RISK FACTORS

Investing in our Class A Ordinary Shares involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks and all other information contained in this prospectus, including our financial statements, consolidated financial statements and the related notes, before making an investment decision regarding our securities. The risks and uncertainties described below are those significant risk factors, currently known and specific to us that we believe are relevant to an investment in our securities. If any of these risks materialize, our business, financial condition or results of operations could suffer, the price of our Class A Ordinary Shares could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Need for Additional Capital

We are a Hong Kong based pharmaceutical company, currently in the preclinical stage with a limited operating history, which may make it difficult to evaluate our current business and predict our future performance.

As of March 1, 2017, Aptorum Group Limited was restructured into its current form as an operating company (the “Restructure”). Prior to that, Aptorum Group Limited was formerly known as APTUS Holdings Limited and STRIKER ASIA OPPORTUNITIES FUND CORPORATION, which was set up on September 13, 2010, and invested primarily in U.S.-based life sciences companies on a portfolio investment basis.

We have not yet demonstrated the ability to initiate or successfully complete large-scale and pivotal clinical trials, obtain regulatory approvals, manufacture drugs at commercial scales, or arrange for others to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful commercialization. We have not yet obtained regulatory approval for, or demonstrated an ability to commercialize any of our drug candidates. We have no products approved for commercial sale and have not generated any revenue from product sales. Consequently, any forecasts or assumptions regarding our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history.

For example, one of our major focuses is the discovery and development of innovative imaging agents for diagnosing early stage Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative diseases. Our limited operating history, particularly in light of the rapidly evolving Alzheimer’s research and treatment field, may make it difficult to evaluate our current business and prospects for future performance. Our short history subjects any assessment of our future performance to significant uncertainty. We will encounter risks and difficulties that are frequently experienced by early stage companies in rapidly evolving fields, as we seek to transition into a company which is capable of supporting commercial activities. In addition, as a new business, we may be more likely to encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications and delays due to our limited experience. If we do not address these risks and difficulties successfully, our business will be adversely affected.

We currently do not generate revenue from product sales and may never become profitable; unless we can raise more capital through additional financings, of which there can be no guarantee, our principal source of revenue will be from AML Clinic, which may not be substantial.

Our ability to generate revenue and become profitable depends upon our ability to successfully complete the development of, and obtain the necessary regulatory approvals for, the drug candidates in our Lead Projects and any future drug candidates we may develop, as we do not currently have any drugs that are available for commercial sale. We expect to continue to incur losses before commercialization of our drug candidates and any future drug candidates. None of our drug candidates has been approved for marketing in the U.S., Europe, the PRC or any other jurisdictions and may never receive such approval. Our ability to generate revenue and achieve profitability is dependent on our ability to complete the development of our drug candidates and any future drug candidates we develop in our portfolio, obtain necessary regulatory approvals, and have our drugs products under development manufactured and successfully marketed, of which there can be no guarantee. Although AML Clinic commenced operations in June 2018 and we expect to receive some revenue from such operations, even at full capacity, AML Clinic may not bring enough revenue to support our operation and R&D. Thus, we may not be able to generate a profit until our drug candidates become profitable.

Even if we receive regulatory approval and marketing authorization for one or more of our drug candidates or one or more of any future drug candidates for commercial sale, a potential product may not generate revenue at all unless we are successful in:

In addition, our ability to achieve and maintain profitability depends on timing and the amount of expenses we will incur. Our expenses could increase materially if we are required by the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities to perform studies in addition to those that we currently have anticipated. Even if our drug candidates are approved for commercial sale, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with the commercial launch of these products.

Our ability to become and remain profitable depends on our ability to generate revenue. Even if we are able to generate revenues from AML Clinic or the sale or sublicense of any products we may develop or license, we may not become profitable on a sustainable basis or at all. Our failure to become and remain profitable would decrease the value of our Company and adversely affect the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares, which could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business or continue our operations, and may cause you to lose all or part of your investment.

AML Clinic’s operations may be our principal source of revenue for the foreseeable future and most likely, without additional financing, such revenue will not be sufficient for us to carry out all of our plans.

As stated above, we have not generated any revenue and do not foresee generating any revenue from our drug candidates in the near future. As stated elsewhere in this prospectus, effective as of March 2018, we leased the property in Central Hong Kong that is the home to AML Clinic, which commenced operations in June 2018.

Until our therapeutic candidates produce revenue, our principal source of revenue shall be from AML Clinic, but we cannot guarantee that it will provide the expected revenue, and even if expected revenue is realized, it will not be sufficient by itself to fund our other operations. Based on the above, we will need to seek additional financing to carry out our business and meet our goals.

 
We expect to incur net losses in each period for the foreseeable future primarily due to ongoing research and development costs.

Product development is highly speculative because it entails substantial upfront capital expenditures and significant risk that a drug or device candidate will fail to gain regulatory approval and/or achieve commercial viability and acceptance by patients, doctors and payors.

We have devoted most of our financial resources to research and development, including licensing fees, sponsored research expenses and our preclinical studies and CMC costs. We have not obtained marketing approvals or generated any revenue from product sales to date, and we continue to incur significant development and other expenses related to our ongoing operations. As a result, we are not profitable and have incurred losses in each period since our inception. For the ten months ended December 31, 2017, we reported a consolidated net loss of $2.56 million. For the two-months ended February 28, 2017, we reported a net loss of $0.63 million based on entity level. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2016, we reported a net loss of $2.13 million. Substantially all of our operating expenses in 2017 and 2016 were related to ongoing administrative costs and research and development costs. In relation to fiscal 2018 and onwards, we expect Aptorum Group to continue to incur net operating losses from costs incurred in connection with our research and development programs and from general and administrative costs associated with our operations.

We expect to continue to incur losses in the foreseeable future, and we expect these losses to increase as we continue the development of and request for regulatory approvals for our drug and device candidates (in particular, for our drug candidates), and begin to commercialize the approved drugs, if any. Typically, it takes almost ten years to develop a new drug from “discovery to commercialization.” We may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may increase our expenses and adversely affect our ability to generate revenue. The size of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of future growth of our expenses, our ability to generate revenues and the timing and amount of milestones and other required payments in connection with our potential future arrangements with others. If any of our drug or device candidates fail in clinical trials or do not gain regulatory approval, or if approved, fail to achieve market acceptance, we may never become profitable. Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Our prior losses and expected future losses have had, and will continue to have, an adverse effect on our shareholders’ equity and working capital.

We expect our R&D expenses to continue to be significant in connection with our continued investment in our ongoing and preclinical development and studies for our current drug and device candidates and any future drug candidates we may develop. Furthermore, if we obtain regulatory approval for our drug and device candidates, we expect to incur increased sales and marketing expenses. In addition, once we are a public company, we will incur additional costs associated with operating as a public company. As a result, we expect to continue to incur significant and increasing operating losses and negative cash flows for the foreseeable future. Such losses have had and will continue to have a material adverse effect on our shareholders’ equity, financial position, cash flows and working capital.

We need to obtain additional financing to fund our future operations. If we are unable to obtain such financing, we may be unable to complete the development and commercialization of our current or future drug candidates.

According to a 2014 Pew Trust article (http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2014/03/12/from-lab-bench-to-bedside-a-backgrounder-on-drug-development), “Moving a potential therapy from concept to market can take between 10 and 15 years and cost developers as much as $1 billion.” Furthermore, a 2018 news release from the FDA (https://www.fdanews.com/articles/185475-new-big-data-study-from-mit-puts-clinical-trial-success-rate-at-14-percent) reported an MIT study concluding that, in the United States, one-in-seven (approximately 14%) of all drugs that enter clinical trials after approval of an IND filing eventually win marketing approval from the FDA.

We have financed our operations with a combination of existing equity from shareholders, equity and debt offerings, as well as public grants. Until December 31, 2017, we raised approximately $8.6 million in equity financing, bringing the total equity invested in the Group to $30.2 million as of December 31, 2017. As of the date hereof, we have not received any upfront payment or milestone payment from third parties who may sublicense our drug candidates. Our drug candidates will require the completion of regulatory review, significant marketing efforts and substantial investment before they can provide us with any revenue from product sales or licensing.

Our operations have consumed substantial amounts of cash since inception. The net cash used for our operating activities was $5.78 million, $0.27 million and $2.81 million for the ten months ended December 31, 2017, the two months ended February 28, 2017 and the year ended December 31, 2016, respectively. We expect to continue to spend substantial amounts on discovering new drug candidates, licensing assets, advancing the development of our drug candidates, completion of clinical supply manufacturing and manufacturing activities at commercial scales, and launching and commercializing any drug candidates for which we receive regulatory approval, including building our own commercial organizations to address certain markets. We need to obtain additional financing to fund our future operations, including completing the development and commercialization of the drug candidates in our Lead Projects: NLS-1, ALS-1 and ALS-4. We need to obtain additional financing to conduct additional preclinical studies and clinical trials for the approval of our drug candidates, and completing the development of any additional drug candidates we discover and/or license. Moreover, our fixed expenses such as rents, interest expenses and other contractual commitments are substantial and are expected to increase in the future.

Our future funding requirements will depend on many factors, including but not limited to: 

We may finance our future cash needs through public or private equity offerings and debt financings, as well as asset licenses or sales or business combination or other restructuring transactions that generate cash for operations.

Although we believe that the net proceeds from this Offering, together with cash on hand and the proceeds of our recent Note and Bond offerings, will be sufficient for us to continue to operate for the next 12 months, we may utilize our capital resources sooner than we expect. However, such capital will not be sufficient to enable us to complete the preclinical development or commercial launch of our current drug candidates. In addition, development of other drug candidates will require substantial additional funds. Accordingly, we will require further funding which may not be available to us on reasonable terms, or at all. If we are unable to raise capital when needed or on attractive terms, we would be forced to delay, reduce or completely abandon our research and development programs or future commercialization efforts. Our inability to obtain additional funding when we needed could seriously harm our business.

We may allocate our limited resources to pursue a particular drug candidate or indication and fail to capitalize on drug candidates or indications that may later prove to be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.

Because we have limited financial and managerial resources, we must focus our licensing, research and development programs on specific drug candidates that we identify as more likely in the current environment to achieve success. As a result, we may be forced to forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other drug candidates or for other indications or services that may later prove to have greater commercial potential. Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities. In addition, if we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular drug candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that drug candidate through collaboration, licensing or other royalty arrangements when it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights to such drug candidate.

Risks Related to the Preclinical and Clinical Development of Our Drug Candidates

We depend substantially on the success of the drug candidates being researched as our current Lead Projects, which are in the preclinical stage of development. The preclinical development, IND-enabling, and clinical trials of our drug candidates may not be successful. If we are unable to license or sublicense, sell or otherwise commercialize our drug candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be materially harmed.

Our business and the ability to generate revenue related to product sales, if ever achieved, will depend on the successful development, regulatory approval and licensing or sublicensing or other commercialization of our drug candidates or any other drug candidates we may develop. We have invested a significant amount of financial resources in the development of our drug candidates and we expect to invest in other drug candidates. The success of our drug candidates and any other potential drug candidates will depend on many factors, including but not limited to:

We may not achieve regulatory approval and commercialization in a timely manner or at all. Significant delays in obtaining approval for and/or to successfully commercialize our drug candidates would materially harm our business and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenues and cash flows to continue our operations.

We may not be successful in our efforts to identify or discover additional drug candidates. Due to our limited resources and access to capital, we must continue to prioritize development of certain drug candidates; such decisions may prove to be wrong and may adversely affect our business.

Although we intend to explore other therapeutic opportunities in addition to the drug candidates that we are currently developing, we may fail to identify other drug candidates for a number of reasons. For example, our research methodology may be unsuccessful in identifying potential drug candidates or those we identify may be shown to have harmful side effects or other undesirable characteristics that make them unmarketable or unlikely to receive regulatory approval.

Research programs to pursue the development of our drug candidates for additional indications and to identify new drug candidates and disease targets require substantial technical, financial and human resources whether or not we ultimately are successful. Our research programs may initially show promise in identifying potential indications and/or drug candidates, yet fail to yield results for clinical development for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

Because we have limited financial and managerial resources, we have chosen to focus at present on our three Lead Projects, which may ultimately prove to be unsuccessful. As a result of this focus, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other drug candidates, or for other indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential or a greater likelihood of success. Even if we determine to pursue alternative therapeutic or diagnostic drug candidates, these other drug candidates or other potential programs may ultimately prove to be unsuccessful. In short, our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities.

Accordingly, there can be no assurance that we will ever be able to develop suitable potential drug candidates through internal research programs. This could materially adversely affect our future growth and prospects.

If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.

While we have not commenced any clinical trials and do not expect to start our first clinical trials until at least 2020 or 2021, assuming we obtain approval to do so from at least one regulatory authority, of which there can be no assurance, timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who meet the trial criteria and remain in the trial until its conclusion. We may experience difficulties enrolling and retaining appropriate patients in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to:

Even if we are able to enroll a sufficient number of patients in our clinical trials, delays in patient enrollment may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or outcome of the planned clinical trials, which could prevent completion of these trials and adversely affect our ability to advance the development of our drug candidates.

Clinical drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process and could fail at any stage of the process. We have limited experience in conducting clinical trials and results of earlier studies and trials may not be reproduced in future clinical trials.

For our drug candidates, clinical testing is expensive and can take many years to complete, while failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process. The results of studies in animals and early clinical trials of our drug candidates may not predict the results of later-stage clinical trials. Drug candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through studies in animals and initial clinical trials. In some instances, there can be significant variability in safety and/or efficacy results between different trials of the same drug candidate due to numerous factors, including changes in trial procedures set forth in protocols, differences in the size and type of the patient populations (including genetic differences), patient adherence to the dosing regimen and the patient dropout rate. Results in later trials may also differ from earlier trials due to a larger number of clinical trial sites and additional countries and languages involved in such trials. In addition, the design of a clinical trial can determine whether its results will support approval of a drug candidate, and flaws in the design of a clinical trial may not become apparent until the clinical trial is well advanced and significant expense has been incurred.

A number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials due to lack of demonstrated efficacy or adverse safety profiles, notwithstanding promising results in earlier trials. Clinical trials of potential products often reveal that it is not practical or feasible to continue development efforts. Furthermore, if the trials we conduct fail to meet their primary statistical and clinical endpoints, they will not support the approval from the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities for our drug candidates. If this occurs, we would need to replace the failed study with new trials, which would require significant additional expense, cause substantial delays in commercialization and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. (See “We are subject to risks related to the carrying out and outcome of clinical trials of medical devices”)

If clinical trials of our drug candidates fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities, or do not otherwise produce positive results, we may incur additional costs or experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete, the development and commercialization of our drug candidates.

Before applying for and obtaining regulatory approval for the sale of any of our drug candidates, we must conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our drug candidates in humans. Clinical testing is expensive, difficult to design and implement, can take many years to complete and may fail. A failure of one or more of our clinical trials can occur at any stage of testing and successful interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict successful final results.

We and our CROs are required to comply with current Good Clinical Practices (“cGCP”) requirements, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA, CFDA, EMA and other comparable regulatory authorities for all drugs in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce these cGCP through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. Compliance with cGCP can be costly and if we or any of our CROs fail to comply with applicable cGCP, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA, CFDA, EMA or comparable regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications.

We may experience numerous unexpected events during, or as a result of, clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to receive regulatory approval or commercialize our drug candidates, including but not limited to:

If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials or other testing of our drug candidates beyond those that we currently contemplate, if we are unable to successfully complete clinical trials of our drug candidates or other testing, if the results of these trials or tests are not positive or are only modestly positive or if they raise safety concerns, we may:

Delays in testing or approvals may result in increases in our drug development costs. We do not know whether any clinical trials will begin as planned, will need to be restructured, or will be completed on schedule, or at all. Clinical trials may produce negative or inconclusive results. Moreover, these trials may be delayed or proceed less quickly than intended. Delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our drug candidate development and approval process, and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues and we may not have sufficient funding to complete the testing and approval process. Any of these events may significantly harm our business, financial condition and prospects, lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our drug candidates or allow our competitors to bring drugs to market before we do, impairing our ability to commercialize our drugs if and when approved.

Significant clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we have the exclusive right to commercialize our drug candidates or allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do, impair our ability to commercialize our drug candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.

We may in the future conduct clinical trials for our drug candidates in sites outside the U.S. and the FDA may not accept data from trials conducted in such locations.

We may in the future conduct certain of our clinical trials outside the U.S. Although the FDA may accept data from clinical trials conducted outside the U.S. for our New Drug Application (“NDA”), acceptance of this data is subject to certain conditions imposed by the FDA. There can be no assurance the FDA will accept data from any of the clinical trials we conduct outside the U.S. If the FDA does not accept the data from any of our clinical trials conducted outside the U.S., it would likely result in the need for additional clinical trials in the U.S., which would be costly and time-consuming and could delay or prevent the commercialization of any of our drug candidates.

Risks Related to Obtaining Regulatory Approval for Our Drug Candidates

The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, CFDA, EMA and other comparable regulatory authorities are lengthy, time-consuming and inherently unpredictable, and if we are ultimately unable to obtain regulatory approval for our current drug candidates or any future drug candidates we may develop, our business will be substantially harmed.

We cannot commercialize drug candidates without first obtaining regulatory approval to market each drug from the FDA, CFDA, EMA or comparable regulatory authorities. Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of any drug candidate for a target indication, we must demonstrate in studies in animals and well-controlled clinical trials, and, with respect to approval in the United States and other regulatory agencies, to the satisfaction of the FDA, CFDA, EMA or comparable regulatory authorities, that the drug candidate is safe and effective for use for that target indication and that the manufacturing facilities, processes and controls are adequate.

The time required to obtain approval from the FDA, CFDA, EMA and other comparable regulatory authorities is unpredictable but typically takes many years following the commencement of studies in animals and clinical trials and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities.

In addition, approval policies, regulations or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval can differ among regulatory authorities and may change during the course of the development of a drug candidate. We have not obtained regulatory approval for any drug candidate. It is possible that neither our existing drug candidates nor any drug candidates we may discover or acquire for development in the future will ever obtain regulatory approval. Even if we obtain regulatory approval in one jurisdiction, we may not obtain it in other jurisdictions.

Our drug candidates could fail to receive regulatory approval from any of the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities for many reasons, including but not limited to:

Any of the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities may require more information, including additional preclinical studies or clinical data, to support approval, which may delay or prevent approval and our commercialization plans, or we may decide to abandon the development program. If we were to obtain approval, regulatory authorities may approve any of our drug candidates for fewer or more limited indications than we request. Regulatory authorities also may grant approval contingent on the performance of costly post-marketing clinical trials, or may approve a drug candidate with a label that is not desirable for the successful commercialization of that drug candidate. In addition, if our drug candidate produces undesirable side effects or involves other safety issues, the FDA may require the establishment of a Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (“REMS”), or CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities may require the establishment of a similar strategy. Such a strategy may, for instance, restrict distribution of our drug candidates, require patient or physician education, or impose other burdensome implementation requirements on us.

Regulatory approval may be substantially delayed or may not be obtained for one or all of our drug candidates if regulatory authorities require additional time or studies to assess the safety or efficacy of our drug candidates.

We currently do not have any drug candidates that have gained approval for sale by the FDA, CFDA or EMA or other regulatory authorities in any other country, and we cannot guarantee that we will ever have marketable drugs. Our business is substantially dependent on our ability to complete the development of, obtain marketing approval for and successfully commercialize drug candidates in a timely manner. We cannot commercialize drug candidates without first obtaining marketing approval from the FDA, CFDA, EMA and comparable regulatory authorities. In the U.S., we hope to file INDs for the drug candidates from our Lead Projects and, subject to the approval of IND, Phase 1 clinical trials in humans. Even if we are permitted to commence such clinical trials, they may not be successful and regulators may not agree with our conclusions regarding the data generated by our clinical trials.

We may be unable to complete development of our drug candidates or initiate or complete development of any future drug candidates we may develop on our projected schedule. While we believe that the net proceeds of this Offering, together with existing cash, will likely enable us to complete the preclinical development of at least one of our current Lead Projects, even assuming we can complete such preclinical studies for any drug candidate by 2021, the full clinical development, manufacturing and launch of that drug candidate, will take significant additional time and likely require funding beyond the proceeds of this Offering. In addition, if regulatory authorities require additional time or studies to assess the safety or efficacy of our drug candidates, we may not have or be able to obtain adequate funding to complete the necessary steps for approval for our drug candidates or any future drug candidates.

Preclinical studies in animals and clinical trials in humans to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our drug candidates are time-consuming, expensive and take several years or more to complete. Delays in preclinical or clinical trials, regulatory approvals or rejections of applications for regulatory approval in the U.S., Europe, the PRC or other markets may result from many factors, including but not limited to:

Changes in regulatory requirements and guidance may also occur, and we may need to amend clinical trial protocols submitted to applicable regulatory authorities to reflect these changes. Amendments may require us to resubmit clinical trial protocols to IRBs or ethics committees for re-examination, which may increase the costs or time required to complete a clinical trial.

If we experience delays in the completion of, or the termination of, a clinical trial, of any of our drug candidates, the commercial prospects of our drug candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate product sales revenues from any of those drug candidates will be delayed. In addition, any delay in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our drug candidate development and approval process, and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly. In addition, many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our drug candidates.

If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials or other studies with respect to any of our drug candidates beyond those that we initially contemplated, if we are unable to successfully complete our clinical trials or other studies or if the results of these studies are not positive or are only modestly positive, we may be delayed in obtaining regulatory approval for that drug candidate, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval at all or we may obtain approval for indications that are not as broad as intended. Our product development costs will also increase if we experience delays in testing or approvals, and we may not have sufficient funding to complete the testing and approval process. Significant clinical trial delays could allow our competitors to bring their products to market before we do and impair our ability to commercialize our drugs, if and when approved. If any of this occurs, our business will be materially harmed.

Our drug candidates may cause undesirable adverse events or have other properties that could delay or prevent their regulatory approval, limit the commercial profile of an approved label, or result in significant negative consequences following any regulatory approval.

Undesirable adverse events caused by our drug candidates or any future drug candidates we may develop could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities. Results of our potential clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity or prevalence of adverse effects. In such event, our trials could be suspended or terminated and the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development of, or deny approval of, our drug candidates for any or all target indications. Drug-related adverse events could also affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled subjects to complete the trial, could result in potential product liability claims and may harm our reputation, business, financial condition and business prospects significantly.

Additionally, if any of our current or future drug candidates receives regulatory approval, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by such drugs, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including but not limited to:

Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular drug candidate, if approved, and could significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

Even if we receive regulatory approval for our drug candidates, we will be subject to ongoing regulatory obligations and continued regulatory review, which may result in significant additional expense and we may be subject to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or experience unanticipated problems with our drug candidates.

If our drug candidates or any future drug candidates we develop are approved, they will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements for manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, advertising, promotion, sampling, record-keeping, conduct of post-marketing studies, and submission of safety, efficacy, and other post-market information, including both federal and state requirements in the United States and requirements of comparable regulatory authorities outside of the United States.

Manufacturers and manufacturers’ facilities are required to comply with extensive requirements from the FDA, CFDA, EMA and comparable regulatory authorities, including, in the United States, ensuring that quality control and manufacturing procedures conform to cGMP regulations. As such, our contract manufacturers will be subject to continual review and inspections to assess compliance with cGMP and adherence to commitments made in any NDA, other marketing application, and previous responses to inspection observations. Accordingly, we and others with whom we work must continue to expend time, money and effort in all areas of regulatory compliance, including manufacturing, production and quality control.

Any regulatory approvals that we receive for our drug candidates may be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the drug may be marketed or to the conditions of approval, or contain requirements for potentially costly post-marketing testing, including Phase 4 clinical trials and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the drug candidate. The regulatory authorities may also require risk management plans or programs as a condition of approval of our drug candidates (such as REMS of the FDA and risk-management plan of the EMA), which could entail requirements for long-term patient follow-up, a medication guide, physician communication plans or additional elements to ensure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. In addition, if the FDA, CFDA, EMA or a comparable regulatory authority approves our drug candidates, we will have to comply with requirements including, for example, submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, registration, as well as continued compliance with cGCP and cGMP, for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval.

The FDA may impose consent decrees or withdraw approval if compliance with regulatory requirements and standards is not maintained or if problems occur after the drug reaches the market. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with our drug candidates, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with our third-party manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information; imposition of post-market studies or clinical studies to assess new safety risks; or imposition of distribution restrictions or other restrictions under a REMS program. Other potential consequences include, among other things:

The FDA strictly regulates marketing, labeling, advertising and promotion of products that are placed on the market. Companies may promote drugs only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved label and may not promote drugs for any off-label use, such as uses that are not described in the product’s labeling and that differ from those approved by the regulatory authorities. However, physicians may prescribe drug products for off-label uses and such off-label uses are common across some medical specialties. Thus, they may, unbeknownst to us, use our product for an “off label” indication for a specific treatment recipient. The FDA, CFDA, EMA and other regulatory authorities actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses, and if we are found to be out of compliance with the requirements and restrictions imposed on us under those laws and restrictions, we may be subject to significant liability, including civil and administrative remedies as well as criminal sanctions, and the off-label use of our products may increase the risk of product liability claims. In addition, management’s attention could be diverted from our business operations and our reputation could be damaged.

The policies of the FDA, CFDA, EMA and other regulatory authorities may change and we cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action, either in the United States or abroad. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may lose any regulatory approval that we may have obtained and we may not achieve or sustain profitability.

We may be subject to government regulations for dietary supplements

The Company may develop some of the molecules under development in formulations intended as dietary supplements. The FDA regulates dietary supplements and drugs under different regulatory schemes, and the Company’s dietary supplement formulations will also be subject to other government regulation, including regulation by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, other divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, state and local governments and the foreign equivalents of the FDA and these other agencies.

For example, the FDA regulates the research, development, preclinical and clinical testing, safety, effectiveness, record keeping, reporting, labeling, storage processing, formulation, safety, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, advertising and distribution import and export of pharmaceutical products under various regulatory provisions. If any dietary supplements we develop are tested or marketed abroad, they will also be subject to extensive regulation by foreign governments, whether or not we have obtained FDA approval for a given product and its uses. Such foreign regulation may be equally or more demanding than corresponding U.S. regulation.

In addition, the regulatory policies of the agencies in the U.S. or other countries may change and additional government regulations may be issued that could prevent, limit, or delay regulatory approval of our dietary supplement candidates, or impose more stringent product labeling and post-marketing testing and other requirements.

Risks Related to Commercialization of Our Drug Candidates

Even if any of our drug candidates receive regulatory approval, it may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.

After we complete clinical trials and receive regulatory approval for any of our drug candidates, which may not happen for some time, we recognize that such candidate(s) may ultimately fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. We may not be able to achieve or maintain market acceptance of our products over time if new products or technology are introduced that are more favorably received than our products, are more cost effective or render our drug obsolete. We will face competition with respect to our drug candidates from other pharmaceutical companies developing products in the same disease/therapeutic area and specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide. Many of the companies against which we may be competing have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, animal testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approval for drugs than we do. Physicians, patients and third-party payors may prefer other novel products to ours, which means that we may not generate significant sales revenues for that product and that product may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of our drug candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:

Risks Related to Our IP

A significant portion of our IP portfolio currently includes pending patent applications that have not yet been issued as granted patents and if the pending patent applications covering our product candidates fail to be issued, our business will be adversely affected. If we or our licensors are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for our technology and drugs, our competitors could develop and commercialize technology and drugs similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our technology and drugs may be adversely affected.

Our success depends largely on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection and other forms of IP rights for the composition of matter, method of use and/or method of manufacture for each of our drug candidates. Failure to obtain, maintain protection, enforce or extend adequate patent and other IP rights could materially adversely affect our ability to develop and market one or more of our drug candidates. We also rely on trade secrets and know-how to develop and maintain our proprietary and IP position for each of our drug candidates. Any failure to protect our trade secrets and know-how with respect to any specific drug and device candidate could adversely affect the market potential of that potential product.

As of the date of the prospectus, the Company has, through its licenses, obtained rights to patents and patent applications covering some or all its drug and device candidates that have been filed in major jurisdictions such as the United States, member states of the European Patent Organization (the “EPO”) and the PRC (collectively, “Major Patent Jurisdictions”), as well as in other countries. As of the date hereof, we are the exclusive licensee of 12 U.S. patents and 5 pending U.S. non-provisional applications, as well as corresponding patents and patent applications internationally. In addition, we are the exclusive licensee of 4 international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (the “PCT”) which we have filed and/or plan to file nationally in member states of the EPO, PRC and other jurisdictions before the expiration of the time limits for entry of national stage application. Moreover, we are the owner of 1 U.S. provisional patent application. To the extent we do not seek or obtain patent protection in a particular jurisdiction, we may not have commercial incentive to seek marketing authorization in such jurisdiction. Nonetheless, other parties might enter those markets with generic versions or copies of our products and received regulatory approval without having significantly invested in their own research and development costs compared to the Company’s investment. For more information about our IP portfolio, please refer to the Intellectual Property section below.

With respect to issued patents in certain jurisdictions, for example in the U.S. and under the EPO, we may be entitled to obtain a patent term extension to extend the patent expiration date provided we meet the applicable requirements for obtaining such patent term extensions. We have sought to support our proprietary position by working with our licensors in filing patent applications in the names of the licensors in the United States and through the PCT, related to the Lead Projects and certain other drug candidates. In the future, we intend to file patent applications on supplemental or improvement IP derived from the licensed technologies, where those IP would be solely or jointly owned by the Company pursuant to the terms of respective license agreements. Filing patents covering multiple technologies in multiple countries is time-consuming and expensive, and we may not have the resources file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications in a timely manner. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection.

We cannot be certain that patents will be issued or granted with respect to patent applications that are currently pending, or that issued or granted patents will not later be found to be invalid or unenforceable.

The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies is generally uncertain because it involves complex legal and factual considerations. The standards applied by the EPO, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, and foreign patent offices in granting patents are not always applied uniformly or predictably. For example, there is no uniform worldwide policy regarding patentable subject matter or the scope of claims allowable in biotechnology and pharmaceutical patents. Consequently, patents may not issue from our pending patent applications and even if they do issue, such patents may not issue in a form that effectively prevents others from commercializing competing products. As such, we do not know the degree of future protection that we will have on our proprietary products and technology.

Additionally, the issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and our patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Even if patents do successfully issue and even if such patents cover our drug candidates, other parties may initiate, for patents filed before March 16, 2013 (i.e., the enactment of the America Invents Act), interference or re-examination proceedings, for patents filed on or after March 16, 2013, post-grant review,  inter partes  review, nullification or derivation proceedings, in court or before patent offices, or similar proceedings challenging the validity, enforceability or scope of such patents, which may result in the patent claims being narrowed or invalidated. Successful defense of its patents can constitute a material factor in a company’s expenses. According to an August 2017 article published by Bloomberg News (https://www.bna.com/cost-patent-infringement-n73014463011/), depending on the value at stake, the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s “2017 Report of the Economic Survey” reported the average cost of a patent litigation in 2017 to be $1.7 million.

In addition, the fact that the Company has exclusive rights to prevent others from using a patented invention does not necessarily mean that the Company itself will have the unrestricted right to use that invention. Other parties may obtain ownership or licenses to patents or other IP rights that cover the manufacture, use or sale of our current or future products (or elements thereof). This may enable such other parties to enforce their patents or IP rights against us, and may, as a result, affect the commercialization of our products or exploitation of our own technology . We endeavor to identify early patents and patent applications which may block development of a product or technology and minimize this risk by conducting prior art searches before and during the projects. However, relevant documents may be overlooked, yet-to-be published or missed, which may in turn impact on the freedom to commercialize the relevant asset. In such cases, we may not be in a position to develop or commercialize products or drug candidates unless we successfully pursue litigation to nullify or invalidate the other IP rights concerned, or enter into a license agreement with the IP right holder, if available on commercially reasonable terms.

If we are unable to obtain and maintain the appropriate scope for our patents, our competitors could develop and commercialize technology and drugs similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our technology and drugs may be adversely affected.

We may not obtain sufficient claim scope in those patents to prevent another party from competing successfully with our drug and device candidates. Even if our patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Our competitors may be able to circumvent our patents by developing similar or alternative technology or drug and device candidates in a non-infringing manner. The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its scope, validity or enforceability, and our patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Such challenges may result in patent claims being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, which could limit our ability to stop or prevent us from stopping others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and drug and device candidates, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our technology and drug and device candidates. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new drug and device candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing drug and device candidates similar or identical to ours.

Further, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our and our current or future licensors’ or collaboration partners’ patent rights are highly uncertain. Our and our licensors’ pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued which protect our technology or products, in whole or in part, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and products.

We may not be able to protect and enforce our IP rights throughout the world.

Our commercial success will depend, in part, on our ability to maintain IP protection for our drug candidates in which we seek to develop and commercialize. While we rely primarily upon a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other contractual obligations to protect the IP related to our brands, products and other proprietary technologies, these legal means may afford only limited protection.

Filing and prosecuting patents on drug candidates and defending the validity of the same (if challenged) in all countries throughout the world could be prohibitively expensive for us, and our IP rights in countries outside the Major Patent Jurisdictions can be less extensive than those in the Major Patent Jurisdictions. In addition, the laws of some countries in the rest of the world such as India do not protect IP rights to the same extent as laws in the Major Patent Jurisdictions. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent other parties from practicing our inventions in the rest of the world. Competitors may use our technology in jurisdictions where we have not or not yet obtained patent protection to develop their own drugs and further, may export otherwise infringing drugs to non-U.S. jurisdictions where we have patent protection.

Our, our licensors’ or collaboration partners’ patent applications cannot be enforced against other parties practicing the technology claimed in such applications unless and until a patent issues from such applications, and then only to the extent the issued claims cover the technology. In addition, patents and other IP rights also will not protect our technology, drug candidates if another party, including our competitors, design around our protected technology, drug candidates without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating our patents or other IP rights.

Moreover, currently and as our R&D continues to progress, some of our patents and patent applications are or may be co-owned with another party. Some of our licenses already provide that future-developed technologies (and any resulting patents) will be co-owned with the licensors and other patents for technologies we may acquire or develop with other parties may also be jointly owned. If we are unable to obtain an exclusive license to any such co-owners’ interest in such patents or patent applications, such co-owners may be able to license their rights to other persons, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology, and we will be unable to transfer or grant exclusive rights to potential purchasers or development partners of such co-owned technologies. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners of our patents in order to enforce such patents against other parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us. Any of the foregoing could limit the revenue we might generate from our patents or patent applications and thus have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

Because patent applications are confidential for a period of time after filing, and some remain so until issued, we cannot be certain that we or our licensors or collaborators were or will be the first to file any patent application related to a drug or device candidate. Furthermore, in the United States, if patent applications of other parties have an effective filing date before March 16, 2013, an interference proceeding can be initiated by such other party to determine who was the first to invent any of the subject matter covered by the patent claims of our applications. If patent applications of other parties have an effective filing date on or after March 16, 2013, in the United States a derivation proceeding can be initiated by such other parties to determine whether our invention was derived from theirs.

Even where we have a valid and enforceable patent, we may not be able to exclude others from practicing our invention where the other party can show that they used the invention in commerce before our filing date or the other party benefits from a compulsory license. In addition, we may be subject to other challenges regarding our exclusive ownership of our IP. If another party were successful in challenging our exclusive ownership of any of our IP, we may lose our right to use such IP, such other party may be able to license such IP to other parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending IP rights in jurisdictions outside Major Patent Jurisdictions. The legal systems of some countries do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other IP, which could make it difficult in those jurisdictions for us to stop the infringement or misappropriation of our patents or other IP rights, or the marketing of competing drugs in violation of our proprietary rights generally.

To date, we have not sought to enforce any issued patents in any jurisdictions. Proceedings to enforce our patent and other IP rights in any jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business.

Furthermore, such proceedings could put our patents at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable, or interpreted narrowly, could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing, and could provoke other parties to assert claims of infringement or misappropriation against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate in jurisdictions where opposition proceedings are available and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. The requirements for patentability may differ in certain countries, particularly developing countries. Certain countries in Europe, the PRC, and developing countries including India, have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to other parties. In those countries, we and our licensors may have limited remedies if patents are infringed or if we or our licensors are compelled to grant a license to another party, which could materially diminish the value of those patents. This could limit our potential revenue opportunities. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our IP rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the IP that we develop.

We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our IP, which could be expensive, time-consuming and unsuccessful. Our patent rights relating to our drug and device candidates could be found invalid or unenforceable if challenged in court or before the USPTO or comparable non-U.S. authority.

Competitors may infringe our patent rights or misappropriate or otherwise violate our IP rights. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce or defend our IP rights, to protect our trade secrets or determine the validity and scope of our own IP rights or the proprietary rights of others. This can be expensive and time-consuming. Any claim that we assert against perceived infringers could also provoke these parties to assert counterclaims against us alleging that we infringe their IP rights. Many of our current and potential competitors have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce and/or defend their IP rights than we can. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may not be able to prevent other parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our IP. Litigation could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources, which could harm our business and financial results. In addition, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that patent rights or other IP rights owned by us are invalid or unenforceable, or may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patent rights or other IP rights do not cover the technology in question. An adverse result in any litigation proceeding could put our patent, as well as any patents that may issue in the future from our pending patent applications, at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable or interpreted narrowly. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with IP litigation, there is risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation.

If we initiate legal proceedings against another party to enforce our patent, or any patents that may be issued in the future from our patent applications, that relates to one of our drug and device candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that such patent rights are invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity or unenforceability are commonplace, and there are numerous grounds upon which another party can assert invalidity or unenforceability of a patent. Parties may also raise similar claims before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include ex parte re-examination, inter partes review, post-grant review, derivation and equivalent proceedings in non-U.S. jurisdictions, such as opposition proceedings. Such proceedings could result in revocation or amendment to our patents in such a way that they no longer cover and protect our drug and device candidates. With respect to the validity of our patents, for example, there may be invalidating prior art of which we, our patent counsel, and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity and/or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on our drug and device candidates. Such a loss of patent protection could have a material adverse impact on our business.

We may not be able to prevent misappropriation of our trade secrets or confidential information, particularly in countries where the laws may not protect those rights as fully as in the United States. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with IP litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation.

We may be subject to claims challenging the inventorship of our patents and other IP.

Although we are not currently experiencing any claims challenging the inventorship of our patents or ownership of our IP, we may in the future be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators or other parties have an interest in our patents or other IP as inventors or co-inventors. For example, we may have inventorship disputes arise from conflicting obligations of consultants or others who are involved in developing our drug and device candidates and who have not clearly contracted to transfer or assign any rights they may have to the Company. In addition, for our licensed patents, although a majority of our licensors have procured assignment forms and records from inventors to affirm their ownership in the licensed IP, a nother party or former employee or collaborator of our licensors not named in the patents may challenge the inventorship of claim an ownership interest in one or more of our or our licensors’ patents. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging inventorship. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose rights such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, our patent rights or other IP. Such an outcome could have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management and other employees.

If we are sued for infringing IP rights of other parties, such litigation could be costly and time-consuming and could prevent or delay us from developing or commercializing our drug candidates, the outcome of which would be uncertain and could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.

Our commercial success depends in part on our avoiding infringement of the patents and other IP rights of other parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation involving patent and other IP rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Numerous issued patents, provisional patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by other parties, exist in the fields in which we are developing drug candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued, the risk increases that our drug candidates may give rise to claims of infringement of the patent rights of others.

Other parties may assert that we are employing their proprietary technology without authorization. There may be other patents of which we are currently unaware with claims to materials, formulations, methods of manufacture or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of our drug candidates. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications or provisional patents which may later result in issued patents that our drug candidates may infringe. In addition, other parties may obtain patents in the future and claim that use of our technology infringes upon these patents. If any other patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover the manufacturing process of any of our drug candidates, any molecules formed during the manufacturing process or any final drug itself, the holders of any such patents may be able to prevent us from commercializing such drug candidate unless we obtain a license under the applicable patents, or until such patents expire or they are finally determined to be held invalid or unenforceable. Similarly, if any other patent were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover aspects of our formulations, processes for manufacture or methods of use, including combination therapy or patient selection methods, the holders of any such patent may be able to block our ability to develop and commercialize the applicable drug candidate unless we obtain a license, limit our uses, or until such patent expires, or is finally determined to be held invalid or unenforceable. In either case, such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

Other parties who bring successful claims against us for infringement of their IP rights may obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could prevent us from developing and commercializing one or more of our drug candidates. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merits, would involve substantial litigation expense and be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful claim of infringement or misappropriation against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees in the case of willful infringement, obtain one or more licenses from other parties, pay royalties or redesign our infringing drug candidates, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. In the event of an adverse result in any such litigation, or even in the absence of litigation, we may need to obtain licenses from other parties to advance our research or allow commercialization of our drug candidates. Any required license may not be available at all, or may not be available on commercially reasonable terms. In the event that we are unable to obtain such a license, we would be unable to further develop and commercialize one or more of our drug candidates, which could harm our business significantly. We may also elect to enter into license agreements in order to settle patent infringement claims or resolve disputes prior to litigation, and any such license agreements may require us to pay royalties and other fees that could significantly reduce our profitability for any product related to that patent and thus harm our business.

Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to IP claims may cause us to incur significant expenses, and could distract our technical personnel, management personnel, or both from their normal responsibilities. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments, and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares. Such litigation or proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or distribution activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to adequately conduct such litigation or proceedings. Some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of such litigation or proceedings more effectively than we can because of their greater financial resources. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent litigation or other proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our ability to compete in the marketplace.

There may be patent applications pending of which we are not aware, but which cover similar products to the ones we are attempting to license or develop, which may result in lost time and money, as well as litigation.

It is possible that we have failed to identify relevant outstanding patents or applications. For example, U.S. applications filed before November 29, 2000 and certain U.S. applications filed after that date that will not be filed outside the United States remain confidential until patents are issued. Patent applications filed in the United States after November 29, 2000 and generally filed elsewhere are published approximately 18 months after the earliest filing for which priority is claimed, with such earliest filing date being commonly referred to as the priority date. Therefore, patent applications covering our products could have been filed by others without our knowledge. Additionally, pending patent applications which have been published can, subject to certain limitations, be later amended in a manner that could cover our products or the use of our products. Holders of any such unanticipated patents or patent applications may actively bring infringement claims against us, with the same potential litigation consequences as alluded to elsewhere in this Prospectus. Any of these events could require us to divert substantial financial and management resources that we would otherwise be able to devote to our business.

Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment, and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.

Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and other patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various non-U.S. governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment, and other similar provisions during the patent application process. Although an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which non-compliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Non-compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees, and failure to properly submit documents requesting an extension of time. In any such event, our competitors might be able to enter the market, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.

The terms of our patents may not be sufficient to effectively protect our drug and device candidates and business.

In most countries in which we file, including the United States, the term of an issued patent is generally 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date of a non-provisional patent application in the applicable country. Although various extensions may be available, the life of a patent and the protection it affords is limited. For example, depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of the FDA regulatory approval for our drug candidates, one or more of our U.S. patents, if issued, might be eligible for limited patent term restoration under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, referred to as the Hatch-Waxman Amendments. The Hatch-Waxman Amendments permit a patent term extension of up to five years as compensation for patent term lost during drug development and the FDA regulatory review process. Patent term extensions, however, cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of drug approval by the FDA, and only one patent can be extended for a particular drug. The application for patent term extension is subject to approval by the USPTO, in conjunction with the FDA. We may not be granted an extension because of, for example, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents or otherwise failing to satisfy applicable requirements. Moreover, the applicable time period or the scope of patent protection afforded could be less than we request. If we are unable to obtain a patent term extension for a given patent or the term of any such extension is less than we request, the period during which we will have the right to exclusively market our drug will be that of the originally issued patents themselves.

Even if patents covering one of our drug candidates are obtained, thereby giving us a period of exclusivity for manufacturing and marketing that drug, we will not be able to assert such patent rights upon the expiration of the issued patents against potential competitors who may begin marketing generic copies of our medications, and our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.

Changes in patent law in the United States could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our drug and device candidates.

The United States has recently enacted and is currently implementing wide-ranging patent reform legislation. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. In addition to increasing uncertainty with regard to our ability to obtain patents in the future, this combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents once obtained, if any. Depending on decisions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents in the United States could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents, or to enforce our existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future. For example, in a recent case, Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. , the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain claims to naturally-occurring substances are not patentable. Although we do not believe that any of the patents owned or licensed by us will be found invalid based on this decision, future decisions by the courts, the U.S. Congress or the USPTO may impact the value of our patent rights. There could be similar changes in the laws of foreign jurisdictions that may impact the value of our patent rights or our other IP rights.

In addition, recent patent reform legislation in the U.S., including the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the America Invents Act, could increase those uncertainties and costs. The America Invents Act was signed into law on September 16, 2011, and many of the substantive changes became effective on March 16, 2013. The America Invents Act reforms U.S. patent law in part by changing the U.S. patent system from a “first to invent” system to a “first inventor to file” system, expanding the definition of prior art, and developing a post-grant review system, thus changing the U.S. patent law in a way that may weaken our ability to obtain patent protection in the U.S. for those applications filed after March 16, 2013. Further, the America Invents Act created new procedures to challenge the validity of issued patents in the U.S., including post-grant review and  inter partes review proceedings, which some other parties have been using to cause the cancellation of selected or all claims of issued patents of competitors. For a patent with an effective filing date of March 16, 2013 or later, a petition for post-grant review can be filed by another party in a nine-month window from issuance of the patent. A petition for  inter partes  review can be filed immediately following the issuance of a patent if the patent has an effective filing date prior to March 16, 2013. A petition for  inter partes  review can be filed after the nine-month-period for filing a post-grant review petition has expired for a patent with an effective filing date of March 16, 2013 or later. Post-grant review proceedings can be brought on any ground of invalidity, whereas  inter partes  review proceedings can only raise an invalidity challenge based on published prior art and patents. These adversarial actions at the USPTO review patent claims without the presumption of validity afforded to U.S. patents in lawsuits in U.S. federal courts, and use a lower burden of proof than used in litigation in U.S. federal courts. Therefore, it is generally considered easier for a competitor or other party to have a U.S. patent invalidated in a USPTO post-grant review or inter partes  review proceeding than invalidated in a litigation in a U.S. federal court. If any of our patents are challenged by another party in such a USPTO proceeding, there is no guarantee that we or our licensors or collaborators will be successful in defending the patent, which would result in our loss of the challenged patent right.

If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.

In addition to our issued patents, provisional patent, and pending patent applications, we expect to rely on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position and protect our drug and device candidates. We seek to protect these trade secrets, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties that have access to them, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, sponsored researchers, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other parties. We also enter into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants. However, any of these parties may breach such agreements and disclose our proprietary information, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret can be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. If trade secrets which are material to our business were to be obtained by a competitor, our competitive position would be harmed.

We may be subject to claims that our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their former employers.

Although we try to ensure that our employees do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these employees have used or disclosed IP, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such employee’s former employer. In addition, while we typically require our employees, consultants and contractors who may be involved in the development of IP to execute agreements assigning such IP to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who in fact develops IP that we regard as our own, which may result in claims by or against us related to the ownership of such IP. We are not aware of any threatened or pending claims that any of our projects involve misappropriated IP or other proprietary information, but in the future litigation may be necessary to defend against such claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable IP rights. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.

We may be unable to execute on the optimal development plan for one or more of our existing product candidates if we are unable to obtain or maintain necessary rights for some aspect of the developing technology through acquisitions or licenses.

Our existing programs currently use or may in the future use additional technologies subject to proprietary rights held by others, such as particular compositions or methods of manufacture, treatment or use. The licensing and acquisition of IP rights is a competitive area, and more established companies may pursue strategies to license or acquire such IP rights that we may consider necessary or useful. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources and greater capabilities in clinical development and commercialization.

In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire IP rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment. If we are unable to successfully obtain or maintain licenses or other rights from other parties to use IP of those parties, our business, financial condition and prospects for growth could suffer.

If we fail to comply with our obligations in the agreements under which we license IP rights from other parties or otherwise experience disruptions to our business relationships with our licensors, we could be required to pay monetary damages or could lose license rights that are important to our business.

Many of our projects (including our Lead Projects) are based on IP which we have licensed from other parties. (See “Our Business – Intellectual Property”) Certain of these license agreements impose diligence, development or commercialization obligations on us, such as obligations to pay royalties on net product sales of our drug and device candidates once commercialized by us, to pay a percentage of sublicensing revenues if the licensed product is sublicensed, to make other specified milestone and/or annual payments relating to our drug candidates or to pay license maintenance and other fees, as well as obligations to pursue commercialization with due diligence. Specifically, a number of our license agreements also require us to meet development timelines in order to maintain the related license(s). In spite of our efforts, our licensors might conclude that we have materially breached our obligations under such license agreements and might therefore seek to terminate the license agreements. If one of our licensors, despite our efforts, were to be successful in terminating its agreement with us, we would not be able to continue to develop, manufacture or market any drug candidate under that license agreements, and we could face claims for monetary damages or other penalties under that agreement. Such an occurrence would diminish or eliminate the value of that project to our Company, even if we are able to negotiate new or reinstated agreements, which may have less favorable terms. Depending on the importance of the IP and the related project, any such development could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

Moreover, disputes may arise regarding intellectual property subject to a licensing agreement, including: 

In addition, the agreements under which we currently license intellectual property or technology from other parties are complex, and certain provisions in such agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement, either of which (depending on the importance of the IP and the related project) could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. Moreover, if disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangement for a project on commercially acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected drug or device candidates, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

We may not have complete control of the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications, or to maintain patents, licensed by us from other parties.

The Company has in-licensed, and expects in the future to in-license patents owned or controlled by others for our use as part of our development plans. We also may out-license or sublicense patents which we own or control in collaborations with others for development and commercialization of our products. In either case, the continuing right to control the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications, or to maintain the patents, covering technology under development is a matter for negotiation and we may not always be the party that obtains such control, in which case we will be reliant on our licensors, collaboration partners or sublicensees for determining strategies with respect to those patents. For our existing licenses, while we have an understanding with most of the licensors who maintain control over patent prosecution and we have jointly appointed and engaged patent agents nominated by us under one or more of our licenses, we cannot guarantee that such licensors or collaborators will always accept prosecution strategies proposed by us and/or our patent agents. Therefore, these patents and applications may not be prosecuted and enforced in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business. If our current or future licensors or collaboration partners fail to establish, maintain or protect such patents and other IP rights, such rights may be reduced or eliminated. If our licensors or joint development partners are not fully cooperative or disagree with us as to the prosecution, maintenance or enforcement of any patent rights, such patent rights could be compromised.

Risks Related to Our Reliance on Unrelated Parties

We rely on unrelated parties to conduct discovery and further improvement of our innovations and licensed technologies, as well as our preclinical studies and clinical trials. If these unrelated parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or meet expected deadlines, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our drug candidates, and our business could be substantially harmed.

We have relied upon and plan to continue to rely upon CROs and collaborating institutions to monitor and manage data for our ongoing preclinical studies and programs. We rely on these parties for execution of preclinical studies and clinical trials, and control only certain aspects of their activities. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, and regulatory requirements and scientific standards, and our reliance on the CROs and collaborating institutions does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. If CROs, collaborating institutions or clinical investigators do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines, development of our product candidates could be delayed and our business could be adversely affected.

In addition, our CROs and collaborating institutions, are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and waste. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from our use of hazardous materials, we might be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We could also be subject to civil or criminal fines and penalties, and significant associated costs.

If the Company obtains approval of an IND for one of our drug candidates and moves into human clinical trials requiring significantly larger quantities of the candidate to be tested, we expect to rely on unrelated parties to manufacture supplies of that candidate. If those unrelated parties fail to provide us with sufficient quantities of clinical supply on that candidate or fail to do so at acceptable quality levels or prices, or fail to maintain required cGMP licenses, we may not be able to manufacture that candidate in sufficient quantities to conduct the necessary human trials. Should the failure by the CRO occur in anticipation of or after marketing approval of that candidate, we may be unable to generate as much revenue as rapidly (and such revenue may not be as profitable) as we had anticipated.

The manufacture of many drug products, particularly in commercial quantities, can be complex and may require significant expertise and capital investment, particularly if the development of advanced manufacturing techniques and process controls are required. If we obtain approval of an IND for any of our drug candidates, of which there can be no assurance, we intend to contract with outside contractors to manufacture clinical supplies and process our drug candidates. We have not yet had our drug candidates to be manufactured or processed on a commercial scale and may not be able to do so for any of our drug candidates.

As we expect to engage contract manufacturers, the Company will be exposed to the following risks:

Each of these risks could delay or prevent the completion of our clinical trials or the approval of any of our drug candidates by the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities, result in higher costs or adversely impact commercialization of our drug candidates.

We are also responsible for quality control by our manufacturers. We intend to rely on those unrelated-party manufactures to perform certain quality assurance tests on our drug candidates prior to delivery to patients. If these tests are not appropriately done and test data are not reliable, patients could be put at risk of serious harm and the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities could place significant restrictions on our Company until deficiencies are remedied.

Manufacturers of drug products often encounter difficulties in production, particularly in scaling up or out, validating the production process, and assuring high reliability of the manufacturing process (including the absence of contamination). These problems include logistics and shipping, difficulties with production costs and yields, quality control, including stability of the product, product testing, operator error, availability of qualified personnel, as well as compliance with strictly enforced federal, state and non-U.S. regulations. Furthermore, if contaminants are discovered in our supply of our drug candidates or in the manufacturing facilities, such manufacturing facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination. It is possible that stability failures or other issues relating to the manufacture of our drug candidates may occur in the future. Additionally, our manufacturers may experience manufacturing difficulties due to resource constraints, or as a result of labor disputes or unstable political environments. If our manufacturers were to encounter any of these difficulties, or otherwise fail to comply with their contractual obligations, our ability to provide our drug candidate to patients in clinical trials would be jeopardized. Any delay or interruption in the manufacturing of clinical trial supplies could delay the completion of clinical trials, increase the costs associated with maintaining clinical trial programs and, depending upon the period of delay, require us to begin new clinical trials with additional costs or terminate clinical trials completely.

Review of changes in the manufacturing process of our drug candidates could cause delays resulting from the need for additional regulatory approvals.

Changes in a process or procedure for manufacturing one of our drug candidates, including a change in the location where the drug candidate is manufactured or a change of a contract manufacturer, could require prior review by the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities and approval of the manufacturing process and procedures in accordance with the FDA, CFDA or EMA’s regulations, or comparable requirements. This review may be costly and time-consuming and could delay or prevent the launch of a product. The new facility will also be subject to pre-approval inspection. In addition, we would have to demonstrate that the product made at the new facility is equivalent to the product made at the former facility by physical and chemical methods, which are costly and time-consuming. It is also possible that the FDA, CFDA, EMA or other comparable regulatory authorities may require clinical testing as a way to prove equivalency, which would result in additional costs and delay.

Risks Related to AML Clinic

Failure to comply with all laws and regulations applicable to the business of AML Clinic could have a material, adverse impact on the Company’s business.

Operation of AML Clinic subjects the Company to a variety of Hong Kong laws and regulations specific to companies and professionals in the business of delivering medical care. We and our employees will be subject to licensing and professional qualifications that do not apply to our other businesses. Breach of any of these laws, regulations or licensing requirements could subject the Company to significant fines and other penalties and possibly damage the Company’s reputation, which could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business.

Risks Related to Our Device Candidates

We are subject to risks related to obtaining regulatory approval for device candidates.

The Company’s device candidates (including those being developed under VLS-3 and SLS-1), are likely to be regulated as medical devices. Medical devices are subject to extensive regulations, supervised by regulatory authorities around the world, including the FDA, CFDA and applicable national authorities in relevant European countries. The regulatory framework related to medical devices covers research, development, design, manufacturing, safety, reporting, testing, labeling, packaging, storage, installation, servicing, marketing, sales and distribution. The Company is and may also be, in addition to these industry-specific regulations, subject to numerous other ongoing regulatory obligations, such as data protection, environmental, health and safety laws and restrictions. The costs of compliance with applicable regulations, requirements or guidelines could be substantial. Furthermore, the regulatory environment has generally become more stringent and extensive over time. Failure to comply with these regulations could result in sanctions including fines, injunctions, civil penalties, denial of applications for marketing approval of the Company’s products, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of products, operating restrictions, partial suspension or total shutdown of production and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly increase the Company’s costs, delay the development and commercialization of its device candidates.

We are subject to risks related to the carrying out and outcome of clinical trials of medical devices.

The Company may sponsor studies on human participants in clinical studies of its device candidates. Such clinical studies are performed to support regulatory approvals for market access or to generate evidence relating to clinical benefits and cost benefits of using such device candidates. Clinical studies are costly and time consuming and associated with risks such as finding trial sites, recruitment of suitable patients, the actual cost per patient exceeding budget and inadequacies in the execution of the trials. There is also a risk of delays in the performance of clinical studies, which can occur for a variety of reasons. For example, delays in obtaining regulatory approval to commence a trial, reaching agreements on acceptable terms with prospective contract research organizations and clinical investigational sites, obtaining institutional review board approval at each site, difficulties in patient enrolment, patients failing to complete a trial or return for follow-up, adding new sites or obtaining sufficient supplies of products or clinical sites dropping out of a trial. If delays persist, there is a risk that studies eventually are suspended or terminated if the delays occur due to circumstances that a sponsor of a clinical trial has difficulties controlling, or is unable to control, or if the measures required for conducting the studies further are deemed too costly or extensive in relation to the scopes and goals of the studies.

There are many factors which may affect patient enrollment. Amongst these are the size and nature of the patient population, the proximity of patients to clinical sites, the eligibility criteria for the trial, the design of the clinical study and competing clinical studies. Furthermore, clinicians’ and patients’ perceptions as to the potential advantages of the product being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new products that may be approved for the indications the company is investigating. Clinical studies may also be suspended or terminated if participating subjects are exposed to unacceptable health risks or undesired side-effects.

Furthermore, there is a risk that clinical studies may not demonstrate the required clinical benefit for the prospective indication the trial is aimed at. Failure in premarketing clinical studies could lead to market clearance or approvals not being obtained which could delay or jeopardize the Company’s ability to develop, market and sell the device candidates being studied. At any stage of the development, the Company may discontinue device candidate based on review of available preclinical and clinical data, the estimated costs of continued development, market considerations and other factors. Furthermore, with respect to the clinical studies of device candidates conducted by CROs and others, the Company may have less control over their timing or outcome.

Risks Related to Our Industry, Business and Operation 

If we do not comply with laws regulating the protection of the environment and health and human safety, our business could be adversely affected.

Our research, development and clinic operations involve the use of hazardous materials, chemicals and various radioactive compounds/radiation and AML Clinic may create medical waste and radiation. Our R&D Center may maintain quantities of various flammable and toxic chemicals in our facilities that are required for our research, development and manufacturing activities. We are subject to local laws and regulations governing the use, manufacture, storage, handling and disposal of these hazardous materials and of medical waste at the jurisdictions where we operate our clinic and research facilities, which are currently limited to Hong Kong. We believe our procedures for storing, handling and disposing of these materials comply with the relevant guidelines and laws of the jurisdictions in which our facilities are located. Although we believe that our safety procedures for handling and disposing of these materials comply with the standards mandated by applicable regulations, the risk of accidental contamination or injury from these materials cannot be eliminated. If an accident occurs, we could be held liable for resulting damages, which could be substantial. We are also subject to numerous environmental, health and workplace safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures, exposure to blood-borne pathogens and the handling of biohazardous materials and medical waste.

Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of these materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of biological, hazardous or radioactive materials. Additional federal, state and local laws and regulations affecting our operations may be adopted in the future. We may incur substantial costs to comply with, and substantial fines or penalties, if we violate any of these laws or regulations.

Our future success depends on our ability to retain our Chief Executive Officer, our scientific and clinical advisors, and other key executives and to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel.

We are highly dependent on Ian Huen, our Chief Executive Officer, as well as, other principal members of our management teams, scientific teams as well as scientific and clinical advisors. Although we have formal employment agreements, which we refer to as appointment letters, with all of our executive officers, these agreements do not prevent our executives from terminating their employment with us at any time, subject to applicable notice periods. We intend to obtain “key person” insurance for our executives or other employees in the near future. Nevertheless, the loss of the services of any of these persons could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives.

To induce valuable employees to remain at our Company, in addition to salary and cash incentives, we plan to provide share incentive grants that vest over time. The value to employees of these equity grants that vest over time may be significantly affected by movements in the price of our Class A Ordinary Shares that are beyond our control, and may at any time be insufficient to counteract more lucrative offers from other companies. Although we have appointment letters with our key employees, any of our employees could resign at any time, with 1-month to 3-months prior written notice or with payment in lieu of notice.

Recruiting and retaining qualified officers, scientific, clinical, sales and marketing personnel or consultants will also be critical to our success. In addition, we rely on consultants and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist us in formulating our discovery and preclinical studies development and commercialization strategy. The loss of the services of our executive officers or other key employees and consultants could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives and seriously harm our ability to successfully implement our business strategy.

Furthermore, replacing executive officers and key employees or consultants may be difficult and may take an extended period of time, because of the limited number of individuals in our industry with the breadth of skills and experience required to successfully develop, gain regulatory approval of and commercialize drug and device candidates. Competition to hire from this limited pool is intense, and we may be unable to hire, train, retain or motivate these key personnel or consultants on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for similar personnel.

We also experience competition for the hiring of scientific and clinical personnel from universities and research institutions. Our consultants and advisors may be employed by employers other than us and may have commitments under consulting or advisory contracts with other entities that may limit their availability to us. If we are unable to continue to attract and retain high quality personnel, our ability to pursue our growth strategy will be limited.

We will need to increase the size and capabilities of our organization, and we may experience difficulties in managing our growth.

As of the date of this prospectus, we have 42 employees, including 41 full-time employees and 1 part-time employees. Of these, 15 are engaged in full-time research and development and laboratory operations, 22 are engaged in general and administrative functions, 4 are full-time employees engaged in the clinic operation and 1 part-time employees are engaged in sponsored research and development, laboratory operations and legal clerical support. As of the date of this prospectus, 41 of our employees are located in Hong Kong and 1 of our employees is located in the UK. In addition, we have engaged and may continue to engage 26 independent contracted consultants and advisors to assist us with our operations. As our development and commercialization plans and strategies develop, and as we transition into operating as a public company, we will need to establish and maintain effective disclosure and financial controls and make changes in our corporate governance practices. We will need to add a significant number of additional managerial, operational, sales, marketing, financial and other personnel with the appropriate public company experience and technical knowledge and we may not successfully recruit and maintain such personnel. Future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, including:

Our future financial performance and our ability to commercialize our drug candidates will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage our future growth, and our management may also have to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from day-to-day activities in order to devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities.

We currently rely, and for the foreseeable future will continue to rely, in substantial part on certain independent organizations, advisors and consultants for significant input in selecting and evaluating new products to pursue. These independent organizations, advisors and consultants may not continue to be available to us on a timely basis when needed, and in such case, we may not have the ability to find qualified replacements. In addition, if we are unable to effectively manage our outsourced activities, or if the quality or accuracy of the services provided by consultants is compromised for any reason, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval of our drug candidates or otherwise advance our business. Furthermore, we may not be able to manage our existing consultants or find other competent outside contractors and consultants on economically reasonable terms, if at all.

If we are not able to effectively expand our organization by hiring new employees and expanding our groups of consultants and contractors, we may not be able to successfully implement the tasks necessary to further develop and commercialize our drug and device candidates and, accordingly, may not achieve our research, development and commercialization goals.

We intend to seek additional collaborations, strategic alliances or acquisitions or enter into royalty-seeking or sublicensing arrangements in the future, but we may not realize the benefits of these arrangements.

We intend to form or seek strategic alliances, create joint ventures or collaborations, acquire complimentary products, IP rights, technology or businesses or enter into additional licensing arrangements with unrelated parties that we determine may complement or augment our development and commercialization efforts with respect to our drug and device candidates. Any of these relationships may require us to incur non-recurring and other charges, increase our near and long-term expenditures, issue securities that dilute our existing shareholders, or disrupt our management and business.

We will face significant competition in seeking appropriate strategic partners and the negotiation process is likely to be time-consuming, costly and complex. Moreover, we may not be successful in our efforts to establish a strategic partnership or another alternative arrangement for any of our drug and device candidates because their state of development may be deemed to be too early for collaborative effort and others may not view our drug and device candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy. If and when we enter into an agreement with a collaboration partner or sublicensee for development and commercialization of a drug or device candidate, we can expect to relinquish some or all of the control over the future success of that drug and device candidate to the unrelated-party.

Further, even if we enter into a collaboration involving any of our drug and device candidates, the arrangement will be subject to numerous risks, which may include the following:

As a result, if we enter into collaboration agreements and strategic partnerships or license our drugs, we may not be able to realize the benefit of such transactions, which could delay our timelines or otherwise adversely affect our business. Following a strategic transaction or license, we may not achieve the revenue or specific net income that justifies such transaction. If we are unable to reach agreements with a suitable collaborator on a timely basis, on acceptable terms, or at all, we may have to curtail the development of a drug or device candidate, reduce or delay its development program or one or more of our other development programs, delay its potential commercialization or reduce the scope of any sales or marketing activities, or increase our expenditures and undertake development or commercialization activities at our own expense.

If we fail to enter into collaborations, we may seek to fund and undertake development or commercialization activities on our own, but we may not have sufficient funds or expertise to undertake the necessary development and commercialization activities. In such a case, we may not be able to further develop our drug and device candidates or bring them to market and generate product sales revenue, which would harm our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Our employees, independent contractors, consultants, commercial partners and vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including non-compliance with regulatory standards and requirements.

We are exposed to the risk of fraud, misconduct or other illegal activity by our employees, independent contractors, consultants, commercial partners and vendors. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless and negligent conduct that fails to: comply with the laws of the FDA and other similar non-U.S. regulatory authorities; provide true, complete and accurate information to the FDA and other similar non-U.S. regulatory authorities; comply with manufacturing standards we have established; comply with healthcare fraud and abuse laws in the United States and similar non-U.S. fraudulent misconduct laws; or report financial information or data accurately or to disclose unauthorized activities to us. If we obtain the FDA approval for any of our drug and device candidates and begin commercializing those drugs in the United States, our potential exposure under U.S. laws will increase significantly and our costs associated with compliance with such laws are also likely to increase. These laws may impact, among other things, our current activities with principal investigators of our sponsored researches and research patients and our use of information obtained in the course of patient recruitment for clinical trials, as well as proposed and future sales, marketing and education programs. In particular, the promotion, sales and marketing of healthcare items and services, as well as certain business arrangements in the healthcare industry, are subject to extensive laws designed to prevent fraud, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. These laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, structuring and commission(s), certain customer incentive programs and other business arrangements generally.

It is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by employees and other parties, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses, or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to comply with these laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, including the imposition of significant fines or other sanctions.

Our disclosure controls and procedures may not prevent or detect all errors or acts of fraud.

Upon completion of this Offering, we will become subject to the periodic reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to reasonably assure that information required to be disclosed by us in reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, and recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the SEC.

We believe that any disclosure controls and procedures, or internal controls and procedures, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met.

These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people or by an unauthorized override of the controls. Accordingly, because of the inherent limitations in our control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected, which would likely cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information. This could in turn limit our access to capital markets, harm our results of operations, and lead to a decline in the trading price of our Class A Ordinary Shares. Additionally, ineffective internal control over financial reporting could expose us to increased risk of fraud or misuse of corporate assets and subject us to potential delisting from the stock exchange on which we list, regulatory investigations and civil or criminal sanctions. We may also be required to restate our financial statements from prior periods .

If we fail to establish and maintain proper internal financial reporting controls, our ability to produce accurate financial statements or comply with applicable regulations could be impaired.

Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we will be required to file a report by our management on our internal control over financial reporting, including an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. However, while we remain an emerging growth company, we will not be required to include an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. The presence of material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting could result in financial statement errors which, in turn, could lead to errors in our financial reports and/or delays in our financial reporting, which could require us to restate our operating results. In connection with the audit of our statements of net assets (predecessor basis) including the schedule of portfolio investments as of December 31, 2016 and February 28, 2017, and the related statements (predecessor basis) of operations, changes in net assets, and cash flows for the year ended December 31, 2016, the statements (predecessor basis) of operations, changes in net assets, and cash flows for the period January 1, 2017 through February 28, 2017, the consolidated balance sheet (successor basis) as of December 31, 2017, the related consolidated statements (successor basis) of operations and comprehensive loss, stockholders’ equity and cash flows for the period March 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017, we and our independent registered public accounting firm identified one material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, as defined in the standards established by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board of the United States, as of December 31, 2017. The material weakness identified was the lack of dedicated resources to take responsibility for the finance and accounting functions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or U.S. GAAP.

We have already taken some steps and will continue to implement measures to remediate the material weakness identified. However, we cannot assure you that we will be able to continue implementing these measures in the future, or that we will not identify additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in the future.

If we are unable to conclude that we have effective internal controls over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in our operating results, the price of the Class A Ordinary Shares could decline and we may be subject to litigation or regulatory enforcement actions. In addition, if we are unable to meet the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Class A Ordinary Shares may not be able to remain listed on the NASDAQ Global Market.

We may market our products, if approved, globally; if we do, we will be subject to the risk of doing business internationally.

We operate and expect to operate in various countries, and we may not be able to market our products in, or develop new products successfully for, these markets. We may also encounter other risks of doing business internationally including but not limited to:

In addition, we are subject to general geopolitical risks in foreign countries where we operate, such as political and economic instability and changes in diplomatic and trade relationships, which could affect, among other things, customers’ inventory levels and consumer purchasing, which could cause our results to fluctuate and our net sales to decline. The occurrence of any one or more of these risks of doing business internationally, individually or in the aggregate, could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

If we engage in future acquisitions or strategic partnerships, this may increase our capital requirements, dilute our shareholders, cause us to incur debt or assume contingent liabilities, and subject us to other risks.

We may evaluate various acquisitions and strategic partnerships, including licensing or acquiring complementary products, IP rights, technology or businesses. Any potential acquisition or strategic partnership may entail numerous risks, including, but not limited to:

In addition, if we undertake acquisitions, we may issue dilutive securities, assume or incur debt obligations, incur large one-time expenses and acquire intangible assets that could result in significant future amortization expense. Moreover, we may not be able to locate suitable acquisition opportunities and this inability could impair our ability to grow or obtain access to technology or products that may be important to the development of our business.

If we fail to comply with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), or other anti-bribery laws, our reputation may be harmed and we could be subject to penalties and significant expenses that have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to the FCPA. The FCPA generally prohibits us from making improper payments to non-U.S. officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. We are also subject to the anti-bribery laws of other jurisdictions, particularly the PRC. As our business expands, the applicability of the FCPA and other anti-bribery laws to our operations will increase. Our procedures and controls to monitor anti-bribery compliance may fail to protect us from reckless or criminal acts committed by our employees or agents. If we, due to either our own deliberate or inadvertent acts or those of others, fail to comply with applicable anti-bribery laws, our reputation could be harmed and we could incur criminal or civil penalties, other sanctions and/or significant expenses, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects.

If we commence clinical trials of one of our drug or device candidates, and product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and the commercialization of such drug or device candidates may be affected.

If any of our drug or device candidates enter clinical trials, we will face an inherent risk of product liability suits and will face an even greater risk if we obtain approval to commercialize any drugs. For example, we may be sued if our drug candidates cause or are perceived to cause injury or are found to be otherwise unsuitable during clinical testing, manufacturing, marketing or sale. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the drug, negligence, strict liability or a breach of warranties. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection acts. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability claims, we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit commercialization of our drug candidates. Even successful defense would require significant financial and management resources. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

We shall seek to obtain the appropriate insurance once our candidates are ready for clinical trial. However, our inability to obtain sufficient product liability insurance at an acceptable cost to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the commercialization of drugs we develop, alone or with collaborators. We currently do not have in place product liability insurance and although we plan to have in place such insurance as and when the products are ready for commercialization, as well as insurance covering clinical trials, the amount of such insurance coverage may not be adequate, we may be unable to maintain such insurance, or we may not be able to obtain additional or replacement insurance at a reasonable cost, if at all. Our insurance policies may also have various exclusions, and we may be subject to a product liability claim for which we have no coverage. We may have to pay any amounts awarded by a court or negotiated in a settlement that exceed our coverage limitations or that are not covered by our insurance, and we may not have, or be able to obtain, sufficient capital to pay such amounts. Even if our agreements with any future corporate collaborators entitle us to indemnification against losses, such indemnification may not be available or adequate should any claim arise.

Additionally, we may be sued if the products that we commercialize, market or sell cause or are perceived to cause injury or are found to be otherwise unsuitable, and may result in:

Our insurance coverage may be inadequate to protect us against losses.

We currently maintain property insurance for our office premises (including one unit of server and accessories). We hold employer’s liability insurance generally covering death or work-related injury of employees; we maintain “Office Care Plan Insurance” for those persons working in our offices and “Medical Plan” for our employee. We hold public liability insurance covering certain incidents involving unrelated parties that occur on or in the premises of the Company. We do not yet have directors and officers liability insurance but intend to enter into such policies immediately prior to or after the consummation of this Offering. We do not yet have key-man life insurance on any of our senior management or key personnel, or business interruption insurance but intend to enter into such policies immediately prior to or after the consummation of this Offering. Our insurance coverage may be insufficient to cover any claim for product liability, damage to our fixed assets or employee injuries. If any claims for damage are brought against us, or if we experience any business disruption, litigation or natural disaster, we might incur substantial costs and diversion of resources.

Fluctuations in exchange rates could result in foreign currency exchange losses and could materially reduce the value of your investment.

Our operations and equity are funded in U.S. dollars and we currently incur the majority of our expenses in U.S. dollars or in H.K. dollars. H.K. dollar is currently pegged to the U.S. dollar; however, we cannot guarantee that such peg will continue to be in place in the future. Our exposure to foreign exchange risk primarily relates to the limited cash denominated in currencies other than the functional currencies of each entity and limited revenue contracts dominated in H.K. dollars in certain PRC operating entities. We do not believe that we currently have any significant direct foreign exchange risk and have not hedged exposures denominated in foreign currencies or any other derivative financial instruments. However, the value of your investment in our Series A Ordinary Shares may be affected by the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollars and the H.K. dollar because the primary value of our business is effectively denominated in H.K. dollars, in addition to U.S. dollars.

If we are exposed to foreign currency exchange risk as our results of operations, cash flows maybe subject to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates. For example, if a significant portion of our clinical trial activities may be conducted outside of the United States, and associated costs may be incurred in the local currency of the country in which the trial is being conducted, which costs could be subject to fluctuations in currency exchange rates. We currently do not engage in hedging transactions to protect against uncertainty in future exchange rates between particular foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar. A decline in the value of the U.S. dollar against currencies in countries in which we conduct clinical trials could have a negative impact on our research and development costs. Foreign currency fluctuations are unpredictable and may adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

Our investments are subject to risks that could result in losses.

We had cash of $16.25 million and $0.30 million as of December 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively. We may invest our cash in a variety of financial instruments. All of these investments are subject to credit, liquidity, market and interest rate risk. Such risks, including the failure or severe financial distress of the financial institutions that hold our cash, cash equivalents and investments, may result in a loss of liquidity, impairment to our investments, realization of substantial future losses, or a complete loss of the investments in the long-term, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, liquidity and financial condition. While we believe our cash position does not expose us to excessive risk, future investments may be subject to adverse changes in market value.

We are exposed to risks associated with our computer hardware, network security and data storage.

Similar to all other computer network users, our computer network system is vulnerable to attack of computer virus, worms, trojan horses, hackers or other similar computer network disruptive problems. Any failure in safeguarding our computer network system from these disruptive problems may cause breakdown of our computer network system and leakage of confidential information of the Company. Any failure in the protection of our computer network system from external threat may disrupt our operation and may damage our reputation for any breach of confidentiality to our customers, which in turn may adversely affect our business operation and performance. In the event that our confidential information is stolen and misused, we may become exposed to potential risks of losses from litigation and possible liability.

In addition, we are highly dependent on our IT infrastructure to store research data and information and manage our business operations. We do not backup all data on a real-time basis and the effectiveness of our business operations may be materially affected by any failure in our IT infrastructure. If our communications and IT systems do not function properly, or if there is any partial or complete failure of our systems, we could suffer financial losses, business disruption or damage to our reputation.

Business disruptions could seriously harm our future revenue and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.

Our operations, and those of our research institution collaborators, CROs, suppliers and other contractors and consultants, could be subject to earthquakes, power shortages, telecommunications failures, damage from computer viruses, material computer system failures, water shortages, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, fires, extreme weather conditions, medical epidemics and other natural or man-made disasters or business interruptions. In addition, we partially rely on our research institution collaborators for conducting research and development of our drug candidates, and they may be affected by government shutdowns or withdrawn funding. The occurrence of any of these business disruptions could seriously harm our operations and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses. We rely on contract manufacturers to produce and process our drug candidates. Our ability to obtain clinical supplies of our drug candidates could be disrupted if the operations of these suppliers are affected by a man-made or natural disaster or other business interruption. A large portion of our contract manufacturer’s operations is located in a single facility. Damage or extended periods of interruption to our corporate or our contract manufacturer’s development or research facilities due to fire, natural disaster, power loss, communications failure, unauthorized entry or other events could cause us to cease or delay development of some or all of our drug candidates.

Although we do not currently conduct any business in the PRC, we may in the future; in doing so we would be exposed to various risks related to doing business in the PRC.

Although we currently do not conduct any business in the PRC, we are the exclusive licensee to certain PRC patents directed to our drug candidates such as ALS-1, NLS-2 and SPLS-1, and we intend to file application for certain products in the PRC. The pharmaceutical industry in the PRC is subject to comprehensive government regulation and supervision, encompassing the approval, registration, manufacturing, packaging, licensing and marketing of new drugs. (See “Our Business – Government Regulation – PRC Regulation”). In recent years, the regulatory framework in the PRC regarding the pharmaceutical industry has undergone significant changes, and we expect that it will continue to undergo significant changes. Any such changes or amendments may result in increased compliance costs on our business or cause delays in or prevent the successful development or commercialization of our drug candidates in the PRC and reduce the current benefits that we believe are available to us from developing and manufacturing drugs in the PRC. Chinese authorities have become increasingly vigilant in enforcing laws in the pharmaceutical industry and any failure by us or our partners to maintain compliance with applicable laws and regulations or obtain and maintain required licenses and permits may result in the suspension or termination of our business activities in the PRC. We believe our strategy and approach is aligned with the PRC government’s policies, but we cannot ensure that our strategy and approach will continue to be aligned.

If in the future, we commence business or operation in the PRC, changes in the political and economic policies of the PRC government may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and may result in our inability to sustain our growth and expansion strategies. Once we start doing business in the PRC, our financial condition and results of operation in the PRC could be materially and adversely affected by government control over capital investments or changes in tax regulations that are applicable to us, and consequently have a material adverse effect on our businesses, financial condition and results of operations.

The SEC could take the position that we are an “investment company” subject to the extensive requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Such a characterization and the associated compliance requirements could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our business had historically included passive healthcare related investments in early stage companies primarily in the United States. Although we are in the process of liquidating those securities that remain in our portfolio, we still hold some such investments and these are included as assets of our Company on a consolidated basis. As part of the Restructure, we resolved to exit such portfolio investments over an appropriate timeframe and focus our resources on our current business. Since the date of the Restructure, we have not held ourselves out as an investment company and we do not believe we are an “investment company” under the Investment Company Act of 1940. If the SEC or a court, however, were to disagree with us, we could be required to register as an investment company. This would subject us to disclosure and accounting rules geared toward investment companies, rather than operating companies, which may limit our ability to borrow money, issue options, issue multiple classes of stock and debt, and engage in transactions with affiliates, and may require us to undertake significant costs and expenses to meet the disclosure and regulatory requirements to which we would be subject as a registered investment company.

If we are classified as a passive foreign investment company for U.S. federal income tax purposes, United States holders of our Class A Ordinary Shares may be subject to adverse United States federal income tax consequences.

A non-U.S. corporation will be a passive foreign investment company (“PFIC”) for U.S. federal income tax purposes, for such year, either

Passive income generally includes dividends, interests, rents and royalties (other than rents or royalties derived from the active conduct of a trade or business) and gains from the disposition of passive assets.

A separate determination must be made after the close of each taxable year as to whether a non-U.S. corporation is a PFIC for that year. For purposes of the PFIC analysis, in general, a non-U.S. corporation is deemed to own its pro rata share of the gross income and assets of any entity in which it is considered to own at least 25% of the equity by value. Based on the current and anticipated value of our assets, we believe we were a PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes for our taxable year ending December 31, 2017, and we may be a PFIC for U.S. federal income tax purposes for our current taxable year ending December 31, 2018.

In determining whether we are a PFIC, cash is considered by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) to be a passive asset. During our taxable year ending December 31, 2017, we believe that the amount of cash we had on hand was greater than 50% of our total assets. The composition of our assets during the current taxable year, which will include the proceeds from this Offering, may cause us to continue to be classified as a PFIC. The determination of whether we will be a PFIC for our current taxable year or a future year may depend in part upon how quickly we spend our liquid assets, and on the value of our goodwill and other unbooked intangibles not reflected on our balance sheet, which may depend upon the market value of our Class A Ordinary Shares from time to time. Further, while we will endeavor to use a classification methodology and valuation approach that is reasonable, the IRS may challenge our classification or valuation of our goodwill and other unbooked intangibles for purposes of determining whether we are a PFIC in the current or one or more future taxable years.

If we are a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. Holder owns our Class A Ordinary Shares, certain adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences could apply to such U.S. Holder. As discussed under “Taxation – Material U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations for U.S. Holders – Passive Foreign Investment Company Rules”, a U.S. Holder may be able to make certain tax elections that would lessen the adverse impact of PFIC status; however, in order to make such elections the U.S. holder will usually have to have been provided information about the company by us, and there is no assurance that the company will provide such information.

For a more detailed discussion of the application of the PFIC rules to us and the consequences to U.S. holders if we were determined to be a PFIC. (See “Taxation – Material U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations for U.S. Holders – Passive Foreign Investment Company Rules”)

Risks Related to Our Corporate Structure

Our CEO has control over key decision making as a result of his control of a majority of our voting shares.

Our Founder, CEO, and our Executive Director, Mr. Ian Huen, and his affiliates which he deemed to have control and/or have substantial influence will be able to exercise full voting rights with respect to an aggregate of 181,788,298 ordinary shares, representing a majority of the voting power of our outstanding ordinary shares following our initial public offering. As a result, Mr. Huen has the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and any merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets. In addition, Mr. Huen has the ability to control the management and affairs of our company as a result of his position as our CEO and his ability to control the election of our directors. Additionally, in the event that Mr. Huen controls our company at the time of his death, control may be transferred to a person or entity that he designates as his successor. As a board member and officer, Mr. Huen owes a fiduciary duty to our shareholders and must act in good faith in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our shareholders. As a shareholder, even a controlling shareholder, Mr. Huen is entitled to vote his shares, and shares over which he has voting control as a result of voting agreements, in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally. For a description of the voting rights, see “Description of Share Capital—Voting Rights.”

The dual class structure of our ordinary shares has the effect of concentrating voting control with our CEO, directors and their affiliates.

Our Class B Ordinary Share has ten votes per share, and our Class A Ordinary Share, which is the share we are offering in our initial public offering, has one vote per share. Shareholders who hold shares of Class B Ordinary Shares, including our executive officers and their affiliates, will together hold approximately [    ]% of the voting power of our outstanding ordinary shares following our initial public offering. Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A Ordinary Shares, the holders of our Class B Ordinary Shares collectively will continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our ordinary share and therefore be able to control all matters submitted to our shareholders for approval so long as the shares of Class B Ordinary Shares represent at least 9.1% of all outstanding shares of our Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares. This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future.

Future transfers by holders of Class B Ordinary Shares will generally result in those shares converting to Class A Ordinary Shares, subject to limited exceptions, such as certain transfers effected for estate planning purposes. The conversion of Class B Ordinary Shares to Class A Ordinary Shares will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B Ordinary Shares who retain their shares in the long term. If, for example, Mr. Huen retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B Ordinary Share for an extended period of time, he could, in the future, continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our Class A Ordinary Shares and Class B Ordinary Shares. For a description of the dual class structure, see “Description of Capital Stock—Anti-Takeover Provisions.”

As a “controlled company” under the rules of the NASDAQ Stock Market, we may choose to exempt our company from certain corporate governance requirements that could have an adverse effect on our public shareholders.

Prior to the completion of this Offering, our directors and officers beneficially own a majority of the voting power of our outstanding Class A Ordinary Shares. Even if we raise the maximum offering amount, we may continue to be a “controlled company.” Under the Rule 4350(c) of the NASDAQ Stock Market, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements, including the requirement that a majority of our directors be independent, as defined in the NASDAQ Stock Market Rules, and the requirement that our compensation and nominating and corporate governance committees consist entirely of independent directors. Although we do not intend to rely on the “controlled company” exemption under the Nasdaq listing rules, we could elect to rely on this exemption in the future. If we elect to rely on the “controlled company” exemption, a majority of the members of our board of directors might not be independent directors and our nominating and corporate governance and compensation committees might not consist entirely of independent directors. Accordingly, during any time while we remain a controlled company relying on the exemption and during any transition period following a time when we are no longer a controlled company, you would not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all of the NASDAQ Stock Market corporate governance requirements. Our status as a controlled company could cause our Class A Ordinary Share to look less attractive to certain investors or otherwise harm our trading price.

Risks Related to this Offering and our Series A Notes and Bond

If we are unable to comply with the restrictions and covenants in our note purchase agreements or the indenture governing the Series A Notes or the Bond, there could be a default under the terms of these agreements, which could cause repayment of our debt to be accelerated.

If we are unable to comply with the restrictions and covenants in the indenture governing the Series A Notes or Bond, or our current or future debt and other agreements, there could be a default under the terms of these agreements. In the event of a default under these agreements, the holders of the debt could terminate their commitments to lend to us, accelerate the debt and declare all amounts borrowed due and payable or terminate the agreements, as the case may be.

Furthermore, some of our debt agreements may contain cross-acceleration or cross-default provisions. As a result, our default under one debt agreement may cause the acceleration of debt or result in a default under our other debt agreements. If any of these events occur, we cannot assure you that our assets and cash flow would be sufficient to repay in full all of our indebtedness, or that we would be able to find alternative financing. Even if we could obtain alternative financing, we cannot assure you that it would be on terms that are favorable or acceptable to us.

The initial public offering price of our Class A Ordinary Shares may not be indicative of the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares after this Offering. In addition, an active, liquid and orderly trading market for our Class A Ordinary Shares may not develop or be maintained, and our stock price may be volatile.

Prior to this Offering, our Class A Ordinary Shares were not traded on any market. An active, liquid and orderly trading market for our Class A Ordinary Shares may not develop or be maintained after this Offering. Active, liquid and orderly trading markets usually result in less price volatility and more efficiency in carrying out investors’ purchase and sale orders. The market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares could vary significantly as a result of a number of factors, some of which are beyond our control. In the event of a drop in the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares, you could lose a substantial part or all of your investment in our shares. The initial public offering price will be determined by us, based on numerous factors and may not be indicative of the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares after this Offering. Consequently, you may not be able to sell our Class A Ordinary Shares at prices equal to or greater than the price paid by you in this Offering.

The following factors could affect our share price:

The stock markets in general have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. These broad market fluctuations may adversely affect the trading price of our Class A Ordinary Shares. Securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the overall market and in the market price of a company’s securities. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could result in very substantial costs, divert our management’s attention and resources and harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

The price of the Class A Ordinary Shares and other terms of this Offering have been determined by us along with our underwriters.

If you purchase our Class A Ordinary Shares in this Offering, you will pay a price that was not established in a competitive market. Rather, you will pay a price that was determined by us along with our underwriters. The offering price for our Class A Ordinary Shares may bear no relationship to our assets, book value, historical results of operations or any other established criterion of value. The trading price, if any, of the Class A Ordinary Shares that may prevail in any market that may develop in the future, for which there can be no assurance, may be higher or lower than the price you paid for our Class A Ordinary Shares.

Shares eligible for future sale may adversely affect the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares if the shares are successfully listed on NASDAQ or other stock markets, as the future sale of a substantial amount of outstanding Class A Ordinary Shares in the public marketplace could reduce the price of our Class A Ordinary Shares.

The market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares could decline as a result of sales of substantial amounts of our Class A Ordinary Shares in the public market, or the perception that these sales could occur. In addition, these factors could make it more difficult for us to raise funds through future offerings of our Class A Ordinary Shares. An aggregate of [        ] Class A Ordinary Shares will be outstanding before the consummation of this Offering, all of which, except those held by management, are or will be freely tradable immediately upon effectiveness of this registration statement. All of the Class A Ordinary Shares sold in the offering will be freely transferable without restriction or further registration under the Securities Act. The remaining Class A Ordinary Shares will be “restricted securities” as defined in Rule 144. These Class A Ordinary Shares may be sold without registration under the Securities Act to the extent permitted by Rule 144 or other exemptions under the Securities Act. (See “Shares Eligible for Future Sale”)

A sale or perceived sale of a substantial number of our Ordinary Shares may cause the price of our Class A Ordinary Shares to decline.

All of our executive officers and directors, the Series A Note Investors, the holders of the Bond and warrants, and almost all of our shareholders have agreed not to sell our Class A Ordinary Shares for a period of six months following this Offering, subject to extension under specified circumstances. (See “Shares Eligible for Future Sale – Lock-Up Agreements”) Class A Ordinary shares subject to these lock-up agreements will become eligible for sale in the public market upon expiration of these lock-up agreements, subject to limitations imposed by Rule 144 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. If our shareholders sell substantial amounts of our Class A Ordinary Shares in the public market, the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares could fall. Moreover, the perceived risk of this potential dilution could cause shareholders to attempt to sell their shares and investors to short our Class A Ordinary Shares. These sales also may make it more difficult for us to sell equity or equity-related securities in the future at a time and price that we deem reasonable or appropriate.

We have not paid dividends in the past and do not expect to pay dividends in the future, and any return on investment may be limited to the value of our shares.

We have never paid any cash dividends on our Class A Ordinary Shares and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our Class A Ordinary Shares in the foreseeable future, and any return on investment may be limited to the value of our Class A Ordinary Shares. We plan to retain any future earnings to finance growth.

Our dividend policy is subject to the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on, among other things, our earnings, financial condition, capital requirements and other factors. There is no assurance that our Board of Directors will declare dividends even if we are profitable. Under Cayman Islands law, dividends may be declared and paid only out of funds legally available therefor, namely out of either profit or our share premium account, and provided further that a dividend may not be paid if this would result in our Company being unable to pay its debts as they fall due in the ordinary course of business and the realizable value of assets of our Company will not be less than the sum of our total liabilities, other than deferred taxes as shown on our books of account, and our capital.

Our Class B Ordinary Shares have stronger voting power than our Class A Ordinary Shares and certain existing shareholders have substantial influence over our Company and their interests may not be aligned with the interests of our other shareholders and holders of our Series A Notes and the Bond.

We have a dual-class voting structure consisting of Class A Ordinary Shares and Class B Ordinary Shares. Under this structure, holders of Class A Ordinary Shares are entitled to one vote per share, and holders of Class B Ordinary Shares are entitled to ten votes per share, which can cause the holders of Class B Ordinary Shares to have an unbalanced, higher concentration of voting power. Immediately prior to the Offering, our management team as a group beneficially own over 20 million Class B Ordinary Shares representing over 90% voting power. As a result, until such time as their collective voting power is below 50%, our management team as a group of controlling shareholders have substantial influence over our business, including decisions regarding mergers, consolidations and the sale of all or substantially all of our assets, election of directors and other significant corporate actions. They may take actions that are not in the best interests of us or our other shareholders. These corporate actions may be taken even if they are opposed by our other shareholders, including those who hold Class A Ordinary Shares converted from the Series A Notes and the Bond. Further, concentration of ownership of our Class B Ordinary Shares may discourage, prevent or delay the consummation of change of control transactions that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. Future issuances of Class B Ordinary Shares may also be dilutive to the holders of Class A Ordinary Shares. As a result, the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares could be adversely affected.

Shareholders who hold shares of Class B Ordinary Shares, including our executive officers and their affiliates, will together hold approximately [    ]% or [ ]% of the voting power of our outstanding ordinary shares following this Offering if the maximum offering amount or minimum offering amount, respectively is sold. Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A Ordinary Shares, the holders of our Class B Ordinary Shares will collectively continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our Ordinary Shares and therefore be able to control all matters submitted to our shareholders for approval, so long as the Class B Ordinary Shares represent at least 9.1% of all outstanding shares of our Ordinary Shares.

You will experience immediate and substantial dilution as a result of this Offering and may experience additional dilution in the future.

You will incur immediate and substantial dilution as a result of this Offering and the automatic conversion of the Series A Notes and the Bond. After giving effect to the sale by us of up to [       ] Class A Ordinary Shares offered in this Offering at an assumed public offering price of $[      ] per share (the mid-point of the range indicated on the front cover of this prospectus), issuance of [      ] Class A Ordinary Shares upon the automatic conversion of the Series A Notes and automatic conversion of the Bond at the closing of this Offering and the commencement of the trading of the Class A Ordinary Shares on NASDAQ Global Market, investors in this Offering can expect an immediate dilution of $[      ] per share, or [      ]% at the assumed public offering price. You may also experience further dilution to the extent that Class A Ordinary Shares are to be issued upon exercise of the Series A Note PA Warrants and the Bond PA Warrants and upon the Bond holder’s voluntary conversion of the balance of the Bond. Additionally, in the event that those warrants or options we may grant to our officers, directors and employees are ultimately exercised, you will sustain future dilution. We may also acquire or license other technology or finance strategic alliances by issuing equity, which may result in additional dilution to our shareholders.

Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our shareholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technology or drug and device candidates.

We may seek additional funding through a combination of equity offerings, debt financings, collaborations, licensing arrangements, strategic alliances and marketing or distribution arrangements. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, your ownership interest will be diluted, and the terms may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a holder of our Class A Ordinary Shares. The incurrence of additional indebtedness or the issuance of certain equity securities could result in increased fixed payment obligations, and could also result in certain additional restrictive covenants, such as limitations on our ability to incur additional debt or issue additional equity, limitations on our ability to acquire or license IP rights and other operating restrictions that could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. In addition, issuance of additional equity securities, or the possibility of such issuance, may cause the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares to decline. In the event that we enter into collaborations or licensing arrangements to raise capital, we may be required to accept unfavorable terms, including relinquishing or licensing to another party on unfavorable terms our rights to technology or drug and device candidates that we otherwise would seek to develop or commercialize ourselves or potentially reserve for future potential arrangements when we might be able to achieve more favorable terms.

Resales of our Class A Ordinary Shares in the public market during this Offering by the Selling Shareholders or investors in this Offering may cause the market price of our Class A Ordinary Shares to decline.

Sales of Resale Shares, as well as the issuance of Class A Ordinary Shares in this Offering could result in resales of our Class A Ordinary Shares by our current shareholders concerned about the potential dilution of their holdings. In turn, these resales could have the effect of depressing the market price for our Class A Ordinary Shares.

Since we are a Cayman Islands exempted company, the rights of our shareholders may be more limited than those of shareholders of a company organized in the United States.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our Second Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association (as may be amended from time to time) (“Memorandum and Articles”), the Companies Law (2018 Revision) of the Cayman Islands (the “Companies Law”) and the common law of the Cayman Islands. The rights of shareholders to take action against the directors, actions by minority shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors are to a large extent governed by the common law of the Cayman Islands. This common law is derived in part from comparatively limited judicial precedent in the Cayman Islands as well as from English common law, which has persuasive, but not binding, authority on a court in the Cayman Islands. Under the laws of some jurisdictions in the United States, majority and controlling shareholders generally have certain fiduciary responsibilities to the minority shareholders. Shareholder action must be taken in good faith, and actions by controlling shareholders which are obviously unreasonable may be declared null and void. Cayman Islands law protecting the interests of minority shareholders may not be as protective in all circumstances as the law protecting minority shareholders in some U.S. jurisdictions. In addition, the circumstances in which a shareholder of a Cayman Islands company may sue the company derivatively, and the procedures and defenses that may be available to the company, may result in the rights of shareholders of a Cayman Islands company being more limited than those of shareholders of a company organized in the United States. Accordingly, shareholders may have fewer alternatives available to them if they believe that corporate wrongdoing has occurred. The Cayman Islands courts are also unlikely to recognize or enforce judgments from U.S. courts based on certain liability provisions of U.S. securities laws that are penal in nature. There is no statutory recognition in the Cayman Islands of judgments obtained in the United States, although the courts of the Cayman Islands will generally recognize and enforce non-penal judgment of a foreign court of competent jurisdiction without retrial on its merits. This means, even if shareholders were to sue us successfully, they may not be able to recover anything to make up for the losses suffered.

Furthermore, our directors have the power to take certain actions without shareholder approval which would require shareholder approval under the laws of most U.S. jurisdictions. For example, the directors of a Cayman Islands company, without shareholder approval, may implement a sale of any assets, property, part of the business, or securities of the Company.

While Cayman Islands law allows a dissenting shareholder to express the shareholder’s view that a court sanctioned reorganization of a Cayman Islands company would not provide fair value for the shareholder’s shares, Cayman Islands statutory law does not specifically provide for shareholder appraisal rights on a merger or consolidation of a company. This may make it more difficult for you to assess the value of any consideration you may receive in a merger or consolidation or to require that the acquirer gives you additional consideration if you believe the consideration offered is insufficient. However, Cayman Islands’ statutory law does provide a mechanism for a dissenting shareholder in a merger or consolidation to apply to the Grand Court for a determination of the fair value of the dissenter’s shares, if it is not possible for the Company and the dissenter to agree a fair price within the time limits prescribed.

Shareholders of Cayman Islands exempted companies, such as our Company, have no general rights under Cayman Islands’ law to inspect corporate records and accounts or to obtain copies of lists of shareholders. Our directors have discretion under our Memorandum and Articles to determine whether or not, and under what conditions, our corporate records may be inspected by our shareholders, but are not obliged to make them available to our shareholders. This may make it more difficult for you to obtain the information needed to establish any facts necessary for a shareholder motion or to solicit proxies from other shareholders in connection with a proxy contest.

Lastly, under the law of the Cayman Islands, there is little statutory law for the protection of minority shareholders. The principal protection under statutory law is that shareholders may bring an action to enforce the constituent documents of the corporation, our Memorandum and Articles. Shareholders are entitled to have the affairs of the company conducted in accordance with the general law and the memorandum and articles of association.

There are common law rights for the protection of shareholders that may be invoked, largely dependent on English company law, since the common law of the Cayman Islands for business companies is limited. Under the general rule pursuant to English company law known as the rule in Foss v. Harbottle, a court will generally refuse to interfere with the management of a company at the insistence of a minority of its shareholders who express dissatisfaction with the conduct of the company’s affairs by the majority or the board of directors. However, every shareholder is entitled to have the affairs of the company conducted properly according to law and the constituent documents of the company. As such, if those who control the company have persistently disregarded the requirements of company law or the provisions of the company’s memorandum and articles of association, then the courts will grant relief. Generally, the areas in which the courts will intervene are the following: (1) an act complained of which is outside the scope of the authorized business or is illegal or not capable of ratification by the majority; (2) acts that constitute fraud on the minority where the wrongdoers control the company; (3) acts that infringe on the personal rights of the shareholders, such as the right to vote; and (4) where the company has not complied with provisions requiring approval of a special or extraordinary majority of shareholders, which are more limited than the rights afforded minority shareholders under the laws of many states in the United States. Our Cayman Islands’ counsel has advised us that they are aware of one recent as yet unreported derivative action having been brought in a Cayman Islands’ court. Class actions are not recognized in the Cayman Islands, but groups of shareholders with identical interests may bring representative proceedings, which are similar.

As a result, you may be limited in your ability to protect your interests if you are harmed in a manner that would otherwise enable you to sue in a United States federal court. In addition, shareholders of Cayman Islands companies may not have standing to initiate a shareholder derivative action in U.S. federal courts.

As a result of all of the above, shareholders of our Company may have more difficulty in protecting their interests in the face of actions taken by management, members of the board of directors or controlling shareholders than they would have as shareholders of a public U.S. company.

You may face difficulties in protecting your interests, and your ability to protect your rights through the U.S. federal courts may be limited because we are incorporated under Cayman Islands law, we currently conduct substantially all of our operations outside the United States and some of our directors and executive officers reside outside the United States.

We are incorporated in the Cayman Islands and currently conduct substantially all of our operations outside the United States through our subsidiaries. Some of our directors and executive officers reside outside the United States and a substantial portion of their assets are located outside of the United States. As a result, it may be difficult or impossible for you to bring an action against us or against these individuals in the Cayman Islands or in Hong Kong, in the event that you believe that your rights have been infringed under the securities laws of the United States or otherwise. Even if you are successful in bringing an action of this kind, the laws of the Cayman Islands and Hong Kong may render you unable to enforce a judgment against our assets or the assets of our directors and officers. There is no statutory recognition in the Cayman Islands of judgments obtained in the United States or Hong Kong, although the courts of the Cayman Islands will generally recognize and enforce a non-penal judgment of a foreign court of competent jurisdiction without retrial on the merits if such judgment is final, for a liquidated sum, not in the nature of taxes, a fine or penalty, is not inconsistent with a Cayman Islands’ judgment in respect of the same matters, and was not obtained in a manner which is contrary to public policy. In addition, a Cayman Islands court may stay proceedings if concurrent proceedings are being brought elsewhere.

You must rely on the judgment of our management as to the use of the net proceeds from this Offering, and such use may not produce income.

A significant portion of the net proceeds of this Offering is allocated for general corporate purposes, including funding research and development, clinical trials, potential investments in and acquisitions of complementary businesses, assets and technology. Although we describe a number of projects currently under development, including three that we have described as being our Lead Projects, because other opportunities may arise and because of the uncertainties inherent in drug development, our management will have considerable discretion in the application of the net proceeds received by us. You will not have the opportunity, as part of your investment decision, to assess whether proceeds are being used appropriately. The net proceeds may be used for corporate purposes that do not improve our efforts to achieve or maintain profitability. The net proceeds from this Offering may be expended on projects that do not produce income or that lose value.

We are an emerging growth company within the meaning of the Securities Act and will take advantage of certain reduced reporting requirements.

Upon the consummation of this Offering, we will be an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various requirements applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies including, most significantly, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for so long as we are an emerging growth company. As a result, if we elect not to comply with such auditor attestation requirements, our investors, including the holders of Class A Ordinary Shares converted from the Series A Notes and Bonds, may not have access to certain information they may deem important.

The JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company does not need to comply with any new or revised financial accounting standards until such date that a private company is otherwise required to comply with such new or revised accounting standards. The Company has elected to use the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standard under Section 102(b)(2) of the Jobs Act, that allows the Company to delay the adoption of new or revised accounting standards that have different effective dates for public and private companies until those standards apply to private companies.

We will incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management will be required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices.

As a public company, we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of the NASDAQ Stock Market and other applicable securities rules and regulations impose various requirements on public companies, including establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls and corporate governance practices. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, these rules and regulations will increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming and costly. For example, we expect that these rules and regulations may make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, which in turn could make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our Board of Directors.

We are evaluating these rules and regulations, and cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we may incur or the timing of such costs. These rules and regulations are often subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices.

Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we will first be required to furnish a report by our management on our internal control over financial reporting for the year ending December 31, 2018. However, while we remain an emerging growth company, we will not be required to include an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. To achieve compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act within the prescribed period, we will be engaged in a process to document and evaluate our internal control over financial reporting, which is both costly and challenging. In this regard, we will need to continue to dedicate internal resources, potentially engage outside consultants and adopt a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls are functioning as documented and implement a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. Despite our efforts, there is a risk that we will not be able to conclude, within the prescribed timeframe or at all, that our internal control over financial reporting is effective as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. If we identify one or more material weaknesses, it could result in an adverse reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements.