Item 8.01 Other Events.
COVID-19 Update
In light of recent developments relating to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the Company is providing the following information regarding its business:
•The Company remains committed to serving patients who have been diagnosed with melanoma and the clinicians who treat them.
•Based upon an analysis of its supply channel, the Company believes it has adequate reagent and consumable inventory levels and does not anticipate an impact on its ability to deliver test reports.
•The Company continues to believe its cash and cash equivalents and anticipated cash generated from sales of its products will be sufficient to fund its operating expenses for the foreseeable future.
•The Company anticipates decreased test report volume in the near term due to a decline in orders for DecisionDx-Melanoma and DecisionDx-UM tests as routine examination patient visits are being delayed and/or cancelled and diagnostic biopsies are being delayed in response to COVID-19. However, the Company currently expects patient visits for identified worrisome pigmented lesions to continue on an as planned or rescheduled basis.
•The Company has implemented adjustments to its operations designed to keep employees safe and comply with federal, state and local guidelines, including those regarding social distancing, in an effort to minimize any impact on its turnaround time in reporting test results.
The exact timing of delays and overall impact to the Company’s business is currently unknown, and the Company is monitoring the COVID-19 outbreak as it continues to evolve.
Supplemental Risk Factor
In addition, to address the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company is supplementing the risk factors previously disclosed in Part I, Item 1A. of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, as filed with the SEC on March 10, 2020, to include the following risk factor under the heading “Risks Related to Our Business”:
The COVID-19 pandemic could adversely impact our business, including the demand for our test reports, as well as the business or operations of physicians and other healthcare providers who order our test reports and the third-party payors responsible for reimbursement for our tests, customers and other third parties with whom we conduct business.
Public health crises such as pandemics or similar outbreaks could adversely impact our business. In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (“COVID-19”), surfaced in Wuhan, China. Since then, COVID-19 has spread to multiple countries, including the United States. As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, or similar
pandemics, and federal, state and local government responses to pandemics, we have and may in the future experience disruptions that could adversely impact our business, including:
•decreased test report volume due to a decline in orders of DecisionDx-Melanoma and DecisionDx-UM tests as patient visits for routine examinations and biopsies are being delayed and/or cancelled;
•disruption of our sales and commercialization activities due to limitations on our ability to communicate with physicians as a result of travel restrictions and hindered means of communicating with physicians;
•delays or difficulties in delivering test reports, interruptions in research and development and other limitations of key business activities due to members of our workforce becoming ill and/or stay-at-home or other similar orders from state and local governments, including at our Phoenix, Arizona and Friendswood, Texas locations;
•delayed reimbursement from third party payors, disruption in our supply channel and other adverse impacts on our business resulting from the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our suppliers, service providers and other third parties on whom we rely; and
•delayed or postponed interactions with regulators and other important agencies and contractors, due to limitations in employee resources, travel restrictions or forced furlough of government employees.
The global outbreak of COVID-19 continues to rapidly evolve. The extent to which COVID-19 may impact our business will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, such as the ultimate geographic spread of the disease, the duration of the outbreak, travel restrictions, stay-at-home or other similar orders and social distancing in the United States and other countries, business closures or business disruptions and the effectiveness of actions taken in the United States and other countries to contain and treat the virus.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this report that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding the Company’s reagent and consumable inventory levels, its ability to deliver test reports, the adequacy of its cash and cash equivalents and anticipated cash generated from sales of its products to fund its operations, expectations regarding test report volume and patient visits and the implementation of measures to minimize its turnaround time in reporting test results. Words such as “may,” “future,” “plan” or “planned,” “will” or “should,” “expected,” “anticipates,” “draft,” “eventually,” or “projected” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, though not all forward-looking statements necessarily contain these identifying words. Such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in such statements, including the risks that current inventory levels may be rendered insufficient due to the extended impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company may be required to utilize cash and cash equivalents at a greater rate than anticipated and that sales will experience a larger decline than anticipated and the overall impact of COVID-19 on our business could be greater than anticipated. Other risks are identified in the Company’s filings with the SEC, including, without limitation, the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, this Current Report on Form 8-K and in the Company’s other filings subsequently made with the SEC. All forward-looking statements contained in this report speak only as of the date on which they were made. The Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of the receipt of new information, the occurrence of future events or otherwise.