Item 1A. Risk Factors.
The following risk factors and other information included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q should be carefully considered. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only risks and uncertainties we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we presently deem less significant may also impair our business operations. Please see page 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a discussion of some of the forward-looking statements that are qualified by these risk factors. If any of the following risks occur, our business, financial condition, results of operations and future growth prospects could be materially and adversely affected.
Risks Related to Our Updated Business Plan, Financial Position and Need for Additional Capital
Following the failure of two of our three pivotal, Phase 3 trials of Fovista for the treatment of wet AMD, we are in the process of implementing a new, updated business plan that will continue to evolve as we evaluate new opportunities and await relevant clinical data. Our updated business plan may lead to one or more transactions that you do not agree with or that you do not perceive as favorable to your investment. In the event that we do not succeed in implementing some or all of our new business plan, the remaining assets in our company may not be sufficient to provide any return on our stockholders’ investment.
We have invested a significant portion of our efforts and financial resources in the development of Fovista to be administered in combination with anti‑VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD, as well as the potential commercial launch of Fovista. In December 2016, we announced initial, top-line data from two pivotal, Phase 3 clinical trials, which we refer to as OPH1002 and OPH1003, evaluating the safety and efficacy of 1.5mg of Fovista administered in combination with monthly 0.5mg Lucentis® (ranibizumab) anti-VEGF therapy compared to monthly 0.5mg Lucentis monotherapy for the treatment of wet AMD. The pre-specified primary endpoint of mean change in visual acuity at 12 months was not achieved for either OPH1002 or OPH1003. Moreover, we have not observed any clinically meaningful visual benefit when 1.5mg of Fovista was added to a monthly regimen of 0.5mg Lucentis therapy for any subgroup of patients that we have analyzed from the OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials, including subgroups based on baseline visual acuity, baseline lesion size or the baseline amount of the classic component of choroidal neovascularization, or CNV. Following the December 2016 data announcement, we subsequently stopped treating patients in, and terminated, both the OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials. OPH1004, our remaining Phase 3 clinical trial, which is evaluating the safety and efficacy of 1.5 mg of Fovista administered in combination with 2.0mg Eylea® (afilbercept) or 1.25mg Avastin® (bevacizumab) anti-VEGF therapy compared to 2.0mg Eylea or 1.25mg Avastin monotherapy for the treatment of wet AMD, remains ongoing, with initial, top-line data expected to be available during the second half of 2017.
Following the failure of our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials, we initiated a plan to review our strategic alternatives in order to maximize shareholder value and implement an updated business plan. This updated business plan requires us to be successful in a number of challenging, uncertain and risky activities, including identifying promising new assets for development that are available for acquisition or in-license, negotiating and executing an acquisition or in-license agreement for one or more of those programs on favorable terms and designing and executing a clinical program for any newly acquired product candidates, or for our existing product candidates, potentially in different indications than we have previously investigated. We may not be successful at one or more of the activities required for us to execute this new updated business plan. As part of our strategic review, we may also consider other alternatives, including the acquisition of products, product candidates or technologies or other assets outside of ophthalmology, mergers or other transactions involving our company as a whole, collaboration transactions, or the license, sale or divestiture of some of our assets our technologies. We cannot be sure when or if this strategic review process will result in any type of transaction. Even if we pursue a transaction, such transaction may not be consistent with our stockholders’ expectations or may not ultimately be favorable for our stockholders, either in the shorter or longer term.
Until such time as we identify and acquire or in-license additional product candidates, initiate new development programs for our existing product candidates, or consummate an alternative strategic transaction involving our company, our growth prospects and the future value of our company will be substantially, if not completely, dependent on the progress of our ongoing clinical development programs for our current product candidates, Fovista and Zimura, together with the amount of our remaining available cash. The development of each of Fovista and Zimura is highly uncertain. We have very limited clinical data on the effects of Fovista when administered in combination with intravitreal injections of either Eylea or Avastin for the treatment of patients with wet AMD and are unable to predict whether the 12 month results from the OPH1004 trial will be at all favorable. In addition, there is a risk that patients will drop out of the OPH1004 trial based on the unfavorable results from OPH1002 and OPH1003, leaving us with too few patients to obtain clinically meaningful data. We currently expect initial, top-line data from the OPH1004 trial to be available during the second half of 2017. The failure of our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials to show any clinically meaningful visual benefit in adding 1.5mg of Fovista to a monthly regimen of 0.5mg of Lucentis and the recent failure of a competitor’s Phase 2 trial investigating the combination of a PDGF inhibitor and a VEGF inhibitor may be indicative of a low likelihood of success for OPH1004. In addition, we have only very limited data from small, uncontrolled clinical trials regarding the safety and efficacy of Zimura for the treatment of GA or in combination with anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD. Our prior Zimura trials were not powered to demonstrate the efficacy of Zimura therapy with any statistical significance. We remain at the very early phase of enrollment in our two ongoing Zimura clinical trials and we cannot currently estimate when additional clinical data for Zimura from these or other trials will become available.
We plan to reassess our existing Fovista and Zimura development programs throughout 2017 as the implementation of our updated business plan progresses and evolves, with the goal of aligning corporate resources in the context of a potentially broader product pipeline. We expect that our reassessment of our Fovista development program for the treatment of wet AMD will be primarily determined by the initial, top-line data from OPH1004 and that our reassessment of our Zimura development program may be particularly affected by the results of a competitor’s Phase 3 clinical trial of a complement inhibitor being studied for the treatment of GA. Data from both our OPH1004 trial and our competitor’s Phase 3 trial for the treatment of GA are expected during the second half of 2017. As a result of this reassessment, we may modify, expand or terminate some or all of our development programs or clinical trials at any time.
We expect that our remaining cash balances will continue to decline as we pursue these development programs, pursue our updated business plan and until such time, if any, as we receive additional funding, and the value of our stockholders’ investment may decline as a result.
Even if we receive positive data from OPH1004 in the second half of 2017, the prospects for Fovista combination therapy for the treatment of wet AMD may not be readily ascertainable and we would need to assess the financial, operational and regulatory implications of such an outcome. We may make further changes to our business plan once such data is available.
While we believe that there is a low likelihood of a positive data outcome for OPH1004, a positive data outcome may pose significant financial, operation and regulatory challenges. Even if such data are favorable, the regulatory path for the potential approval of Fovista combination therapy for the treatment of wet AMD would be highly uncertain. The FDA and similar regulatory authorities outside the United States require two adequate and well controlled clinical trials demonstrating safety and effectiveness for marketing approval for an ophthalmic pharmaceutical product. Even with a positive data outcome from OPH1004, the FDA may not consider OPH1004 to be one of the two adequate and well controlled clinical trials required for marketing approval and, unless we are able to agree with the FDA and similar regulatory authorities outside the United States on an alternative regulatory pathway for approval, we may be required to conduct one or more additional clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of Fovista in combination with one or more anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD. Conducting one or more large Phase 3 studies of Fovista combination therapy for the treatment of wet AMD would be expensive and time consuming and would require us to seek additional funding. Because we have already substantially reduced, and expect to continue to reduce, our personnel as part of an overall planned reduction in personnel involving approximately 80% of our workforce, a positive outcome would require us to either hire additional employees or engage a large number of consultants or other vendors in order to successfully execute one or more large Phase 3 studies. We would also need to make arrangements with our suppliers to restart activities for clinical and commercial manufacturing, supply, packaging and distribution of Fovista which could result in delays in commencing a Phase 3 study. Even if we do obtain favorable data from two adequate and well controlled clinical trials, the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States may not grant marketing approval for a product candidate if such regulatory authorities do not believe that the benefits offered by such product candidate are clinically meaningful or that such benefits outweigh the observed or potential risks, which they may conclude based on potentially inconsistent and conflicting data regarding the efficacy of Fovista combination therapy.
Even if we are able to obtain marketing approval for Fovista for use in combination with one or more anti‑VEGF drugs, because Avastin is not approved for use in treating wet AMD, either in the United States or outside of the United States, regulatory authorities may not permit the product label for Fovista to include the use of Fovista in combination with Avastin. For example, we have had interactions regarding our planned application for marketing approval with the European regulatory authorities, including EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, or CHMP, which is the committee responsible for preparing opinions on questions concerning medicines for human use. The CHMP informed us that the final label for Fovista, if it receives marketing approval, may be required to specify the licensed anti‑VEGF drugs that were studied in combination with Fovista; Avastin is not licensed for intravitreal use in the European Union.
Even with a positive result from OPH1004 or any other clinical trial we may conduct for Fovista in wet AMD and marketing approval, it likely would be difficult to estimate the size of the potential market for Fovista for the treatment of wet AMD and anticipate the level of market acceptance of Fovista in such market, as the failure of our pivotal, Phase 3 OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials of Fovista in combination with Lucentis and the failure of a competitor’s Phase 2 trial of an anti-PDGF inhibitor administered in combination with an anti-VEGF agent have called into question PDGF as a target for treatment of wet AMD. Furthermore, even with a positive data outcome, the inconsistent results from our Phase 3 Fovista program may adversely affect our ability to establish a price for Fovista to enable us to sell Fovista profitably, even if we obtain marketing approval. Moreover, it is possible that Novartis, our ex-U.S. commercialization partner for Fovista, may terminate the Fovista Licensing and Commercialization Agreement with us, either prior to or following our receipt of initial, top-line data from OPH1004, even if the data from the trial are positive. In this event, we would need to change our commercialization plans for Fovista outside the United States. For these and other reasons, the return on any further investment in developing Fovista in wet AMD following a favorable data outcome from OPH1004 may be highly uncertain.
Undertaking and pursuing the further development of Fovista in wet AMD may require that we divert resources away from, and may distract our management and other personnel from continuing to execute on, our plan to realign corporate resources toward a more broadly-diversified product pipeline. In such event, we may therefore abandon some or all of the initiatives that we undertake in pursuit of our updated business plan.
Our strategy of obtaining rights to products, product candidates or technologies for the treatment of a range of ophthalmic diseases through in
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licenses and acquisitions may not be successful. Our failure to successfully acquire or in-license and develop additional product candidates would likely impair our ability to grow.
A major element of our strategy is to expand our product pipeline through opportunistically in‑licensing or acquiring the rights to products, product candidates or technologies for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases. Because we expect generally that we will not engage directly in early stage research and drug discovery and because the development outlook for our current product candidates is highly uncertain, the future growth of our business likely will depend significantly on our ability to in‑license or acquire the rights to approved products, additional product candidates or technologies. We may be unable, however, to in‑license or acquire the rights to any such products, product candidates or technologies from third parties for several reasons. The success of this strategy depends partly upon our ability to identify, select and acquire or in-license promising product candidates and technologies. We may be unable to identify suitable products, product candidates or technologies within our area of focus. The process of proposing, negotiating and implementing a license or acquisition of a product candidate is lengthy and complex. The in‑licensing and acquisition of pharmaceutical products is an area characterized by intense competition, and a number of companies (both more established and early stage biotechnology companies) are also pursuing strategies to in‑license or acquire products, product candidates or technologies that we may consider attractive. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities, while earlier stage companies may be more aggressive or have a higher risk tolerance. 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 in‑license or acquire the rights to the relevant product, product candidate or technology on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment. Moreover, we may devote resources to potential acquisitions or in-licensing opportunities that are never completed, or we may fail to realize the anticipated benefits of such efforts or we may incorrectly judge the value or worth of an acquired or in-licensed product candidate or technology.
Further, any product candidate that we acquire would most likely require additional development efforts prior to commercial sale, including extensive clinical testing and approval by the FDA and applicable foreign regulatory authorities. All product candidates are prone to risks of failure typical of pharmaceutical product development, including the possibility that a product candidate would not be shown to be sufficiently safe and effective for approval by regulatory authorities.
If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to suitable products, product candidates or technologies, our business, financial condition and prospects for growth could suffer. In addition, acquisitions and in-licensing arrangements for product
candidates and technologies are inherently risky, and ultimately, if we do not complete an announced acquisition or license transaction or integrate an acquired or licensed product or technology successfully and in a timely manner, we may not realize the benefits of the acquisition or license to the extent anticipated and the perception of the effectiveness of our management team and our company may suffer in the marketplace. In addition, even if we are able to achieve the long-term benefits associated with our revised business plan, our expenses and short-term costs may increase materially and adversely affect our liquidity.
In addition, future acquisitions and in-licenses may entail numerous operational, financial and legal risks, including:
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exposure to known and unknown liabilities, including possible intellectual property infringement claims, violations of laws, tax liabilities and commercial disputes;
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incurrence of substantial debt, dilutive issuances of securities or depletion of cash to pay for acquisitions;
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higher than expected acquisition and integration costs;
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difficulty in combining the operations and personnel of any acquired businesses with our operations and personnel;
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inability to maintain uniform standards, controls, procedures and policies;
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restructuring charges related to eliminating redundancies or disposing of assets as part of any such combination;
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large write-offs and difficulties in assessing the relative percentages of in-process research and development expense that can be immediately written off as compare to the amount that must be amortized over the appropriate life of the asset;
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increased amortization expenses or, in the event that we write-down the value of acquired assets, impairment losses;
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impairment of relationships with key suppliers or customers of any acquired businesses due to changes in management and ownership;
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inability to retain personnel, key customers, distributors, vendors and other business partners integral to an in-licensed or acquired product candidate or technology;
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potential failure of the due diligence processes to identify significant problems, liabilities or other shortcomings or challenges of an acquired or licensed product candidate or technology, including, without limitation, problems, liabilities or other shortcomings or challenges with respect to intellectual property, product quality, revenue recognition or other accounting practices, partner disputes or issues and other legal and financial contingencies and known and unknown liabilities; and
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entry into indications or markets in which we have no or limited direct prior development or commercial experience and where competitors in such markets have stronger market positions.
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If we are unable to successfully manage our acquisitions or other in-license transactions, our ability to develop new products and continue to expand and diversify our product pipeline may be limited.
We may not use our available cash and other sources of funding effectively as we pursue our updated business plan.
Our revised business plan may not be successful, or we may be unsuccessful in effectively executing our revised business plan, which, in either case, could result in the expenditure of our available cash and other sources of funding in ways that do not improve our results of operations or enhance the value of our common stock. The failure by our management to apply these funds effectively could result in financial losses that could have a material adverse effect on our business, cause the price of our common stock to decline and delay the development of our product candidates. Pending their use, we may invest our available cash in a manner that does not produce adequate income, if any, or that loses value. For example, as we implement our revised business plan, we could allocate our available capital resources to pursue a particular strategic opportunity or product candidate or technology that proves to be ineffective, or we could fail to allocate sufficient resources to
strategic opportunities or product candidates or technologies that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success. If we fail to effectively allocate our available capital resources, we may not be able to achieve the goals in our revised business plan, and our financial condition and prospects for growth could suffer.
Our limited operating history may make it difficult for our stockholders to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability.
We were incorporated and commenced active operations in 2007. Our operations to date have been focused on organizing and staffing our company, acquiring rights to product candidates, business planning, raising capital and developing Fovista, Zimura and other product candidates. We have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete a large‑scale, pivotal clinical trial with data sufficient to obtain marketing approval, apply for and obtain marketing approval, qualify a commercial manufacturer through a pre-approval inspection with respect to any of our products, or conduct sales, marketing and distribution activities necessary for successful product commercialization. Consequently, any predictions about our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history.
In addition, we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other known and unknown factors. The failure of our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD has required us to reevaluate our future development plans for our product candidates, as well as our business plan more broadly, and has significantly decreased the likelihood that we will commercialize Fovista or any other product in the near term. We may never be successful in developing or commercializing any of our product candidates. If successful in developing and obtaining marketing approval of one of our product candidates, we would need to transition from a company with a product development focus to a company capable of supporting commercial activities. We may not be successful in such a transition.
We have incurred significant operating losses since our inception. We expect to continue to incur losses until such time, if ever, that we successfully commercialize our product candidates and may never achieve or maintain profitability.
Since inception, we have experienced significant cash outflows in funding our operations. As of
March 31, 2017
, we had an accumulated deficit of
$642.1 million
. Our net loss was
$43.1 million
for the
three
months ended
March 31, 2017
, and $193.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2016 and we expect to continue to incur significant operating losses for the foreseeable future. To date, we have not generated any revenues from product sales and have financed our operations primarily through private placements of our preferred stock, venture debt borrowings, funds received under our royalty purchase and sale agreement with Novo A/S, which we refer to as the Novo Agreement, which we entered into in May 2013, our initial public offering, which we closed in September 2013, our follow-on public offering, which we closed in February 2014, and funds we received under the Novartis Agreement, which we entered into in May 2014.
We have devoted substantially all of our financial resources and efforts to the research and development of Fovista and Zimura and preparations for the potential commercial launch of Fovista, including manufacturing scale‑up activities. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses over the next few years as we implement our updated business plan and continue to and reassess our development plans for our existing product candidates. Our net losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year.
We currently have two product candidates, Fovista and Zimura, which are in clinical development. We expect to continue to incur significant research and development expenses as we wind-down the OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials and the Fovista Expansion Studies, continue the OPH1004 trial and pursue the development of Zimura for the treatment of GA and in combination with anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD, as we review whether there is any scientific rationale for potentially developing, or undertake development of, Fovista or Zimura in additional indications, and as we evaluate and potentially in-license or acquire, and undertake development of, additional product candidates. Furthermore, if we successfully develop and obtain marketing approval for any of our product candidates, we expect to incur significant commercialization expenses related to product sales, marketing, distribution and manufacturing. For Fovista, our ex‑U.S. commercialization partner Novartis is responsible for these commercialization expenses outside the United States. We are party to agreements, specifically a divestiture agreement with OSI (Eyetech), Inc., or Eyetech, which agreement is now held by OSI Pharmaceuticals, LLC, a subsidiary of Astellas US, LLC, and license agreements with Archemix Corp., or Archemix, and Nektar Therapeutics, or Nektar, that impose significant milestone payment obligations on us in connection with our achievement of specific clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones with respect to Fovista and Zimura. It is likely that any future in-licensing or acquisition agreements that we enter into with respect to additional products, product candidates or technologies would include similar obligations.
We expect that we will continue to incur significant expenses as we:
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in‑license or acquire the rights to, and pursue the development of, other products, product candidates or technologies;
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complete the activities necessary to receive initial, top-line data from OPH1004 and wind down OPH1002, OPH1003 and the Fovista Expansion Studies and our Fovista contract manufacturing commitments;
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potentially undertake additional clinical development of Fovista in wet AMD if the initial, top-line data from OPH1004 is favorable or in other indications if we believe there is a sufficient scientific rationale to pursue such development;
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continue the clinical development of Zimura for the treatment of GA and in combination with anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD, or potentially in other indications if we believe there is a sufficient scientific rationale to pursue such development;
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complete our previously announced reduction in personnel;
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maintain, expand and protect our intellectual property portfolio;
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hire additional clinical, manufacturing, quality control, quality assurance and scientific personnel if we are successful in progressing the clinical development of any of our product candidates;
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seek marketing approval for any product candidates that successfully complete clinical trials; and
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expand our outsourced manufacturing activities, expand our commercial operations and establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, if we receive, or expect to receive, marketing approval for any of our product candidates.
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Our ability to become and remain profitable depends on our ability to generate revenue in excess of our expenses. Our ability to generate revenues from product sales is dependent on our obtaining marketing approval for and commercializing our product candidates or any product candidates we may in-license or acquire. We may be unsuccessful in our efforts to develop and commercialize product candidates or in our efforts to in-license or acquire additional product candidates. Even if we succeed in developing and commercializing one or more of our product candidates, we may never achieve sufficient sales revenue to achieve or maintain profitability. See “-Risks Related to Product Development and Commercialization” for a further discussion of the risks we face in successfully developing and commercializing our product candidates and achieving profitability.
We may require substantial, additional funding in order to achieve the goals in our revised business plan. If we are unable to raise capital when needed, we could be forced to delay, reduce or eliminate our product development programs or commercialization efforts.
As of
March 31, 2017
, we had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of
$227.6 million
, of which approximately $45 million to $55 million is committed to the wind-down of OPH1002 and OPH1003 and the Fovista Expansion Studies, implementing a previously announced reduction in personnel and related costs, cancellation fees related to manufacturing commitments, and obtaining initial, top-line data for the OPH1004 trial during the second half of 2017 . We estimate that our 2017 year-end cash balance will range between $140 million to $160 million, excluding any potential business development activities or any changes to our current clinical development programs. We also had
$369.9 million
in total liabilities as of March 31, 2017, of which
$333.3 million
related to the Novo Agreement and deferred revenue associated with the Novartis Agreement, which we are required to show as liabilities on our balance sheets under generally accepted accounting principles but which, in the case of Novo, do not correspond to any contractual repayment obligation, or in the case of Novartis, are highly unlikely to be triggered.
We believe that our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund our operations and capital expenditure requirements as currently planned for at least the next 12 months. This estimate does not reflect any additional expenditures resulting from the in-licensing or acquisition of additional product candidates or technologies or associated development that we may pursue as part of our revised business plan. We have based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could use our available capital resources sooner than we currently expect. Our capital requirements will depend on several factors, including the success of our pursuit, by acquisition, in-licensing or otherwise, and subsequent development of additional product candidates or technologies, and the success of our ongoing development
programs. We believe that it is likely that we will need additional funding in the event that we acquire or in-license one or more additional product candidates and undertake development. In addition, our expenses may exceed our expectations if we experience delays in enrollment or with the availability of drug supply for our clinical trials, if we experience any unforeseen issues in our ongoing clinical trials or if we further expand the scope of our clinical trials and programs. Our costs may also exceed our expectations for other reasons, for example, if we experience issues with manufacturing, process development, or if we are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, or regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions to perform clinical or nonclinical trials or other studies in addition to those we currently expect to conduct. As a result, we may need or may seek to obtain additional funding in connection with our continuing operations prior than expected.
Our plan for the future development of Fovista and Zimura is highly uncertain. If the results from the OPH1004 trial are favorable and we determine to pursue further development of Fovista for use in combination with anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD, we would likely need to conduct one or more further pivotal, clinical trials for Fovista to support potential marketing approval, which would be time-consuming and expensive. Furthermore, to the extent we continue our Zimura development programs, we expect the clinical development for Zimura would continue for at least the next several years. At this time, we cannot reasonably estimate the remaining costs necessary to complete the clinical development of either Fovista or Zimura, complete process development and manufacturing scale‑up and validation activities associated with Zimura and potentially seek marketing approval for Fovista and Zimura, or the nature, timing or costs of the efforts necessary to complete the development of any other product candidate we may develop.
Our future capital requirements, therefore, will depend on many factors, including:
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the extent to which we in‑license or acquire rights to, and undertake development of products, product candidates or technologies;
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the amount of any upfront, milestone payments and other financial obligations associated with the in-license or acquisition of other product candidates;
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the scope, progress, results and costs of preclinical development and/or clinical trials for any other product candidates that we may acquire or in-license and develop;
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the scope, progress, costs and results of the OPH1004 trial and any additional clinical trials we undertake to obtain data sufficient to seek marketing approval for Fovista in wet AMD or any other indication;
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the scope, costs and results of our Zimura clinical programs, including our Zimura Phase 2/3 GA trial and our Zimura Phase 2a wet AMD trial, as well as any additional clinical trials we undertake to obtain data sufficient to seek marketing approval for Zimura in any indication (including a potential second Phase 3 trial for GA);
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if OPH1004 is positive and we decide to pursue further development of Fovista, the costs and timing of restarting the manufacturing of commercial supply for Fovista;
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the costs and timing of process development and manufacturing scale‑up and validation activities associated with Zimura;
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our ability to establish collaborations on favorable terms, if at all;
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the costs, timing and outcome of regulatory reviews of our product candidates;
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the costs of preparing, filing and prosecuting patent applications, maintaining and protecting our intellectual property rights and defending intellectual property‑related claims;
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the timing, scope and cost of commercialization activities for any of our product candidates if we receive, or expect to receive, marketing approval for a product candidate; and
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subject to receipt of marketing approval, net revenue received from commercial sales of any of our product candidates, after milestone payments and royalty payments that we would be obligated to make.
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Furthermore, following our receipt and announcement of initial, top-line results from our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD in December 2016, we implemented a restructuring plan that included a reduction in personnel. This reduction in personnel is expected to involve approximately 80% of our pre-announcement workforce and will include employees from nearly every department. We expect to realize estimated annualized cost savings from the reduction in personnel in the range of $25 million to $30 million starting in the third quarter of 2017. As of March 31, 2017, we reduced our workforce by 74 employees in connection with the reduction in personnel, and we expect the reduction of the additional 45 affected employees to be substantially complete during the second and third quarters of 2017. In connection with such reduction in personnel, we estimate that we will incur approximately $13.2 million of aggregate pre-tax charges during the first three quarters of 2017, of which approximately $12.2 million in the aggregate is expected to result in cash expenditures. As of March 31, 2017, the Company's cash expenditures related to such reduction in personnel totaled $4.8 million.
We may not be able to successfully implement the restructuring and we may not realize the planned or expected cost savings benefits, which could adversely affect our estimate of the period for which our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will be sufficient to fund our operations and capital expenditure requirements as currently planned.
We do not have any committed external source of funds other than the Novartis Agreement, and the remaining potential milestone payments under the Novartis Agreement are subject to our achievement of specified regulatory and commercial events related to Fovista, none of which are likely to be achieved given the data outcome of the OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials. Our future commercial revenues, if any, will be derived from sales of any of our product candidates that we are able to successfully develop, which, depending on the product, may not be available for several years, if at all. In addition, if approved, Fovista or Zimura or any product that we acquire or in‑license or acquire may not achieve commercial success. If that is the case, we will need to obtain substantial additional financing to achieve our business objectives. Even if we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis.
Adequate additional financing may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to raise additional funds when needed, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts.
Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates. In addition, a default under the Novo Agreement would permit Novo A/S to foreclose on the Fovista intellectual property.
Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial product revenues, we may need or may seek to finance our operations through a combination of equity offerings, debt financings, collaborations, strategic alliances and marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements. In addition, we may seek additional capital due to favorable market conditions or strategic considerations, even if we believe that we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders’ ownership interests would be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect our existing stockholders’ rights as holders of our common stock. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends.
We are subject to diligence and other obligations under the Novo Agreement, including an obligation to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop, seek marketing approval for and commercialize Fovista. Our obligations under the Novo Agreement are secured by collateral, which includes certain intellectual property rights, including all of our intellectual property rights relating to Fovista and regulatory approvals, if any, of Fovista. If we fail to satisfy our diligence obligations or breach any other of our obligations under the Novo Agreement and fail to cure the breach within any applicable grace period, Novo A/S could declare an event of default. In such event, Novo A/S could seek to foreclose on the collateral securing our obligations. If Novo A/S successfully does so, we would lose our rights to develop and commercialize Fovista. Our obligations under the Novo Agreement and the pledge of our intellectual property rights in and regulatory approvals, if any, of Fovista as collateral under such agreement may limit our ability to obtain debt financing.
If we raise additional funds through collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies, future revenue streams, products or product candidates or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings when needed, we may be required to grant rights to develop and market products or product candidates that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.
We and certain of our current and former executive officers have been named as defendants in lawsuits that could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention.
We and certain of our current and former executive officers have been named as defendants in two purported class action lawsuits initiated earlier this year that generally allege that we and certain of our officers violated Sections 10(b) and/or 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by making allegedly false and/or misleading statements concerning the prospects of our Phase 3 trials for Fovista in combination with anti-VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD. The complaints seek equitable and/or injunctive relief, unspecified damages, attorneys’ fees, and other costs. We deny any allegations of wrongdoing and intend to vigorously defend against these lawsuits. We are unable, however, to predict the outcome of these matters at this time. Moreover, any conclusion of these matters in a manner adverse to us and for which we incur substantial costs or damages not covered by our directors’ and officers’ liability insurance would have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and business. In addition, the litigation could adversely impact our reputation and divert management’s attention and resources from other priorities, including the execution of business plans and strategies that are important to our ability to grow our business, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Additional similar lawsuits might be filed.
Risks Related to Product Development and Commercialization
Companies in our industry face a wide range of challenging activities, each of which entails separate, and in many cases substantial, risk.
The long-term success of our company, and our ability to become profitable as a biopharmaceutical company will require us to be successful in a range of challenging activities, including:
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designing, conducting and completing clinical trials for our product candidates;
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obtaining favorable results from required clinical trials, including for each ophthalmic product candidate, favorable results from two adequate and well controlled pivotal clinical trials in the relevant indication;
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applying for and receiving marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities for the use of our product candidates;
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making arrangements with third‑party manufacturers, receiving regulatory approval of our manufacturing processes and our third‑party manufacturers’ facilities from applicable regulatory authorities and ensuring adequate supply of drug product;
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establishing sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, either internally or through collaborations or other arrangements, to effectively market and sell our product candidates;
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achieving acceptance of the product candidate, if and when approved, by patients, the medical community and third‑party payors;
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if our product candidates are approved, obtaining from governmental and third‑party payors adequate coverage and reimbursement for our product candidates and, to the extent applicable, associated injection procedures conducted by treating physicians;
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effectively competing with other therapies, including the existing standard of care, and other forms of drug delivery;
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maintaining a continued acceptable safety profile of the product candidate during development and following approval;
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obtaining and maintaining patent and trade secret protection and regulatory exclusivity;
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protecting and enforcing our rights in our intellectual property portfolio; and
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complying with all applicable regulatory requirements, including FDA Good Clinical Practices, or GCP, Good Manufacturing Practices, or GMP, and standards, rules and regulations governing promotional and other marketing activities.
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Each of these activities has associated risks, many of which are detailed below and throughout this “Risk Factors” section. We may never succeed in these activities and, even if we do, may never generate revenues from product sales that are significant enough to achieve commercial success and profitability. Our failure to be commercially successful and profitable would decrease the value of our company and could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business, maintain our research and development efforts, diversify our product offerings or continue our operations. A decrease in the value of our company would also cause our stockholders to lose all or part of their investment.
Drug development is a highly uncertain undertaking. Our development efforts may be delayed for any number of reasons, in which case potential marketing approval or commercialization of our product candidates could be delayed or prevented.
Before obtaining approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of any product candidate, we must conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our product candidates in humans. Clinical testing is expensive, difficult to design and implement, can take many years to complete and is uncertain as to outcome. A failure of one or more clinical trials can occur at any stage of testing. The outcome of preclinical testing and early clinical trials may not be predictive of the success of later clinical trials, and interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. Moreover, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their products.
We may experience numerous unforeseen events during drug development that could delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates, including the following:
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we may not be able to generate sufficient preclinical, toxicology, or other
in vivo
or
in vitro
data to support the initiation of clinical studies for any preclinical product candidates that we in-license or acquire;
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regulators or institutional review boards may not agree with our study design or may not authorize us or our investigators to commence a clinical trial or conduct a clinical trial at a prospective trial site;
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we may experience delays in reaching, or fail to reach, agreement on acceptable clinical trial contracts or clinical trial protocols with prospective clinical research organizations or clinical trial sites;
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our contract research organizations or clinical trial sites may fail to comply with regulatory requirements or meet their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner, or at all;
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we, through our clinical trial sites, may not be able to locate and enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in our clinical trials as required by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States;
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we may decide, or regulators or institutional review boards may require us, to suspend or terminate clinical research for various reasons, including noncompliance with regulatory requirements, including GCPs, or a finding that the participants are being exposed to unacceptable health risks;
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there may be changes in regulatory requirements and guidance or we may have changes in trial design that require amending or submitting new clinical protocols;
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there may be changes in the standard of care on which a clinical development plan was based, which may require new or additional trials;
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clinical trials of our product candidates may produce inconclusive or negative results, such as the results we observed in our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD, and we may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical trials or abandon product development programs;
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the number of patients required for clinical trials of our product candidates to demonstrate statistically significant results may be larger than we anticipate, enrollment in these clinical trials may be slower than we anticipate or participants may drop out of these clinical trials at a higher rate than we anticipate;
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the cost of clinical trials of our product candidates may be greater than we anticipate; and
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the supply or quality of our product candidates or other materials necessary to conduct clinical trials of our product candidates, such as the anti‑VEGF drugs we need to use in combination with Fovista and Zimura in our wet AMD trials, may become insufficient or inadequate or we may face delays in the manufacture and supply of such materials as a result our decision to transfer manufacturing between contract manufacturers or on account of interruptions in our supply chain, including in relation to the packaging and distribution or import / export of clinical materials.
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If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials or other testing of our product candidates beyond those that we contemplate, if we are unable to successfully complete clinical trials or of our product candidates or other testing, if the results of these trials or tests are not positive or are only modestly positive or if there are safety concerns, we may:
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be delayed in obtaining marketing approval for our product candidates;
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not obtain marketing approval at all;
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obtain approval for indications or patient populations that are not as broad as intended or desired;
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obtain approval with labeling that includes significant use limitations, distribution restrictions or safety warnings, including boxed warnings;
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be subject to additional post-marketing testing requirements; or
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have the product removed from the market after obtaining marketing approval.
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Despite our current development plans and ongoing efforts, we may not complete any of our ongoing clinical trials or any other clinical trial for our product candidates. Moreover, the timing of the completion of, and the availability of results from, clinical trials is difficult to predict. Furthermore, our development plans may change based on feedback we may receive from regulatory authorities throughout the development process. If we experience delays in testing or marketing approvals, our product development costs would increase. We do not know whether clinical trials will begin as planned, will need to be restructured or will be completed on schedule, or at all. Significant clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our product candidates or allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do and impair our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.
If serious adverse or unacceptable side effects are identified during the development of our product, we may need to abandon or limit our development of such product candidate.
If any of our product candidates are associated with serious adverse events or undesirable side effects in clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may need to abandon their development or limit development to certain uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk‑benefit perspective. Many compounds that initially showed promise in clinical or earlier stage testing have later been found to cause side effects that prevented further development of the compound.
Fovista administered in combination with Lucentis was generally well tolerated in our Phase 1 clinical trial and our Phase 2b clinical trial, as well as after one year of treatment in our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 trials, based upon our preliminary analysis of safety data from these Phase 3 trials. There remains, however, the potential for patients receiving Fovista combination therapy to experience an increase in cumulative side effects resulting from two separate intravitreal injections and increased intraocular pressure, as compared to patients receiving monotherapy anti‑VEGF treatment. We may observe an unfavorable safety and tolerability profile in the Fovista combination therapy arms of OPH1004 or any other clinical trial of Fovista that we may conduct, as compared to our prior Fovista clinical trials and monotherapy anti‑VEGF trials, which may be reflected in an increase in adverse events and/or serious adverse event rates (either ocular, systemic or both) in patients receiving Fovista or Fovista combination therapy. For example, there may be, among others, an increase in the rates of intraocular infections, or endophthalmitis, intraocular pressure, glaucoma, retinal tears, cataracts, retinal detachment, intraocular inflammation, retinal and/or choroidal circulation compromise, cardiovascular disease such as myocardial infarctions, stroke, blood clots or emboli, or hospitalizations in patients who receive Fovista combination therapy.
In addition, we have very limited clinical and safety data with respect to the effects of Fovista administered in combination with intravitreal injections of either Eylea or Avastin. The safety results of our combination therapy trials, including OPH1004, are dependent, in part, on the safety and tolerability of the anti‑VEGF drug(s) administered in combination with our product candidate. Avastin is not approved for the treatment of wet AMD, and according to some third party clinical trials, may be associated with a greater risk of serious adverse events or undesirable side effects as compared to Lucentis.
We have limited data regarding the safety, tolerability and efficacy of Zimura administered for the treatment of GA or administered in combination with anti‑VEGF drugs for the treatment of wet AMD. Our clinical trials for Zimura will involve multiple intravitreal injections over an extended period of time and, as such, may involve risks regarding multiple and chronic intravitreal injections, similar to those described above for Fovista.
Our experience manufacturing our product candidates is limited. Manufacturing issues may arise that could cause delays in our development programs or increase costs. In addition, we may experience delays in regulatory approval of our product candidates if we do not satisfy applicable manufacturing regulatory requirements.
Our current product candidates, Fovista and Zimura, are each chemically-synthesized aptamers. In pursuing our updated business plan, we could acquire or in-license a variety of types of product candidates, including small molecule drugs, protein drugs or biologics. Small molecule drugs are organic compounds of low molecular weight that are generally associated with ready availability of starting materials and ease of synthesis. In contrast, manufacturing for proteins and biologics is more complex, especially in large quantities. For example, biologic products must be made consistently and in substantial compliance with a clearly defined manufacturing process, and often must be manufactured under aseptic conditions.
We do not have any internal manufacturing capabilities and likely would be dependent on outside contract manufacturers to manufacture any of the product candidates that we would acquire or in-license as part of pursuing our updated business plan. Manufacturing for these product candidates could be complicated or present novel technical challenges. Problems with the manufacturing process, even minor deviations from the normal process, could result in product defects or manufacturing failures that result in lot failures, product recalls, product liability claims or insufficient inventory. We may encounter problems achieving adequate quantities and quality of clinical-grade materials that meet FDA, EMA or other applicable standards or specifications with consistent and acceptable production yields and costs.
We currently rely upon a single third‑party manufacturer, Agilent Technologies, to supply us with the chemically synthesized aptamers comprising the API for both Fovista and Zimura and a different, single third‑party manufacturer, Ajinomoto Althea, to provide fill/finish services for both Fovista and Zimura. In order to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for Fovista or Zimura, our third‑party manufacturers will be required to consistently produce the API used in Fovista or Zimura in commercial quantities and of specified quality and to execute fill/finish services on a repeated basis and document their ability to do so. If the third‑party manufacturers are unable to satisfy this requirement, our business would be materially and adversely affected. During the third quarter of 2016, we completed the manufacture of validation batches of Fovista API produced at commercial scale. However, given the negative results from our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD, we are not currently manufacturing clinical or commercial supplies of Fovista. If OPH1004 is positive and we decide to pursue further development of Fovista, we would eventually need to restart the process for commercial supply, including obtaining scheduling commitments from both Agilent and Althea which could prove challenging if these manufacturers are at or near capacity. To date, we have not yet scaled up the manufacturing process for Zimura beyond the scale used for developmental clinical batches, nor have we validated the manufacturing process.
These manufacturing processes and the facilities of our third‑party manufacturers, including our third‑party API manufacturer and our third‑party fill/finish service provider, are subject to inspection and approval by the FDA, referred to as a pre-approval inspection, before we can commence the commercial sale of any approved product candidate, and thereafter on an ongoing basis. Our third‑party API manufacturer has undergone only one pre-approval inspection by the FDA, and has not yet gone through a pre-approval inspection for Fovista or Zimura. Our third‑party fill/finish service provider is subject to FDA inspection from time to time. Failure by our third‑party manufacturers to pass such inspections and otherwise satisfactorily complete the FDA approval regimen with respect to our product candidates may result in delays in the approval of our applications for marketing approval in the event a recommendation to withhold is issued, as well as regulatory actions such as the issuance of FDA Form 483 notices of observations, warning letters or injunctions or the loss of operating licenses. Additionally, on October 22, 2014, the FDA issued its final guidance on the circumstances that constitute delaying, denying, limiting or refusing a drug inspection pursuant to Section 707 of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012. If any of our third‑party manufacturers are found to have delayed, denied, limited or refused a drug inspection, our API or drug product could be deemed adulterated. Based on the severity of the regulatory action, our clinical or commercial
supply of API or our fill/finish services could be interrupted or limited, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Some of the standards of the International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, which establishes basic guidelines and standards for drug development in the United States, the European Union, Japan and other countries, do not apply to oligonucleotides, including aptamers. As a result, there are no established generally accepted manufacturing or quality standards for the production of Fovista or Zimura. Even though the FDA has reviewed the quality standards for Fovista used in our Phase 3 clinical program, the FDA has the ability to modify these standards at any time and foreign regulatory agencies may impose differing quality standards and quality control on the manufacture of Fovista. The lack of uniform manufacturing and quality standards among regulatory agencies may delay regulatory approval of Fovista, Zimura or any future product candidate.
In addition, in order to manufacture and supply any of our product candidates on a commercial scale in the future, we will need to bolster our quality control and quality assurance capabilities, including by augmenting our manufacturing processes and adding personnel. We also may encounter problems hiring and retaining the experienced specialist scientific and manufacturing personnel needed to operate our manufacturing process, which could result in delays in our production or difficulties in maintaining compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. As we or any manufacturer we engage scales up manufacturing of any approved product, we may encounter unexpected issues relating to the manufacturing processes or the quality, purity or stability of the product, and we may be required to refine or alter our manufacturing processes to address these issues. Resolving these issues could result in significant delays and may result in significantly increased costs. If we underestimate the demand for an approved product, given the long lead times required to manufacture our products, we could potentially face commercial drug product supply shortages. If we experience significant delays or other obstacles in producing any approved product at commercial scale, our ability to market and sell any approved products may be adversely affected and our business could suffer.
Any problems in our manufacturing process or our third-party contract manufacturers’ facilities could make us a less attractive collaborator for potential partners, including larger pharmaceutical companies and academic research institutions, which could limit our access to additional attractive development programs. Problems in our manufacturing process or facilities also could restrict our ability to meet market demand for our products.
Even if any of our product candidates receives marketing approval, such product candidate may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third
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party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success and the market opportunity for any of our products and product candidates may be smaller than we estimate.
If any of our product candidates receive marketing approval, they may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third‑party payors and others in the medical community. For example, current treatments for wet AMD, including Lucentis, Eylea and low cost, off‑label use of Avastin, are well established in the medical community, and doctors may continue to rely upon these treatments without Fovista. If any of our product candidates, if approved, do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant product revenues and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate that we may develop, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including:
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efficacy and potential advantages compared to alternative treatments, including the existing standard of care;
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any restrictions in the label on the use of our products in combination with other medications;
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any restrictions in the label on the use of our products by a subgroup of patients;
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restrictions in the label on of any for our combination therapy product candidates, such as Fovista or Zimura, limiting their use in combination with particular standard of care drugs, such as a particular anti‑VEGF drug;
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our and any commercialization partner’s ability to offer our products at competitive prices, particularly in light of the cost of any of our combination therapy product candidates in addition to the cost of the underlying standard of care drug;
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availability of third‑party coverage and adequate reimbursement, particularly by Medicare given the target market for AMD indications for persons over age 55;
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increasing reimbursement pressures on treating physicians due to the formation of accountable care organizations and the shift away from traditional fee‑for‑service reimbursement models to reimbursement based on quality of care and patient outcomes;
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willingness of the target patient population to try new therapies and of physicians to prescribe these therapies, particularly in light of the existing available standard of care;
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prevalence and severity of any side effects; and
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whether competing products or other alternatives are more convenient or easier to administer, including whether co‑formulated alternatives, alternatives that can be co‑administered in a single syringe or alternatives that offer a less invasive method of administration than intravitreal injection come to market.
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In addition, the potential market opportunity for any product candidate is difficult to estimate precisely. Our estimates of the potential market opportunity for our product candidates include several key assumptions based on our expectations of the safety and effectiveness of the relevant product candidate, our industry knowledge, industry publications, market response to marketed AMD drugs, third‑party research reports and other surveys. While we believe that our internal assumptions are reasonable, no independent source has verified such assumptions and any of these assumptions could prove to be inaccurate, and the actual market for such product candidates could be smaller than our estimates of our potential market opportunity.
We face substantial competition, which may result in others developing or commercializing products before or more successfully than we do.
The development and commercialization of new drug products is highly competitive. We face competition with respect to our product candidates from major pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies worldwide. There are a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that currently market and sell products or are pursuing the development of product candidates for the treatment of wet AMD, GA or other disease indications for which we may develop Fovista or Zimura. Potential competitors also include academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations that conduct research, seek patent protection and establish collaborative arrangements for research, development, manufacturing and commercialization. Some of these competitive products and therapies are based on scientific approaches that are the same as or similar to our approach, and others are based on entirely different approaches. We also will face similar competition with respect to any other products or product candidates that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the future for the treatment of wet AMD, GA or any other indication.
There are a number of products in preclinical research and clinical development by third parties to treat wet AMD. Based on publicly available information, we are aware that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Ohr Pharmaceutical, Santen, Tyrogenex, Allergan and GrayBug each have PDGF inhibitors in clinical or pre-clinical development for wet AMD. Several of these product candidates also inhibit VEGF or are administered directly with an anti-VEGF agent in a manner that could negatively impact demand for a separate intravitreal injection of an anti-PDGF agent such as Fovista. The most advanced of these product candidates is Regeneron’s, for which negative Phase 2 data was previously announced in December 2016 and additional data may be announced during 2017. In addition, Ohr Pharmaceutical recently announced plans to amend its ongoing clinical trial to enable efficacy analyses by the end of 2017 or early 2018.
Moreover, based on publicly available information, we are aware that several companies and research organizations are pursuing treatments targeting other molecular targets, potential gene therapy treatments and stem cell transplant treatments for the treatment of wet AMD. In addition, other companies are undertaking efforts to develop technologies to allow for a less frequent dosing schedule than the dosing schedule currently in use for standard of care anti-VEGF drugs.
There are a number of products in preclinical research and clinical development by third parties to treat dry AMD. In general, these product candidates can be categorized based on their proposed mechanisms of action. The mechanisms of action for these product candidates include inflammation suppression, such as complement system inhibitors and corticosteroids, visual cycle modulators, antioxidants and neuroprotectants, cell and gene therapies and vascular enhancers. Based on publicly available information, we are aware that Genentech, Novartis / MorphoSys, Apellis, Hemera Biosciences, Achillion, Ra Pharmaceuticals and Catalyst Biosciences each have complement inhibitors in development, the most advance of which is Genentech’s humanized Fab fragment targeting complement factor D, for which data from Phase 3 trials is expected during the second half of 2017. If Genentech's Phase 3 trials for its complement factor D product candidate are successful, it is likely that Genentech would obtain marketing approval for such product candidate several years in advance of when we could reasonably expect marketing approval for Zimura in GA, if at all. Moreover, based on publicly available information, we are aware that
several other companies have announced development programs for the treatment of dry AMD targeting different mechanisms of action outside of the complement cascade.
Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if one or more of our competitors develop and commercialize products that are more effective, safer, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient to use or are less expensive than our product candidates. The commercial opportunity for Fovista or Zimura also could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that reduce or eliminate the use of anti‑VEGF drugs for the treatment of patients with wet AMD. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the relevant market.
In addition, our ability to compete may be affected in many cases by insurers or other third‑party payors, particularly Medicare, seeking to encourage the use of less expensive or more convenient products. We expect that if Fovista or Zimura is approved for combination therapy for the treatment of wet AMD, the cost of combination treatment would be higher than the cost of treatment of wet AMD with Lucentis, Eylea or particularly Avastin monotherapy. Insurers and other third‑party payors may encourage the use of anti‑VEGF drugs as monotherapy and discourage the use of Fovista in combination with these drugs. This could limit sales of Fovista.
Many of our competitors have significantly greater financial and human resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approved products than we do. Smaller and other early stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These third parties compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel, establishing clinical trial sites and patient enrollment for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our clinical development programs.
If we are unable to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities or enter into sales, marketing and distribution agreements with third parties, we may not be successful in commercializing any of our product candidates that we develop if and when any such product candidate is approved.
As a company, we have no experience in the sale, marketing or distribution of pharmaceutical products. We currently do not have any sales, marketing or distribution infrastructure. To achieve commercial success for any approved product, we must either develop a sales, marketing and distribution organization or outsource those functions to third parties. We expect that our commercial strategy for any of our product candidates, including whether to retain commercial rights and market and sell the product candidate ourselves or to utilize collaboration, distribution or other marketing arrangements with third parties, would be determined based on a variety of factors, including the size and nature of the patient population, the disease area, the particular indication, the territory in which the product candidate may be marketed and the commercial potential for such product candidate. Pursuant to the Novartis Agreement, we have granted to Novartis the exclusive right to commercialize Fovista outside of the United States in consideration for royalties on any such sales. In addition, our commercial strategy would vary depending on whether the disease is typically treated by general ophthalmology practitioners, specialists, such as retinal specialists, or sub-specialists.
There are risks involved with establishing our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities and entering into arrangements with third parties to perform these services. For example, recruiting and training a sales force is expensive and time consuming and could delay any product launch. If the commercial launch of a product candidate for which we recruit a sales force and establish marketing and distribution capabilities is delayed or does not occur for any reason, we would have prematurely or unnecessarily incurred these commercialization expenses. This may be costly, and our investment would be lost if we cannot retain or reposition our sales and marketing personnel.
Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our products on our own include:
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our inability to recruit and retain adequate numbers of effective sales and marketing personnel;
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the inability of sales personnel to obtain access to adequate numbers of physicians who may prescribe our products;
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the lack of complementary products to be offered by our sales personnel, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to companies with more extensive product lines; and
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unforeseen costs and expenses associated with creating an independent sales and marketing organization.
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If we enter into arrangements with third parties to perform sales, marketing and distribution services, our product revenues and our profitability, if any, are likely to be lower than if we were to market, sell and distribute ourselves any products that we develop. In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to sell, market and distribute our product candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. We likely will have little control over such third parties, and any of them may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our products effectively. If we do not establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities successfully, either on our own or in collaboration with third parties, we would not be successful in commercializing our product candidates.
If Fovista is successfully developed, which, again, we believe has a low likelihood following our receipt of initial, top-line data from two of our three pivotal clinical trials, and we do not maintain a productive collaborative relationship with Novartis, to whom we have granted exclusive commercialization rights for Fovista outside of the United States, or if Novartis is unable to meet its contractual obligations, we may be forced to focus our efforts internally to commercialize Fovista outside of the United States without the assistance of a commercialization partner or seek another commercialization partner, either of which would result in us incurring greater expenses and could cause a delay in market penetration while we expand our commercial operations or seek an alternative commercialization partner. Such costs may exceed the increased revenues we would receive from direct Fovista sales outside of the United States, at least in the near term. We would also be forced to declare a breach of the Novartis Agreement and seek a termination of the agreement which could result in an extended and uncertain dispute with Novartis, including arbitration or litigation, any of which would be costly.
Even if we are able to commercialize any of the product candidates that we may develop, the product may become subject to unfavorable pricing regulations, third
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party reimbursement practices or healthcare reform initiatives, which would harm our business.
The regulations that govern marketing approvals, pricing and reimbursement for new drug products vary widely from country to country. Health care reform is an issue of intense political focus, particularly in the United States. Current and future legislation may significantly change the approval requirements in ways that could involve additional costs and cause delays in obtaining approvals or in ways that could alter the mechanism by which pharmaceutical prices are negotiated or otherwise determined. Some countries require approval of the sale price of a drug before it can be marketed. In many countries, the pricing review period begins after marketing or product licensing approval is granted. In some foreign markets, prescription pharmaceutical pricing remains subject to continuing governmental control or negotiation even after initial approval is granted. As a result, we might obtain marketing approval for a product in a particular country, but then be subject to price regulations that delay our or any commercialization partner’s commercial launch of the product, possibly for lengthy time periods, and negatively impact the revenues we are able to generate from the sale of the product in that country. Adverse pricing limitations may hinder our ability to recoup our investment in one or more product candidates, even if our product candidates obtain marketing approval and are widely accepted and prescribed or used by physicians.
Our ability and the ability of any commercialization partner, such as Novartis, our ex‑U.S. commercialization partner for Fovista, to commercialize Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate successfully also will depend in part on the extent to which reimbursement for these products and related treatments will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers and other organizations. Government authorities and third‑party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. A major trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third‑party payors, particularly Medicare, have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular medications and encouraging the substitution of lower cost or generic products. Pricing pressures recently experienced by the pharmaceutical industry may be further exacerbated by legislative and policy changes under consideration by the Trump administration. For example, the new Administration has expressed an interest in authorizing and/or directing the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Service or other agencies of the U.S. government to negotiate prices for drugs covered by Medicare directly with pharmaceutical companies. If this were to occur, especially for wet AMD drugs where a large portion of the patient population is over the age of 65 and is therefore covered by Medicare, there could be significant downward pressure on prices charged, not only for patients covered by Medicare, but also for patients covered by private insurers who may follow the government’s lead on price. Moreover, increasingly, third‑party payors are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for medical products. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for Fovista, Zimura or any other product that we commercialize or any commercialization partner commercializes on our behalf, and, even if these are available, the level of reimbursement may not be satisfactory.
Reimbursement may affect the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval. Obtaining and maintaining adequate reimbursement for our products may be particularly difficult because of the higher prices often associated with drugs administered under the supervision of a physician and because, in the case of Fovista, our drug will be administered in combination with other drugs that may carry high prices. In addition, physicians, patients and third‑party payors may be sensitive to the addition of the cost of Fovista to the cost of treatment with anti‑VEGF drugs. We or any commercialization partner may be required to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies to justify coverage and reimbursement or the level of reimbursement relative to other therapies, including in the case of Fovista, relative to monotherapy with anti‑VEGF drugs. If coverage and adequate reimbursement are not available or reimbursement is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval.
There may be significant delays in obtaining reimbursement for newly approved drugs, and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the drug is approved by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States. Moreover, eligibility for reimbursement does not imply that any drug will be paid for in all cases or at a rate that covers our costs, including research, development, manufacture, sale and distribution. Interim reimbursement levels for new drugs, if applicable, may also not be sufficient to cover our costs and may not be made permanent. Reimbursement rates may vary according to the use of the drug and the clinical setting in which it is used, may be based on reimbursement levels already set for lower cost drugs, and may be incorporated into existing payments for other services. Net prices for drugs may be reduced by mandatory discounts or rebates required by government healthcare programs or private payors and by any future relaxation of laws that presently restrict imports of drugs from countries where they may be sold at lower prices than in the United States, a policy that President Trump has expressed interest in pursuing. Third‑party payors often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement policies. Our and any commercialization partner’s inability to promptly obtain coverage and profitable payment rates from both government‑funded and private payors for any approved products that we develop could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, our ability to raise capital needed to commercialize products and our overall financial condition.
Governments outside the United States tend to impose strict price controls, which may adversely affect our revenues, if any.
The pricing of prescription pharmaceuticals is subject to governmental control outside of the United States. In these countries, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after the receipt of marketing approval for a product. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we or a commercialization partner may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost‑effectiveness of our product candidate to other available therapies. If reimbursement of our products is unavailable or limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at unsatisfactory levels, our business could be harmed, possibly materially.
Product liability lawsuits against us or any commercialization partner could divert resources, cause us to incur substantial liabilities and limit commercialization of any products that we may develop or in
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license.
We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of any product candidate that we develop in human clinical trials, and we and any commercialization partner will face an even greater risk if we commercially sell any products that we develop or in‑license. Because our Phase 3 clinical program for Fovista and our Zimura wet AMD trial involves the administration of our product candidates in combination with anti‑VEGF drugs, including off‑label use by intravitreal injection of Avastin provided by us, we also face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of such anti‑VEGF drugs. If we become subject to or otherwise cannot successfully defend ourselves against claims that our product candidates, anti‑VEGF drugs administered in combination with our product candidates or our products caused injuries, we will incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:
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decreased demand for any product candidates or products that we may develop or in‑license;
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injury to our reputation and significant negative media attention;
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withdrawal of clinical trial participants;
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significant costs to defend the related litigation;
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substantial monetary awards to trial participants or patients;
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reduced time and attention of our management to pursue our business strategy; and
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the inability to commercialize any products that we may develop or in‑license.
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We currently hold $10.0 million in product liability insurance coverage in the aggregate, with a per incident limit of $10.0 million, which may not be adequate to cover all liabilities that we may incur. We will need to increase our insurance coverage when and if we begin commercializing an approved product. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise. In addition, if Novartis or one of our other future commercialization or collaboration partners were to become subject to product liability claims or were unable to successfully defend themselves against such claims, any such commercialization or collaboration partners could be more likely to terminate such relationship with us and therefore substantially limit the commercial potential of our products.
Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties
If we are not able to establish additional, future collaborations, we may have to alter our development and commercialization plans.
The development and potential commercialization of our product candidates is likely to require substantial additional cash to fund expenses. For some of our product candidates, we may decide to collaborate with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for the development and potential commercialization of those product candidates.
We face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators. Whether we reach a definitive agreement for a collaboration will depend, among other things, upon our assessment of the collaborator’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and the proposed collaborator’s evaluation of a number of factors. Those factors may include the design or results of clinical trials, the likelihood of approval by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States, the potential market for the subject product candidate, the costs and complexities of manufacturing and delivering such product candidate to patients, the potential of competing products, the existence of uncertainty with respect to our ownership of technology, which can exist if there is a challenge to such ownership without regard to the merits of the challenge, and industry and market conditions generally. The collaborator may also consider alternative product candidates or technologies for similar indications that may be available to collaborate on and whether such collaboration could be more attractive than the one with us for our product candidate. We may also be restricted under future license agreements from entering into agreements on certain terms with potential collaborators. Collaborations are complex and time‑consuming to negotiate and document. In addition, there have been a significant number of recent business combinations among large pharmaceutical companies that have resulted in a reduced number of potential future collaborators.
If we are unable to reach agreements with suitable collaborators on a timely basis, on acceptable terms, or at all, we may have to curtail the development of a product 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 elect to fund and undertake development or commercialization activities on our own, we may need to obtain additional expertise and additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we fail to enter into collaborations and do not have sufficient funds or expertise to undertake the necessary development and commercialization activities, we may not be able to further develop our product candidates or bring them to market and generate product revenue.
We may enter into collaborations with third parties for the development or commercialization of our product candidates. If any of our collaborations are not successful, we may not be able to capitalize on the market potential of these product candidates.
We may utilize a variety of types of collaboration, distribution and other marketing arrangements with third parties to commercialize our product candidates, either in the United States, or in markets outside the United States, such as the Novartis Agreement. We also may seek third‑party collaborators for development and commercialization of other product candidates we may develop. Our likely collaborators for any sales, marketing, distribution, development, licensing or broader collaboration arrangements include large and mid‑size pharmaceutical companies, regional and national pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies. If we do enter into any additional arrangements with third parties in the future, we would likely have limited control over the amount and timing of resources that our collaborators dedicate to the development or commercialization of our product candidates. Our ability to generate revenues from these arrangements and our arrangement with Novartis for Fovista will depend on our collaborators’ and Novartis’s abilities and efforts to successfully perform the
functions assigned to them in these arrangements. Collaborations involving our product candidates, including our collaboration with Novartis, could pose numerous risks to us, including the following:
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collaborators have significant discretion in determining the efforts and resources that they will apply to these collaborations and may not perform their obligations as expected;
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collaborators may deemphasize or not pursue development and commercialization of our product candidates or may elect not to continue or renew development or commercialization programs based on clinical trial results, changes in the collaborators’ strategic focus, changes in product candidate priorities or available funding or changes in priorities as a result of a merger, acquisition or other corporate restructuring or transaction;
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collaborators may delay clinical trials, provide insufficient funding for a clinical trial program, stop a clinical trial or abandon a product candidate, repeat or conduct new clinical trials or require a new formulation of a product candidate for clinical testing;
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collaborators could independently develop, or develop with third parties, products that compete directly or indirectly with our products or product candidates if the collaborators believe that competitive products are more likely to be successfully developed or can be commercialized under terms that are more economically attractive than ours;
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we could grant exclusive rights to our collaborators, which would prevent us from collaborating with others;
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disagreements or disputes with collaborators, including disagreements or disputes over proprietary rights, contract interpretation or the preferred course of development, might cause delays or termination of the research, development or commercialization of products or product candidates, might lead to additional responsibilities for us with respect to product candidates or might result in litigation or arbitration, any of which would divert management attention and resources, be time‑consuming and be expensive;
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collaborators with marketing and distribution rights to one or more products may not commit sufficient resources to the marketing and distribution of such product or products;
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collaborators may not properly maintain or defend our intellectual property rights, may infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties, may misappropriate our trade secrets or may use our proprietary information in such a way as to invite litigation that could jeopardize or invalidate our intellectual property or proprietary information or expose us to litigation and potential liability; and
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collaborations may be terminated for the convenience of the collaborator, our breach of the terms of the collaboration or other reasons and, if terminated, we may need to raise additional capital to pursue further development or commercialization of the applicable product candidates.
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For example, the Novartis Agreement is subject to early termination in the event of certain customary defaults, such as material breach of the agreement and bankruptcy. In addition, the agreement is subject to early termination by either us or Novartis if the other party challenges or assists a third party in challenging the validity or enforceability of certain patent rights controlled by the terminating party, or if the parties are prevented in any manner that materially adversely affects the progression of the development or commercialization of licensed products for a specified period as a result of specified governmental actions. Novartis may also terminate the agreement at any time without cause, or within a specified period after a change in control of us, as defined in the agreement, or for specified safety reasons, effective at the end of a specified period following Novartis’s written notice to us of Novartis’s election to terminate the agreement. We may also terminate the agreement if Novartis determines to seek marketing approval of an alternative anti‑PDGF product outside the United States. If we do not maintain a productive collaborative relationship with Novartis or if Novartis is unable to meet its contractual obligations or if there is an early termination of the agreement as described above, we would be forced to either establish a commercial infrastructure outside of the United States so that we could undertake the commercialization efforts which had been theretofore undertaken by Novartis or we would need to seek an alternative partner. The establishment of a commercial infrastructure and assumption by us of commercialization activities outside of the United States would require substantial resources, financial and otherwise, and could result in us incurring greater expenses than the increase in revenues from our direct sales of Fovista. It could also cause a delay in market penetration while we expand our commercial operations. Seeking and obtaining an alternative commercial partner outside the United States could also adversely impact sales of Fovista and market penetration outside of the United States.
If a collaborator of ours, such as Novartis, were to be involved in a business combination or other transaction, the foregoing risks would be heightened, and the business combination or transaction may divert attention or resources or create competing priorities. The collaborator may delay or terminate our product development or commercialization program. If one of our collaborators, including Novartis, terminates its agreement with us, we could find it more difficult to attract new collaborators and the perception of our company in the business and financial communities could be adversely affected.
Collaboration agreements may not lead to development or commercialization of product candidates in the most efficient manner or at all.
We rely upon third parties in conducting our clinical trials, and those third parties may not perform satisfactorily, including failing to meet deadlines for the completion of such trials.
We have relied on third‑party clinical research organizations, or CROs, in conducting our completed clinical trials of Fovista and Zimura. We expect to continue to rely upon third parties, such as CROs, clinical data management organizations, medical institutions (including reading centers) and clinical investigators, in conducting our clinical trials for our product candidates. We or these third parties may terminate their engagements with us at any time for a variety of reasons, including a failure to perform by the third parties. If we need to enter into alternative arrangements, our product development activities could potentially be delayed and could potentially be very costly.
Our reliance on these third parties for clinical development activities reduces our control over these activities but does not relieve us of our responsibilities. For example, we remain responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the general investigational plan and protocols for the trial. Moreover, the FDA requires us to comply with GCPs for conducting, recording and reporting the results of clinical trials to assure that data and reported results are credible and accurate and that the rights, integrity and confidentiality of trial participants are protected. We also are required to register ongoing clinical trials and post the results of completed clinical trials on a government‑sponsored database within specified timeframes. Failure to do so can result in fines, adverse publicity and civil and criminal sanctions.
If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines or conduct our clinical trials in accordance with regulatory requirements or our stated protocols, we would not be able to obtain, or may be delayed in obtaining, marketing approvals for our product candidates and would not be able to, or may be delayed in our efforts to, successfully commercialize our product candidates. Furthermore, these third parties may also have relationships with other entities, some of which may be our competitors.
We also rely upon other third parties to store, package and distribute drug supplies for our clinical trials. Any performance failure on the part of our distributors could delay clinical development or marketing approval of our product candidates or commercialization of our products, producing additional losses and depriving us of potential product revenue.
We contract with third parties for the manufacture of both Fovista and Zimura for clinical trials and expect to continue to do so in connection with the potential commercialization of either product candidate and for clinical trials and commercialization of any other product candidates that we develop or may develop. This reliance on third parties increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our product candidates or products or such quantities at an acceptable cost, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.
We do not currently own or operate manufacturing facilities for the production of clinical or commercial quantities of Fovista or Zimura and have limited personnel with manufacturing experience. We currently rely upon and expect to continue to rely upon third‑party contract manufacturers to manufacture preclinical and clinical supplies of product candidates we are developing or may develop and commercial supplies of products if and when approved for marketing by applicable regulatory authorities. Our current and anticipated future dependence upon others for the manufacture of the product candidates that we are developing or may develop may adversely affect our future profit margins and our ability to commercialize any products that receive marketing approval on a timely and competitive basis. In addition, any performance failure on the part of our existing or future manufacturers could delay clinical development or marketing approval. Under the Novartis Agreement, we are responsible for supplying to Novartis Fovista API for clinical and commercial supply.
We currently rely exclusively upon a single third-party manufacturer to provide supplies of both Fovista API and Zimura API and a different single third-party manufacturer to provide fill/finish services for Fovista and Zimura. Although we have agreements in place with Agilent for the supply of Fovista API and with Althea for clinical and commercial fill/finish services, we do not currently have any contractual commitments for the supply of Zimura API. Additionally, given the negative results from our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD, we are not currently
manufacturing commercial supplies of Fovista. If OPH1004 is positive and we decide to pursue further development of Fovista, we would eventually need to restart the process for commercial supply, including obtaining scheduling commitments from both Agilent and Ajinomoto Althea which could prove challenging if these manufacturers are at or near capacity. We also do not currently have arrangements in place for redundant supply or a second source for API for Fovista or Zimura or for a redundant supply or a second source for fill/finish services. The prices for manufacturing activities that are not yet contractually committed may vary substantially over time and adversely affect our financial results. Furthermore, we and our contract manufacturers currently rely upon sole-source suppliers of certain raw materials and other specialized components of production used in the manufacture and fill/finish of each of Fovista and Zimura.
We currently rely exclusively upon Nektar to supply us with a proprietary polyethylene glycol, or PEG, reagent for Fovista under a manufacturing and supply agreement. PEG reagent is a chemical we use to modify the chemically synthesized aptamer in Fovista. The PEG reagent made by Nektar is proprietary to Nektar.
We obtain a different proprietary PEG reagent used to modify the chemically synthesized aptamer in Zimura from a different supplier on a purchase order basis. We do not currently have any contractual commitments for supply of the PEG reagent we use for Zimura.
If any of our third‑party manufacturers fail to fulfill our purchase orders, or if any of these manufacturers should become unavailable to us for any reason, including as a result of capacity constraints, financial difficulties or insolvency, we believe that there are a limited number of potential replacement manufacturers, and we likely would incur added costs and delays in identifying or qualifying such replacements. We could also incur additional costs and delays in identifying or qualifying a replacement manufacturer for fill/finish services if our existing third‑party fill/finish provider should become unavailable for any reason. We may be unable to establish agreements with such replacement manufacturers or fill/finish providers or to do so on acceptable terms.
Reliance on third‑party manufacturers entails additional risks, including:
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our product candidates may compete with other product candidates and products for access to a limited number of suitable manufacturing facilities that operate under current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, regulations;
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reliance on the third party for regulatory compliance, quality assurance and quality control;
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the possible breach of the manufacturing agreement by the third party;
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the possible breach of our supply obligations to Novartis;
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the possible misappropriation of our proprietary information, including our trade secrets and know‑how; and
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the possible termination or nonrenewal of the agreement by the third party at a time that is costly or inconvenient for us.
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Third‑party manufacturers may not be able to comply with cGMP regulations or similar regulatory requirements outside the United States. Our failure, or the failure of our third‑party manufacturers, to comply with applicable regulations could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including clinical holds, fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of product candidates or products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect supplies of our products and harm our business and results of operations.
We depend on licenses and sublicenses for development and commercialization rights to our product candidates and technologies. Termination of these rights or the failure by us or our licensees, including our commercialization or collaboration partners to comply with obligations under these or other agreements under which we obtain such rights or have obtained funding could materially harm our business and prevent us from developing or commercializing our products and product candidates.
We are party to various agreements, including a divestiture agreement with OSI Pharmaceuticals and license agreements with Archemix and Nektar that we depend on for rights to Fovista and Zimura. These agreements impose, and we expect to enter into additional licensing arrangements or other agreements with third parties that would impose, diligence, development and commercialization timelines, milestone payment, royalty, insurance and other obligations on us. Under our
divestiture agreement with OSI Pharmaceuticals and our licensing agreement with Nektar, we are obligated to pay royalties on net product sales of Fovista or other product candidates or related technologies to the extent they are covered by the applicable agreement. Under our license agreements with Archemix and Nektar, we would not be able to avoid our payment obligations even if we believed a licensed patent right was invalid or unenforceable because the license agreements provide that our licenses to all licensed patent rights would terminate if we challenge the validity or enforceability of any licensed patent right.
We also have diligence and development obligations under our divestiture agreement with OSI Pharmaceuticals and our license agreements with Archemix and Nektar. Generally, these diligence obligations require us to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop, seek regulatory approval for and commercialize our products in the United States, the European Union and, in some cases, certain other specified countries. Although the Novartis Agreement provides that Novartis will be responsible for performing certain of these obligations with respect to specified countries for Fovista, we still remain directly liable under our agreements with OSI Pharmaceuticals, Archemix and Nektar. If we fail to comply with our obligations under current or future acquisition, license and funding agreements, or otherwise breach an acquisition, license or funding agreement as a result of our own actions or inaction or the actions or inactions of our commercialization or collaboration partners, our counterparties may have the right to terminate these agreements, in which event we might not have the rights or the financial resources to develop, manufacture or market any product that is covered by these agreements. Such a failure to comply or breach by us under any of these agreements could also lead to a breach by us of the Novartis Agreement. Our counterparties also may have the right to convert an exclusive license to non‑exclusive in the territory in which we fail to satisfy our diligence obligations, which could materially adversely affect the value of the product candidate being developed under any such agreement. Termination of these agreements or reduction or elimination of our rights under these agreements may result in our having to negotiate new or restated agreements with less favorable terms, seek alternative sources of financing or cause us to lose our rights under these agreements, including our rights to Fovista, Zimura and other important intellectual property or technology. Any of the foregoing could prevent us from commercializing Fovista, Zimura or other product candidates we may develop, which could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and overall financial condition.
In addition to the generally applicable diligence obligations set forth above, we have specific obligations with respect to the licensing agreements described below:
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Under the terms of the agreement with OSI Pharmaceuticals under which we acquired certain rights to develop and commercialize Fovista, if we or our commercialization or collaborative partners fail to meet certain obligations, OSI Pharmaceuticals may terminate the agreement as to such countries with respect to which such failure has occurred, and upon such termination we will be obligated to grant, assign and transfer to OSI Pharmaceuticals specified rights and licenses related to our anti‑PDGF aptamer technology and other related assets, and if we are manufacturing such anti‑PDGF products at the time of such termination, may be obligated to provide transitional supply to OSI Pharmaceuticals of covered anti‑PDGF products, for such countries.
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Under the terms of the amended license, manufacturing and supply agreement with Nektar, pursuant to which we obtained, among other licenses, an exclusive, worldwide license to make, develop, use, import, offer for sale and sell certain products that incorporate a specified PEG reagent linked with the active ingredient in Fovista, if we fail to use commercially reasonable efforts to achieve the first commercial sale of Fovista in the United States by June 30, 2018, we and Nektar may agree in good faith to extend such date in specified circumstances. If such date is not extended, Nektar may either terminate our license or convert our license for such country to a non‑exclusive license. In addition, if we fail to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop Fovista and file and seek approval of new drug applications on a schedule permitting us to make first commercial sales of Fovista in specified countries by June 30, 2019, do not make such first commercial sales of Fovista by such date, or thereafter fail to use commercially reasonable efforts to continue to commercialize and market Fovista in such countries, we would be in material breach of the agreement and Nektar would have the right to terminate the agreement.
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In addition to the above risks, certain of our intellectual property rights are sublicenses under intellectual property owned by third parties, in some cases through multiple tiers. The actions of our licensors may therefore affect our rights to use our sublicensed intellectual property, even if we are in compliance with all of the obligations under our license agreements. For example, the licenses from Archemix include sublicenses to us of rights to specified technology, which we refer to as the SELEX technology, licensed by University License Equity Holdings, Inc. to Gilead Sciences, Inc., or Gilead, and sublicensed by Gilead to Archemix, as well as other technology owned by Gilead and licensed to Archemix. In addition, the licenses we have obtained from Nektar include sublicenses of certain rights. Should our licensors or any of their upstream licensors fail to comply with their obligations under the agreements pursuant to which they obtain the rights that are sublicensed to us, or should such agreements be terminated or amended, our ability to develop and commercialize Fovista, Zimura and other product
candidates may be materially harmed and could also lead to a breach by us of the Novartis Agreement. While the applicable agreements may contain contractual provisions that would in many instances protect our rights as a sublicensee in these circumstances, these provisions may not be enforceable and may not protect our rights in all instances. Further, we do not have the right to control the prosecution, maintenance and enforcement of all of our licensed and sublicensed intellectual property, and even when we do have such rights, we may require the cooperation of our licensors and their upstream licensors, which may not be forthcoming. Our business could be materially adversely affected if we are unable to prosecute, maintain and enforce our licensed and sublicensed intellectual property effectively.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
The patent prosecution process is expensive and time
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consuming, is highly uncertain and involves complex legal and factual questions. Patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents.
Our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection in the United States and other countries with respect to our proprietary technology and products. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing in the United States and in certain foreign jurisdictions patent applications related to our novel technologies and product candidates that are important to our business.
The patent prosecution process is expensive and time‑consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or 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. In addition, we may not pursue or obtain patent protection in all major markets. Moreover, in some circumstances, we do not have the right to control the preparation, filing or prosecution of patent applications, or to maintain the patents, covering technology that we license from third parties or covering technology that a collaboration or commercialization partner may develop, the eventual commercialization of which could potentially entitle us to royalty payments. In some circumstances, our licensors have the right to enforce the licensed patents without our involvement or consent, or to decide not to enforce or to allow us to enforce the licensed patents. Therefore, these patents and applications may not be prosecuted and enforced in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business. If any such licensors fail to maintain such patents, or lose rights to those patents, the rights that we have licensed may be reduced or eliminated and our ability to develop and commercialize any of our products that are the subject of such licensed rights could be adversely affected.
The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions and has in recent years been the subject of much litigation. In addition, the laws of foreign jurisdictions may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. For example, European patent law restricts the patentability of methods of treatment of the human body more than United States law does. Publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all. Therefore, we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions claimed in our owned or licensed patents or pending patent applications, or that we or our licensors were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. Moreover, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, might require that the term of a patent issuing from a pending patent application be disclaimed and limited to the term of another patent that is commonly owned or names a common inventor. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, term, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain.
Our pending and future patent applications, and any collaboration or commercialization partner’s 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. In particular, during prosecution of any patent application, the issuance of any patents based on the application may depend upon our or their ability to generate additional preclinical or clinical data that support the patentability of our proposed claims. We or any collaboration or commercialization partner may not be able to generate sufficient additional data on a timely basis, or at all. Moreover, changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States or other countries may diminish the value of our or a collaboration or commercialization partner’s patents or narrow the scope of our or their patent protection.
Patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents. On September 16, 2011, the Leahy‑Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy‑Smith Act, was signed into law. The Leahy‑Smith Act includes a number of significant changes to U.S. patent law. These include provisions that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted, redefine prior art, may affect patent litigation and switch the U.S. patent system from a “first‑to‑invent” system to a “first‑to‑file” system. Under a first‑to‑file
system, assuming the other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application generally will be entitled to the patent on an invention regardless of whether another inventor had made the invention earlier. The USPTO recently developed new regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy‑Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy‑Smith Act, and in particular, the first‑to‑file provisions, only became effective on March 16, 2013. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy‑Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the Leahy‑Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.
Moreover, we may be subject to a third‑party preissuance submission of prior art to the USPTO, or become involved in opposition, derivation, reexamination,
inter partes
review, post‑grant review, interference proceedings or other patent office proceedings or litigation, in the United States or elsewhere, challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others. Based on available information, we believe that
inter partes
review proceedings, brought by financial investors who may be selling short the stock of the patent holder, are becoming more prevalent. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of, or invalidate, our patent rights; allow third parties to commercialize our technology or products and compete directly with us, without payment to us; or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize products without infringing third‑party patent rights. In addition, if the breadth or strength of protection provided by our patents and patent applications is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to license, develop or commercialize current or future product candidates.
If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for our technology and products during the period of their commercialization, or if the scope of the patent protection is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize technology and products similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our technology and products may be adversely affected.
The last to expire of the U.S. patent rights covering the composition of matter of Fovista expired in early 2017, which is well in advance of any marketing approval we may ultimately receive for Fovista. We own an issued U.S. patent covering methods of treating wet AMD with Fovista in combination with Avastin or Lucentis, which is expected to expire in 2024. The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, or the Hatch‑Waxman Act, permits a patent restoration term of up to five years as partial compensation for patent term effectively lost during product development and the FDA regulatory review process occurring after the issuance of a patent. We may be able to obtain a patent term extension for this U.S. patent. The European patent rights covering the composition of matter of Fovista are expected to expire in 2018. Such expiration date is before the date by which we expect Fovista to be commercialized in Europe. We own a granted European patent covering a combination of Fovista and Lucentis or Avastin for use in a method for treating wet AMD. This European patent is expected to expire in 2024. Similar to the patent term restoration available in the United States, the regulatory framework in the European Union and certain other foreign jurisdictions provides the opportunity to extend the term of a patent that covers an approved drug in certain circumstances. Notwithstanding the availability of patent term extension or restoration provisions, we may not be granted patent term extensions 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 patent term extension or restoration or the term or scope of any such extension is less than we request, any period during which we have the right to exclusively market our product would be shorter than we would otherwise expect, and our competitors may obtain approval of competing products following our patent expiration, and our revenue could be reduced, possibly materially.
In addition to the patents described above, we also have filed patent applications in the United States covering a method of treating wet AMD in patients with Fovista in combination with Eylea and patent applications in Europe and Japan covering a combination of Fovista and Eylea for use in a method for treating wet AMD. We also have filed patent applications in the United States, Europe, Japan and elsewhere covering our formulation for Fovista. These patent applications are in the early stages of prosecution and may not result in patents being issued that protect the use of Fovista in combination with Eylea for treating wet AMD, that protect our formulation for Fovista or that effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and products. If a patent is granted following prosecution of any such application for the combination of Fovista and Eylea, the latest projected patent expiry, absent any patent term adjustment or extension or patent restoration, would be in 2030. If a patent is granted following prosecution of any such application for our formulation for Fovista, the latest projected patent expiry, absent any patent term adjustment or extension or patent restoration, would be in 2034.
Method‑of‑treatment patents are more difficult to enforce than composition‑of‑matter patents because of the risk of off‑label sale or use of a drug for the patented method. The FDA does not prohibit physicians from prescribing an approved product for uses that are not described in the product’s labeling. Although use of a product directed by off‑label prescriptions
may infringe our method‑of‑treatment patents, the practice is common across medical specialties, particularly in the United States, and such infringement is difficult to detect, prevent or prosecute. Off‑label sales of other products having the same API as Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidates we may develop would limit our ability to generate revenue from the sale of Fovista, Zimura or such other product candidates, if approved for commercial sale. In addition, European patent law generally makes the issuance and enforcement of patents that cover methods of treatment of the human body difficult. Further, once the composition‑of‑matter patents relating to Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate in a particular jurisdiction, if any, expire, competitors will be able to make, offer and sell products containing the same API as Fovista, Zimura or such other product candidate in that jurisdiction so long as these competitors do not infringe any other of our patents covering Fovista’s or Zimura’s composition of matter or method of use or manufacture, do not violate the terms of any marketing or data exclusivity that may be granted to us by regulatory authorities and obtain any necessary marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities. In such circumstances, we also may not be able to detect, prevent or prosecute off‑label use of such competitors’ products containing the same API as Fovista or Zimura in combination with any anti‑VEGF drug, even if such use infringes any of our method‑of‑treatment patents.
The Hatch‑Waxman Act also permits the manufacture, use, offer for sale, sale or importation of a patented invention other than a new animal drug or veterinary biological product, if the manufacture, use, offer for sale, sale or importation is solely for uses that are reasonably related to development of information that could be submitted to the FDA. For this reason, our competitors might be able under certain circumstances to perform activities within the scope of the U.S. patents that we own or under which we are licensed without infringing such patents. This might enable our competitors to develop during the lifetime of these patents drugs that compete with Fovista or Zimura, if approved.
The U.S. patent rights covering Zimura as a composition of matter are expected to expire in 2025. Such expiration date may be prior to the date by which we would be able to commercialize Zimura in the United States if we seek and obtain marketing approval. The U.S. patent rights covering methods of treating certain complement protein mediated disorders with Zimura are expected to expire in 2026. As a result, if we obtain marketing approval for Zimura, we may not be able to exclude competitors from commercializing products similar or identical to ours if such competitors do not use or promote our claimed methods of treatment or do use or promote our methods of treatment after our patents expire. Depending on potential delays in the regulatory review process for Zimura, we may be able to obtain a patent term extension for one of these patents in the United States, but we can provide no assurances that such an extension will be obtained.
Our issued patents may not be sufficient to provide us with a competitive advantage. For example, competitors may be able to circumvent our owned or licensed patents by developing similar or alternative technologies or products in a non‑infringing manner. Even if our owned or licensed patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue with a scope broad enough to provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. We could also fail to take the required actions and pay the necessary governmental fees to maintain our patents.
The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, ownership, scope, term, validity or enforceability, and our owned and licensed patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. For example, if we receive marketing approval for our product candidates, other pharmaceutical companies may seek approval of generic versions of our products with the FDA or regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions. We may then be required to initiate proceedings against such companies in order to enforce our intellectual property rights. The risk of being involved in such proceedings is likely to increase if our products are commercially successful. In any such proceedings, the inventorship, ownership, scope, term, validity and enforceability of our patents may be challenged. These and other challenges may result in loss of exclusivity or freedom to operate or in patent claims being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, in whole or in part, which could limit our ability to prevent others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products or from launching generic versions of our products, or could limit the duration of the patent protection of our technology and products. The launch of a generic version of one of our products in particular would be likely to result in an immediate and substantial reduction in the demand for our product, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.
We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents or other intellectual property, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful.
Competitors may infringe or otherwise violate our patents, trademarks, copyrights or other intellectual property. To counter infringement or other violations, we may be required to file claims, which can be expensive and time consuming. Any
such claims could provoke these parties to assert counterclaims against us, including claims alleging that we infringe their patents or other intellectual property rights. In addition, in a patent infringement proceeding, a court may decide that one or more of the patents we assert is invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, construe the patent’s claims narrowly or refuse to prevent the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology. Similarly, if we assert trademark infringement claims, a court may determine that the marks we have asserted are invalid or unenforceable or that the party against whom we have asserted trademark infringement has superior rights to the marks in question. In such a case, we could ultimately be forced to cease use of such marks. In any intellectual property litigation, even if we are successful, any award of monetary damages or other remedy we receive may not be commercially valuable. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation.
Third parties may initiate legal proceedings alleging that we are infringing or otherwise violating their intellectual property rights, the outcome of which would be uncertain and could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.
Our commercial success depends upon our ability and the ability of our collaboration and commercialization partners to develop, manufacture, market and sell our product candidates and products and use our proprietary technologies without infringing or otherwise violating the intellectual property and other proprietary rights of third parties. There is considerable intellectual property litigation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. We or our collaboration and commercialization partners may become party to, or threatened with, future adversarial proceedings or litigation regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our products and technology, including interference, derivation, re‑examination, post‑grant review,
inter partes
review, opposition, cancellation or similar proceedings before the USPTO or its foreign counterparts. The risks of being involved in such litigation and proceedings may also increase as our or their product candidates near commercialization. Third parties may assert infringement claims against us or our collaboration or commercialization partners based on existing or future intellectual property rights. We or they may not be aware of all such intellectual property rights potentially relating to our product candidates and their manufacture and uses. Thus, we do not know with certainty that Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate, or our intended commercialization thereof, does not and will not infringe or otherwise violate any third party’s intellectual property.
If we are or one of our collaboration or commercialization partners is found to infringe or otherwise violate a third party’s intellectual property rights, we or they could be required to obtain a license from such third party to continue developing and marketing our or their products and technology or to continue using a trademark. However, we or our collaboration and commercialization partners may not be able to obtain any required license on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we or they were able to obtain a license, it could be non‑exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us or our collaboration and commercialization partners and could require us or them to make substantial licensing and royalty payments. We or our collaboration and commercialization partners could be forced, including by court order, to cease commercializing the infringing technology or product. In addition, we could be found liable for monetary damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees, if we are found to have willfully infringed a patent or other intellectual property right. A finding of infringement could prevent us or our collaboration and commercialization partners from commercializing our or their product candidates or force us or them to cease some of our business operations, which could materially harm our business. Claims that we or our collaboration and commercialization partners have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could expose us or them to similar liabilities and have a similar negative impact on our business.
We may be subject to claims by third parties asserting that we or our employees have misappropriated their intellectual property, or claiming ownership of what we regard as our own intellectual property.
Many of our employees and contractors were previously employed at universities or other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees and contractors 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 or contractors have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such employee’s or contractor’s former employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims.
In addition, while it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the conception or development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who in fact conceives or develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. Moreover, because we acquired rights to Fovista from Eyetech, Archemix and Nektar and rights to Zimura from Archemix, we must rely upon these parties’ and their successors' practices, and those of their predecessors, with regard to the
assignment of intellectual property therein. Our and their assignment agreements may not be self‑executing or may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property.
If we fail in prosecuting or defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel.
Intellectual property litigation could cause us to spend substantial resources and could distract our personnel from their normal responsibilities.
Even if resolved in our favor, litigation or other legal proceedings relating to intellectual property claims may cause us to incur significant expenses and could distract our technical and management personnel 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 price of our common stock. 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 conduct such litigation or proceedings adequately. 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.
Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, documentary, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent offices, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non
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compliance with these requirements.
Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and patent offices in foreign countries in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and patent offices in foreign countries require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other requirements during the patent application process. While 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 a patent or patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Non‑compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non‑payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. In such an event, our competitors might be able to enter the market, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.
In addition to seeking patents for some of our technology and products, we also rely upon trade secrets, including unpatented know‑how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect these trade secrets, in part, by entering into non‑disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We also enter into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants. We cannot guarantee that we have executed such agreements with each party that may have or have had access to our trade secrets. Moreover, because we acquired certain rights to Fovista from Eyetech, Archemix and Nektar, we must rely upon these parties’ and their successors' practices, and those of their predecessors, with regard to the protection of Fovista‑related trade secrets before we acquired them. Any party with whom we or they have executed a non‑disclosure and confidentiality agreement may breach that agreement and disclose our proprietary information, including our trade secrets, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. Our proprietary information may also be obtained by third parties by other means, such as breaches of our physical or computer security systems.
Detecting the disclosure or misappropriation of a trade secret and enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time‑consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no right to prevent them, or those to whom they communicate it, from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to or independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position would be harmed.
Risks Related to Regulatory Approval and Marketing of our Product Candidates and Other Legal Compliance Matters
Even if we complete the necessary preclinical studies and clinical trials, the marketing approval process is expensive, time
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consuming and uncertain and may prevent us from obtaining approvals for the commercialization of some or all of our product candidates. If we are not able to obtain, or if there are delays in obtaining, required regulatory approvals, we will not be able to commercialize our product candidates, and our ability to generate revenue would be materially impaired.
Our product candidates and the activities associated with their development and commercialization, including their design, testing, manufacture, safety, efficacy, recordkeeping, labeling, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale and distribution, export and import, are subject to comprehensive regulation by the FDA and by the EMA and comparable regulatory agencies in other countries.
In general, the FDA and similar regulatory authorities outside the United States require two adequate and well controlled clinical trials demonstrating safety and effectiveness for marketing approval for an ophthalmic pharmaceutical product. Failure to obtain marketing approval for a product candidate will prevent us from commercializing the product candidate. We have not received approval to market Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate from regulatory authorities in any jurisdiction. We have only limited experience in filing and supporting the applications necessary to gain marketing approvals and expect to rely upon third‑party CROs and, in the case of Fovista, Novartis, to assist us in this process. Securing marketing approval requires obtaining positive safety and efficacy data from required clinical trials, as well as the submission of extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to regulatory authorities for each therapeutic indication to establish the product candidate’s safety and efficacy. Securing marketing approval also requires the submission of information about the product manufacturing process to, and inspection of manufacturing facilities by, the relevant regulatory authorities. The FDA or other regulatory authorities may determine that Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate that we may develop is not effective, is only moderately effective or has undesirable or unintended side effects, toxicities or other characteristics that preclude our obtaining marketing approval or prevent or limit commercial use. The FDA or other regulatory authority may limit the approval of Fovista or Zimura to use with only specified anti‑VEGF drugs rather than with all anti‑VEGF drugs. Such limitation could limit sales of Fovista or Zimura.
The process of obtaining marketing approvals, both in the United States and abroad, is expensive, may take many years, if approval is obtained at all, and can vary substantially based upon a variety of factors, including the type, complexity and novelty of the product candidates involved. Changes in marketing approval policies during the development period, changes in or the enactment of additional statutes or regulations, or changes in regulatory review for each submitted product application, may cause delays in the approval or rejection of an application. Regulatory authorities have substantial discretion in the approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our data are insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other studies. In addition, varying interpretations of the data obtained from preclinical and clinical testing could delay, limit or prevent marketing approval of a product candidate. Any marketing approval we ultimately obtain may be limited or subject to restrictions or post‑approval commitments that render the approved product not commercially viable.
Marketing approval of novel product candidates such as Fovista and Zimura manufactured using novel manufacturing processes can be more expensive and take longer than for other, more well‑known or extensively studied pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical products, due to regulatory agencies’ lack of experience with them. We believe that the FDA has only granted marketing approval for one aptamer product to date. This lack of experience may lengthen the regulatory review process, require us to conduct additional studies or clinical trials, increase our development costs, lead to changes in regulatory positions and interpretations, delay or prevent approval and commercialization of these product candidates or lead to significant post‑approval limitations or restrictions.
Accordingly, if we or our collaborators experience delays in obtaining approval or if we fail to obtain approval of Fovista, Zimura or any other product candidate that we develop, the commercial prospects for such product candidate may be harmed and our ability to generate revenues would be materially impaired.
Failure to obtain marketing approval in foreign jurisdictions would prevent our product candidates from being marketed in such jurisdictions.
In order to market and sell our product candidates in the European Union and many other jurisdictions, we or our third‑party commercialization partners, including Novartis, our ex‑U.S. commercialization partner for Fovista, must obtain separate marketing approvals and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements. The approval procedure varies among countries and can involve additional preclinical or clinical testing. The time required to obtain approval may differ
substantially from that required to obtain FDA approval. The regulatory approval process outside the United States generally includes all of the risks associated with obtaining FDA approval. In addition, in many countries outside the United States, it is required that the product be approved for reimbursement before the product can be approved for sale in that country. We or our third‑party commercialization partners, including Novartis, our ex‑U.S. commercialization partner for Fovista, may not obtain approvals from regulatory authorities outside the United States on a timely basis, if at all. Approval by the FDA does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions, and approval by one regulatory authority outside the United States does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions or by the FDA. We and our third-party commercialization partners may not be able to file for marketing approvals and may not receive necessary approvals to commercialize our products in any market.
A fast track designation or grant of priority review status by the FDA may not actually lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process. The FDA may withdraw fast track designation if it believes that the designation is no longer supported by data from our clinical development program.
In the United States, our lead product candidate, Fovista, received fast track designation and may be eligible for priority review status. If a drug is intended for the treatment of a serious or life‑threatening disease or condition and the drug demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for this disease or condition, the drug sponsor may apply for FDA fast track designation. If a drug offers major advances in treatment, the drug sponsor may apply for FDA priority review status. The FDA has broad discretion whether or not to grant fast track designation or priority review status, so even if we believe a particular product candidate is eligible for such designation or status the FDA could decide not to grant it. Even though Fovista has received fast track designation for the treatment of wet AMD and may be eligible for priority review status, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures.
A breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA for our product candidates may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process, and it does not increase the likelihood that our product candidates would receive marketing approval.
We may seek a breakthrough therapy designation for some of our product candidates. A breakthrough therapy is defined as a drug that is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, to treat a serious or life‑threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over existing therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. For drugs that have been designated as breakthrough therapies, interactions and communications between the FDA and the sponsor of the trial can help to identify the most efficient path for clinical development while minimizing the number of patients placed in ineffective control regimens. Drugs designated as breakthrough therapies by the FDA are also eligible for accelerated approval.
Designation as a breakthrough therapy is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe one of our product candidates meets the criteria for designation as a breakthrough therapy, the FDA may disagree and instead determine not to make such designation. In any event, the receipt of a breakthrough therapy designation for a product candidate may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to drugs considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures and does not assure ultimate approval by the FDA. In addition, even if one or more of our product candidates qualify as breakthrough therapies, the FDA may later decide that the products no longer meet the conditions for qualification or decide that the time period for FDA review or approval will not be shortened.
Any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval could be subject to post
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marketing restrictions or withdrawal from the market and we or our third
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party commercialization partners may be subject to penalties if we or our third
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party commercialization partners fail to comply with regulatory requirements or if we or our third
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party commercialization partners experience unanticipated problems with our products, when and if any of them are approved.
Any product candidate for which we or our commercialization partners obtain marketing approval, along with the manufacturing processes, post‑approval clinical data, labeling, advertising and promotional activities for such product, will be subject to continual requirements of and review by the FDA and other regulatory authorities. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post‑marketing information and reports, registration and listing requirements, cGMP requirements relating to manufacturing, quality control and quality assurance, complaints and corresponding maintenance of records and documents, requirements regarding the distribution of samples to physicians and recordkeeping. Even if marketing approval of a product candidate is granted, the approval may be subject to limitations on the indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or may be subject to significant conditions of approval or contain requirements for costly
post‑marketing testing and surveillance to monitor the safety or efficacy of the medicine, including the requirement to implement a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy.
The FDA and other agencies, including the Department of Justice, or the DOJ, closely regulate and monitor the post‑approval marketing and promotion of products to ensure that they are marketed and distributed only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved labeling. The FDA and DOJ impose stringent restrictions on manufacturers’ communications regarding off‑label use and if we do not market our products for their approved indications, we may be subject to enforcement action for off‑label marketing. Violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other statutes, including the False Claims Act, relating to the promotion and advertising of prescription drugs may lead to investigations and enforcement actions alleging violations of federal and state health care fraud and abuse laws, as well as state consumer protection laws.
In addition, later discovery of previously unknown adverse events or other problems with our products, manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may yield various results, including:
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restrictions on such products, manufacturers or manufacturing processes;
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restrictions on the labeling or marketing of a product;
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restrictions on distribution or use of a product;
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requirements to conduct post‑marketing studies or clinical trials;
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warning letters or untitled letters;
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withdrawal of the products from the market;
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refusal to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications that we submit;
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damage to relationships with any potential collaborators;
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unfavorable press coverage and damage to our reputation;
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fines, restitution or disgorgement of profits or revenues;
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suspension or withdrawal of marketing approvals;
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refusal to permit the import or export of our products;
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injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties; and
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litigation involving patients using our products.
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Non‑compliance with European Union requirements regarding safety monitoring or pharmacovigilance, and with requirements related to the development of products for the pediatric population, can also result in significant financial penalties. Similarly, failure to comply with the European Union’s requirements regarding the protection of personal information can also lead to significant penalties and sanctions.
Our and our commercialization partners’ relationships with customers and third
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party payors will be subject to applicable anti
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kickback, fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, which could expose us and our commercialization partners to criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm and diminished profits and future earnings.
Healthcare providers, physicians and third‑party payors play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any product candidates, including Fovista, for which we obtain marketing approval. Our future arrangements with healthcare providers, physicians and third-party payors may expose us and our commercialization partners to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we and our commercialization partners market, sell and distribute any products for which we or they obtain marketing approval. Restrictions under applicable federal and state healthcare laws and regulations include the following:
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the federal Anti‑Kickback Statute prohibits, among other things, persons from knowingly and willfully soliciting, offering, receiving or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, to induce or reward, or in return for, either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, order or recommendation or arranging of, any good or service, for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program such as Medicare and Medicaid;
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the federal False Claims Act imposes criminal and civil penalties, including through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, against individuals or entities for, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, false or fraudulent claims for payment by a federal healthcare program or making a false statement or record material to payment of a false claim or avoiding, decreasing or concealing an obligation to pay money to the federal government, with potential liability including mandatory treble damages and significant per‑claim penalties, currently set at $5,500 to $11,000 per false claim;
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the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, imposes criminal and civil liability for executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or making false statements relating to healthcare matters;
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HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and its implementing regulations, also imposes obligations, including mandatory contractual terms, with respect to safeguarding the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information;
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the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires applicable manufacturers of covered drugs to report payments and other transfers of value to physicians and teaching hospitals, with data collection beginning in August 2013; and
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analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti‑kickback and false claims laws and transparency statutes, may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non‑governmental third-party payors, including private insurers.
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Some state laws require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government and may require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures. State and foreign laws also govern the privacy and security of health information in some circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.
If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the laws described above or any governmental regulations that apply to us, we may be subject to penalties, including civil and criminal penalties, damages, fines and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. Any penalties, damages, fines, curtailment or restructuring of our operations could adversely affect our financial results. We are developing and implementing a corporate compliance program designed to ensure that we will market and sell any future products that we successfully develop from our product candidates in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, but we cannot guarantee that this program will protect us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to be in compliance with such 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.
Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will involve substantial costs. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our or our commercialization partners’ operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us or them, we or they may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion of products from government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the curtailment or restructuring of our or their operations. If any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we expect to do business is found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs.
Current and future legislation may increase the difficulty and cost for us and any collaborators to obtain marketing approval of and commercialize our product candidates and affect the prices we, or they, may obtain.
In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval of our product candidates, restrict or regulate post‑approval activities and affect our and any commercialization partner’s ability to generate revenue from, sell profitably or commercialize any product candidates for which we or they obtain marketing approval. We expect that current laws, as well as other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and in additional downward pressure on the price that we or a commercialization partner receives for any approved product.
For example, in March 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act, or collectively the ACA. Among the provisions of the ACA of potential importance to our business and our product candidates are the following:
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an annual, non‑deductible fee on any entity that manufactures or imports specified branded prescription drugs and biologic agents;
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an increase in the statutory minimum rebates a manufacturer must pay under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program;
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a new methodology by which rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program are calculated for drugs that are inhaled, infused, instilled, implanted or injected;
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expansion of healthcare fraud and abuse laws, including the civil False Claims Act and the federal Anti‑Kickback Statute, new government investigative powers and enhanced penalties for noncompliance;
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a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program, in which manufacturers must agree to offer 50% point‑of‑sale discounts off negotiated prices of applicable brand drugs to eligible beneficiaries during their coverage gap period, as a condition for the manufacturer’s outpatient drugs to be covered under Medicare Part D;
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extension of manufacturers’ Medicaid rebate liability to individuals enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations;
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expansion of eligibility criteria for Medicaid programs;
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expansion of the entities eligible for discounts under the Public Health Service pharmaceutical pricing program;
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new requirements to report certain financial arrangements with physicians and teaching hospitals;
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a new requirement to annually report drug samples that manufacturers and distributors provide to physicians;
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a new Patient‑Centered Outcomes Research Institute to oversee, identify priorities in, and conduct comparative clinical effectiveness research, along with funding for such research;
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a new Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, which has authority to recommend certain changes to the Medicare program to reduce expenditures by the program that could result in reduced payments for prescription drugs; and
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establishment of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation within CMS to test innovative payment and service delivery models.
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Other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the ACA was enacted. These changes include the Budget Control Act of 2011, which, among other things, led to aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to providers of up to 2% per fiscal year that started in 2013 and, due to subsequent legislation, will continue until 2025. In addition, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several providers and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. Moreover, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, among other things, introduced the Quality Payment Program under which Medicare physicians will be required to either participate in an Advanced Alternative Payment Model, or AAPM, and assume some risk for patient outcomes, or participate in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, or MIPS, which will provide an incentive compensation structure that will rate physicians in part based on cost of services. These new laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding and otherwise affect the prices we may obtain for any of our product candidates for which we may obtain regulatory approval or the frequency with which any such product candidate is prescribed or used.
We expect that the ACA, as well as other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future, may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, more rigorous coverage criteria, new payment methodologies and additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any approved product and/or the level of reimbursement physicians receive for administering any approved product we might bring to market. Reductions in reimbursement levels may negatively impact the prices we receive or the frequency with which our products are prescribed or administered. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. Pricing pressures recently experienced by the pharmaceutical industry may be further exacerbated by legislative and policy changes under consideration by the Trump administration.
In addition, with the new Administration and Congress, there will likely be additional legislative changes, including repeal and replacement of certain provisions of the ACA. It remains to be seen, however, precisely what the new legislation will provide, when it will be enacted and what impact it will have on the availability of healthcare and containing or lowering the cost of healthcare. Such reforms could have an adverse effect on anticipated revenue from product candidates that we may successfully develop and for which we may obtain marketing approval and may affect our overall financial condition and ability to develop or commercialize product candidates. For example, the President and Congressional leaders have expressed particular interest in repealing certain ACA provisions and replacing them with alternatives that may be less costly and provide state Medicaid programs and private health plans more flexibility. It is possible that these repeal and replacement initiatives, if enacted into law, could ultimately result in fewer individuals having health insurance coverage or in individuals having insurance coverage with less generous benefits. The scope of potential future legislation to repeal and replace ACA provisions is highly uncertain in many respects, and it is possible that some of the ACA provisions that generally are not favorable for the research-based pharmaceutical industry could also be repealed along with ACA coverage expansion provisions.
Moreover, legislative and regulatory proposals have been made to expand post‑approval requirements and restrict sales and promotional activities for pharmaceutical products. We cannot be sure whether additional legislative changes will be enacted, or whether the FDA regulations, guidance or interpretations will be changed, or what the impact of such changes on the marketing approvals of our product candidates, if any, may be. In addition, increased scrutiny by the United States Congress of the FDA’s approval process may significantly delay or prevent marketing approval, as well as subject us and any collaborators to more stringent product labeling and post‑marketing testing and other requirements.
We are subject to U.S. and foreign anti
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corruption and anti
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money laundering laws with respect to our operations and non
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compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal and/or civil liability and harm our business.
We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, or the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, and possibly other state and national anti‑bribery and anti‑money laundering laws in countries in which we conduct activities. Anti‑corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees, agents, third‑party intermediaries, joint venture partners and collaborators from authorizing, promising, offering, or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public or private sector. We may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or government‑affiliated hospitals, universities, and other organizations. In addition, we may engage third party intermediaries to promote our clinical research activities abroad and/or to obtain necessary permits, licenses, and other regulatory approvals. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third‑party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual knowledge of such activities.
Noncompliance with anti‑corruption and anti‑money laundering laws could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, other enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, significant fines, damages, other civil and criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension and/or debarment from contracting with certain persons, the loss of export privileges, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas, investigations, or other enforcement actions are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal litigation, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially harmed. In addition, responding to any action will likely result in a materially significant diversion of management’s attention and resources and significant defense and compliance costs and other professional fees. In certain cases, enforcement authorities may even cause us to appoint an independent compliance monitor which can result in added costs and administrative burdens.
If we or our third
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party manufacturers fail to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could harm our business.
We and our third‑party manufacturers are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. From time to time and in the future, our operations may involve the use of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological materials, and produce hazardous waste products. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination or injury from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from our use of hazardous materials, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We also could incur significant costs associated with civil or criminal fines and penalties for failure to comply with such laws and regulations.
Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us.
In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. These current or future laws and regulations may impair our research, development or production efforts. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations also may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions.
Further, with respect to the operations of our third‑party contract manufacturers, it is possible that if they fail to operate in compliance with applicable environmental, health and safety laws and regulations or properly dispose of wastes associated with our products, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, suffer reputational harm or experience a disruption in the manufacture and supply of our product candidates or products.
Risks Related to Employee Matters and Managing Our Operations
We are in the process of implementing a substantial reduction in personnel,
which could disrupt our operations.
In addition, we may experience difficulties in retaining key employees that we have identified for retention.
In December 2016, following our receipt and announcement of initial, top-line results from our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD, we announced that we had determined to implement a reduction in personnel to focus on an updated business plan. This reduction in personnel is expected to involve approximately 80% of our pre-announcement workforce and will include personnel from nearly every department. As of March 31, 2017, we reduced our workforce by 74 employees in connection with the reduction in personnel, and we expect the reduction of the additional 45 affected employees to be substantially complete during the second and third quarters of 2017. Although we are reducing our personnel substantially, we are continuing to function as a development company and need to continue all or nearly all of our prior business functions to support such development, including clinical operations, regulatory affairs, drug safety, data management, outsourced manufacturing and supply chain and quality assurance, as well as all of our general and administrative functions and public company infrastructure. Due to our limited financial resources and the inherent challenges associated with managing such a reduction in personnel, we may not be able to manage effectively the reduction in personnel and transition of operations to remaining employees. In addition, as part of implementing our reduction in personnel, we have issued notices of termination under our existing office leases, each of which now is scheduled to terminate in late 2017 or early 2018. It is possible that we may not be able to find suitable replacement office space for our remaining employees on acceptable terms, or at all, which could harm our operating results and/or materially disrupt our operations.
Notwithstanding the reduction in personnel, we remain highly dependent on David R. Guyer, M.D., our Chief Executive Officer, and Glenn P. Sblendorio, our President, as well as the other principal members of our management, scientific and clinical teams. In April 2017, we announced that, effective as of July 1, 2017, Dr. Guyer will transition to the newly created role of Executive Chairman and Mr. Sblendorio will become Chief Executive Officer and will continue in his role as President. We do not maintain “key person” insurance for any of our executives or other employees. Although we have entered into letter agreements with our executive officers, each of them and our non-executive employees may terminate their employment with us at any time. As a result, key employees that we expect to retain through specific dates to assist with transition activities may choose not to remain employees. In addition, we may experience difficulties in retaining key employees that we have identified for retention, given the change in prospects for our company as well as other challenges. The loss of the services of our executive officers or other key employees could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives and seriously harm our ability to successfully implement our updated business strategy. Furthermore, replacing any such executive officers and key employees 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 marketing approval of and commercialize products. Competition to hire from this limited pool is intense, and we may be unable to hire, train, retain or motivate these key personnel on acceptable terms, if at all, 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. In addition, we rely on consultants and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist us in formulating our research and development and commercialization strategy. 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 strategically attract or retain high quality personnel as we implement our new business plan, our ability to pursue our development strategy would be limited.
In connection with the reduction in personnel, we estimate that we will incur approximately $13.2 million of aggregate pre-tax charges during the first and second quarters of 2017, of which approximately $12.3 million in the aggregate is expected to result in future cash expenditures, representing a significant cost in relation to our remaining limited resources.
In connection with the reduction in personnel, we recognized approximately
$6.7 million
of severance and other employee costs, with cash expenditures of $4.8 million, for the three months ended March 31, 2017.
Moreover, the reduction in personnel may divert our management’s time and attention. Any inability to manage the reduction in personnel could delay the execution of our updated business plan or disrupt our operations.
If we fail to establish and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, our ability to accurately report our financial results could be adversely affected.
A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the company’s annual or interim financial statements would not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. If any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting is discovered or occurs in the future, our financial statements may contain material misstatements and we could be required to restate our financial results. As previously disclosed in July 2015, our management concluded that we experienced a material weakness in internal controls related to technical accounting expertise over the accounting for deferred tax assets and income tax accounting in general during certain prior financial reporting periods. The deficiency in the application of our controls relating to technical accounting expertise over the accounting for deferred tax assets and income tax accounting in general resulted in the audit committee of our board of directors concluding that the relevant financial statements should not be relied upon, and our subsequent restatement of the relevant financial statements.
During the year ended December 31, 2015, we took the following steps to remediate the identified material weakness: we added staffing within our finance department and engaged a nationally recognized accounting firm, in each case, with technical expertise in the area of tax accounting and financial reporting. Our management concluded that the identified material weakness in internal control over financial reporting was fully remediated as of December 31, 2015. Although we have remediated this deficiency in internal control over financial reporting, we cannot be certain that the remedial measures that we took in the past or other measures we take in the future, especially in light of our decreased size as a result of the implementation of our planned reduction in personnel, and the associated decrease in staffing in our accounting and finance areas, will ensure that we maintain adequate controls over our financial reporting going forward and, accordingly, additional material weaknesses could occur or be identified. Any additional material weaknesses or combination of deficiencies could materially and adversely affect our ability to provide timely and accurate financial information, and the current and future deficiencies may impact investors’ confidence in our internal controls and our company, which could cause our stock price to decline.
Risks Related to Information Technology
We rely significantly upon information technology and any failure, inadequacy, interruption or security lapse of that technology, including any cyber security incidents, could harm our ability to operate our business effectively.
In the ordinary course of our business, we and our third‑party contractors maintain sensitive data on our and their respective networks, including our intellectual property and proprietary or confidential business information relating to our business and that of our clinical trial participants and business partners. In particular, we rely on contract research organizations and other third parties to store and manage information from our clinical trials, including our Fovista Phase 3 clinical program. The secure maintenance of this sensitive information is critical to our business and reputation. Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal computer systems and those of our third‑party contractors are vulnerable to damage from cyber‑attacks, computer viruses, unauthorized access, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. In particular, we believe that companies and other entities and individuals have been increasingly subject to a wide variety of security incidents, cyber‑attacks and other attempts to gain unauthorized access to systems and information. These threats can come from a variety of sources, ranging in sophistication from an individual hacker to a state‑sponsored attack. Cyber threats may be generic, or they may be custom‑crafted against our information systems or those of our third‑party contractors. For information stored with our third‑party contractors, we rely upon, and the integrity and confidentiality of such information is dependent upon, the risk mitigation efforts such third‑party contractors have in place. In the recent past, cyber‑attacks have become more prevalent and much harder to detect and defend against. Our and our third‑party contractors’ respective network and storage applications may be subject to unauthorized access by hackers or breached due to operator error, malfeasance or other system disruptions. It is often difficult to anticipate or immediately detect such incidents and the damage caused by such incidents. System failures, data breaches and any unauthorized access or disclosure of our information or intellectual property could compromise our intellectual property and expose sensitive business information. System failures or accidents or security breaches could cause interruptions in our operations, and could result in a material disruption of our clinical and commercialization activities and business operations, in addition to possibly requiring substantial expenditures of resources to remedy. A data security breach could also lead to public exposure of personal information of our clinical trial patients and others. Cyber‑attacks could cause us to incur significant remediation costs, result in product development delays, disrupt key business operations and divert attention of management and key information technology resources. The loss of clinical trial data could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. To the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss of, or damage to, our data or applications, or inappropriate public disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and our product research, development and commercialization efforts could be delayed.
Risks Related to Our Common Stock
Provisions in our corporate charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us, which may be beneficial to our stockholders, more difficult and may prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.
Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and our by‑laws may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition or other change in control of our company that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which our stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. These provisions could also limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, thereby depressing the market price of our common stock. In addition, because our board of directors is responsible for appointing the members of our management team, these provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors. Among other things, these provisions:
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provide for a classified board of directors such that only one of three classes of directors is elected each year;
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allow the authorized number of our directors to be changed only by resolution of our board of directors;
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limit the manner in which stockholders can remove directors from the board of directors;
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provide for advance notice requirements for stockholder proposals that can be acted on at stockholder meetings and nominations to our board of directors;
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require that stockholder actions must be effected at a duly called stockholder meeting and prohibit actions by our stockholders by written consent;
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limit who may call stockholder meetings;
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authorize our board of directors to issue preferred stock without stockholder approval, which could be used to institute a “poison pill” that would work to dilute the stock ownership of a potential hostile acquirer, effectively preventing acquisitions that have not been approved by our board of directors; and
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require the approval of the holders of at least 75% of the votes that all our stockholders would be entitled to cast to amend or repeal certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation or by‑laws.
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Moreover, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which prohibits a person who owns in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock from merging or combining with us for a period of three years after the date of the transaction in which the person acquired in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock, unless the merger or combination is approved in a prescribed manner.
The price of our common stock may be volatile and fluctuate substantially, which could result in substantial losses for stockholders.
Our stock price may be volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. The stock market in general and the market for smaller pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in particular have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. As a result of this volatility, our stockholders may not be able to sell their shares of common stock at or above the price at which they purchased their shares. The market price for our common stock may be influenced by many factors, including:
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the success of products or technologies that compete with our product candidates, including results of clinical trials of product candidates of our competitors;
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results of clinical trials for our product candidates and the timing of the receipt of such results;
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the results of our efforts to in‑license or acquire the rights to other products, product candidates and technologies for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases;
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political, regulatory or legal developments in the United States and other countries;
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developments or disputes concerning patent applications, issued patents or other proprietary rights;
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the recruitment or departure of key personnel;
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the level of expenses related to any of our product candidates or clinical development programs;
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actual or anticipated changes in estimates as to financial results, development timelines or recommendations by securities analysts;
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variations in our financial results or those of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;
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changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;
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market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors;
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general economic, industry and market conditions; and
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the other factors described in this “Risk Factors” section.
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For example, following our announcement of initial, top-line results from our pivotal OPH1002 and OPH1003 Fovista trials for the treatment of wet AMD, the closing price of our common stock declined from $38.77 on December 9, 2016 to $5.29 on December 12, 2016. In addition, following the announcement by Regeneron on September 30, 2016 that its co-formulated anti-PDGF/Eylea product candidate failed to meet the primary endpoint of a Phase 2 clinical trial at 12 weeks, the closing price of our common stock declined from $54.12 on September 29, 2016 to $30.85 on November 3, 2016. Following
periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s stock, securities class‑action litigation has often been instituted against that company. We and certain of our current and former executive officers have been named as defendants in a purported class action lawsuit following our announcement of the initial, top-line results. See “Part II, Item 1-Legal Proceedings” and “-Risks Related to Our Updated Business Plan, Financial Position and Need for Additional Capital-We and certain of our current and former executive officers have been named as defendants in a lawsuit that could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention.” This proceeding and other similar litigation, if instituted against us, could cause us to incur substantial costs to defend such claims and divert management’s attention and resources, which could seriously harm our business.
If a significant portion of our total outstanding shares are sold into the market, the market price of our common stock could drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our common stock. Moreover, we have filed registration statements on Form S‑8 registering all shares of common stock that we may issue under our equity compensation plans. Once registered on Form S‑8, shares underlying these equity awards can be freely sold in the public market upon issuance, subject to volume, notice and manner of sale limitations applicable to affiliates.
We incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management is required to devote substantial time to compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices.
As a public company, we incur and will continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Sarbanes‑Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd‑Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the listing requirements of The NASDAQ Global Select 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 devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, these rules and regulations have increased our legal and financial compliance costs and have made some activities more time‑consuming and costly.
Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes‑Oxley Act of 2002, or Section 404, we are required to furnish with our periodic Exchange Act reports a report by our management on our internal control over financial reporting. We are also required to include with our annual report an attestation report on internal control over financial reporting issued by our independent registered public accounting firm. To achieve compliance with Section 404, we must 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 and engage outside consultants 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. There is a risk that our internal control over financial reporting may, in the future, be found to be ineffective under Section 404. Our identification of one or more material weaknesses could result in an adverse reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements.
Because we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future, capital appreciation, if any, will be our stockholders’ sole source of gain.
We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all of our future earnings, if any, to finance the growth and development of our business. In addition, the terms of any future debt agreements may preclude us from paying dividends. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common stock will be our stockholders’ sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.
Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds.
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
We did not sell any unregistered equity securities during the period covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Purchase of Equity Securities
We did not purchase any of our registered equity securities during the period covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
