR®, marketed by AstraZeneca, Invega®, marketed by Janssen, VRAYLAR®, marketed by Allergan, Rexulti® marketed by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Latuda®, marketed by Sunovion. In addition, our product candidates, if approved, will compete with, among other generic antipsychotic drugs, haloperidol, risperidone, quetiapine, olanzapine and clozapine.
Many of our competitors and their collaborators have significantly greater experience than we do in the following:
| • | identifying and validating targets; |
| • | screening compounds against targets; |
| • | preclinical studies and clinical trials of potential pharmaceutical products; and |
| • | obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals. |
In addition, many of our competitors and their collaborators have substantially greater capital and research and development resources, manufacturing, sales and marketing capabilities, and production facilities. Smaller companies also may prove to be significant competitors, particularly through proprietary research discoveries and collaboration arrangements with large pharmaceutical and established biotechnology companies. Many of our competitors have products that have been approved or are in advanced development and may develop superior technologies or methods to identify and validate drug targets and to discover novel small molecule drugs. Our competitors, either alone or with their collaborators, may succeed in developing drugs that are more effective, safer, more affordable, or more easily administered than ours and may achieve patent protection or commercialize drugs sooner than us. Our competitors may also develop alternative therapies that could further limit the market for any drugs that we may develop. Our failure to compete effectively could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Any claims relating to improper handling, storage, or disposal of biological, hazardous, and radioactive materials used in our business could be costly and delay our research and development efforts.
Our research and development activities involve the controlled use of potentially harmful hazardous materials, including volatile solvents, biological materials such as blood from patients that have the potential to transmit disease, chemicals that cause cancer, and various radioactive compounds. Our operations also produce hazardous waste products. We face the risk of contamination or injury from the use, storage, handling or disposal of these materials. We are subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations governing the use,
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storage, handling, and disposal of these materials and specified waste products. The cost of compliance with these laws and regulations could be significant, and current or future environmental regulations may impair our research, development, or production efforts. If one of our employees were accidentally injured from the use, storage, handling, or disposal of these materials, the medical costs related to his or her treatment would be covered by our workers’ compensation insurance policy. However, we do not carry specific biological or hazardous waste insurance coverage and our general liability insurance policy specifically excludes coverage for damages and fines arising from biological or hazardous waste exposure or contamination. Accordingly, in the event of contamination or injury, we could be subject to criminal sanctions or fines or be held liable for damages, our operating licenses could be revoked, and we could be required to suspend or modify our operations and our research and development efforts.
Consumers may sue us for product liability, which could result in substantial liabilities that exceed our available resources and damage our reputation.
Researching, developing, and commercializing drug products entail significant product liability risks. Liability claims may arise from our and our collaborators’ use of products in clinical trials and the commercial sale of those products. Consumers may make these claims directly and our collaborators or others selling these products may seek contribution from us if they receive claims from consumers. We have obtained limited product liability insurance coverage for our clinical trials. Our product liability insurance coverage for clinical trials is currently limited to an aggregate of $30 million. As such, our insurance coverage may not reimburse us or may not be sufficient to reimburse us for any expenses or losses we may suffer. Although we currently have product liability insurance that covers our clinical trials, we will need to increase and expand this coverage if our product candidates are approved for commercial sale. This insurance may be prohibitively expensive or may not fully cover our potential liabilities. Inability to obtain sufficient insurance coverage at an acceptable cost or otherwise to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the commercialization of products that we or our collaborators develop. Product liability claims could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Our liability could exceed our total assets if we do not prevail in a lawsuit from any injury caused by our drug products.
Risks related to owning our common stock
Numerous factors could result in substantial volatility in the trading price of our stock.
From January 1, 2016 through September 25, 2017, the price per share of our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Select Market has ranged from a high of $55.35 to a low of $7.85. We have several stockholders, including affiliated stockholders, who hold substantial blocks of our stock. Sales of large numbers of shares by any of our large stockholders could adversely affect our trading price. If stockholders holding shares of our common stock sell, indicate an intention to sell, or if it is perceived that they will sell, substantial amounts of their common stock in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline.
In addition, the trading price of our common stock may be highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include:
| • | timing and announcement of regulatory developments and approvals or preliminary, interim or final results of clinical trials; |
| • | actual or anticipated quarterly variation in our results of operations or the results of our competitors; |
| • | announcements of medical innovations or new products by our competitors; |
| • | issuance of new or changed securities analysts’ reports or recommendations for our stock; |
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| • | developments or disputes concerning our intellectual property or other proprietary rights; |
| • | commencement of, or our involvement in, litigation; |
| • | market conditions in the biopharmaceutical industry; |
| • | any future sales of our common stock or other securities in connection with raising additional capital or otherwise; |
| • | any major change to the composition of our board of directors or management; and |
| • | general economic conditions and slow or negative growth of our markets. |
The stock market in general, and market prices for the securities of biotechnology companies like ours in particular, have from time to time experienced volatility that often has been unrelated to the operating performance of the underlying companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our operating performance. In several recent situations where the market price of a stock has been volatile, holders of that stock have instituted securities class action litigation against the company that issued the stock. The defense and disposition of any securities class action lawsuit brought against us, including the purported class action lawsuits filed against us and certain of our executive officers in May 2017 and consolidated in July 2017 and that counsel for the lead plaintiff requested be voluntarily dismissed in September 2017, could be costly and divert the time and attention of our management and harm our operating results.
Raising additional capital may cause dilution to existing stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights.
We will need to satisfy our future cash needs through public or private sales of our equity securities, sales of debt securities, the incurrence of debt from commercial lenders, strategic collaborations, licensing a portion or all of our product candidates and technology and, to a lesser extent, grant funding. We filed a universal shelf registration statement on Form S-3 with the SEC, which was declared effective on September 14, 2016, on which we registered for sale up to $350 million of any combination of our common stock, preferred stock, debt securities, warrants, rights, purchase contracts and/or units from time to time and at prices and on terms that we may determine. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interest of our existing stockholders will be diluted, and the terms may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect the rights of our stockholders. Debt financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. If we raise additional funds through collaboration and licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies or grant licenses on terms that are not favorable to us.
The price of our common stock could be subject to volatility related or unrelated to our operations.
The market price of our common stock could fluctuate substantially due to a variety of factors, including market perception of our ability to meet our growth projections and expectations, quarterly operating results of other companies in the same industry, trading volume in our common stock, changes in general conditions in the economy and the financial markets or other developments affecting our business and the business of others in our industry. In addition, the stock market itself is subject to extreme price and volume fluctuations. This volatility has had a significant effect on the market price of securities issued by many companies for reasons related and unrelated to their operating performance and could have the same effect on our common stock.
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We will incur increased costs and demands upon management as a result of complying with the laws and regulations affecting public companies, which could harm our operating results.
As a public company, we have incurred and will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses, including costs associated with public company reporting requirements. We also have incurred and will incur costs associated with current corporate governance requirements, including requirements under Section 404 and other provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as rules implemented by the SEC or the NASDAQ Global Select Market or any other stock exchange or inter-dealer quotations system on which our common stock may be listed in the future. The expenses incurred by public companies for reporting and corporate governance purposes have increased dramatically in recent years.
If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal controls, our ability to produce accurate and timely financial statements could be impaired, which could harm our operating results, our ability to operate our business and investors’ views of us.
We are required to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires public companies to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting. In particular, we must perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. In addition, we are required to have our independent registered public accounting firm attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Ensuring that we have adequate internal financial and accounting controls and procedures in place so that we can produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis is a costly and time-consuming effort that will need to be evaluated frequently. We currently do not have an internal audit group, and we may need to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge. If we fail to maintain the effectiveness of our internal controls or fail to comply in a timely manner with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or if we or our independent registered public accounting firm identify deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses, this could have a material adverse effect on our business. We could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could have an adverse effect on the price of our common stock and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by NASDAQ, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources. In addition, if our efforts to comply with new or changed laws, regulations, and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.
Our ability to successfully implement our business plan and comply with Section 404 requires us to be able to prepare timely and accurate financial statements. We expect that we will need to continue to improve existing, and implement new operational and financial systems, procedures and controls to manage our business effectively. Any delay in the implementation of, or disruption in the transition to, new or enhanced systems, procedures or controls, may cause our operations to suffer and we may be unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective and to obtain an unqualified report on internal controls from our independent registered public accounting firm as required under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This, in turn, could have an adverse impact on trading prices for our common stock, and could adversely affect our ability to access the capital markets.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish, or cease publishing, research or reports about us, our business or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our stock adversely, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock is and will be influenced by whether industry or securities analysts publish or continue to publish research and reports about us, our business, our market or our competitors and,
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to the extent analysts do publish such reports, what they publish in those reports. We may not continue to have or to obtain analyst coverage in the future. Any analysts that do cover us may make adverse recommendations regarding our stock, adversely change their recommendations from time to time, and/or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors. If any analyst who covers us or may cover us in the future were to cease coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, or if analysts fail to cover us or publish reports about us at all, we could lose, or never gain, visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
Provisions of the Delaware law, our restated certificate of incorporation and our restated bylaws may delay or prevent a takeover which may not be in the best interests of our stockholders.
The provisions of Delaware law and our restated certificate of incorporation and restated bylaws could discourage or make it more difficult to accomplish a proxy contest or other change in our management or the acquisition of control by a holder of a substantial amount of our voting stock. It is possible that these provisions could make it more difficult to accomplish, or could deter, transactions that stockholders may otherwise consider to be in their best interests or in our best interests. These provisions are intended to enhance the likelihood of continuity and stability in the composition of our board of directors and in the policies formulated by the board of directors and to discourage certain types of transactions that may involve an actual or threatened change of our control. These provisions are designed to reduce our vulnerability to an unsolicited acquisition proposal and to discourage certain tactics that may be used in proxy fights. Such provisions also may have the effect of preventing changes in our management.
We do not anticipate paying cash dividends in the foreseeable future.
We currently intend to retain any future earnings for funding growth. We do not anticipate paying any dividends in the foreseeable future. As a result, you should not rely on an investment in our securities if you require dividend income. Capital appreciation, if any, of our shares may be your sole source of gain for the foreseeable future. Moreover, you may not be able to re-sell your shares at or above the price you paid for them.
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