UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

Commission File No. 001-38959

BridgeBio Pharma, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (650) 391-9740

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act: NONE

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well‑known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S‑T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 726(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b‑2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting and non‑voting common equity held by non‑affiliates of the registrant based upon the closing price of the registrant’s Common Stock on The Nasdaq Global Select Market on June 30, 2023 was approximately $2,075.1 million. Shares of the registrant’s Common Stock held by each executive officer and director and by each other person who may be deemed an affiliate of the Registrant have been excluded from this computation. The determination of affiliate status for this purpose is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

On February 15, 2024, there were 175,831,536 shares of the registrant’s Common Stock issued and outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

BRIDGEBIO PHARMA, INC.

2023 Form 10‑K Annual Report

Table of Contents

In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, unless otherwise stated or as the context requires, references to “BridgeBio,” “the Company,” “we,” “us,” “our” or similar references refer to BridgeBio Pharma, Inc., together with its consolidated subsidiaries.

Special Note Regarding Forward‑Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10‑K contains forward‑looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward‑looking statements involve substantial risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements in this Annual Report on Form 10‑K, other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding our strategy, future operations, future operating expenses, future financial position, future revenue, projected costs, prospects, plans, intentions, expectations, goals and objectives may be forward‑looking statements. The words “anticipates,” “approximately,” “believes,” “could,” “designed,” “estimates,” “expects,” “goal,” “intends,” “may,” “objective,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “projects,” “pursuing,” “seeks,” “should,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions (including the negatives thereof) are intended to identify forward‑looking statements, although not all forward‑looking statements contain these identifying words. The forward-looking statements in this report include, but are not limited to, statements about:

We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions, expectations or objectives disclosed in our forward‑looking statements and the assumptions underlying our forward‑looking statements may prove incorrect. Furthermore, if our forward‑looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on our forward‑looking statements, and you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions, expectations and objectives disclosed in the forward‑looking statements that we make. Important factors that we believe could cause actual results or events to differ materially from our forward‑looking statements include, but are not limited to, those listed under “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Item 7 of Part II and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10‑K. Our forward‑looking statements in this Annual Report on Form 10‑K are based on current expectations as of the date hereof and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward‑looking statements on account of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

RISK FACTOR SUMMARY

Below is a summary of the principal factors that make an investment in our common stock speculative or risky. This summary does not address all of the risks that we face. Additional discussion of the risks summarized in this risk factor summary, and other risks that we face, can be found below under the heading “Risk Factors” and should be carefully considered, together with other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, before making investment decisions regarding our common stock.

PART I

ITEM 1. BUSINESS

Overview

BridgeBio Pharma, Inc. is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company founded to discover, create, test and deliver transformative medicines to treat patients who suffer from genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers. BridgeBio’s pipeline of development programs ranges from early science to advanced clinical trials. BridgeBio was founded in 2015 and its team of experienced drug discoverers, developers and innovators are committed to applying advances in genetic medicine to help patients as quickly as possible. Since inception, BridgeBio has created 17 Investigational New Drug applications, or INDs, and had two products approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA. We work across over 20 disease states at various stages of development. Several of our programs target indications that we believe present the potential for our product candidates, if approved, to target portions of market opportunities of at least $1.0 billion in annual sales.

We focus on genetic diseases because they exist at the intersection of high unmet patient need and tractable biology. Our approach is to translate research pioneered at academic laboratories and leading medical institutions into products that we hope will ultimately reach patients. We are able to realize this opportunity through a confluence of scientific advances, including: (i) identification of the genetic underpinnings of disease as more cost-efficient genome and exome sequencing becomes available; (ii) progress in molecular biology; and (iii) the development and maturation of longitudinal data and retrospective studies that enable the linkage of genes to diseases. We believe that this early-stage innovation represents one of the greatest practical sources for new drug creation.

We believe we have developed a world-class product platform that supports the continued growth of our Company and the advancement of our pipeline.

Our Late-Stage Pipeline

Our late-stage pipeline has delivered positive Phase 3 results for acoramidis, the New Drug Application (NDA), for which has been accepted for review by the FDA with the deadline for the FDA to review such NDA, or the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) date, set on November 29, 2024. This pipeline is expected to deliver Phase 3 results in three additional programs in potential markets of $1.0 billion dollars or more (low-dose infigratinib for achondroplasia, encaleret for ADH1, and BBP-418 for LGMD2I/R9) over the next two years. The following table summarizes the product candidates in our late-stage development pipeline, their estimated patient populations, their therapeutic modalities and their development status:

1 Treatable population

2 Carriers

Our robust late-stage pipeline is supported by our productive early-stage research engine, which has produced 17 INDs since our inception.

The following section is a selection of our programs which we believe have the greatest potential to drive significant near-term value for our Company due to a combination of factors, including their stage of development, potential availability of expedited development pathways, degree of unmet medical need and potential market size in the applicable target indication.

Acoramidis (Eidos): TTR Amyloidosis

Summary

We are developing acoramidis, also known as AG10, a next-generation oral small molecule near-complete TTR stabilizer, for the treatment of TTR amyloidosis, or ATTR. We believe that acoramidis has the potential to demonstrate greater potency than first-generation partial stabilizers based on results from comparative nonclinical studies.

On July 17, 2023, the Company announced positive data from its Phase 3 ATTRibute-CM clinical trial of acoramidis for patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). The primary endpoint (a hierarchical analysis inclusive of all-cause mortality and frequency of cardiovascular-related hospitalization) was met (Win Ratio of 1.8) with a highly statistically significant p-value (p<0.0001). This primary endpoint result consistently favored acoramidis treatment across key subgroups, including across both variant and wild-type ATTR patients as well as across New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class I, II, and III patients. Absolute values observed across all-cause mortality (ACM), cardiovascular mortality (CVM) and CVH showed that over 30 months, patients survived more and were hospitalized less than has been seen in prior controlled studies of ATTR-CM to the Company’s knowledge. Acoramidis was well-tolerated, with no safety signals of potential clinical concern identified. In additional results from ATTRibute-CM presented by the Company on November 12, 2023, the placebo and acoramidis time-to-first event Kaplan-Meier curves for a composite of ACM and CVH separated beginning at Month 3, representing the most rapid and sustained clinical benefit on the composite endpoint of ACM and CVH in ATTR-CM patients through Month 30 to the Company’s knowledge.

On December 5, 2023, the Company announced that it had submitted an NDA for acoramidis for the treatment of ATTR-CM to the FDA. On February 5, 2024, the Company announced that the NDA for acoramidis for the treatment of ATTR-CM had been accepted by the FDA, with a PDUFA date of November 29, 2024, and that the Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) had been accepted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Market Opportunity

We believe that the total market for ATTR therapeutic interventions will continue to grow for the foreseeable future as the population of diagnosed patients increases as a result of heightened disease awareness and the increased adoption of non-invasive diagnostic techniques, and that the global total addressable market could reach as high as $15.0 billion. The number of estimated diagnosed ATTR-CM patients in the United States has grown from fewer than 5,000 in 2019 to more than 30,000 in 2021. As such, if acoramidis is approved, we believe that there could be a significant population of newly diagnosed patients who have not previously been treated with a disease-modifying therapy and could be treated with acoramidis. If approved, we believe acoramidis will also be an important treatment option for patients inadequately managed by the current treatment. If approved, we believe that acoramidis could have meaningful commercial potential. Further, we believe that acoramidis, if approved, has the potential to be a best-in-class stabilizer for the treatment of ATTR-CM.

Disease Overview

ATTR is a disease caused by destabilization of TTR tetramers resulting in progressive amyloid deposition. TTR is a protein that occurs naturally in the form of a tetramer, consisting of four identical subunits, or monomers, and performs multiple physiologic roles, including the transport of essential hormones and vitamins. In ATTR, TTR tetramers become destabilized due to a mutation in the TTR gene or as part of the natural aging process. Destabilized TTR dissociates into monomers, self-aggregates, and assembles into fibrils that are deposited, predominantly in the heart and nervous system, driving disease pathophysiology.

Cardiomyopathic ATTR is commonly categorized by its genotypic cause with wild-type ATTR cardiomyopathy, or ATTRwt-CM, which results from an age-related process, and variant ATTR cardiomyopathy, or ATTRv-CM. Both forms of the disease are progressive and fatal. ATTRwt-CM and ATTRv-CM patients generally present with symptoms later in life (older than 50) and have median life expectancies of two to five years from diagnosis if untreated. Progression of both forms of the disease can cause significant disability, impact productivity and quality of life, and create a significant economic burden due to the costs associated with patient need for supportive care. As the disease progresses, ATTRwt-CM and ATTRv-CM patients may experience recurrent hospitalizations and repeated interventions.

The worldwide estimated prevalence of ATTRwt-CM and ATTRv-CM is greater than 400,000 and 40,000, respectively. We believe that cardiomyopathic ATTR is significantly underdiagnosed today. For example, recent literature has suggested that between 10% to 13% of patients diagnosed with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction may have undiagnosed ATTR-CM. The heart failure with preserved ejection fraction segment represents approximately half of the 6.0 million to 7.0 million estimated people with heart failure in the United States. With the increasing availability of disease-modifying therapeutics, disease awareness is heightened.

We believe the population of diagnosed ATTR-CM patients is also growing rapidly due to the shift to an accurate and reliable non-invasive diagnostic imaging technique. Historically, a heart biopsy was required to make a diagnosis of ATTR-CM. Recently, however, it has been shown that scintigraphy with technetium-labeled radiotracers paired with single-photon emission computerized tomography, or SPECT, imaging is a highly accurate, non-invasive, and cost-effective method for ATTR-CM diagnosis. We believe that both increased disease awareness and availability of this non-invasive diagnostic imaging technique allow for earlier diagnosis of ATTR-CM patients and the identification of previously misdiagnosed patients.

Design Criteria

Acoramidis is a clinical-stage, orally administered, small molecule TTR stabilizer being developed to treat ATTR at its source. We designed acoramidis to meet two primary criteria – to preserve circulating native TTR and to reduce amyloid deposition by minimizing toxic TTR monomer formation.

TTR is a protein which has been highly conserved throughout evolution, and which is abundant in the plasma with relatively rapid turnover requiring sustained metabolic energy expenditure. Thus, we seek to achieve maximal stabilization of the TTR tetramer rather than elimination.

Acoramidis has been shown in preclinical studies and clinical trials to prevent the dissociation of tetrameric TTR into monomers, and in preclinical studies, to reduce the rate of amyloid fibril formation. In addition, it has been shown to lead to increased circulating levels of tetrameric TTR. Acoramidis has been designed to bind TTR in a way that causes TTR’s conformational structure to mimic that of the well-characterized T119M variant, a naturally occurring rescue mutation that super stabilizes the TTR tetramer. The T119M variant has been observed to prevent the dissociation of TTR tetramers into monomers; T119M tetramers dissociate 40-fold more slowly than wild-type tetramers in biochemical assays. Known as a trans-allelic trans-suppressor, individuals who coinherit the T119M rescue mutation along with a TTR-destabilizing mutation are protected against the development of ATTR.

In third-party clinical trials of tafamidis, another orally administered, small molecule TTR stabilizer, interventional approaches that increased TTR stabilization led to improved outcomes in this disease, as measured by all-cause mortality and cardiovascular-related hospitalizations, and were correlated with increases in serum TTR. Further, based on genetic data, there is a correlation between the level of TTR stabilization, serum TTR levels and disease severity. As a result, we believe that serum TTR is a predictive biomarker for disease prognosis and that there may be a relationship between more effective TTR stabilization, serum TTR levels and improved clinical outcomes. Based on results from comparative nonclinical studies, we believe that acoramidis has the potential to stabilize TTR to a greater extent than other TTR stabilizers.

Clinical Data

Phase 2 Data

In November 2018, we announced Phase 2 data for acoramidis in symptomatic patients with ATTR-CM. The randomized, placebo-controlled, dose-ranging clinical trial included 49 patients with symptomatic ATTR-CM, of which 14 had ATTR-CM. Eligible patients were randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to placebo or 400 milligrams or mg, or 800 mg of acoramidis twice daily over 28 days. Overall, acoramidis was well-tolerated in symptomatic ATTR-CM subjects with no safety signals of potential clinical concern attributed to study drug. Acoramidis significantly raised serum TTR concentrations (p < 0.0001) by 50% and 36% in subjects administered 800 mg twice daily and 400 twice daily, respectively, at day 28. Normalized serum TTR levels were observed in all actively treated subjects at day 28.

In November 2019, we announced data from our Phase 2 open-label extension, or OLE, suggesting long-term tolerability of acoramidis and stabilization of ATTR-CM disease measures. Acoramidis was well-tolerated in the OLE and no safety signals of potential clinical concern were attributed to study drug. The rate of all-cause mortality (including either death or cardiac transplantation, 8.5%) and cardiovascular-related hospitalizations (proportion experiencing at least one event, 25.5%) observed in an exploratory analysis of OLE participants following a median of 15 months since Phase 2 initiation were lower than those observed at 15 months in placebo-treated patients in the ATTR-ACT study (all-cause mortality including death or cardiac transplantation, 15.3%; cardiovascular-related hospitalizations, 41.8%).

In October 2023, we presented updated results from our Phase 2 OLE, demonstrating continued long-term tolerability of acoramidis and stabilization of ATTR-CM disease measures. With a median of 55 months of continuous treatment, acoramidis was generally well-tolerated in the OLE and no safety signals of potential clinical concern were attributed to study drug. In patients with symptomatic ATTR-CM, long-term treatment with acoramidis is associated with both stable median NT-proBNP levels and sustained increases in serum TTR. In this ongoing open-label study, at least 53% of patients with ATTR-CM and NYHA Class II or III at entry to the phase 2 trial have survived for a median follow-up of 4.6 years.

Phase 3 Data

In February 2019, we initiated ATTRibute-CM, a global Phase 3 randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial of acoramidis in ATTR-CM. ATTRibute-CM enrolled 632 subjects with symptomatic ATTR-CM, associated with either wild-type or variant TTR and New York Heart Association, or NYHA, Class I-III symptoms. Subjects were randomized 2:1 between treatment (acoramidis 800 mg) and placebo twice daily in a two-part trial. In Part A, change in 6MWD at 12 months was compared between treatment and placebo groups as a potential registrational endpoint. In Part B, the hierarchical composite primary endpoint including all-cause mortality and cardiovascular hospitalizations will be compared between treatment and control groups at 30 months. Secondary endpoints include quality of life as assessed by the KCCQ-OS, safety parameters, serum TTR levels, a measure of TTR stabilization, and NT-proBNP levels, a cardiac biomarker. In Part B, concomitant use of tafamidis is allowed. A schematic of the trial is shown below:

On December 27, 2021, we reported topline data from Part A of the ATTRibute-CM trial which did not meet its primary endpoint of change from baseline in 6MWD (p = 0.76). Mean observed 6MWD decline for the acoramidis and placebo arms were 9 meters and 7 meters, respectively. Decline observed in both arms of ATTRibute-CM was similar to expected functional decline in healthy elderly adults at 12 months. We observed

improvements in acoramidis-treated participants relative to placebo-treated participants at Month 12 on secondary and exploratory endpoints including NT-proBNP, serum TTR concentration and KCCQ-OS.

On July 17, 2023, the Company announced positive data from its Phase 3 ATTRibute-CM clinical trial of acoramidis for patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). The primary endpoint (a hierarchical analysis inclusive of all-cause mortality and frequency of cardiovascular-related hospitalization) was met (Win Ratio of 1.8) with a highly statistically significant p-value (p<0.0001). This primary endpoint result consistently favored acoramidis treatment across key subgroups, including across both variant and wild-type ATTR patients as well as across New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class I, II, and III patients. In particular, consistency against cardiovascular-related hospitalizations (CVH) was observed across all prespecified subgroups at 30 months. Absolute values observed across all-cause mortality (ACM), cardiovascular mortality (CVM) and CVH showed that over 30 months, patients survived more and were hospitalized less than has been seen in prior controlled studies of ATTR-CM to the Company’s knowledge. Assessment of measures of disease progression in the trial suggest that of participants assigned to receive acoramidis treatment who completed a Month 30 visit, 45% experienced an improvement from baseline in N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), 40% experienced an improvement from baseline on 6-minute walk distance (6MWD), and 13% experienced an improvement from baseline in NYHA class. The placebo and acoramidis time-to-first event Kaplan-Meier (K-M) curves for a composite of all-cause mortality (ACM) and cardiovascular-related hospitalization (CVH) separated beginning at Month 3, representing rapid and sustained clinical benefit on the composite endpoint of ACM and CVH in ATTR-CM patients through Month 30 (Hazard Ratio = 0.645, 95% CI: 0.500-0.832). Acoramidis was well-tolerated, with no safety signals of potential clinical concern identified.

Competition

If acoramidis is approved as a treatment for ATTR-CM, we expect to face competition from Vyndaqel / Vyndamax (tafamidis meglumine / tafamidis), which is approved in certain territories, including the United States, the European Union, and Japan as a treatment for ATTR-CM. Additionally, there are a number of RNAi, antisense oligonucleotide, antibody, and gene editing product candidates that are currently in development as potential treatments for ATTR-CM.

Low-dose Infigratinib: Achondroplasia

Summary

We are developing low-dose infigratinib, an oral FGFR1-3 selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor, or TKI, as a treatment option for children with achondroplasia. We are currently enrolling patients in PROPEL, a prospective observational study in children with achondroplasia and PROPEL 3, a Phase 3 double-blinded, placebo-controlled pivotal study of low-dose infigratinib at a dose level of 0.25 milligrams per kilogram per day (mg/kg/day) in children with achondroplasia.

On June 20, 2023, the Company announced positive topline results from PROPEL2, its Phase 2 clinical trial of infigratinib in children with achondroplasia. In the highest dose level (Cohort 5, 0.25mg/kg once daily), the mean change from baseline in annualized height velocity (“AHV”) at six months was +3.38 centimeters per year (cm/yr) (p = 0.001). Infigratinib demonstrated clear dose-responsiveness when given as a single daily oral dose and was well-tolerated with no treatment-related adverse events (“AEs”) assessed in Cohort 5.

Market Opportunity

We believe that achondroplasia and other FGFR-driven skeletal dysplasias represent a potentially over $5.0 billion total global market opportunity. The achondroplasia market alone has grown steadily since the end of 2021, driven by a newly available therapy driving children to seek treatment, as well as growing awareness of the new treatment among pediatric endocrinologists. We believe that low-dose infigratinib, if approved, would have meaningful commercial potential to demonstrate best-in-class efficacy as well as a differentiated oral route of administration preferred by many patients.

Condition Overview

Achondroplasia is the most frequent cause of disproportionate short stature, and mutations in the FGFR3 gene have been shown to be the molecular source of the condition. Achondroplasia has a prevalence of greater than 55,000 in the United States and European Union, and an estimated worldwide incidence of one in 10,000 to 30,000 live births. The condition leads to a disproportionate short stature with anomalies in bone development and potential for foramen magnum stenosis, spinal stenosis, cardiovascular complications and obesity. The average height is approximately 4’4” for a male and 4’1” for a female with achondroplasia. Lifespan and intelligence are most often normal.

Achondroplasia is an autosomal dominant condition caused by a gain-of-function point mutation in the FGFR3 gene. Approximately 97% of cases are due to G380R substitution and 80% of cases are the result of de novo mutations. FGFR3 is expressed in osteoblasts and chondrocytes where it plays a critical role in regulating bone growth through the MAPK pathway, which drives hypertrophic differentiation, and through the STAT1 pathway, which drives chondrocyte proliferation. Apart from growth hormones, which are approved in Japan, there is only one medicine approved for marketing by the FDA, the EMA, and the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, or PMDA, for the treatment of achondroplasia: Voxzogo (vosoritide), a C-type natriuretic peptide, or CNP, analog which activates the MAPK pathway but not the STAT1 pathway.

Design Criteria

We are developing low-dose infigratinib based upon two key design principles – we seek to target achondroplasia at its source (FGFR3 gain-of-function mutations) in order to maximize clinical activity against all manifestations of the condition, not just height; and we seek to provide a tolerable oral treatment option in order to provide a reduced burden of treatment versus injection for children and their families. We believe low-dose infigratinib is the only investigational therapy in development that incorporates both of these design principles.

Low-dose infigratinib is designed to directly target FGFR3 gain-of-function mutations which are the drivers behind the pathophysiology of achondroplasia. As an FGFR1-3 inhibitor, we believe that low-dose infigratinib has the potential to decrease pathologic signaling downstream of FGFR3 and treat achondroplasia at its source. Unlike potentially competitive CNP mimetic approaches, which only inhibit MAPK signaling, our approach is aimed at also inhibiting STAT1 signaling.

Low-dose infigratinib is also designed for an oral route of administration. Blinded market research indicates that oral administration is the preferred route of administration amongst healthcare providers who treat children with achondroplasia.

Preclinical Data

Low-dose infigratinib has been studied preclinically in a mouse model of achondroplasia that recapitulates anomalies of the growth plates, vertebrae, and intervertebral discs. Investigators observed that low-dose infigratinib rescued ex vivo bone growth of mutant mouse embryo femurs after six days of treatment. Further, 15 days of treatment showed in vivo bone growth, which mimics human achondroplasia in many respects. Effects on both appendicular and axial skeletal parameters were observed in this study.

Below are figures demonstrating the extent of femur growth and intervertebral disc width rescue in wild-type, untreated model, and low-dose infigratinib treated (2 mg/kg) model mice:

In vivo bone growth was further demonstrated at lower doses (0.2 mg/kg and 0.5 mg/kg) by the same laboratory. Together, preclinical studies at all doses have demonstrated meaningful increases in skeletal growth parameters between treated and untreated mutant mice, as follows:

Increase in length compared to non-treated mouse (%)

Notably, treatment with low-dose infigratinib did not modify the expression of FGFR1 in the hypertrophic zone of the growth plate. The effects seen were mainly due to FGFR3 inhibition, with no other gross side effects being observed in these preclinical studies. Furthermore, survival was improved after 15 days in low-dose infigratinib treated mice, regardless of dose, as compared to untreated mice.

Clinical Development Plan

We are currently enrolling patients in PROPEL, a prospective observational study in children with achondroplasia. The study will establish annualized height velocity, or AHV, for each child for a minimum period of six months. PROPEL is designed to provide baseline measurements for children that we anticipate enrolling in PROPEL 3, the pivotal Phase 3 trial.

Following positive feedback on the regulatory path to approval from FDA and EMA, we initiated PROPEL 3, a phase 3 double-blinded, 2:1 randomized, placebo-controlled pivotal study of low-dose infigratinib at a dose level of 0.25 mg/kg/day in children with achondroplasia. The primary endpoint is change from baseline in AHV and the secondary endpoints include safety, proportionality, and height for age z-score. On December 12, 2023, we announced the first child randomized in PROPEL 3.

Key Competitors

Low-dose infigratinib is the only oral direct FGFR1-3 inhibitor that has been publicly disclosed in clinical development for the treatment of achondroplasia. There are three other identified companies developing compounds for the treatment of achondroplasia using alternative mechanistic approaches: Ascendis Pharma A/S (TransCon CNP), Sanofi S.A. (SAR442501), and Ribomic (RBM-007). In addition, BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. has developed Voxzogo (vosoritide), a CNP analog, for the treatment of achondroplasia.

Low-dose Infigratinib: Hypochondroplasia

We are also developing low-dose infigratinib as a treatment option for children living with hypochondroplasia, a skeletal dysplasia closely related to achondroplasia and similarly driven by FGFR3 gain-of-function variants. ACCEL, an observational study for infigratinib in hypochondroplasia, is expected to initiate in the first half of 2024. We are also committed to exploring the potential of infigratinib on the wider medical and functional impacts of hypochondroplasia, which hold significant unmet needs for families.

Encaleret: Autosomal Dominant Hypocalcemia Type 1 and Hypoparathyroidism

Summary

Encaleret is an oral small molecule antagonist of the calcium sensing receptor, or CaSR, that we are developing for the treatment of Autosomal Dominant Hypocalcemia Type 1, or ADH1. We are currently studying encaleret in an ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial as a potential treatment for patients with ADH1. We reported results from the Phase 2b study in 2022 and published the results from the same study in the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2023. In 13 participants in the Phase 2b trial, treatment with encaleret resulted in rapid and sustained restoration of normal mineral homeostasis, with mean values of blood calcium, urinary calcium, and blood parathyroid hormone, or PTH within the normal range by day 5 of therapy and sustained at 24 weeks, and was well-tolerated without any reported serious adverse events. Encaleret has been granted orphan drug and fast track designations by the FDA for the treatment of autosomal dominant hypocalcemia. Encaleret has also been granted orphan designation by the European Commission as a treatment for hypoparathyroidism, inclusive of ADH1.

Market Opportunity

We believe that ADH1 is a serious medical condition with unmet needs and represents a market with significant commercial potential. ADH1 is caused by gain-of-function variants of the CASR gene, and independent studies of general population genetic datasets estimate that there are 25,000 carriers of ADH1-causative variants in the EU and US. If approved, encaleret could be the first targeted therapy indicated for ADH1.

Design Criteria

Encaleret is an investigational, orally administered, small molecule antagonist of the CaSR. It has been studied in more than 1,200 human subjects in its prior development and was observed to increase serum calcium in a dose-dependent manner. The rationale for developing encaleret as a potential treatment for patients with ADH1 is based on both non-clinical and clinical evidence. Antagonists of the CaSR have been shown in vitro to shift the aberrant CaSR “set-point” back towards a normal IC50 for calcium and in vivo to increase PTH secretion, elevate blood calcium concentrations, and reduce urinary calcium excretion. By selectively antagonizing the CaSR, encaleret may restore normal CaSR function in individuals with ADH1 and may address symptoms associated with hypocalcemia and hypercalciuria.

Clinical Data

On June 13, 2022, we reported positive data from our Phase 2b clinical trial of encaleret in patients with ADH1. Thirteen adults with ADH1 caused by nine unique CASR variants participated in the three-period, Phase 2b, open-label, dose-ranging clinical trial. Oral calcium and activated vitamin D supplements were discontinued prior to encaleret initiation. Periods 1 and 2 each evaluated encaleret over the course of five inpatient days and Period 3 included a 24-week outpatient evaluation. Based on 24-week outpatient data, we observed:

The participants who completed Period 3 of the Phase 2b study were eligible to continue in an open-label extension of up to 25 months. The results of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2023.

We also announced the initiation of our Phase 3 registrational trial of encaleret in ADH1 in December 2022.

Key Competitors

We believe encaleret is the only molecule that has been publicly disclosed to be in development specifically for the treatment of ADH1. There are other identified companies developing compounds for the treatment of hypoparathyroidism using recombinant parathyroid hormone analogs or PTH receptor agonists: Ascendis Pharma A/S (TransCon PTH), Amolyt Pharma (AZP-3601), EnteraBio Ltd. (EB612), Extend Biosciences Inc. (EXT607), and MBX Biosciences (MBX 2109).

BBP-418: Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy Type 2I

BBP-418 is an investigational, orally administered, small molecule substrate supplementation therapy that we are developing for the treatment of LGMD2I, also known as LGMDR9. In October 2023, we shared positive long-term data from our Phase 2 trial in patients with LGMD2I, including that early assessment of increased glycosylated αDG predicted subsequent ambulatory improvements at later time points, supporting the use of glycosylated αDG levels as a potential surrogate endpoint in LGMD2I. We are currently studying BBP-418 in FORTIFY, an ongoing global registrational Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with LGMD2I. We believe there is potential to pursue accelerated approval in the US for BBP-418 based on recent interactions with the FDA on the use of glycosylated αDG as a surrogate endpoint.

Disease Overview

LGMD2I is an inherited neuromuscular disorder characterized by lower-limb weakness and loss of ambulation, and possible pulmonary and cardiac dysfunction. BBP-418 has a potentially-addressable population of 7,000, including both LGMD2I and other potentially-addressable dystroglycanopathies, in the United States and Europe. Currently, there is no disease-modifying treatment available. Standard of care is supportive care to alleviate end organ dysfunction.

Design Criteria

The rationale for developing BBP-418 as a potential treatment for LGMD2I is based on our understanding of the disease mechanism. In healthy tissue, properly functioning Fukutin-Related Protein, or FKRP, glycosylates alpha-dystroglycan, or αDG. This glycosylation helps to stabilize muscle cells by binding extracellular ligands. In LGMD2I, mutated FKRP does not function properly and results in dysfunctional, hypo-glycosylated αDG in muscle cells, limiting αDG’s ability to function as a “shock absorber” for muscle fibers and increasing cellular susceptibility to damage.

BBP-418 is designed to target the disease mechanism of LGMD2I by supplying supra-physiological levels of BBP-418 upstream to drive residual activity of the mutant FKRP enzyme and potentially increase glycosylated αDG levels.

Clinical Data

On October 9, 2023, we shared positive long-term results from our ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial of BBP-418 in patients with LGMD2I at the Annual Congress of the World Muscle Society. The open-label, dose-ascending Phase 2 trial enrolled 14 participants, including both ambulatory and non-ambulatory patients with LGMD2I, across three cohorts. The new long-term data remains consistent with earlier data from the Phase 2 study showing a well-tolerated safety profile and encouraging preliminary efficacy. Additionally, early changes in glycosylated αDG levels at 3 months appear to be associated with ambulatory improvements at 9 months, providing support for the possible use of glycosylated αDG levels as a surrogate endpoint in the ongoing Phase 3 study for accelerated approval. Based on the data after 21 months of treatment, we observed:

Clinical Development Plan

Our Phase 2 clinical trial investigating BBP-418 in LGMD2I is ongoing. Following the release of top-line data from our Phase 2 trial, we have engaged with regulatory authorities to align on a Phase 3 trial design. Our Phase 3 trial, FORTIFY, was initiated in the US, with the first patient enrolled in June 2023.

Key Competitors

We believe BBP-418 is the only late-stage oral therapy disclosed to be in clinical development for potentially disease-modifying treatment of LGMD2I. Edgewise Therapeutics is developing an oral small molecule therapy (EDG-5506) for adults with LGMD2I. There are two other identified companies developing gene therapies for the treatment of LGMD2I: Asklepios Biopharmaceutical, Inc. (LION-101) and Atamayo Therapeutics (ATA-001-FKRP/ATA-100).

Manufacturing

We do not own or operate, and currently have no plans to establish, any manufacturing facilities. We currently depend on third-party contract manufacturing organizations, or CMOs, for all required raw materials, drug substance and drug product for our preclinical research and our ongoing clinical trials of our product candidates. In addition to a manufacturing agreement that we entered into in December 2019 and terminated by mutual agreement in May 2022, we have secured long-term agreements with CMOs to produce and commercialize acoramidis if approved by the FDA. We intend to continue to rely on CMOs for later-stage development and commercialization of our product candidates, including any additional product candidates that we may identify. Although we rely on CMOs, we have personnel and third-party consultants with extensive manufacturing experience to oversee the relationships with our contract manufacturers. Several of our development candidates have or are in the near term expected to have redundant and overlapping drug substance and drug product supply chains.

Sales and Marketing

We intend to build a commercial infrastructure in the United States and selected other territories to support the commercialization of our current product candidates when we believe a regulatory approval in a particular territory is likely. Because most of our target indications are rare diseases with a concentrated prescribing audience and a small number of key opinion leaders who influence the treatments prescribed for the relevant patient population, we currently believe that we can effectively address each market using our own targeted, specialty sales and marketing organization supported by internal sales personnel, an internal marketing group and distribution support. To date, we have received regulatory approval for two products that we previously developed, TRUSELTIQTM (infigratinib) for the treatment of patients with previously-treated locally advanced or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma, or CCA harboring an FGFR2 fusion or rearrangement, and NULIBRY (fosdenopterin) for injection as the first therapy to reduce the risk of mortality in patients with MoCD Type A. Sentynl Therapeutics, Inc., or Sentynl, acquired global rights to NULIBRY in the first quarter of 2022 and is now responsible for the ongoing development and commercialization of NULIBRY in the United States and developing, manufacturing and commercializing fosdenopterin globally. Following FDA approval of TRUSELTIQTM (infigratinib) in May 2021, we were the principal selling party of this product in the United States. Commencing in January 2022, we sold the remaining transitional supply of TRUSELTIQTM to Helsinn Healthcare S.A. and Helsinn Therapeutics (U.S.), Inc., or collectively, Helsinn, and Helsinn became the principal selling party. Helsinn permanently discontinued the distribution of TRUSELTIQTM and requested a withdrawal of the NDA in May 2023, additionally, all clinical investigations under the associated IND are discontinued. In December 2022, we entered into a mutual termination agreement with Helsinn concerning, among other things, steps to wind down the commercialization of infigratinib in oncology indications. (See Note 11 to our consolidated financial statements.)

We evaluate our commercialization strategy as we advance each product candidate through clinical development and to regulatory approval. In any core markets outside of the United States that we may identify, where appropriate, we may utilize strategic partners, distributors or contract sales forces to expand the commercial availability of our product candidates, if approved. We currently do not expect that we will require large pharmaceutical partners for the commercialization of any of our product candidates, if approved, although we may consider partnering in certain territories or indications or for other strategic purposes.

Intellectual Property

Overview

We strive to protect the proprietary technology that we believe is important to our business through a variety of methods, including seeking and maintaining patents and patent applications intended to cover our product candidates and compositions, their methods of use and processes for their manufacture, our platform technologies and any other aspects of inventions that are commercially important to the development of our business. We seek to obtain domestic and international patent protection and, in addition to filing and prosecuting patent applications in the United States, we may file counterpart patent applications in additional countries where we believe such foreign filing is likely to be beneficial, including Australia, Canada, Europe, China, Japan, and Mexico. We have entered into various license agreements to obtain the rights to use certain patents for the development and commercialization of our product candidates, as discussed further in the section titled, “Our Material Agreements.” We also rely on trade secrets to protect aspects of our business that are not amenable to, or that we do not consider appropriate for, patent protection.

Our success will depend on our ability to obtain and maintain patent and other proprietary rights protecting our commercially important technology, inventions and know-how related to our business, defend and enforce our current and future issued patents, if any, preserve the confidentiality of our trade secrets and operate without infringing the valid and enforceable patents and proprietary rights of third parties. We continually assess and refine our intellectual property strategy in order to best fortify our position, and file additional patent applications when our intellectual property strategy warrants such filings. We also rely on know-how, continuing technological innovation, and potential in-licensing opportunities to develop and maintain our intellectual property portfolio. We seek to obtain domestic and international patent protection, and endeavor to promptly file patent applications for new commercially valuable inventions.

The patent positions of biopharmaceutical companies like us are generally uncertain and involve complex legal, scientific, and factual questions. In addition, the coverage claimed in a patent application can be significantly reduced before the patent is issued, and patent scope can be reinterpreted by the courts after issuance. Moreover, many jurisdictions permit third parties to challenge issued patents in administrative proceedings, which may result in further narrowing or even cancellation of patent claims. We cannot predict whether the patent applications we are currently pursuing will issue as patents in any particular jurisdiction or whether the claims of any patents, if issued, will provide sufficient protection from competitors.

Because patent applications in the United States and certain other jurisdictions are maintained in secrecy for 18 months or potentially even longer, and since publication of discoveries in the scientific or patent literature often lags behind actual discoveries, we cannot be certain of the priority of inventions covered by pending patent applications. Moreover, we may have to participate in interference proceedings or derivation proceedings declared by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, to determine priority of invention.

As of February 13, 2024, our intellectual property portfolio is composed of 133 issued patents and 108 patent applications that we license from academic and research institutions and other third parties, and 56 issued patents and 424 pending patent applications that we own or co-own, including through our subsidiaries. These patents and patent applications generally provide us with the rights to develop our product candidates in the United States and worldwide. Our intellectual property portfolios for each of the programs that we consider to be our core value drivers are further described below.

For our subsidiary, QED Therapeutics, Inc. (“QED”), we license rights from Novartis to two issued U.S. patents, and related pending and issued foreign patents and patent applications in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Japan and Mexico, as well as in other countries in Asia and in South America, that are directed to compositions of matter of infigratinib. The foreign patents and patent applications, if issued, are expected to expire between 2025 and 2030. The issued U.S. patents are expected to expire between 2028 and 2029, which takes into account patent term adjustments granted by the USPTO as well as a terminal disclaimer of one issued patent to another U.S. patent. Upon the initial approval of infigratinib, QED applied for 1,516 days of patent term extension, or PTE, for the U.S. patent covering the infigratinib compound; assuming grant of the PTE application, the term of this patent may be extended from August 25, 2029, to October 19, 2033.

We also license rights from Novartis to two issued U.S. patents and related pending and issued foreign patents and patent applications in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Japan and Mexico, as well as in other countries in Asia and in South America, that are directed to pharmaceutical formulations containing infigratinib. The issued patents and patent applications, if issued, are expected to expire in 2034. In addition, we license rights from Novartis to one issued U.S. patent, one pending U.S. patent application, and related pending and issued foreign patents and patent applications in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Japan and Mexico, as well as in other countries in Asia, that are directed to methods of treating hypophosphatemic disorders. The issued patents and patent applications, if issued, are expected to expire in 2033.

We also license rights from Inserm Transfert ESA and Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris to two issued U.S. patents and one pending U.S. patent application, and one granted patent in Europe, that are directed to methods of treating skeletal dysplasias using infigratinib. The issued U.S. patents, granted patent in Europe, and the pending patent application, if issued, are expected to expire in 2032.

In addition, QED owns five pending U.S. patent applications, one pending Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT, patent application, and related pending foreign patent applications in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, Japan and Mexico, as well as in other countries in Asia, that are directed to methods of treating various cancers or skeletal disorders using infigratinib. If any patents issue from these patent applications, such patents would be expected to expire between 2040 and 2044.

For our subsidiary Eidos Therapeutics, Inc., we license rights from the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, or Stanford, to ten issued U.S. patents, two pending U.S. patent applications, one issued European patent, and one issued Japanese patent with claims directed to composition of matter and methods of use relating to acoramidis. These patents are expected to expire in 2031 or 2033.

In addition, we own five issued U.S. patents, six pending U.S. patent applications, and 67 related foreign patents issued or patent applications pending in various jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada, Europe, China, Japan, and Mexico, with claims directed to salt and solid forms, methods of manufacturing, dosing methods, and/or formulations relating to acoramidis. The issued U.S. and foreign patents are expected to expire in 2038 or 2039. The pending U.S. and foreign patent applications, if issued, are also expected to expire between 2038 and 2044.

For our subsidiary, Calcilytix, Inc., we license rights from Japan Tobacco Company to one issued U.S. patent and two foreign patents in Europe and Japan that are directed to compositions of matter of encaleret. The U.S. patent is expected to expire in 2025, and the foreign patents are expected to expire in 2024. In addition, Calcilytix owns four pending U.S. patent applications, and thirty one related foreign patent applications pending in various jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada, Europe, China, Japan, and Mexico with claims to formulations, dosing methods, and patient selection methods relating to encaleret. The pending U.S. and foreign patent applications, if issued, are expected to expire between 2041 and 2044.

For our subsidiary, ML Bio Solutions, Inc., we license rights from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority d/b/a Atrium Health to five issued U.S. patents, three pending U.S. patent applications, and thirty three related foreign patent applications pending in various jurisdictions, including Australia, Canada, Europe, China, Japan, and Mexico with claims to methods of treatment, dosing methods, and compositions relating to BBP-418. The issued U.S. patents are expected to expire in 2037. The pending U.S. and foreign patent applications, if issued, are expected to expire in 2040 or 2041. In addition, ML Bio owns two pending U.S. patent applications relating to assays. The pending U.S. patent applications, if issued, are expected to expire in 2042 or 2044.

Our Material Agreements

Acoramidis

License Agreement with Alexion

In September 2019, through our subsidiary Eidos Therapeutics, Inc., or Eidos, we entered into a license agreement, or the Alexion License Agreement, with Alexion Pharma International Operations Unlimited Company, a subsidiary of Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., or together, Alexion, to develop and commercialize acoramidis in Japan. Additionally, in September 2019, Eidos entered into a stock purchase agreement with Alexion, pursuant to which Eidos sold to Alexion 556,173 shares of its common stock for aggregate cash proceeds of $25.0 million. Under the terms of the Alexion License Agreement, Eidos granted Alexion an exclusive license to certain of our intellectual property rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize acoramidis in Japan. In consideration for the license grant, Eidos received an upfront payment of $25.0 million, with the potential for an additional one-time payment of $30.0 million subject to the achievement of a regulatory milestone. In addition, Eidos is entitled to receive royalties in the low double-digits on net sales by Alexion of acoramidis in Japan. The royalty rate is subject to reduction if Alexion is required to obtain intellectual property rights from third parties to develop, manufacture or commercialize acoramidis in Japan, or upon the introduction of generic competition into the market.

License Agreement with the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

In April 2016, through Eidos, we entered into an exclusive license agreement with Stanford for rights relating to novel transthyretin aggregation inhibitors. Under our agreement, Stanford has granted us an exclusive worldwide license to make, use and sell products that are covered by the licensed patent rights. This license grant expires when the last licensed patent expires. The patent rights exclusively licensed to us under the license are described in more detail above under the heading “Intellectual property— Eidos Therapeutics, Inc.” Stanford and Eidos agree in good faith to meet and discuss performance of development milestones which are specified in amendments to the license agreement.

Stanford retains the right, on behalf of itself and all other non-profit academic research institutions, to practice under the patent rights for any non-profit purpose, including sponsored research and collaborations. We may grant sublicenses to third parties so long as we are actively pursuing the development or commercialization of products covered by the patent rights. We may also be required to sublicense our rights under the agreement at Stanford’s request under certain conditions, including if we are unwilling or unable to serve a potential market or territory and there is a third party willing to be a sublicensee in such market or territory.

We are obligated to pay to Stanford a yearly license maintenance fee during the term of the agreement, but we may offset the maintenance fee against earned royalty payments due on net sales occurring in that year. Stanford is entitled to receive a royalty as a percentage of net sales of licensed products, in the low single digits. We have agreed to pay Stanford a percentage of non-royalty revenue we receive from our sublicensees, with the amount owed decreasing annually for three years based on when we enter into the applicable sublicense agreement. In addition, we are obligated to pay Stanford up to approximately $1.0 million upon the achievement of specific intellectual property, clinical and regulatory milestone events. In the event of a change of control transaction with respect to Eidos, we are obligated to pay Stanford a change of control fee of $250,000 in connection with the assignment of the license agreement to the acquirer of Eidos.

Under the license agreement with Stanford, we are obligated to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop, manufacture, and commercialize at least one licensed product; to develop markets for such licensed products; and to meet certain development milestones as agreed upon between us and Stanford.

Subject to the expiration of the license grant described above, the agreement does not have a specified term. We may terminate the agreement by providing prior written notice to Stanford, and Stanford has the right to terminate the agreement if we fail to achieve certain milestones or make payments under the agreement, or are not actively pursuing development of a licensed product, or if we otherwise materially breach the agreement and fail to cure such breach within a specified grace period.

Infigratinib: License Agreement with Novartis International Pharmaceutical Ltd.

In January 2018, through our subsidiary QED, we entered into a license agreement with Novartis International Pharmaceutical Ltd., or Novartis, for certain intellectual property rights, including patents and know-how, related to infigratinib for the treatment of patients with FGFR-driven diseases, including CCA, UC and achondroplasia. We refer to this agreement as the Novartis License.

Pursuant to the Novartis License, we obtained a license to research, develop, make, have made, use, import, offer for sale, sell, have sold and otherwise commercialize infigratinib, as well as therapeutic products incorporating infigratinib that would, but for the license grant, infringe Novartis’ license patent rights, or that were developed using or that incorporate or embody Novartis’ licensed know-how, in all fields of use worldwide. The license grant to us includes the right to sublicense through multiple tiers. We also have certain rights to intellectual property licensed to Novartis’ affiliate under a materials transfer agreement with a third party.

The Novartis License is subject to Novartis’ existing obligations to supply a third party with infigratinib to support the third party’s clinical trials, and we have an ongoing obligation to inform Novartis of our or our sublicensees’ intent to seek regulatory approval for and commercialize infigratinib for various indications, with potential reversionary rights to Novartis in the event of a subsequent decision not to seek regulatory approval and commercialization, or a determination by Novartis that we have failed to sufficiently pursue regulatory approval and commercialization, for Novartis to grant such third party limited rights to develop and commercialize infigratinib.

Under the terms of the Novartis License, we made a one-time payment of $15.0 million to Novartis and agreed to issue shares of Series A preferred stock of QED valued at approximately $1.7 million in the aggregate to Novartis. In addition, we are obligated to make contingent milestone payments totaling $60.0 million upon achievement of certain regulatory milestones. We are also obligated to make contingent milestone payments totaling $35.0 million upon achievement of certain sales milestones for therapeutic products incorporating infigratinib. QED also agreed to pay Novartis tiered low double-digit royalties on net sales of therapeutic products incorporating infigratinib. Following the FDA’s approval of TRUSELTIQTM in May 2021, we paid a one-time regulatory milestone payment to Novartis of $20.0 million.

Under the Novartis License, we are required to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop infigratinib, and to obtain regulatory approval for and commercialize infigratinib in the United States and the European Union.

We may terminate the Novartis License in its entirety or on a product-by-product or country-by-country basis at any time with 60 days’ prior written notice to Novartis. Novartis may terminate if QED ceases to function as a going concern, is the subject of certain bankruptcy or similar proceedings, or otherwise winds down or discontinues its business. Either party may terminate for material breach that is not cured by the other party within a specified time period of receiving notice of such material breach. Otherwise, the Novartis License terminates on a product-by-product and country-by-country basis on the latest of the expiration of licensed patent rights, the expiration of regulatory exclusivity, or the tenth anniversary of the first commercial sale in such country.

Fosdenopterin: Asset Purchase Agreement with Alexion Pharma Holding Unlimited Company

In June 2018, through our subsidiary Origin Biosciences, Inc., we entered into an asset purchase agreement with Alexion Pharma Holding Unlimited Company, or Alexion Pharma, pursuant to which we acquired Alexion’s right, title and interest in certain assets relating to fosdenopterin, including patents and other intellectual property rights.

In the event that a priority review voucher is granted to us by the FDA, we have agreed to pay Alexion Pharma a percentage in the mid-teens of any proceeds received by us from our sale of the PRV to a third party. If we do not sell the PRV to a third party within 180 days after our receipt of the PRV, we are obligated to pay Alexion Pharma $18.8 million, which amount is creditable against any amounts otherwise due to Alexion Pharma in accordance with the preceding sentence upon any future sale by us of the PRV. We are obligated to make contingent milestone payments totaling $3.0 million upon achievement of certain development milestones and $17.0 million upon achievement of certain sales milestones for products containing the fosdenopterin molecule. We also agreed to pay Alexion Pharma tiered royalties ranging from the low-to mid-teens on net sales of products containing the fosdenopterin molecule.

In 2021, we paid Alexion a $2.0 million regulatory milestone upon the FDA’s approval of NULIBRY, a $1.0 million sales-based milestone payment, and $15.0 million as a result of the sale of the PRV to Eidos.

BBP-398: License Development and Commercialization Agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

On May 12, 2022, BridgeBio and our subsidiary, Navire Pharma, Inc., or Navire, entered into an exclusive license development and commercialization agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, or BMS, pursuant to which Navire granted BMS exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Navire’s product candidate, BBP-398, in all indications worldwide, except for the People’s Republic of China, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and South Korea, or collectively, the Asia Region. We refer to this agreement as the Navire-BMS License Agreement.

Under the terms of the Navire-BMS License Agreement, Navire was entitled to receive a non-refundable, upfront payment of $90.0 million, which Navire collected in full in June 2022. Additionally, Navire is eligible to receive additional payments totaling up to approximately $815.0 million in the aggregate, subject to the achievement of development, regulatory and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties in the low-to-mid teens as a percentage of adjusted net sales by BMS of the licensed products sold worldwide, outside of the Asia Region. Navire will retain the option to acquire higher royalties in the United States in connection with funding a portion of development costs upon the initiation of registrational studies. Based on the terms of the Navire-BMS License Agreement, Navire will continue to lead its ongoing Phase 1 monotherapy and combination therapy trials and BMS will lead and fund all other development and commercialization activities.

Government Regulation

Government authorities in the United States at the federal, state and local level and in other countries regulate, among other things, the research, development, manufacture, testing, quality control, approval, labeling, packaging, storage, record-keeping, promotion, advertising, distribution, post-approval monitoring and reporting, marketing and export and import of drug and biological products, including gene therapies, as well as diagnostics, and any future product candidates. Generally, before a new drug, biologic or diagnostic can be marketed, considerable data demonstrating its quality, safety and efficacy must be obtained, organized into a format specific for each regulatory authority, submitted for review and approved, authorized, or cleared by the applicable regulatory authority.

U.S. Government Regulation of Drug and Biological Products

In the United States, the FDA regulates drugs under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA, and its implementing regulations and biologics under the FDCA and the Public Health Service Act, or PHSA, and their implementing regulations. Both drugs and biologics also are subject to other federal, state and local statutes and regulations, such as those related to competition. The process of obtaining regulatory approvals and the subsequent compliance with appropriate federal, state, and local statutes and regulations requires the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources. Failure to comply with the applicable U.S. requirements at any time during the product development process, approval process or following approval may subject an applicant to administrative actions or judicial sanctions. These actions and sanctions could include, among other actions, the FDA’s refusal to approve pending applications, withdrawal of an approval, license revocation, a clinical hold, untitled or warning letters, voluntary or mandatory product recalls or market withdrawals, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, refusals of government contracts, restitution, disgorgement and civil or criminal fines or penalties. Any agency or judicial enforcement action could have a material adverse effect on our business, the market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved, and our reputation.

Our product candidates must be approved by the FDA through either a New Drug Application, or NDA or a Biologics License Application, or BLA, process before they may be legally marketed in the United States. The process generally involves the following:

The preclinical and clinical testing and approval process requires substantial time, effort and financial resources, and the regulatory scheme for drugs and biologics is evolving and subject to change at any time. We cannot be certain that any approvals for our product candidates will be granted on a timely basis, or at all.

Preclinical Studies

Before testing any drug, biological or gene therapy candidate in humans, the product candidate must undergo rigorous preclinical testing. Preclinical studies include laboratory evaluation of product chemistry and formulation, as well as in vitro and animal studies to assess safety and in some cases to establish a rationale for therapeutic use. The conduct of preclinical studies is subject to federal and state regulations and requirements, including GLP regulations for safety/toxicology studies.

An IND sponsor must submit the results of the preclinical tests, together with manufacturing information, analytical data, any available clinical data or literature and plans for clinical trials, among other things, to the FDA as part of an IND. An IND is a request for authorization from the FDA to administer an investigational product to humans, and must become effective before human clinical trials may begin. Some long-term preclinical testing, such as animal tests of reproductive AEs and carcinogenicity, may continue after the IND is submitted. An IND automatically becomes effective 30 days after receipt by the FDA, unless before that time, the FDA raises concerns or questions related to one or more proposed clinical trials and places the trial on clinical hold. In such a case, the IND sponsor and the FDA must resolve any outstanding concerns before the clinical trial can begin. As a result, submission of an IND may not result in the FDA allowing clinical trials to commence. Additionally, the review of information in an IND submission may prompt FDA to, among other things, scrutinize existing INDs or any marketed products and could generate requests for information or clinical holds on other product candidates or programs.

Clinical Trials

The clinical stage of development involves the administration of the investigational product to healthy volunteers or patients under the supervision of qualified investigators, generally physicians not employed by or under the trial sponsor’s control, in accordance with GCP requirements, which include the requirement that all research subjects provide their informed consent for their participation in any clinical trial. Clinical trials are conducted under protocols detailing, among other things, the objectives of the clinical trial, dosing procedures, subject selection and exclusion criteria and the parameters to be used to monitor subject safety and assess efficacy. Each protocol, and any subsequent amendments to the protocol, must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND. Furthermore, each clinical trial must be reviewed and approved by an IRB for each institution at which the clinical trial will be conducted to ensure that the risks to individuals participating in the clinical trials are minimized and are reasonable in relation to anticipated benefits. The IRB also approves the informed consent form that must be provided to each clinical trial subject or his or her legal representative, and must monitor the clinical trial until completed. There also are requirements governing the reporting of ongoing clinical trials and completed clinical trial results to public registries. Information about certain clinical trials, including clinical trial results, must be submitted within specific timeframes for publication on the www.clinicaltrials.gov website.

In addition to the submission of an IND to the FDA before initiation of a clinical trial in the United States, certain human clinical trials involving recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules are subject to oversight by institutional biosafety committees, or IBC’s, as set forth in the National Institute of Health (“NIH”) Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant or Synthetic Nucleic Acid Molecules, or NIH Guidelines. Under the NIH Guidelines, recombinant and synthetic nucleic acids are defined as (i) molecules that are constructed by joining nucleic acid molecules and that can replicate in a living cell (i.e., recombinant nucleic acids); (ii nucleic acid molecules that are chemically or by other means synthesized or amplified, including those that are chemically or otherwise modified but can base pair with naturally occurring nucleic acid molecules (i.e., synthetic nucleic acids); or (iii) molecules that result from the replication of those described in (i) or (ii). Specifically, under the NIH Guidelines, supervision of human gene transfer trials includes evaluation and assessment by an IBC, a local institutional committee that reviews and oversees research utilizing recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules at that institution. The IBC assesses the safety of the research and identifies any potential risk to public health or the environment, and such review may result in some delay before initiation of a clinical trial. While the NIH Guidelines are not mandatory unless the research in question is being conducted at or sponsored by institutions receiving NIH funding of recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecule research, many companies and other institutions not otherwise subject to the NIH Guidelines voluntarily follow them.

A sponsor who wishes to conduct a clinical trial outside of the United States may, but need not, obtain FDA authorization to conduct the clinical trial under an IND. If a foreign clinical trial is not conducted under an IND, the sponsor may submit data from the clinical trial to the FDA in support of an NDA or BLA. The FDA will accept a well-designed and well-conducted foreign clinical study not conducted under an IND if the study was conducted in accordance with GCP requirements, and the FDA is able to validate the data through an onsite inspection if deemed necessary.

Clinical trials generally are conducted in three sequential phases, known as Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, and may overlap.

Post-approval trials, sometimes referred to as Phase 4 clinical trials, may be conducted after initial marketing approval. These trials are used to gain additional experience from the treatment of patients in the intended therapeutic indication and are commonly intended to generate additional safety data regarding use of the product in a clinical setting. In certain instances, the FDA may mandate the performance of Phase 4 clinical trials as a condition of approval of an NDA or BLA.

Progress reports detailing the results of the clinical trials, among other information, must be submitted at least annually to the FDA and written IND safety reports must be submitted to the FDA and the investigators 15 days after the trial sponsor determines the information qualifies for reporting for serious and unexpected suspected AEs, findings from other studies or animal or in vitro testing that suggest a significant risk for human subjects and any clinically important increase in the rate of a serious suspected adverse reaction over that listed in the protocol or investigator brochure. The sponsor must also notify the FDA of any unexpected fatal or life-threatening suspected adverse reaction as soon as possible but in no case later than seven calendar days after the sponsor’s initial receipt of the information.

Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3 and other types of clinical trials may not be completed successfully within any specified period, if at all. The FDA or the sponsor may suspend or terminate a clinical trial at any time on various grounds, including a finding that the research subjects or patients are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk. Similarly, an IRB can suspend or terminate approval of a clinical trial at its institution if the clinical trial is not being conducted in accordance with the IRB’s requirements or if the drug or biologic has been associated with unexpected serious harm to patients. Additionally, some clinical trials are overseen by an independent group of qualified experts organized by the clinical trial sponsor, known as a data safety monitoring board or committee. This group provides authorization for whether a trial may move forward at designated check points based on access to certain data from the trial. Concurrent with clinical trials, companies usually complete additional animal studies and also must develop additional information about the chemistry and physical characteristics of the drug or biologic as well as finalize a process for manufacturing the product in commercial quantities in accordance with cGMP requirements. The manufacturing process must be capable of consistently producing quality batches of the product and, among other things, companies must develop methods for testing the identity, strength, quality and purity of the final product. Additionally, appropriate packaging must be selected and tested, and stability studies must be conducted to demonstrate that the product candidates do not undergo unacceptable deterioration over their shelf life.

FDA Review Process

Following completion of the clinical trials, data are analyzed to assess whether the investigational product is safe and effective for the proposed indicated use or uses. The results of preclinical studies and clinical trials are then submitted to the FDA as part of an NDA or BLA, along with proposed labeling, chemistry and manufacturing information to ensure product quality and other relevant data. The NDA or BLA is a request for approval to market the drug or biologic for one or more specified indications and must contain proof of safety and efficacy for a drug or safety, purity and potency for a biologic. The application may include both negative and ambiguous results of preclinical studies and clinical trials, as well as positive findings. Data may come from company-sponsored clinical trials intended to test the safety and efficacy of a product’s use or from a number of alternative sources, including studies initiated by investigators. To support marketing approval, the data submitted must be sufficient in quality and quantity to establish the safety and efficacy of the investigational product to the satisfaction of FDA. FDA approval of an NDA or BLA must be obtained before a drug or biologic may be marketed in the United States.

Under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, as amended, each NDA or BLA must be accompanied by a user fee. FDA adjusts the PDUFA user fees on an annual basis. Fee waivers or reductions are available in certain circumstances, including a waiver of the application fee for the first application filed by a small business. Additionally, no user fees are assessed on NDAs or BLAs for products designated as orphan drugs, unless the product also includes a non-orphan indication.

The FDA reviews all submitted NDAs and BLAs before it accepts them for filing, and may request additional information rather than accepting the NDA or BLA for filing. The FDA must make a decision on accepting an NDA or BLA for filing within 60 days of receipt, and such decision could include a refusal to file by the FDA. Once the submission is accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth review of the NDA or BLA. Under the goals and policies agreed to by the FDA under PDUFA, the FDA targets ten months, from the filing date, in which to complete its initial review of a new molecular entity NDA or original BLA and respond to the applicant, and six months from the filing date of a new molecular entity NDA or original BLA designated for priority review. The FDA does not always meet its PDUFA goal dates for standard and priority NDAs or BLAs, and the review process is often extended by FDA requests for additional information or clarification.

Before approving an NDA or BLA, the FDA will conduct a pre-approval inspection of the manufacturing facilities for the new product to determine whether they comply with cGMP requirements. The FDA will not approve the product unless it determines that the manufacturing processes and facilities are in compliance with cGMP requirements and adequate to assure consistent production of the product within required specifications. The FDA also may audit data from clinical trials to ensure compliance with GCP requirements. Additionally, the FDA may refer applications for novel products or products which present difficult questions of safety or efficacy to an advisory committee, typically a panel that includes clinicians and other experts, for review, evaluation and a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions, if any. The FDA is not bound by recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations when making decisions on approval. The FDA likely will reanalyze the clinical trial data, which could result in extensive discussions between the FDA and the applicant during the review process. After the FDA evaluates an NDA or BLA, it will issue an approval letter or a Complete Response Letter. An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the drug or biologic with specific prescribing information for specific indications. A Complete Response Letter indicates that the review cycle of the application is complete, and the application will not be approved in its present form. A Complete Response Letter usually describes all of the specific deficiencies in the NDA or BLA identified by the FDA. The Complete Response Letter may require the applicant to obtain additional clinical data, including the potential requirement to conduct additional pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial(s) and/or to complete other significant and time-consuming requirements related to clinical trials, or to conduct additional preclinical studies or manufacturing activities. If a Complete Response Letter is issued, the applicant may either resubmit the NDA or BLA, addressing all of the deficiencies identified in the letter, or withdraw the application or request an opportunity for a hearing. Even if such data and information are submitted, the FDA may decide that the NDA or BLA does not satisfy the criteria for approval. Data obtained from clinical trials are not always conclusive and the FDA may interpret data differently than we interpret the same data.

Orphan Drug Designation and Exclusivity

Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may grant orphan drug designation to a drug or biological product intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which is generally a disease or condition that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States, or 200,000 or more individuals in the United States and for which there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making the product available in the United States for this type of disease or condition will be recovered from sales of the product.

Orphan drug designation must be requested before submitting an NDA or BLA. After the FDA grants orphan drug designation, the identity of the therapeutic agent and its potential orphan use are disclosed publicly by the FDA. Orphan drug designation does not convey any advantage in or shorten the duration of the regulatory review and approval process.

If a product that has orphan drug designation subsequently receives the first FDA approval for the disease or condition for which it has such designation, the product is entitled to orphan drug exclusivity, which means that the FDA may not approve any other applications to market the same drug for the same indication for seven years from the date of such approval, except in limited circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority to the product with orphan exclusivity by means of greater effectiveness, greater safety or providing a major contribution to patient care or in instances of drug supply issues. Competitors, however, may receive approval of either a different product for the same indication or the same product for a different indication but that could be used off-label in the orphan indication. Orphan drug exclusivity also could block the approval of our products for seven years if a competitor obtains approval before we do for the same product, as defined by the FDA, for the same indication we are seeking approval, or if our product is determined to be contained within the scope of the competitor’s product for the same indication or disease. If we pursue marketing approval for an indication broader than the orphan drug designation we have received, we may not be entitled to orphan drug exclusivity. Orphan drug status in the European Union has similar, but not identical, requirements and benefits.

Rare Pediatric Disease Designation and Priority Review Vouchers

Under the FDCA, as amended, the FDA incentivizes the development of drugs and biologics that meet the definition of a “rare pediatric disease,” defined to mean a serious or life-threatening disease in which the serious of life-threatening manifestations primarily affect individuals aged from birth to 18 years and the disease affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States or affects more than 200,000 in the United States and for which there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making in the United States a drug for such disease or condition will be received from sales in the United States of such drug. The sponsor of a product candidate for a rare pediatric disease may be eligible for a voucher that can be used to obtain a priority review for a subsequent human drug or biologic application after the date of approval of the rare pediatric disease drug product, referred to as a priority review voucher, or PRV. A sponsor may request rare pediatric disease designation from the FDA prior to the submission of its NDA or BLA. A rare pediatric disease designation does not guarantee that a sponsor will receive a PRV upon approval of its NDA or BLA. Moreover, a sponsor who chooses not to submit a rare pediatric disease designation request may nonetheless receive a PRV upon approval of their marketing application if they request such a voucher in their original marketing application and meet all of the eligibility criteria. If a PRV is received, it may be sold or transferred an unlimited number of times. Congress has extended the PRV program through September 30, 2024, with the potential for PRVs to be granted for eligible products approved by September 30, 2026.

Expedited Development and Review Programs

A sponsor may seek to develop and obtain approval of its product candidates under programs designed to accelerate the development, FDA review and approval of new drugs and biologics that meet certain criteria. For example, the FDA has a fast track program that is intended to expedite or facilitate the process for reviewing new drugs and biologics that are intended to treat a serious or life threatening disease or condition and demonstrate the potential to address unmet medical needs for the condition. Fast track designation applies to both the product and the specific indication for which it is being studied. For a fast track-designated product, the FDA may consider sections of the NDA or BLA for review on a rolling basis before the complete application is submitted, if the sponsor provides a schedule for the submission of the sections of the application, the FDA agrees to accept sections of the application and determines that the schedule is acceptable, and the sponsor pays any required user fees upon submission of the first section of the application. The sponsor can request the FDA to designate the product for fast track status any time before receiving NDA or BLA approval, but ideally no later than the pre-NDA or pre-BLA meeting.

A product submitted to the FDA for marketing, including under a fast track program, may be eligible for other types of FDA programs intended to expedite development or review, such as priority review and accelerated approval. Priority review means that, for a new molecular entity or original BLA, the FDA sets a target date for FDA action on the marketing application at six months after accepting the application for filing as opposed to ten months. A product is eligible for priority review if it is designed to treat a serious or life-threatening disease condition and, if approved, would provide a significant improvement in safety and effectiveness compared to available therapies. The FDA will attempt to direct additional resources to the evaluation of an application for a new drug or biologic designated for priority review in an effort to facilitate the review. If criteria are not met for priority review, the application for a new molecular entity or original BLA is subject to the standard FDA review period of ten months after FDA accepts the application for filing. Priority review designation does not change the scientific/medical standard for approval or the quality of evidence necessary to support approval.

Under the Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act of 2022, or FDORA, a platform technology incorporated within or utilized by a drug or biologic is eligible for designation as a designated platform technology if (1) the platform technology is incorporated in, or utilized by, a drug approved under an NDA or BLA; (2) preliminary evidence submitted by the sponsor of the approved or licensed drug, or a sponsor that has been granted a right of reference to data submitted in the application for such drug, demonstrates that the platform technology has the potential to be incorporated in, or utilized by, more than one drug without an adverse effect on quality, manufacturing, or safety; and (3) data or information submitted by the applicable person indicates that incorporation or utilization of the platform technology has a reasonable likelihood to bring significant efficiencies to the drug development or manufacturing process and to the review process. A sponsor may request the FDA to designate a platform technology as a designated platform technology concurrently with, or at any time after, submission of an IND application for a drug that incorporates or utilizes the platform technology that is the subject of the request. If so designated, the FDA may expedite the development and review of any subsequent original NDA or BLA for a drug that uses or incorporates the platform technology. Designated platform technology status does not ensure that a drug will be developed more quickly or receive a faster FDA review process or ultimate FDA approval. In addition, the FDA may revoke a designation if the FDA determines that a designated platform technology no longer meets the criteria for such designation.

A product may also be eligible for accelerated approval if it is designed to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and generally provides a meaningful advantage over available therapies upon a determination that the product has an effect on either a surrogate that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit or on a clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than irreversible morbidity or mortality, or IMM, that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on IMM or other clinical benefit, taking into account the severity, rarity, or prevalence of the disease or condition and the availability or lack of alternative treatments. As a condition of approval, the FDA may require that a sponsor of a drug or biologic receiving accelerated approval perform adequate and well-controlled post-marketing confirmatory clinical trials with due diligence and, under FDORA, the FDA is permitted to require, as appropriate, that such confirmatory studies be underway prior to approval or within a specified time period after accelerated approval is granted. In addition, the FDA currently requires, unless otherwise informed by the agency, pre-approval of promotional materials, which could adversely impact the timing of the commercial launch of the product. Under FDORA, the FDA has increased authority for expedited procedures to withdraw approval of a drug or indication approved under accelerated approval if, for example, the confirmatory trial fails to verify the predicted clinical benefit of the product.

Additionally, a drug or biologic may be eligible for designation as a breakthrough therapy if the product is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs or biologics, to treat a serious or life-threatening condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product may demonstrate substantial improvement over currently approved therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. If the FDA designates a breakthrough therapy, it may take actions appropriate to expedite the development and review of the application, which may include holding meetings with the sponsor and the review team throughout the development of the therapy; providing timely advice to, and interactive communication with, the sponsor regarding the development of the drug to ensure that the development program to gather the nonclinical and clinical data necessary for approval is as efficient as practicable; involving senior managers and experienced review staff, as appropriate, in a collaborative, cross-disciplinary review; assigning a cross-disciplinary project lead for the FDA review team to facilitate an efficient review of the development program and to serve as a scientific liaison between the review team and the sponsor; and considering alternative clinical trial designs when scientifically appropriate, which may result in smaller trials or more efficient trials that require less time to complete and may minimize the number of patients exposed to a potentially less efficacious treatment. Breakthrough therapy designation comes with all of the benefits of fast track designation, which means that the sponsor may file sections of the BLA for review on a rolling basis if certain conditions are satisfied, including an agreement with the FDA on the proposed schedule for submission of portions of the application and the payment of applicable user fees before the FDA may initiate a review.

As part of the 21st Century Cures Act, Congress amended the FDCA to facilitate an efficient development program for, and expedite review of regenerative medicine advanced therapies, or RMATs, which include cell and gene therapies, therapeutic tissue engineering products, human cell and tissue products, and combination products using any such therapies or products. RMATs do not include those human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue based products regulated solely under section 361 of the PHSA and 21 CFR Part 1271. This program is intended to facilitate efficient development and expedite review of regenerative medicine therapies, which are intended to treat, modify, reverse, or cure a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and qualify for RMAT designation. A sponsor may request that the FDA designate a product candidate as a RMAT concurrently with or at any time after submission of an IND. The FDA has 60 calendar days to determine whether the product candidate meets the criteria, including whether there is preliminary clinical evidence indicating that the product candidate has the potential to address unmet medical needs for a serious or life-threatening disease or condition. A BLA for a product candidate that has received RMAT designation may be eligible for priority review or accelerated approval through use of surrogate or intermediate endpoints reasonably likely to predict long-term clinical benefit, or reliance upon data obtained from a meaningful number of sites. Benefits of RMAT designation also include early interactions with FDA to discuss any potential surrogate or intermediate endpoint to be used to support accelerated approval. A product candidate with RMAT designation that is granted accelerated approval and is subject to post-approval requirements may fulfill such requirements through the submission of clinical evidence from clinical studies, patient registries, or other sources of real world evidence, such as electronic health records; the collection of larger confirmatory data sets; or post-approval monitoring of all patients treated with such therapy prior to its approval.

With respect to oncology products, the FDA may review applications under Real-Time Oncology Review, or RTOR, established by the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence. RTOR, which allows an applicant to pre-submit components of the application to allow the FDA to review clinical data before the complete filing is submitted, aims to facilitate a more efficient review process to ensure that safe and effective treatments are available to patients as early as possible, while maintaining and improving review quality. Drugs considered for review under RTOR must, among other things, be likely to demonstrate substantial improvements on a clinically relevant endpoint(s) over available therapy, and must have easily interpreted endpoints. In addition, no aspect of the application should be likely to require a longer review time, such as, for example, a requirement for a new Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS. To determine eligibility for RTOR, the FDA requires top-line efficacy and safety results from an applicant’s pivotal clinical trial(s), as well as completion of database lock for the clinical trial(s). The FDA will generally make a decision regarding acceptance into RTOR within 20 business days of receipt of the request from the applicant. If an applicant is not accepted into RTOR, the applicant will follow routine application submission procedures.

Even if a product qualifies for one or more of these programs, the FDA may later decide that the product no longer meets the conditions for qualification or the time period for FDA review or approval may not be shortened. Furthermore, fast track designation, priority review, accelerated approval, breakthrough therapy, RMAT and RTOR designation do not change the standards for approval.

Pediatric Information and Pediatric Exclusivity

Under the Pediatric Research Equity Act, or PREA, certain NDAs and BLAs and certain supplements to an NDA or BLA must contain data to assess the safety and efficacy of the drug for the claimed indications in all relevant pediatric subpopulations and to support dosing and administration for each pediatric subpopulation for which the product is safe and effective. The FDA may grant deferrals for submission of pediatric data or full or partial waivers. The Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, or FDASIA, amended the FDCA to require that a sponsor who is planning to submit a marketing application for a drug that includes a new active ingredient, new indication, new dosage form, new dosing regimen or new route of administration, unless the drug is for an indication for which orphan designation has been granted and is not for a molecularly targeted cancer indication, submit an initial Pediatric Study Plan, or PSP, within 60 days of an end-of-Phase 2 meeting or, if there is no such meeting, as early as practicable before the initiation of the Phase 3 or Phase 2/3 study. The initial PSP must include an outline of the pediatric study or studies that the sponsor plans to conduct, including study objectives and design, age groups, relevant endpoints and statistical approach, or a justification for not including such detailed information, and any request for a deferral of pediatric assessments or a full or partial waiver of the requirement to provide data from pediatric studies along with supporting information. The FDA and the sponsor must reach an agreement on the PSP. A sponsor can submit amendments to an agreed-upon initial PSP at any time if changes to the pediatric plan need to be considered based on data collected from preclinical studies, early phase clinical trials and/or other clinical development programs.

A drug or biologic product can also obtain pediatric market exclusivity in the United States. Pediatric exclusivity, if granted, adds six months to existing exclusivity periods, for drugs, and patent terms. This six-month exclusivity, which runs from the end of other exclusivity protection, for drugs, or patent term, may be granted based on the voluntary completion of a pediatric study in accordance with an FDA-issued “Written Request” for such a study.

Post-Marketing Requirements

Following approval of a new product, the manufacturer and the approved product are subject to continuing regulation by the FDA, including, among other things, monitoring and record-keeping activities, reporting of adverse experiences to applicable regulatory authorities, complying with promotion and advertising requirements, which include, among other things, standards for direct-to-consumer advertising, requirements for promotional activities on the internet, restrictions on promoting products for unapproved uses or in patient populations that are not described in the product’s approved label (known as “off-label use”) and limitations on industry-sponsored scientific and educational activities. Although physicians may prescribe legally available products for off-label uses, manufacturers may not market or promote such off-label uses. The FDA does not regulate the behavior of physicians in their choice of treatment, but the FDA regulations do impose stringent restrictions on manufacturers’ communications regarding off-label uses. The FDA and other agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses, and a company that is found to have improperly promoted off-label uses may be subject to significant liability, including investigation by federal and state authorities. Prescription drug promotional materials must be submitted to the FDA in conjunction with their first use or first publication, and may be required to be reviewed in advance in certain circumstances such as for products that receive accelerated approval.

Further, if there are any modifications to the drug or biologic, including changes in indications, labeling or manufacturing processes or facilities, the applicant may be required to submit and obtain FDA approval of a new NDA/BLA or NDA/BLA supplement, which may require the development of additional data or preclinical studies and clinical trials. Such regulatory reviews can result in denial or modification of the planned changes, or requirements to conduct additional tests or evaluations that can substantially delay or increase the cost of the planned changes.

The FDA may also place other conditions on approvals including the requirement for a REMS, to assure the safe use of the product. If the FDA concludes a REMS is needed, the sponsor of the NDA or BLA must submit a proposed REMS. The FDA will not approve the NDA or BLA without an approved REMS, if required. A REMS could include medication guides, physician communication plans or elements to assure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. Any of these limitations on approval or marketing could restrict the commercial promotion, distribution, prescription or dispensing of products. Product approvals may be withdrawn for non-compliance with regulatory requirements, if problems occur following initial marketing or if the FDA determines that the product is no longer safe or effective.

FDA regulations require that products be manufactured in specific approved facilities and in accordance with cGMP regulations. We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties for the production of clinical and commercial quantities of any approved products in accordance with cGMP regulations. NDA and BLA holders using contract manufacturers, laboratories or packagers are responsible for the selection and monitoring of qualified firms, and, in certain circumstances, qualified suppliers to these firms. These manufacturers must comply with cGMP regulations that require, among other things, quality control and quality assurance, the maintenance of records and documentation and the obligation to investigate and correct any deviations from cGMP. Manufacturers and other entities involved in the manufacture and distribution of approved drugs or biologics are required to register their establishments with the FDA and certain state agencies, and are subject to periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA and certain state agencies for compliance with cGMP requirements and other laws. Accordingly, manufacturers must continue to expend time, money and effort in the area of production and quality control to maintain cGMP compliance. The discovery of violative conditions, including failure to conform to cGMP regulations, could result in enforcement actions, and the discovery of problems with a product after approval may result in restrictions on a product, manufacturer or holder of an approved NDA or BLA, including recall or withdrawal of the product from the market.

Any distribution of prescription drugs and biologics and pharmaceutical samples must comply with the U.S. Prescription Drug Marketing Act, or PDMA, and the PHSA. In addition, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, or DSCSA, was enacted in 2013 with the aim of building an electronic system to identify and trace certain prescription drugs and biologics distributed in the United States. The DSCSA mandates phased-in and resource-intensive obligations for pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and dispensers over a 10-year period that culminated in November 2023. The FDA established a one-year stabilization period from November 2023 to November 2024 for trading partners to continue to build and validate interoperable systems and processes to meet certain requirements of the DSCSA. The law’s requirements include the quarantine and prompt investigation of a suspect product, to determine if it is illegitimate, notifying trading partners and the FDA of any illegitimate product, and compliance with product tracking and tracing requirements.

Once an approval is granted, the FDA may issue enforcement letters or withdraw the approval of the product if compliance with regulatory requirements and standards is not maintained or if problems occur after the drug or biologic reaches the market. Corrective action could delay drug or biologic distribution and require significant time and financial expenditures. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with a drug or biologic, including AEs of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may require revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information, including the addition of new warning and contraindications; imposition of post-market studies or clinical trials to assess new safety risks; or imposition of distribution or other restrictions under a REMS program. Other potential consequences include, among other things:

Regulation of Companion Diagnostics

We believe that the success of certain of our product candidates may depend, in part, on the development and commercialization of a companion diagnostic. Companion diagnostics identify patients who are most likely to benefit from a particular therapeutic product; identify patients likely to be at increased risk for serious side effects as a result of treatment with a particular therapeutic product; or monitor response to treatment with a particular therapeutic product for the purpose of adjusting treatment to achieve improved safety or effectiveness. Companion diagnostics are regulated as medical devices by the FDA. In the United States, the FDCA and its implementing regulations, and other federal and state statutes and regulations govern, among other things, medical device design and development, preclinical and clinical testing, premarket clearance or approval, registration and listing, manufacturing, labeling, storage, advertising and promotion, sales and distribution, export and import, and post-market surveillance. Unless an exemption or FDA exercise of enforcement discretion applies, diagnostic tests generally require marketing clearance or approval from the FDA prior to commercialization. The two primary types of FDA marketing authorization applicable to a medical device are premarket notification, also called 510(k) clearance, and approval of a premarket approval, or PMA, application.

To obtain 510(k) clearance for a medical device, or for certain modifications to devices that have received 510(k) clearance, a manufacturer must submit a premarket notification demonstrating that the proposed device is substantially equivalent to a previously cleared 510(k) device or to a preamendment device that was in commercial distribution before May 28, 1976, or a predicate device, for which the FDA has not yet called for the submission of a PMA application. In making a determination that the device is substantially equivalent to a predicate device, the FDA compares the proposed device to the predicate device or predicate devices and assesses whether the subject device is comparable to the predicate device or predicate devices with respect to intended use, technology, design and other features which could affect safety and effectiveness. If the FDA determines that the subject device is substantially equivalent to the predicate device or predicate devices, the subject device may be cleared for marketing. The 510(k) premarket notification pathway generally takes from three to twelve months from the date the application is completed, but can take significantly longer.

PMA applications must be supported by valid scientific evidence, which typically requires extensive data, including technical, preclinical, clinical and manufacturing data, to demonstrate to the FDA’s satisfaction the safety and effectiveness of the device. For diagnostic tests, a PMA application typically includes data regarding analytical and clinical validation studies. As part of its review of the PMA application, the FDA will conduct a pre-approval inspection of the manufacturing facility or facilities to ensure compliance with the Quality System Regulation, or QSR, which requires manufacturers to follow design, testing, control, documentation and other quality assurance procedures. The FDA’s review of an initial PMA application is required by statute to take between six to ten months, although the process typically takes longer, and may require several years to complete. If the FDA evaluations of both the PMA application and the manufacturing facilities are favorable, the FDA will either issue an approval letter or an approvable letter, which usually contains a number of conditions that must be met in order to secure the final approval of the PMA application. If the FDA’s evaluation of the PMA application or manufacturing facilities is not favorable, the FDA will deny the approval of the PMA application or issue a not approvable letter. A not approvable letter will outline the deficiencies in the application and, where practical, will identify what is necessary to make the PMA application approvable. Once granted, PMA application approval may be withdrawn by the FDA if compliance with post-approval requirements, conditions of approval or other regulatory standards is not maintained or problems are identified following initial marketing.

On July 31, 2014, the FDA issued a final guidance document addressing the development and approval process for “In Vitro Companion Diagnostic Devices.” According to the guidance document, for novel therapeutic products that depend on the use of a diagnostic test and where the diagnostic device could be essential for the safe and effective use of the corresponding therapeutic product, the premarket application for the companion diagnostic device should be developed and approved or cleared contemporaneously with the therapeutic, although the FDA recognizes that there may be cases when contemporaneous development may not be possible. However, in cases where a drug cannot be used safely or effectively without the companion diagnostic, the FDA’s guidance indicates it will generally not approve the drug without the approval or clearance of the diagnostic device. The FDA also issued a draft guidance in July 2016 setting forth the principles for co-development of an in vitro companion diagnostic device with a therapeutic product. The draft guidance describes principles to guide the development and contemporaneous marketing authorization for the therapeutic product and its corresponding in vitro companion diagnostic.

Once cleared or approved, the companion diagnostic device must adhere to post-marketing requirements including the requirements of FDA’s quality system regulation, adverse event reporting, recalls and corrections along with product marketing requirements and limitations. Like drug and biologic makers, companion diagnostic makers are subject to unannounced FDA inspections at any time during which the FDA will conduct an audit of the product(s) and the Company’s facilities for compliance with its authorities.

Biosimilars and Exclusivity

Certain of our product candidates are regulated as biologics. An abbreviated approval pathway for biological products shown to be similar to, or interchangeable with, an FDA-licensed reference biological product was created by the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009, or BPCI Act, as part of the ACA. This amendment to the PHSA, in part, attempts to minimize duplicative testing. Biosimilarity, which requires that the biological product be highly similar to the reference product notwithstanding minor differences in clinically inactive components and that there be no clinically meaningful differences between the product and the reference product in terms of safety, purity and potency, can be shown through analytical studies, animal studies and a clinical trial or trials. Interchangeability requires that a biological product be biosimilar to the reference product and that the product can be expected to produce the same clinical results as the reference product in any given patient and, for products administered multiple times to an individual, that the product and the reference product may be alternated or switched after one has been previously administered without increasing safety risks or risks of diminished efficacy relative to exclusive use of the reference biological product without such alternation or switch. Complexities associated with the larger, and often more complex, structure of biological products as compared to small molecule drugs, as well as the processes by which such products are manufactured, pose significant hurdles to implementation that are still being worked out by the FDA.

A reference biological product is granted four and twelve year exclusivity periods from the time of first licensure of the product. The FDA will not accept an application for a biosimilar or interchangeable product based on the reference biological product until four years after the date of first licensure of the reference product, and the FDA will not approve an application for a biosimilar or interchangeable product based on the reference biological product until twelve years after the date of first licensure of the reference product. During this 12-year period of exclusivity, another company may still market a competing version of the reference product if the FDA approves a BLA for the competing product containing the sponsor’s own preclinical data and data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials to demonstrate the safety, purity, and potency of the other company’s product. “First licensure” typically means the initial date the particular product at issue was licensed in the United States. Date of first licensure does not include the date of licensure of (and a new period of exclusivity is not available for) a biological product if the licensure is for a supplement for the biological product or for a subsequent application by the same sponsor or manufacturer of the biological product (or licensor, predecessor in interest, or other related entity) for a change (not including a modification to the structure of the biological product) that results in a new indication, route of administration, dosing schedule, dosage form, delivery system, delivery device or strength, or for a modification to the structure of the biological product that does not result in a change in safety, purity, or potency. Therefore, one must determine whether a new product includes a modification to the structure of a previously licensed product that results in a change in safety, purity, or potency to assess whether the licensure of the new product is a first licensure that triggers its own period of exclusivity. Whether a subsequent application, if approved, warrants exclusivity as the “first licensure” of a biological product is determined on a case-by-case basis with data submitted by the sponsor. The law is complex and is still being interpreted and implemented by the FDA.

Other Regulatory Matters

Manufacturing, sales, promotion and other activities following product approval are also subject to regulation by numerous regulatory authorities in the United States in addition to the FDA, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, including the Office of Inspector General and Office for Civil Rights, other divisions of the Department of HHS, the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and state and local governments.

Healthcare providers, physicians, and third party payors will play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any products for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current and future arrangements with healthcare providers and physicians and any future arrangements with third party payers, may expose us 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 market, sell and distribute any drugs for which we obtain marketing approval. In the United States, these laws include: the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the False Claims Act, and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

The Anti-Kickback Statute makes it illegal for any person, including a prescription drug manufacturer (or a party acting on its behalf), to knowingly and willfully solicit, receive, offer or pay any remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, that is intended to induce or reward referrals, including the purchase, recommendation, order or prescription of a particular drug, for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program, such as Medicare or Medicaid. Violations of this law are punishable by imprisonment, criminal fines, administrative civil money penalties and exclusion from participation in federal healthcare programs. In addition, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it. Moreover, the ACA provides that the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal civil False Claims Act or federal civil money penalties.

Although we would not submit claims directly to payors, drug manufacturers can be held liable under federal civil and criminal false claims laws and civil monetary penalty laws, such as the federal civil False Claims Act, which imposes criminal and civil penalties, including through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, against individuals or entities (including manufacturers) for, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented to federal programs (including Medicare and Medicaid) claims for items or services, including drugs, that are false or fraudulent, claims for items or services not provided as claimed, or claims for medically unnecessary items or services. Penalties for a False Claims Act violation include three times the actual damages sustained by the government, plus mandatory civil penalties for each separate false claim, the potential for exclusion from participation in federal healthcare programs and, although the federal False Claims Act is a civil statute, conduct that results in a False Claims Act violation may also implicate various federal criminal statutes. The government may deem manufacturers to have “caused” the submission of false or fraudulent claims by, for example, providing inaccurate billing or coding information to customers or promoting a product off-label. Claims which include items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute are false or fraudulent claims for purposes of the False Claims Act. The federal False Claims Act also permits a private individual acting as a “whistleblower” to bring actions on behalf of the federal government alleging violations of the federal False Claims Act and to share in any monetary recovery. Our future marketing and activities relating to the reporting of wholesaler or estimated retail prices for our products, if approved, the reporting of prices used to calculate Medicaid rebate information and other information affecting federal, state and third-party reimbursement for our products, if approved, and the sale and marketing of our product candidates, are subject to scrutiny under this law.

HIPAA created federal criminal statutes that prohibit among other things, knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, a scheme to defraud or to obtain, by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises, any money or property owned by, or under the control or custody of, any healthcare benefit program, including private third party payors, knowingly and willfully embezzling or stealing from a healthcare benefit program, willfully obstructing a criminal investigation of a healthcare offense, and knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up by trick, scheme or device, a material fact or making any materially false, fictitious or fraudulent statement in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services. Like the federal Anti-Kickback Statute a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation.

The civil monetary penalties statute imposes penalties against any person or entity that, among other things, is determined to have presented or caused to be presented a claim to a federal health program that the person knows or should know is for an item or service that was not provided as claimed or is false or fraudulent.

We may be subject to data privacy and security regulations by both the federal government and the states in which we conduct our business. HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009, or HITECH, and their implementing regulations, including the Final Omnibus Rule published in January 2013, which imposes requirements on certain covered healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses, as well as their respective business associates, independent contractors, or agents of health covered entities, that perform services for them that involve the creation, maintenance, receipt, use, or disclosure of, individually identifiable health information relating to the privacy, security, and transmission of individual identifiable health information. Among other things, HITECH makes HIPAA’s security standards directly applicable to business associates, defined as independent contractors or agents of covered entities, which include certain health care providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses, that create, receive or obtain protected health information in connection with providing a service for or on behalf of a covered entity. HITECH also created new tiers of civil monetary penalties, amended HIPAA to make civil and criminal penalties directly applicable to business associates, and gave state attorneys general new authority to file civil actions for damages or injunctions in federal courts to enforce the federal HIPAA laws and seek attorneys’ fees and costs associated with pursuing federal civil actions. In addition, there may be additional federal, state, and non-U.S. laws which govern the privacy and security of health and other personal information in certain circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and may not have the same effect, thus complicating compliance efforts. Failure to comply with these laws, where applicable, can result in the imposition of significant civil and criminal penalties.

States are also active in creating specific rules relating to the processing of personal information. In 2018, California passed into law the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, which took effect on January 1, 2020 and imposed many requirements on businesses that process the personal information of California residents. Many of the CCPA’s requirements are similar to those found in the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), including requiring businesses to provide notice to data subjects regarding the information collected about them and how such information is used and shared, and providing data subjects the right to request access to such personal information and, in certain cases, request the erasure of such personal information. The CCPA also affords California residents the right to opt-out of “sales” of their personal information. The CCPA contains significant penalties for companies that violate its requirements. In November 2020, California voters passed a ballot initiative for the California Privacy Rights Act, or CPRA, which went into effect on January 1, 2023, and significantly expanded the CCPA to incorporate additional GDPR-like provisions including requiring that the use, retention, and sharing of personal information of California residents be reasonably necessary and proportionate to the purposes of collection or processing, granting additional protections for sensitive personal information, and requiring greater disclosures related to notice to residents regarding retention of information. The CPRA also created a new enforcement agent—the California Privacy Protection Agency—whose sole responsibility is to enforce the CPRA, which will further increase compliance risk. The provisions in the CPRA may apply to some of our business activities.

In addition to California, at least twelve other states have passed comprehensive privacy laws similar to the CCPA. Certain of these laws are in effect and others will enter in effect in the coming years. Like the CCPA, these laws create obligations related to the processing of personal information, as well as special obligations for the processing of “sensitive” data (which includes health data in some cases). Some of the provisions of these laws may apply to our business activities. There are also states that are strongly considering comprehensive privacy laws and it is anticipated that other states will be considering these laws in the future. Further, Congress has also been debating passing a federal privacy law. There are also states that are specifically regulating health information that may affect our business. For example, Washington state recently passed a health privacy law that will regulate the collection and sharing of health information, and the law also has a private right of action, which further increases the relevant compliance risk. Connecticut and Nevada have also passed similar laws regulating consumer health data. In addition, other states have proposed and/or passed legislation that regulates the privacy and/or security of certain specific types of information. For example, a small number of states have passed laws that regulate biometric data specifically. These various privacy and security laws may impact our business activities, including our identification of research subjects, relationships with business partners and ultimately the marketing and distribution of our products.

Additionally, the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act, or the Sunshine Act, within the ACA, and its implementing regulations, require that certain manufacturers of drugs, devices, biological and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (with certain exceptions) report annually to CMS information related to certain payments or other transfers of value made or distributed to physicians, certain other licensed health care practitioners and teaching hospitals, or to entities or individuals at the request of, or designated on behalf of, physicians, certain other healthcare professionals, and teaching hospitals and to report annually certain ownership and investment interests held by physicians, certain other healthcare professionals, and their immediate family members.

We may also be subject to federal price reporting laws, which require manufacturers to calculate and report complex pricing metrics to government programs, where such reported prices may be used in the calculation of reimbursement and/or discounts on approved products. Further, we may face obligations under federal consumer protection and unfair competition laws, which broadly regulate marketplace activities and activities that potentially harm consumers.

Similar federal, state and foreign fraud and abuse laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws, may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services. Such laws are generally broad and are enforced by various state agencies and private actions. Many U.S. states have adopted laws similar to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act, and may apply to our business practices, including, but not limited to, research, distribution, sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-governmental payors, including private insurers. In addition, some states have passed laws that require us to comply with the April 2003 Office of Inspector General Compliance Program Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and/or the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals. Additionally, we are subject to state and foreign equivalents of each of the healthcare laws and regulations described above, some of which may be broader in scope and may apply regardless of payor, in addition to items and services reimbursed under Medicaid and other state programs. Some state laws require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant federal government compliance guidance, and require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures. Several states also impose other marketing restrictions or require pharmaceutical companies to make marketing or price disclosures to the state and require the registration of pharmaceutical sales representatives. State and foreign laws, including, for example, the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, which became effective May 2018 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. There are ambiguities as to what is required to comply with these state requirements and if we fail to comply with an applicable state law requirement we could be subject to penalties. Finally, there are state and foreign laws governing the privacy and security of health information, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.

In order to distribute products commercially, we must comply with state laws that require the registration of manufacturers and wholesale distributors of drug and biological products in a state, including, in certain states, manufacturers and distributors who ship products into the state even if such manufacturers or distributors have no place of business within the state. Several states have enacted legislation requiring pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to establish marketing compliance programs, file periodic reports with the state, make periodic public disclosures on sales, marketing, pricing, clinical trials and other activities, and/or register their sales representatives, as well as to prohibit pharmacies and other healthcare entities from providing certain physician prescribing data to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for use in sales and marketing, and to prohibit certain other sales and marketing practices. We must also comply with federal government price reporting laws, which require us to calculate and report complex pricing metrics in an accurate and timely manner to government programs. All of our activities are potentially subject to federal and state consumer protection and unfair competition laws.

The scope and enforcement of each of these laws is uncertain and subject to rapid change in the current environment of healthcare reform, especially in light of the lack of applicable precedent and regulations. Federal and state enforcement bodies have recently increased their scrutiny of interactions between healthcare companies and healthcare providers, which has led to a number of investigations, prosecutions, convictions and settlements in the healthcare industry. 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 operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, individual imprisonment, exclusion of drugs from government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our financial results. Further, defending against any such actions can be costly and time consuming, and may require significant financial and personnel resources. Therefore, even if we are successful in defending against any such actions that may be brought against us, our business may be impaired. 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. Ensuring business arrangements comply with applicable healthcare laws, as well as responding to possible investigations by government authorities, can be time- and resource-consuming and can divert a Company’s attention from the business.

In the U.S., to help patients afford our approved product, we may utilize programs to assist them, including patient assistance programs and co-pay coupon programs for eligible patients. PAPs are regulated by and subject to guidance from CMS OIG. In addition, at least one insurer has directed its network pharmacies to no longer accept co-pay coupons for certain specialty drugs the insurer identified. Our co-pay coupon programs could become the target of similar insurer actions. In addition, in November 2013, the CMS issued guidance to the issuers of qualified health plans sold through the ACA’s marketplaces encouraging such plans to reject patient cost-sharing support from third parties and indicating that the CMS intends to monitor the provision of such support and may take regulatory action to limit it in the future. The CMS subsequently issued a rule requiring individual market qualified health plans to accept third-party premium and cost-sharing payments from certain government-related entities. In September 2014, the OIG of the HHS issued a Special Advisory Bulletin warning manufacturers that they may be subject to sanctions under the federal anti-kickback statute and/or civil monetary penalty laws if they do not take appropriate steps to exclude Part D beneficiaries from using co-pay coupons. Accordingly, companies exclude these Part D beneficiaries from using co-pay coupons.

Current and Future Legislation

In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been, and likely will continue to be, a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system directed at broadening the availability of healthcare, improving the quality of healthcare, and containing or lowering the cost of healthcare.

For example, in 2010, the ACA was enacted in the United States. The ACA includes measures that have significantly changed, and are expected to continue to significantly change, the way healthcare is financed by both governmental and private insurers. Among the provisions of the ACA of greatest importance to the pharmaceutical industry are that the ACA:

In addition, other legislative and regulatory changes have also been proposed and adopted in the United States since the ACA was enacted:

Additionally, there has been increasing legislative and enforcement interest in the United States with respect to drug pricing practices. Specifically, there has been heightened governmental scrutiny over the manner in which manufacturers set prices for their marketed products, which has resulted in several U.S. Congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to drug pricing, reduce the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare, and review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs. President Biden has also issued multiple executive orders that have sought to reduce prescription drug costs. In February 2023, HHS also issued a proposal in response to an October 2022 executive order from President Biden that includes a proposed prescription drug pricing model that will test whether targeted Medicare payment adjustments will sufficiently incentivize manufacturers to complete confirmatory trials for drugs approved through FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. Although a number of these and other proposed measures may require authorization through additional legislation to become effective, and the Biden administration may reverse or otherwise change these measures, both the Biden administration and Congress have indicated that they will continue to seek new legislative measures to control drug costs.

We expect that additional U.S. federal healthcare reform measures will be adopted in the future, any of which could limit the amounts that the U.S. Federal Government will pay for healthcare drugs and services, which could result in reduced demand for our drug candidates or additional pricing pressures.

Individual states in the United States have also become increasingly active in passing legislation and implementing regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain drug access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing. Legally mandated price controls on payment amounts by third-party payors or other restrictions could harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. In addition, regional healthcare authorities and individual hospitals are increasingly using bidding procedures to determine what pharmaceutical products and which suppliers will be included in their prescription drug and other healthcare programs. This could reduce the ultimate demand for our drugs or put pressure on our drug pricing, which could negatively affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We cannot predict what healthcare reform initiatives may be adopted in the future. Further federal, state and foreign legislative and regulatory developments are likely, and we expect ongoing initiatives to increase pressure on drug pricing. Such reforms could have an adverse effect on anticipated revenues from product candidates and may affect our overall financial condition and ability to develop product candidates.

Packaging and Distribution in the United States

If our products, once approved, are made available to authorized users of the Federal Supply Schedule of the General Services Administration, additional laws and requirements apply. Products must meet applicable child-resistant packaging requirements under the U.S. Poison Prevention Packaging Act. Manufacturing, sales, promotion and other activities also are potentially subject to federal and state consumer protection and unfair competition laws.

The distribution of pharmaceutical products is subject to additional requirements and regulations, including extensive record-keeping, licensing, storage and security requirements intended to prevent the unauthorized sale of pharmaceutical products.

The failure to comply with any of these laws or regulatory requirements subjects firms to possible legal or regulatory action. Depending on the circumstances, failure to meet applicable regulatory requirements can result in criminal prosecution, fines or other penalties, injunctions, exclusion from federal healthcare programs, requests for recall, seizure of products, total or partial suspension of production, denial or withdrawal of product approvals, or refusal to allow a firm to enter into supply contracts, including government contracts. Any action against us for violation of these laws, even if we successfully defend against it, could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and divert our management’s attention from the operation of our business. Prohibitions or restrictions on sales or withdrawal of future products marketed by us could materially affect our business in an adverse way.

Changes in regulations, statutes or the interpretation of existing regulations could impact our business in the future by requiring, for example: (i) changes to our manufacturing arrangements; (ii) additions or modifications to product labeling; (iii) the recall or discontinuation of our potential products; or (iv) additional record-keeping requirements. If any such changes were to be imposed, they could adversely affect the operation of our business.

Other U.S. Environmental, Health and Safety Laws and Regulations

We may be 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 may also produce hazardous waste products. Even if we contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and waste products, we cannot completely eliminate the risk of contamination or injury resulting from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from the use or disposal of our 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.

We maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees, but this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. However, 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. Current or future environmental laws and regulations may impair our research, development or production efforts. In addition, failure to comply with these laws and regulations may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions.

U.S. Patent Term Extension and Marketing Exclusivity

Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of FDA approval of a drug or biologic, some U.S. patents may be eligible for limited patent term extension under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, commonly referred to as the Hatch-Waxman Act. The Hatch-Waxman Act permits extension of a patent term of up to five years beyond the normal expiration date of the patent as compensation for patent term lost during the FDA regulatory review process. Patent term extension, however, cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the product’s approval date and only those claims covering such approved drug product, a method for using it or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. Only one patent applicable to an approved drug is eligible for the extension and the application for the extension must be submitted prior to the expiration of the patent. The USPTO, in consultation with the FDA, reviews and approves the application for any patent term extension. An NDA or BLA applicant may apply for extension of patent term for its currently owned or licensed patents to add patent life beyond its current expiration date, depending on the expected length of the clinical trials and other factors involved in the filing of the relevant NDA or BLA.

Marketing exclusivity provisions under the FDCA also can delay the submission or the approval of certain applications. The FDCA provides a five-year period of non-patent marketing exclusivity within the United States to the first applicant to gain approval of an NDA for a new chemical entity. A drug is a new chemical entity if the FDA has not previously approved any other new drug containing the same active moiety, which is the molecule or ion responsible for the action of the drug substance. During the exclusivity period, the FDA may not accept for review an ANDA, or a 505(b)(2) NDA submitted by another Company for another version of such drug where the applicant does not own or have a legal right of reference to all the data required for approval. However, an application may be submitted after four years if it contains a certification of patent invalidity or non-infringement. The FDCA also provides three years of marketing exclusivity for an NDA, 505(b)(2) NDA or supplement to an existing NDA if new clinical investigations, other than bioavailability studies, that were conducted or sponsored by the applicant are deemed by the FDA to be essential to the approval of the application, for example, new indications, dosages or strengths of an existing drug. This three-year exclusivity covers only the conditions of use associated with the new clinical investigations and does not prohibit the FDA from approving ANDAs for drugs containing the original active agent. Five-year and three-year exclusivity will not delay the submission or approval of a full NDA. However, an applicant submitting a full NDA would be required to conduct or obtain a right of reference to all of the preclinical studies and adequate and well-controlled clinical trials necessary to demonstrate safety and effectiveness.

European Union Drug Development

In the European Union or EU, our future products also may be subject to extensive regulatory requirements. As in the United States, medicinal products can be marketed only if a marketing authorization from the competent regulatory agencies has been obtained.

Similar to the United States, the various phases of preclinical and clinical research in the European Union are subject to significant regulatory controls.

In April 2014, the EU adopted the new Clinical Trials Regulation (EU) No 536/2014, or EU Clinical Trials Regulation, which replaced the Clinical Trials Directive 2001/20/EC, or Directive, on January 31, 2022. The transitory provisions of the new EU Clinical Trials Regulation provided that, by January 31, 2025, all ongoing clinical trials must have transitioned to the new EU Clinical Trials Regulation.

The new EU Clinical Trials Regulation overhauled the previous system of approvals for clinical trials in the EU. Specifically, the new EU Clinical Trials Regulation, which is directly applicable in all Member States (meaning no national implementing legislation in each EU Member State is required), aims at simplifying and streamlining the approval of clinical trials in the EU. For instance, it provides for a streamlined application procedure via a single entry point (through the Clinical Trials Information Systems) and strictly defined deadlines for the assessment of clinical trial applications. Since January 31, 2023, all initial clinical trial applications in the EU must be made under the new EU Clinical Trials Regulation. Compliance with the more complex procedural requirements of the EU Clinical Trials Regulation could result in some delay in the initiation of clinical trials.

European Union Drug Review and Approval

In the EU, medicinal products can only be commercialized after obtaining a marketing authorization, or MA. There are two types of MAs.

Under the above described procedures, before granting the MA, the EMA or the competent authorities of the Member States of the EU make an assessment of the risk-benefit balance of the product on the basis of scientific criteria concerning its quality, safety and efficacy.

Now that the United Kingdom (which comprises Great Britain and Northern Ireland) has left the European Union, Great Britain is no longer covered by centralized MAs (under the Northern Ireland Protocol, centralized MAs continue to be recognized in Northern Ireland). All medicinal products with a current centralized MA were automatically converted to Great Britain MAs on January, 1 2021. For a period of three years from January 1, 2021, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, the UK medicines regulator, may rely on a decision taken by the European Commission on the approval of a new MA in the centralized procedure, in order to more quickly grant a new Great Britain MA. A separate application is, however, still required. The MHRA has announced that a new international recognition framework will be put in place from January 1, 2024, which will have regard to decisions on the approval of MAs made by the European Medicines Agency and certain other regulators. The MHRA also has the power to have regard to MAs approved in EU Member States through decentralized or mutual recognition procedures with a view to more quickly granting an MA in the United Kingdom or Great Britain.

European Union New Chemical Entity Exclusivity

In the EU, innovative medicinal products approved on the basis of a complete and independent data package qualify for eight years of data exclusivity upon marketing authorization and an additional two years of market exclusivity. The data exclusivity, if granted, prevents generic or biosimilar applicants from referencing the innovator’s preclinical and clinical trial data contained in the dossier of the reference product when applying for a generic or biosimilar MA in the EU, during a period of eight years from the date on which the reference product was first authorized in the EU. During the additional two-year period of market exclusivity, a generic or biosimilar MAA can be submitted, and the innovator’s data may be referenced, but no generic or biosimilar product can be placed on the EU market until the expiration of the market exclusivity. The overall ten-year period will be extended to a maximum of 11 years if, during the first eight years of those ten years, the marketing authorization holder obtains an authorization for one or more new therapeutic indications which, during the scientific evaluation prior to their authorization, are determined to bring a significant clinical benefit in comparison with currently approved therapies. There is no guarantee that a product will be considered by the EMA to be an innovative medicinal product, and products may not qualify for data exclusivity. Even if a product is considered to be an innovative medicinal product so that the innovator gains the prescribed period of data exclusivity, however, another company could nevertheless also market another version of the product if such company obtained an MA based on an MAA with a complete and independent data package of pharmaceutical tests, preclinical tests and clinical trials.

European Union Orphan Designation and Exclusivity

In the EU, the EMA’s Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products grants an orphan designation in respect of a product if its sponsor can establish that: (1) the product is intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a life-threatening or chronically debilitating condition; (2) either (i) such condition affects no more than five in 10,000 persons in the EU when the application is made, or (ii) it is unlikely that the product, without the benefits derived from orphan status, would generate sufficient return in the EU to justify the necessary investment in its development; and (3) there must be no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention or treatment of such condition authorized for marketing in the EU, or, if such a method exists, the product would be of significant benefit to those affected by that condition.

In the EU, orphan designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as reduction of fees or fee waivers and ten years of market exclusivity is granted following grant of a marketing authorization. During this market exclusivity period, neither the EMA nor the European Commission nor any of the competent authorities in the EU Members States can accept an application or grant a marketing authorization for a “similar medicinal product.” A “similar medicinal product” is defined as a medicinal product containing a similar active substance or substances as contained in an authorized orphan medicinal product, and which is intended for the same therapeutic indication. This period may be reduced to six years if the orphan designation criteria are no longer met, including where it is shown that the product is sufficiently profitable not to justify maintenance of market exclusivity. Market exclusivity may also be revoked in very select cases, such as if (i) it is established that a similar medicinal product is safer, more effective or otherwise clinically superior to the authorized product; (ii) the marketing authorization holder for the authorized orphan product consents to such revocation; or (iii) the marketing authorization holder for the authorized orphan product cannot supply enough orphan medicinal product. Orphan designation must be requested before submitting an application for marketing approval. Orphan designation does not convey any advantage in, or shorten the duration of, the regulatory review and approval process.

Since January 1, 2021, a separate process for orphan designation has applied in Great Britain. There is now no pre-marketing authorization orphan designation (as there is in the EU) in Great Britain and the application for orphan designation will be reviewed by the MHRA at the time of an MAA for a UK or Great Britain MA. The criteria for orphan designation are the same as in the EU, save that they apply to Great Britain only (e.g., there must be no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention or treatment of the condition concerned in Great Britain, as opposed to the EU).

European Pediatric Investigation Plan

In the EU, MAAs for new medicinal products have to include the results of studies conducted in the pediatric population, in compliance with a pediatric investigation plan, or PIP, agreed with the EMA’s Pediatric Committee, or PDCO, unless the EMA has granted a product-specific waiver, a class waiver, or a deferral for one or more of the measures included in the PIP. This requirement also applies when a Company wants to add a new indication, pharmaceutical form or route of administration for a medicine that is already authorized. The PIP sets out the timing and measures proposed to generate data to support a pediatric indication of the drug for which marketing authorization is being sought. The PDCO can grant a deferral of the obligation to implement some or all of the measures of the PIP until there are sufficient data to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the product in adults. Further, the obligation to provide pediatric clinical trial data can be waived by the PDCO when this data is not needed or appropriate because the product is likely to be ineffective or unsafe in children, the disease or condition for which the product is intended occurs only in adult populations, or when the product does not represent a significant therapeutic benefit over existing treatments for pediatric patients. If an MA is obtained and trial results are included in the product information, even when negative, the product is eligible for six months’ supplementary protection certificate extension. In the case of orphan medicinal products, a two year extension of the orphan market exclusivity may be available. This pediatric reward is subject to specific conditions and is not automatically available when data in compliance with the PIP are developed and submitted.

Regulatory Requirements After a Marketing Authorization has been Obtained

If authorization for a medicinal product in the EU is obtained, the holder of the MA is required to comply with a range of requirements applicable to the manufacturing, marketing, promotion, and sale of medicinal products. These include:

The aforementioned EU rules are generally applicable in the European Economic Area, or EEA, which consists of the EU Member States, plus Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland.

Reform of the Regulatory Framework in the EU

The European Commission introduced legislative proposals in April 2023 that, if implemented, will replace the current regulatory framework in the EU for all medicines (including those for rare diseases and for children). The European Commission has provided the legislative proposals to the European Parliament and the European Council for their review and approval. In October 2023, the European Parliament published draft reports proposing amendments to the legislative proposals, which will be debated by the European Parliament. Once the European Commission’s legislative proposals are approved (with or without amendment), they will be adopted into EU law.

Brexit and the Regulatory Framework in the United Kingdom

The UK formally left the EU on January 31, 2020, and the EU and the UK have concluded a trade and cooperation agreement, or TCA, which was provisionally applicable since January 1, 2021 and has been formally applicable since May 1, 2021. The TCA includes specific provisions concerning pharmaceuticals, which include the mutual recognition of GMP, inspections of manufacturing facilities for medicinal products and GMP documents issued, but does not provide for wholesale mutual recognition of UK and EU pharmaceutical regulations. At present, Great Britain has implemented EU legislation on the marketing, promotion and sale of medicinal products through the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 (as amended) (under the Northern Ireland Protocol, the EU regulatory framework will continue to apply in Northern Ireland at present). Except in respect of the new EU Clinical Trials Regulation, the regulatory regime in Great Britain therefore in many ways aligns with current EU medicines regulations, however it is possible that these regimes will diverge more significantly in the future now that Great Britain’s regulatory system is independent from the EU. For example, the EU Clinical Trials Regulation has not been implemented into UK law, and a separate application must be submitted for clinical trial authorization in the UK. However, notwithstanding that there is no wholesale recognition of EU pharmaceutical legislation under the TCA, under a new framework mentioned above which were put in place by the MHRA beginning January 1, 2024, the MHRA has stated that it will take into account decisions on the approval of MAs from the EMA (and certain other regulators) when considering an application for a Great Britain MA.

On February 27, 2023, the UK government and the European Commission announced a political agreement in principle to replace the Northern Ireland Protocol with a new set of arrangements, known as the “Windsor Framework”. This new framework fundamentally changes the existing system under the Northern Ireland Protocol, including with respect to the regulation of medicinal products in the UK. In particular, the MHRA will be responsible for approving all medicinal products destined for the UK market (i.e., Great Britain and Northern Ireland), and the EMA will no longer have any role in approving medicinal products destined for Northern Ireland. A single UK-wide MA will be granted by the MHRA for all medicinal products to be sold in the UK, enabling products to be sold in a single pack and under a single authorization throughout the UK. The Windsor Framework was approved by the EU-UK Joint Committee on March 24, 2023, so the UK government and the EU will enact legislative measures to bring it into law. On June 9, 2023, the MHRA announced that the medicines aspects of the Windsor Framework will apply from January 1, 2025.

European Data Collection

The collection and processing of personal data (including health data) in the European Economic Area (EEA) is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation, or EU GDPR. Similarly, the collection and use of personal data (including health data) in the United Kingdom (UK) is governed by the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act 2018, collectively the UK GDPR, and together with the EU GDPR, “GDPR”. Currently, the EU GDPR and UK GDPR remain largely aligned. The GDPR applies to any company established in the EEA/UK and to companies established outside the EEA that process personal data in connection with the offering of goods or services to data subjects in the EEA or the monitoring of the behavior of data subjects in the EEA. The GDPR imposes numerous stringent requirements on companies that process personal data, including requirements relating to processing health and other sensitive data, obtaining consent of data subjects, providing detailed information to data subjects about how personal data is used, conducting privacy impact assessments for “high risk” processing, implementing safeguards to protect the security and confidentiality of personal data, implementing limitations on the retention of personal data, providing mandatory data breach notification, implementing “privacy by design” requirements, and taking certain measures when engaging service providers acting as data processors. The GDPR also imposes strict rules on the transfer of personal data outside of the EEA/UK to countries that do not ensure an adequate level of protection, like the United States in certain circumstances unless derogation exists or a valid GDPR transfer mechanism (for example, the European Commission approved Standard Contractual Clauses, or SCCs, and the UK International Data Transfer Agreement/Addendum, or UK IDTA) have been put in place. Where relying on the SCCs /UK IDTA for data transfers, we may also be required to carry out transfer impact assessments to assess whether the recipient is subject to local laws which allow public authority access to personal data. Failure to comply with the requirements of the GDPR and the related national data protection laws of the EEA Member States may result in fines up to €20 million or 4% of a company’s global annual revenues for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher. Moreover, the GDPR grants data subjects and consumer associations the right to claim material and non-material damages resulting from infringement of the GDPR. Although the UK is regarded as a third country under the European

Union’s GDPR, the European Commission has now issued a decision recognizing the UK as providing adequate protection under the EU GDPR and, therefore, transfers of personal data originating in the EU to the UK remain unrestricted.

The UK Government has introduced a Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, or Data Reform Bill into the UK legislative process to reform the UK data protection legal framework.

Rest of the World Regulation

For other countries outside of the European Union and the United States, such as countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia, the requirements governing the conduct of clinical trials, product licensing, pricing and reimbursement vary from country to country. Additionally, the clinical trials must be conducted in accordance with GCP requirements and the applicable regulatory requirements and the ethical principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki.

If we fail to comply with applicable foreign regulatory requirements, we may be subject to, among other things, fines, suspension or withdrawal of regulatory approvals, product recalls, seizure of products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecution.

Additional Laws and Regulations Governing International Operations

If we further expand our operations outside of the United States, we must dedicate additional resources to comply with numerous laws and regulations in each jurisdiction in which we plan to operate. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, prohibits any U.S. individual or business from paying, offering, authorizing payment or offering of anything of value, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official, political party or candidate for the purpose of influencing any act or decision of the foreign entity in order to assist the individual or business in obtaining or retaining business. The FCPA also obligates companies whose securities are listed in the United States to comply with certain accounting provisions requiring the company to maintain books and records that accurately and fairly reflect all transactions of the corporation, including international subsidiaries, and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls for international operations.

Compliance with the FCPA is expensive and difficult, particularly in countries in which corruption is a recognized problem. In addition, the FCPA presents particular challenges in the pharmaceutical industry, because, in many countries, hospitals are operated by the government, and doctors and other hospital employees are considered foreign officials. Certain payments to hospitals in connection with clinical trials and other work have been deemed to be improper payments to government officials and have led to FCPA enforcement actions.

Various laws, regulations and executive orders also restrict the use and dissemination outside of the United States, or the sharing with certain non-U.S. nationals, of information classified for national security purposes, as well as certain products and technical data relating to those products. If we expand our presence outside of the United States, it will require us to dedicate additional resources to comply with these laws, and these laws may preclude us from developing, manufacturing, or selling certain product candidates outside of the United States, which could limit our growth potential and increase our development costs.

The failure to comply with laws governing international business practices may result in substantial civil and criminal penalties and suspension or debarment from government contracting. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, also may suspend or bar issuers from trading securities on U.S. exchanges for violations of the FCPA’s accounting provisions.

Coverage and Reimbursement

Successful commercialization of new drug products depends in part on the extent to which reimbursement for those drug products will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers, and other organizations. In the United States and markets in other countries, patients generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the costs associated with their treatment. Adequate coverage and reimbursement from governmental healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and commercial payors is critical to new product acceptance. Our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates will depend in part on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement for these products and related treatments will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers and other organizations. Even if coverage is provided, the approved reimbursement amount may not be high enough to allow us to establish or maintain pricing sufficient to realize a sufficient return on our investment. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which drug products they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. The availability and extent of reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford a drug product. Sales of drug products depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of drugs products are paid for by health maintenance, managed care, pharmacy benefit and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by government health administration authorities, private health coverage insurers and other third-party payors.

A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party payors have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular drug products. In many countries, the prices of drug products are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. In general, the prices of drug products under such systems are substantially lower than in the United States. Other countries allow companies to fix their own prices for drug products, but monitor and control company profits. Accordingly, in markets outside the United States, the reimbursement for drug products may be reduced compared with the United States.

There is also significant uncertainty related to the insurance coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the medicine is approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. In the United States, the principal decisions about reimbursement for new drug products are typically made by CMS, an agency within the HHS. CMS decides whether and to what extent a new drug product will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare, and private payors tend to follow CMS to a substantial degree. However, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for drug products exists among third-party payors and coverage and reimbursement levels for drug products can differ significantly from payor to payor. Factors payors consider in determining reimbursement are based on whether the product is:

Third-party payors may limit coverage to specific products on an approved list or formulary, which might not include all of the FDA-approved products for a particular indication. Also, third-party payors may refuse to include a particular branded drug on their formularies or otherwise restrict patient access to a branded drug when a less costly generic equivalent or another alternative is available. 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. Third-party payors are increasingly challenging the prices charged for medical products and services, examining the medical necessity, and reviewing the cost-effectiveness of medical products and services and imposing controls to manage costs. We cannot be sure that reimbursement will be available for any product candidate that we commercialize and, if reimbursement is available, the level of reimbursement. In addition, many pharmaceutical manufacturers must calculate and report certain price reporting metrics to the government, such as average sales price, or ASP, and best price. Penalties may apply in some cases when such metrics are not submitted accurately and timely. Further, these prices for drugs may be reduced by mandatory discounts or rebates required by government healthcare programs.

The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, or the MMA, established the Medicare Part D program to provide a voluntary prescription drug benefit to Medicare beneficiaries. Under Part D, Medicare beneficiaries may enroll in prescription drug plans offered by private entities that provide coverage of outpatient prescription drugs. Unlike Medicare Parts A and B, Part D coverage is not standardized. Part D prescription drug plan sponsors are not required to pay for all covered Part D drugs, and each drug plan can develop its own drug formulary that identifies which drugs it will cover and at what tier or level. While all Medicare drug plans must give at least a standard level of coverage set by Medicare, Part D prescription drug plan sponsors are not required to pay for all covered Part D drugs, and each drug plan can develop its own drug formulary that identifies which drugs it will cover and at what tier or level. However, Part D prescription drug formularies must include drugs within each therapeutic category and class of covered Part D drugs, though not necessarily all the drugs in each category or class. Any formulary used by a Part D prescription drug plan must be developed and reviewed by a pharmacy and therapeutic committee. Government payment for some of the costs of prescription drugs may increase demand for drugs for which we obtain marketing approval. Any negotiated prices for any of our future products covered by a Part D prescription drug plan will likely be lower than the prices we might otherwise obtain. Moreover, while the MMA applies only to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private payors often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own payment rates. Any reduction in payment that results from the MMA may result in a similar reduction in payments from non-governmental payors.

For a drug product to receive federal reimbursement under the Medicaid or Medicare Part B programs or to be sold directly to U.S. government agencies, the manufacturer must extend discounts to entities eligible to participate in the 340B drug pricing program. The required 340B discount on a given product is calculated based on the average manufacturer price, or AMP, and Medicaid rebate amounts reported by the manufacturer. As of 2010, the ACA expanded the types of entities eligible to receive discounted 340B pricing, although under the current state of the law these newly eligible entities (with the exception of children’s hospitals) will not be eligible to receive discounted 340B pricing on orphan drugs. As 340B drug pricing is determined based on AMP and Medicaid rebate data, the revisions to the Medicaid rebate formula and AMP definition described above could cause the required 340B discount to increase.

These laws, and future state and federal healthcare reform measures may be adopted in the future, and may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding and otherwise affect the prices we may obtain for any product candidates for which we may obtain regulatory approval or the frequency with which any such product candidate is prescribed or used. If third-party payors do not consider our drugs to be cost-effective compared to other available therapies, they may not cover our drugs after approval as a benefit under their plans or, if they do, the level of payment may not be sufficient to allow us to sell our drugs on a profitable basis.

Outside of the United States, the pricing of pharmaceutical products and medical devices is subject to governmental control in many countries. For example, in the European Union, pricing and reimbursement schemes vary widely from country to country. Some Member States provide that products may be marketed only after the proposed pricing has been approved. Some Member States may require the completion of additional studies that compare the cost effectiveness of a particular therapy to currently available therapies or so-called health technology assessments, in order to obtain reimbursement or pricing approval. A Member State may approve a specific price for the medicinal product or it may instead adopt a system of direct or indirect controls on the profitability of the company placing the medicinal product on the market. Member States may allow companies to fix their own prices for products, but monitor and control product volumes and issue guidance to physicians to limit prescriptions. Efforts to control prices and utilization of pharmaceutical products and medical devices will likely continue as countries attempt to manage healthcare expenditures. There can be no assurance that any country that has price controls or reimbursement limitations for pharmaceutical products will allow favorable reimbursement and pricing arrangements for any of our product candidates. Historically, products launched in the European Union do not follow price structures of the U.S. and generally prices tend to be significantly lower.

Human Capital Management

Our human capital philosophy relies on attracting and retaining team members who consistently demonstrate top performance. Our culture and our approach to talent reinforces this philosophy, including recruiting, professional development, performance management and total rewards. We have provided below additional details on some of our core human resources processes.

As of December 31, 2023, we had 550 full-time employees and six part-time employees. Of these, 388 focus on driving forward research and development programs and 38 focus on our commercialization efforts, either directly or through our affiliates, and 130 work across our affiliates to provide strategic business development, finance and executive leadership expertise, as well as general and administrative services generally across our affiliates. We have never had a work stoppage, and none of our employees is represented by a labor organization or under any collective-bargaining arrangements. We consider our employee relations to be good.

Recruiting

We have a dedicated talent acquisition capability to support our affiliates in hiring the right talent at the right time. Our team of experienced talent acquisition professionals works closely with hiring managers to understand the required skills and capabilities for an open role, and then supports the interview process and evaluation of candidates. We strive to hire top talent, and therefore need a high-quality recruiting process and candidate experience. We endeavor to fill every role with the most qualified candidate possible, which sometimes requires partnership with an external recruitment agency. We are consistently looking at new opportunities and avenues to recruit talented individuals to work at BridgeBio.

The talent acquisition team’s focus in 2024 is to meet the hiring needs across BridgeBio and our affiliates. We recognize that our current and potential future team members have options for employment opportunities, including with other biotech and pharma companies, research and academic institutions, government entities, and consulting and investment firms. To attract and retain top performing team members, we focus on creating an environment that allows for autonomy, professional growth, and impact while also offering a competitive total rewards package.

Professional Development and Performance Management

We invest in the professional development of our team members through regular feedback and guidance, as well as targeted learning and development opportunities to meet demonstrated needs. We established a set of five core attributes that we expect every BridgeBio team member to demonstrate while performing in their roles: Patient Champion, Entrepreneurial Operator, Truth Seeker, Inspires Excellence and High-Quality Executor.

BridgeBio conducts semi-annual performance review processes for all team members to evaluate performance and provide feedback against these attributes. The feedback focuses on strengths and opportunities for improvement to enable the professional development of all team members. At the end of the year, the performance review includes self, peer, and manager feedback and also includes a formal rating and informs compensation decisions, including performance bonus, salary adjustments, and promotions.

Core Values and Ethics

Millions worldwide are afflicted with genetic diseases, but small patient populations and industry reluctance to conduct early-stage development means that for many, treatments have not been forthcoming. We are committed to bridging this gap: between business case and scientific possibility, between patient and hope. This starts with our first core value: to put patients first. We also strive to think independently. Our goal is to not simply accept the ideas and opinions of others as fact, but instead to ask “why?” and “why not?” We endeavor to bring a rigorous, first-principles mindset to each problem that we take on. We encourage all our team members to speak up when they have an idea or feedback to share, taking pride in a culture that is radically transparent when it comes to debating ideas. A commitment to independent thinking requires us to consider the ideas of others and to adopt them if they prove best. We strive to maintain a culture where any idea is worthy of both consideration and testing. We know that every minute counts. Our decentralized model strives to deliver treatments from discovery to patients as fast as humanly possible by utilizing focused teams of experts for each asset. Big decisions can be taken by people best-equipped to understand them, without wasting time on unnecessary cycles. And we let Science speak. Our model was designed to promote the rational assessment of our programs. Decisions about a program’s fate are driven by its performance against a set of objective criteria, giving each potential medicine’s scientific merits the last word. All employees are responsible for upholding these values and the BridgeBio Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which forms the foundation of our policies and practices.

Total Rewards

To attract and retain top talent, we offer a competitive total rewards package. We peg total direct compensation at the upper end of market. We link a portion of every employee’s compensation to performance through a performance bonus program. To create a sense of ownership and align employee incentives with our long-term success, we offer eligible employees equity ownership in the company through stock option or restricted stock unit grants and our employee stock purchase plan. We also designed a program to incentivize affiliate-level employees to achieve specific milestones at core value-inflection points, such as IND or NDA approval.

We focus our benefits offering on areas critical to keeping our employees and their immediate families healthy and productive. We offer physical and mental health benefits to all employees who work at least 30 hours per week, on average. We have a flexible paid time off policy to empower team members to take the time they need, when they need it.

Community

We believe that building a strong sense of community at BridgeBio is critical to our success. Team members can only live up to our values of thinking independently, letting science speak, and being radically transparent when they feel a sense of belonging. This is also important to our ability to bring together team members from diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to promote unique voices within and outside our organization, and are eager to learn from others’ experiences, as we know that a diverse and inclusive workforce is a business imperative and key to our long-term success.

To build community, we make targeted investments at the BridgeBio level. We offer a robust onboarding program for each new hire to ensure they understand the BridgeBio history and culture and are set up for success in their roles. We work closely with people managers to ensure they understand the expectations for the critical role of leading teams. Understanding that communications is essential for a community to thrive, we have regular Town Halls to update the organization on important progress across our scientific and clinical programs. In addition to these large gatherings, we have implemented a number of communications tools to help employees stay informed and connected. Finally, our community is anchored by our commitment to patients, underscored by our commitment to bring the entire company together multiple times a year for Patient Days. On these impactful days, we hear stories from the people who are living with rare genetic diseases, their caregivers and advocates.

Corporate and Other Information

We were incorporated as a Delaware corporation in 2019 under the name BridgeBio Pharma, Inc. Our principal executive offices are located at 3160 Porter Drive, Suite 250, Palo Alto, CA 94304. Our telephone number is (650) 391-9740.

Our web page address is https://bridgebio.com. Our investor relations website is located at https://investor.bridgebio.com. We make available free of charge on our investor relations website under “SEC Filings” our Annual Reports on Form 10‑K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10‑Q, Current Reports on Form 8‑K, including exhibits, our directors’ and officers’ Section 16 Reports and any amendments to those reports after filing or furnishing such materials to the SEC. References to our website address do not constitute incorporation by reference of the information contained on the website, and the information contained on the website is not part of this document or any other document that we file with or furnish to the SEC.

ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

Our business involves significant risks, some of which are described below. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the consolidated financial statements and the related notes. If any of the following risks actually occur, it could harm our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition and future prospects. In such event, the market price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of factors that are described below and elsewhere in this Annual Report.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Growth Strategy

Drug development is a highly uncertain undertaking and involves a substantial degree of risk. We have incurred significant losses since our inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future. We have not generated significant revenue since inception, which, together with our limited operating history, may make it difficult for you to assess our future viability.

Pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical product development is a highly speculative undertaking and involves a substantial degree of risk. We are a newly commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company with a limited operating history upon which you can evaluate our business and prospects. Our subsidiaries, on whose success we largely rely, are primarily early-stage biopharmaceutical companies. To date, we have focused principally on identifying, acquiring or in-licensing and developing our product candidates at the subsidiary level, almost all of which are in discovery, lead optimization, preclinical or clinical development. Our pipeline of product candidates will require substantial additional development time, including extensive clinical research, and resources before we would be able to apply for or receive additional regulatory approvals and begin generating revenue from sales of those product candidates, if approved.

We are not profitable and have incurred losses in each year since our inception in April 2015. Our net losses for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 were $653.3 million, $484.7 million and $586.5 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2023, we had an accumulated deficit of $2.6 billion. We had two products approved for commercial sale, NULIBRY and TRUSELTIQTM, but did not generate any significant revenues from product sales, and have financed operations solely through the sale of equity securities, debt financings and sale of certain assets. Sentynl purchased the global rights to NULIBRY in March 2022 and Helsinn, who is the principal selling party of TRUSELTIQTM, discontinued selling TRUSELTIQTM in March 31, 2023. We continue to incur significant research and development, or R&D, and other expenses related to ongoing operations and expect to incur losses for the foreseeable future. In addition, we believe that potential delays in our ongoing and planned clinical trials and adjustments to certain of our study procedures for various reasons, such as challenges in enrollment, additional requirements imposed by regulatory authorities or investigative sites, or supply chain issues, could increase our expenditures or draw out our expenditures over a longer period of time than originally estimated. Additionally, changes to our selection of contract research organizations, or CROs, for non-clinical laboratory activities and engagement with CMOs, to mitigate any potential impacts to our supply chain may increase our expenditures relative to initial expectations. We anticipate these losses will increase substantially in future periods.

Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with drug development and commercialization, we are unable to predict the timing or amount of our expenses, or when we will be able to generate any meaningful revenue or achieve or maintain profitability, if ever. In addition, our expenses could increase beyond our current expectations if we are required by the FDA, or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, to conduct nonclinical or preclinical studies or clinical trials in addition to those that we currently anticipate or to otherwise provide data beyond that which we currently believe is necessary to support an application for marketing approval or to continue clinical development, or if there are any delays in any of our or our future collaborators’ clinical trials or the development of our product candidates, that we may identify. We anticipate incurring significant costs associated with commercializing any future product candidates, if approved, and ongoing compliance efforts.

We may never be able to successfully commercialize a marketable drug or achieve profitability. Revenue from the sale of any product will be dependent, in part, upon the size of the markets in the territories for which we have or may gain regulatory approval, the accepted price for the product, the ability to obtain reimbursement at any price and whether we own the commercial rights for that territory. Our growth strategy depends on our ability to generate revenue. Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Our failure to achieve sustained profitability would depress our stock price and could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business, diversify our research and development pipeline, market our product candidates, if approved, that we may identify and pursue, or continue our operations. Our prior losses, combined with expected future losses, have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our stockholders’ deficit and working capital.

If we obtain a controlling interest in additional companies in the future, it could adversely affect our operating results and the value of our common stock, thereby disrupting our business.

As part of our strategy, we expect to form and invest in additional wholly-owned subsidiaries and variable interest entities, or VIEs. Investments in our existing and any future subsidiaries involve numerous risks, including, but not necessarily limited to:

If we fail to properly evaluate potential acquisitions, in-licenses, investments or other transactions associated with the creation of new research and development programs or the maintenance of existing ones, we might not achieve the anticipated benefits of any such transaction, we might incur costs in excess of what we anticipate, and management resources and attention might be diverted from other necessary or valuable activities. For instance, in January 2021, we completed our acquisition of all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Eidos that were not previously owned by us or our subsidiaries, to which we refer as the Eidos Merger. In connection with the Eidos Merger and our integration of Eidos’ historical operations into our business, the attention of certain members of each company’s management and each company’s resources were diverted from day-to-day business operations. Additionally, the interests of our stockholders were diluted as a result of our issuance of shares of our common stock to Eidos’ stockholders and our assumption of certain equity awards of Eidos in connection with the transaction. We may engage in similar discussions in the future with respect to other potential transactions that may divert our time and resources from our ongoing operations. In addition, from time to time we have pursued, and may in the future pursue, research and development programs through our wholly-owned subsidiaries and VIEs that we may ultimately determine not to advance, based on our ongoing assessment of the likelihood of success relative to the costs and risks associated with the program.

Risks Related to the Development of Our Product Candidates

We may encounter substantial delays in clinical trials, or may not be able to conduct or complete clinical trials on the expected timelines, if at all.

Clinical testing is expensive, time consuming and subject to uncertainty. We cannot guarantee that any of our ongoing and planned clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. Moreover, even if these trials are initiated or conducted on a timely basis, issues may arise that could result in the suspension or termination of such clinical trials. A failure of one or more clinical trials can occur at any stage of testing, and our ongoing and future clinical trials may not be successful. Events that may prevent successful or timely initiation or completion of clinical trials include:

Any inability to successfully initiate, conduct or complete clinical trials could result in additional costs to us or impair our ability to generate revenue. In addition, if we make manufacturing or formulation changes to our product candidates, we may be required to or we may elect to conduct additional nonclinical studies or clinical trials to bridge data obtained from our modified product candidates to data obtained from nonclinical and clinical research conducted using earlier versions of these product candidates. Clinical trial delays could also shorten any periods during which our product candidates have patent protection and may allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do, which could impair our ability to successfully commercialize product candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.

We could also encounter delays if an ongoing or planned clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the data safety monitoring board, or DSMB, including for our ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of low-dose infigratinib, our ongoing Phase 2 and planned Phase 3 clinical trials of BBP-418, and our ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of encaleret, or by the FDA or other regulatory authority, or if the IRBs of the institutions in which such trials are being conducted suspend or terminate the participation of their clinical investigators and sites subject to their review. Such authorities may suspend or terminate a clinical trial due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA or other regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a product candidate, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. For instance, although acoramidis failed to meet its primary endpoint at Month 12 in the ATTRibute-CM Study, the ATTRibute-CM independent data monitoring committee recommended continuing the study through the Month 30 endpoint based on unblinded data reviews and achieved positive results at the Month 30 endpoint. We have in the past received, and may receive in the future, partial or full clinical hold notices from the FDA or other regulatory authorities, which have required, and may in the future require, us to conduct additional studies, generate additional data, amend our clinical trial protocols and/or delay or halt the initiation or continuation of our clinical trials. We may be required or may voluntarily determine to place one or more of our product candidates on clinical hold in the future for various reasons, which could delay or otherwise impair our clinical development efforts and ability to obtain regulatory approval for any such product candidate. Additionally, the FDA may determine, upon review of an IND submission, that we have not provided sufficient information needed to assess the risks to subjects of the proposed studies, or that our IND submission is otherwise insufficient to support initiation of a clinical trial. There is no guarantee that the FDA will agree that our responses are sufficient, and we may be required to conduct additional preclinical studies or manufacturing steps before the FDA allows our proposed clinical trials to proceed.

Moreover, principal investigators for our clinical trials may serve as scientific advisors or consultants to us from time to time and receive compensation in connection with such services. Under certain circumstances, we may be required to report some of these relationships to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may conclude that a financial relationship between us and a principal investigator has created a conflict of interest or otherwise affected interpretation of the study. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority may therefore question the integrity of the data generated at the applicable clinical trial site and the utility of the clinical trial itself may be jeopardized. This could result in a delay in approval, or rejection, of our marketing applications by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority, as the case may be, and may ultimately lead to the denial of marketing approval of one or more of our product candidates.

Delays in the initiation, conduct or completion of any clinical trial of our product candidates will increase our costs, slow down the product candidate development and approval process and delay or potentially jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenue from such product candidates, if approved. In addition, many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates. In the event we identify any additional product candidates to pursue, we cannot be sure that submission of an IND or a CTA will result in the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority allowing clinical trials to begin in a timely manner, if at all. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Results of earlier studies or clinical trials may not be predictive of future clinical trial results, and initial studies or clinical trials may not establish an adequate safety or efficacy profile for our product candidates to justify proceeding to advanced clinical trials or an application for regulatory approval.

The results of nonclinical and preclinical studies and clinical trials may not be predictive of the results of later-stage clinical trials, and interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. In addition, for certain of our product candidates that we acquired, we did not undertake the preclinical studies and clinical trials ourselves. The results of preclinical studies and clinical trials in one set of patients or disease indications, or from preclinical studies or clinical trials that we did not lead, may not be predictive of those obtained in another. In some instances, there can be significant variability in safety or efficacy results between different clinical trials of the same product candidate due to numerous factors, including changes in trial procedures set forth in protocols, differences in the size and type of the patient populations, changes in and adherence to the dosing regimen and other clinical trial protocols and the rate of dropout among clinical trial participants. In addition, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to various 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. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy profile despite having progressed through nonclinical studies and initial clinical trials. For instance, acoramidis failed to meet its primary endpoint at Month 12 in the ATTRibute-CM Study as mean observed six-minute walk distance, or 6MWD, decline for the acoramidis and placebo arms were 9 meters and 7 meters, respectively, both of which declines are similar to healthy elderly adults and less than prior untreated ATTR-CM cohorts; however, acoramidis met the primary endpoint at Month 30 endpoint (a hierarchical analysis inclusive of all-cause mortality and frequency of cardiovascular-related hospitalizations). A number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials due to lack of efficacy or adverse safety profiles, despite promising results in earlier studies, and we cannot be certain that we will not face similar setbacks. Even if early-stage clinical trials are successful, we may need to conduct additional clinical trials of our product candidates in additional patient populations or under different treatment conditions before we are able to seek approvals from the FDA and regulatory authorities outside the United States to market and sell these product candidates. Our failure to obtain marketing approval for our product candidates for commercially viable indications, or at all, would substantially harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Additionally, some clinical trials of our product candidates performed to date were designed as open-label studies and were conducted at a limited number of clinical sites on a limited number of patients. An “open-label” clinical trial is one where both the patient and investigator know whether the patient is receiving the investigational product candidate or either an existing approved drug or placebo. Most typically, open-label clinical trials test only the investigational product candidate and sometimes may do so at different dose levels. Open-label clinical trials are subject to various limitations that may exaggerate any therapeutic effect as patients in open-label clinical trials are aware when they are receiving treatment. Open-label clinical trials may be subject to a “patient bias” where patients perceive their symptoms to have improved merely due to their awareness of receiving an experimental treatment. Moreover, patients selected for early clinical trials often include the most severe sufferers and their symptoms may have been bound to improve notwithstanding the new treatment. In addition, open-label clinical trials may be subject to an “investigator bias” where those assessing and reviewing the physiological outcomes of the clinical trials are aware of which patients have received treatment and may interpret the information of the treated group more favorably given this knowledge. Given that our Phase 2 dose-escalation and expansion study of low-dose infigratinib in children with achondroplasia, or PROPEL 2, was designed as an open-label trial, the results from this clinical trial may not be predictive of future clinical trial results with this or other product candidates for which we include an open-label clinical trial when studied in a controlled environment with a placebo or active control.

We may encounter difficulties enrolling patients in clinical trials, and clinical development activities could thereby be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.

The timely completion of clinical trials in accordance with their protocols depends, among other things, on our ability to enroll a sufficient number of patients who remain in the trial until its conclusion. The indications for which we plan to evaluate our current product candidates each represent a rare disease or condition with limited patient populations from which to draw participants in clinical trials. Due to our focus on the development of product candidates for the treatment of Mendelian diseases and genetically driven cancers, many of which are rare conditions, we may not be able to identify and enroll a sufficient number of patients, or those with required or desired characteristics and criteria, in a timely manner.

We may experience difficulties in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including:

If we have difficulty enrolling sufficient numbers of patients to conduct clinical trials as planned, we may need to delay or terminate ongoing or planned clinical trials, either of which would have an adverse effect on our business.

Use of our product candidates could be associated with side effects, adverse events or other properties or safety risks, which could delay or halt their clinical development, prevent their regulatory approval, cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials, abandon a product or product candidate, limit the commercial potential of a product candidate, if approved, or result in other significant negative consequences that could harm our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition.

As is the case with pharmaceuticals generally, it is likely that there may be side effects and adverse events, or AEs, associated with use of our product candidates. Results of our clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials, and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. The drug-related side effects of our product candidates could affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the trial or result in potential product liability claims. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

Moreover, if our product candidates are associated with undesirable side effects in preclinical studies or clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may elect to abandon their development or limit their development to more narrow 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, which may limit the commercial expectations for the product candidate if approved. We may also be required to modify or terminate our study plans based on findings in our preclinical studies or clinical trials. AEs that we may observe in our ongoing and future preclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates could require us to delay, modify or abandon our development plans for the affected product candidate or other product candidates that share properties of the affected product candidate. Many product candidates that initially show promise in early-stage testing may later be found to cause side effects that prevent further development. As we work to advance existing product candidates and to identify new product candidates, we cannot be certain that later testing or trials of product candidates that initially showed promise in early testing will not be found to cause similar or different unacceptable side effects that prevent their further development.

It is possible that as we test our product candidates in larger, longer and more extensive clinical trials, or as the use of our product candidates, if they receive regulatory approval, becomes more widespread, illnesses, injuries, discomforts and other AEs that were observed in earlier trials, as well as conditions that did not occur or went undetected in previous trials, will be reported by subjects. If such side effects become known later in development or upon approval, such findings may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

Additionally, adverse developments in clinical trials of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical products conducted by others may cause the FDA or other regulatory oversight bodies to suspend or terminate our clinical trials, to change the requirements for approval of any of our product candidates.

In addition to side effects caused by a product candidate, the administration process or related procedures also can cause adverse side effects. If any such AEs occur, our clinical trials of a product candidate could be suspended or terminated. If we are unable to demonstrate that any AEs were caused by the administration process or related procedures, the FDA, the European Commission, the EMA, or other regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development of, or deny approval of, a product candidate for any or all targeted indications. Even if we can demonstrate that all future SAEs are not product-related, such occurrences could affect patient recruitment, or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the trial. Moreover, if we elect, or are required, to not initiate, delay, suspend or terminate any future clinical trial of any of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of such product candidates may be harmed and our ability to generate product revenues from any of these product candidates may be delayed or eliminated. Any of these occurrences may harm our ability to develop other product candidates, and may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

Additionally, if any of our product candidates receives marketing approval, the FDA could impose a boxed warning in the labeling of our product and could require us to adopt a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, or REMS, and could apply elements to assure safe use to ensure that the benefits of the product outweigh its risks, which may include, among other things, a Medication Guide outlining the risks of the product for distribution to patients and a communication plan to health care practitioners. Furthermore, if we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates once approved, several potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:

Any of these occurrences could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular product or product candidate, if approved, and may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

Certain of our product candidates are under development for the treatment of patient populations with significant comorbidities that may result in deaths or serious adverse or unacceptable side effects and require us to abandon or limit our clinical development activities.

Patients in certain of our ongoing and planned clinical trials of product candidates in genetically driven cancers, as well as patients who may undergo treatment with other product candidates that we may develop, may also receive chemotherapy, radiation, and/or other high dose or myeloablative treatments in the course of treatment of their disease, and may therefore experience side effects or AEs, including death, that are unrelated to our product candidates. While these side effects or AEs may be unrelated to our product candidates, they may still affect the success of our clinical trials. The inclusion of critically ill patients in our clinical trials may also result in deaths or other adverse medical events due to underlying disease or to other therapies or medications that such patients may receive. Any of these events could prevent us from advancing our product candidates through clinical development, and from obtaining regulatory approval, and would impair our ability to commercialize our product candidates. Any inability to advance our product candidates through clinical development may harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Interim, “top-line,” and preliminary data from our clinical trials that we announce or publish from time to time may change as more patient data become available or as additional analyses are conducted, and as the data are subject to audit and verification procedures that could result in material changes in the final data.

From time to time, we may publish interim, “top-line” or preliminary data from our clinical trials. Interim data from clinical trials that we may complete are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as patient enrollment continues and more patient data become available. Preliminary or “top-line” data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, interim and preliminary data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available. Material adverse changes between preliminary, “top-line” or interim data and final data could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Risks Related to Regulatory Review and Approval of our Product Candidates

Our product candidates are in preclinical or clinical development, which is a lengthy and expensive process with uncertain outcomes and the potential for substantial delays. We cannot give any assurance that any of our product candidates will receive regulatory approval, which is necessary before they can be commercialized.

Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our product candidates, we must conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the product candidates in humans. To date, we have focused substantially all of our efforts and financial resources on identifying, acquiring, and developing our product candidates, including conducting lead optimization, nonclinical studies, preclinical studies and clinical trials, and providing general and administrative support for these operations. We cannot be certain that any clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. Our inability to successfully complete preclinical and clinical development could result in additional costs to us and negatively impact our ability to generate revenue. Our future success is dependent on our ability to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approval for, and then successfully commercialize product candidates. While we previously had two products approved for sale, we have not generated significant revenue from sales of drugs, and we may never be able to successfully commercialize a marketable drug.

All of our product candidates require additional development; management of preclinical, clinical and manufacturing activities; and regulatory approval. In addition, we will need to obtain adequate manufacturing supply; complete the build-out of a commercial organization; commence product candidate-specific marketing efforts; and obtain reimbursement before we generate any significant revenue from commercial product sales from such product candidates, if ever. Many of our product candidates are in early-stage research or translational phases of development, and the risk of failure for these programs is high. We cannot be certain that our product candidates will be successful in clinical trials or receive regulatory approval. Further, our product candidates may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in clinical trials. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for our product candidates, we and our subsidiaries may not be able to continue operations, which may result in us winding down and dissolving the subsidiary, selling or out-licensing the technology or pursuing an alternative strategy.

If we are unable to obtain regulatory approval in one or more jurisdictions for any product candidates that we may identify and develop, our business will be substantially harmed.

We cannot commercialize a product until the appropriate regulatory authorities have reviewed and approved the product candidate. Approval by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities is lengthy and unpredictable, and depends upon numerous factors, including substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. Approval policies, regulations or the type and amount of nonclinical or clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s development and may vary among jurisdictions, which may cause delays in the approval or the decision not to approve an application. It is possible that our current product candidates and any other product candidates which we may seek to develop in the future will not ever obtain regulatory approval. We cannot be certain that any of our product candidates will receive regulatory approval or that if approved, any of our product candidates, will be successfully commercialized.

Obtaining marketing approval is an extensive, lengthy, expensive and inherently uncertain process, and regulatory authorities may delay, limit or deny approval of our product candidates for many reasons, including, but not limited to:

In addition, even if an NDA, BLA, or other submission for regulatory approval, is filed and accepted for review, the FDA or comparable regulatory authorities may delay their review or approval process or may decline to grant regulatory approval for a variety of reasons. For example, on December 5, 2023 we submitted an application for approval with the FDA for acoramidis but cannot predict when, or if, we will receive a decision on approval from the FDA. The lengthy approval process, as well as the unpredictability of the results of clinical trials and evolving regulatory requirements, may result in our failure to obtain regulatory approval to market product candidates that we may pursue in the United States or elsewhere, which would significantly harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Our clinical trials may fail to demonstrate substantial evidence of the safety and efficacy of product candidates that we may identify and pursue for their intended uses, which would prevent, delay or limit the scope of regulatory approval and commercialization.

Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of our product candidates, we must demonstrate through lengthy, complex and expensive nonclinical studies, preclinical studies and clinical trials that the applicable product candidate is both safe and effective for use in each target indication, and in the case of our product candidates regulated as biological products, that the product candidate is safe, pure, and potent for use in its targeted indication. Each product candidate must demonstrate an adequate risk versus benefit profile in its intended patient population and for its intended use.

Clinical testing is expensive and can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical development process. Most product candidates that begin clinical trials are never approved by regulatory authorities for commercialization. We have limited experience in designing clinical trials and may be unable to design and execute a clinical trial to support future marketing approvals.

We cannot be certain that our current clinical trials or any other future clinical trials will be successful. Additionally, any safety concerns observed in any one of our clinical trials in our targeted indications could limit the prospects for regulatory approval of our product candidates in those and other indications, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, even if such clinical trials are successfully completed, we cannot guarantee that the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities will interpret the results as we do, and more trials could be required before we submit our product candidates for approval. Success in clinical trials in a particular indication does not ensure that a product candidate will be successful in other indications. Similarly, approval of a product candidate in a particular indication does not ensure that that the product candidate will be successful in other indications. Moreover, results acceptable to support approval in one jurisdiction may be deemed inadequate by another regulatory authority to support regulatory approval in that other jurisdiction. To the extent that the results of the trials are not satisfactory to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities for support of a marketing application, we may be required to expend significant resources, which may not be available to us, to conduct additional trials in support of potential approval of our product candidates. Even if regulatory approval is secured for a product candidate, the terms of such approval may limit the scope and use of the specific product candidate, which may also limit its commercial potential.

We conduct clinical trials for product candidates outside the United States, and the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities may not accept data from such trials.

We currently conduct clinical trials outside the United States, including in Europe. For instance, our Phase 3 clinical trials of acoramidis included patients outside of the United States. The acceptance by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority of study data from clinical trials conducted outside the United States or another jurisdiction may be subject to certain conditions or may not be accepted at all. In cases where data from foreign clinical trials are intended to serve as the basis for marketing approval in the United States, the FDA will generally not approve the application on the basis of foreign data alone unless (i) the data are applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice; (ii) the trials were performed by clinical investigators of recognized competence and pursuant to GCP regulations; and (iii) the data may be considered valid without the need for an on-site inspection by the FDA or, if the FDA considers such as inspection to be necessary, the FDA is able to validate the data through an on-site inspection or other appropriate means. Additionally, the FDA’s clinical trial requirements, including sufficient size of patient populations and statistical powering, must be met. Many foreign regulatory authorities have similar approval requirements. In addition, such foreign trials would be subject to the applicable local laws of the foreign jurisdictions where the trials are conducted. There can be no assurance that the FDA or any comparable foreign regulatory authority will accept data from trials conducted outside of the United States or the applicable jurisdiction, including from our previous Phase 3 clinical trials of acoramidis, for which we have enrolled cohorts outside the United States. If the FDA or any comparable foreign regulatory authority does not accept such data, it would result in the need for additional trials, which would be costly and time-consuming and delay aspects of our business plan, and which may result in product candidates that we may develop not receiving approval or clearance for commercialization in the applicable jurisdiction.

Even if we obtain FDA approval for any of our current product candidates in the United States, we may never obtain approval to commercialize any of these product candidates outside of the United States, which would limit our ability to realize their full market potential.

In order to market any products outside of the United States, we must establish and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements of other countries regarding safety and effectiveness. Clinical trials conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries, and regulatory approval in one country does not mean that regulatory approval will be obtained in any other country. Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional product testing and validation and additional or different administrative review periods from those in the United States, including additional preclinical studies or clinical trials, as clinical trials conducted in one jurisdiction may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions. In many jurisdictions outside the United States, a product candidate must be approved for reimbursement before it can be approved for sale in that jurisdiction. In some cases, the price that we intend to charge for our products, once approved is also subject to approval.

Seeking foreign regulatory approval could result in difficulties and costs and require additional nonclinical studies or clinical trials which could be costly and time-consuming. Regulatory requirements can vary widely from country to country and could delay or prevent the introduction of our product candidates in those countries. The foreign regulatory approval process may include all of the risks associated with obtaining FDA approval. While we previously had two products approved for sale in the United States, we do not have any product candidates approved for sale in international markets, and we have only limited experience in obtaining regulatory approval in international markets. If we fail to comply with regulatory requirements in international markets or to obtain and maintain required approvals, or if regulatory approval in international markets is delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of any approved products will be harmed.

Even though we may apply for orphan drug designation for our product candidates, we may not be able to obtain such designations or maintain the benefits associated with orphan drug status, including orphan drug marketing exclusivity.

Our business strategy focuses on the development of product candidates for the treatment of genetic diseases, which may be eligible for FDA or EMA orphan drug designation. Regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions, including the United States and European Union, may designate drugs or biologics for relatively small patient populations as orphan drugs. After the FDA grants orphan drug designation, the generic identity of the drug and its potential orphan use are disclosed publicly by the FDA. Orphan drug designation does not convey any advantage in, or shorten the duration of, the regulatory review and approval process.

Even if one of our product candidates receives orphan exclusivity, the FDA can still approve other drugs or biologics for use in treating the same indication or disease or the same biologic for a different indication or disease during the exclusivity period. Furthermore, the FDA can waive orphan exclusivity if we are unable to manufacture sufficient supply of our product or orphan drug exclusivity can be overcome if a subsequent applicant demonstrates clinical superiority over our product. See the section titled, “Business — Government Regulation — Orphan Drug Designation and Exclusivity.”

We have obtained from the FDA orphan drug designations, including for: acoramidis for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; low-dose infigratinib for the treatment of achondroplasia; encaleret for the treatment of autosomal dominant hypocalcemia (including ADH type 1 and ADH type 2); BBP-812 for the treatment of Canavan Disease; and BBP-671 for the treatment of PKAN and PA. We have obtained from the EMA and European Commission, orphan drug designation for: acoramidis for the treatment of ATTR amyloidosis; low-dose infigratinib for the treatment of achondroplasia; BBP-418 for the treatment of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy; BBP-812 for the treatment of Canavan Disease; BBP-671 for the treatment of PKAN and PA; and encaleret as a treatment for hypoparathyroidism (inclusive of ADH1). We may seek orphan drug designation for other product candidates. Even if we obtain orphan drug designation, exclusive marketing rights in the United States may be limited if we seek approval for an indication broader than the orphan designated indication and may be lost if the FDA later determines that the request for designation was materially defective, if we are unable to assure sufficient quantities of the product to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition, or if a subsequent applicant demonstrates clinical superiority over our products. In addition, although we may seek orphan drug designation for other product candidates, we may never receive such designations. Any failure to obtain, maintain or otherwise recognize the benefits of orphan drug designation for our product candidates could have a material adverse effect on our prospects.

On August 3, 2017, Congress passed the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017, or FDARA. FDARA, among other things, codified the FDA’s pre-existing regulatory interpretation to require that a sponsor demonstrate the clinical superiority of an orphan drug that is otherwise the same as a previously approved drug for the same rare disease in order to receive orphan drug exclusivity. The legislation reverses prior precedent holding that the Orphan Drug Act unambiguously requires that the FDA recognize the orphan exclusivity period regardless of a showing of clinical superiority. Moreover, in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, Congress did not further change this interpretation when it clarified that the interpretation codified in FDARA would apply in cases where FDA issued an orphan designation before the enactment of FDARA but where product approval came after the enactment of FDARA. The FDA may further reevaluate the Orphan Drug Act and its regulations and policies. We do not know if, when, or how the FDA may change the orphan drug regulations and policies in the future, and it is uncertain how any changes might affect our business. Depending on what changes the FDA may make to its orphan drug regulations and policies, our business could be adversely impacted.

The FDA has granted rare pediatric disease designation to BBP-671 for the treatment of PKAN and PA, low-dose infigratinib for the treatment of achondroplasia, and BBP-812 for the treatment of Canavan Disease. However, a marketing application for BBP-671 or any other product candidate, if approved, may not meet the eligibility criteria for a priority review voucher.

The FDA has granted rare pediatric disease designation to BBP-671 for the treatment of PKAN and PA, low-dose infigratinib for the treatment of achondroplasia, and BBP-812 for the treatment of Canavan Disease. Designation of a drug as a drug for a rare pediatric disease does not guarantee that an NDA for such drug will meet the eligibility criteria for a rare pediatric disease priority review voucher at the time the application is approved. Under the Federal Food, Drugs, and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA, we will need to request a rare pediatric disease priority review voucher in our original NDA for BBP-671. The FDA may determine that an NDA for any of BBP-671, low-dose infigratinib, or BBP-812, if approved, does not meet the eligibility criteria for a priority review voucher, including for the following reasons:

The authority for the FDA to award rare pediatric disease priority review vouchers for drugs and biologics that receive rare pediatric disease designation on or prior to September 30, 2024 is currently limited to those candidates that receive rare pediatric disease designation on or prior to September 30, 2024, and the FDA may only award rare pediatric disease priority review vouchers through September 30, 2026. However, it is possible the FDA’s authority to award rare pediatric disease priority review vouchers will be further extended by Congress. Absent any such extension, if an NDA for BBP-671, low-dose infigratinib or BBP-812 is not approved prior to September 30, 2026 for any reason, regardless of whether it meets the criteria for a rare pediatric disease priority review voucher, it will not be eligible for a priority review voucher.

Accelerated approval by the FDA, even if granted for any of 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 will receive marketing approval.

We may seek approval of our product candidates using the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. We may seek approval of additional product candidates, where applicable, under the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. This pathway may not lead to a faster development, regulatory review or approval process and does not increase the likelihood that our product candidates will receive marketing approval. A product may be eligible for accelerated approval if it treats a serious or life-threatening condition, generally provides a meaningful advantage over available therapies, and demonstrates an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. As a condition of approval, the FDA may require that a sponsor of a product receiving accelerated approval perform adequate and well-controlled post-marketing confirmatory clinical trials. These confirmatory trials must be completed with due diligence. Under the Food and Drug Omnibus Reform Act of 2022, or FDORA, the FDA is permitted to require, as appropriate, that a post-approval confirmatory trial or trials be underway prior to approval or within a specified time period after the date accelerated approval was granted. FDORA also requires sponsors to send updates to the FDA every 180 days on the status of such studies, including progress toward enrollment targets, and the FDA must promptly post this information publicly. Furthermore, under FDORA, the FDA is empowered to take action, such as issuing fines, against companies that fail to conduct with due diligence any post-approval confirmatory trial or submit timely reports to the agency on their progress. In addition, for products under consideration for accelerated approval, the FDA currently requires, unless otherwise requested by the agency, pre-approval of promotional materials prior to dissemination or publication, which could adversely impact the timing of the commercial launch of the product. Thus, even if we seek to utilize the accelerated approval pathway, we may not be able to obtain accelerated approval and, even if we do, we may not experience a faster development, regulatory review or approval process for that product. In addition, receiving accelerated approval does not assure that the product’s accelerated approval will eventually be converted to a traditional approval.

We may not elect or be able to take advantage of any expedited development or regulatory review and approval processes available to product candidates granted breakthrough therapy, fast track or regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation by the FDA.

We intend to evaluate and continue ongoing discussions with the FDA on regulatory strategies that could enable us to take advantage of expedited development pathways for certain of our product candidates, although we cannot be certain that our product candidates will qualify for any expedited development pathways or that regulatory authorities will grant, or allow us to maintain, the relevant qualifying designations. Potential expedited development pathways that we could pursue include breakthrough therapy, fast track designation and/or regenerative medicine advanced therapy, or RMAT.

Breakthrough therapy designation is intended to expedite the development and review of product candidates that are designed to treat serious or life-threatening diseases when “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.” The designation of a product candidate as a breakthrough therapy provides potential benefits that include more frequent meetings with the FDA to discuss the development plan for the product candidate and ensure collection of appropriate data needed to support approval; more frequent written correspondence from the FDA about matters such as the design of the proposed clinical trials and use of biomarkers; intensive guidance on an efficient drug development program, beginning as early as Phase 1; organizational commitment involving senior managers; and eligibility for rolling review and priority review.

Fast track designation is designed for product candidates intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, where nonclinical or clinical data demonstrate the potential to address an unmet medical need for this disease or condition.

We may also seek RMAT designation for one or more of our product candidates. See the section titled, “Business — Government Regulation — Expedited Development and Review Programs” for additional information regarding RMAT designation.

Although some of our product candidates, including the following, were granted fast track designation by the FDA, we may elect not to pursue any of breakthrough therapy, fast track or RMAT designations for our other product candidates, and the FDA has broad discretion whether or not to grant these designations:

Even if we believe a particular product candidate is eligible for breakthrough therapy, fast track designation or RMAT, there can be no assurance that the FDA would decide to grant it. Breakthrough therapy designation, fast track and RMAT designation do not change the standards for product approval, and there is no assurance that such designation or eligibility will result in expedited review or approval or that the approved indication will not be narrower than the indication covered by the breakthrough therapy, fast track or RMAT designation. Thus, even if we do receive breakthrough therapy, fast track or RMAT designation, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures. The FDA may withdraw breakthrough therapy, fast track or RMAT designation if it believes that the product no longer meets the qualifying criteria. Our business may be harmed if we are unable to avail ourselves of these or any other expedited development and regulatory pathways.

Additionally, certain oncology product candidates may be eligible for review under the Real-Time Oncology Review, or RTOR, which is an initiative of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence designed to expedite the delivery of safe and effective cancer treatments to patients. Although this program allows the FDA to review data earlier, before an applicant formally submits a complete application, acceptance into the RTOR pilot does not guarantee or influence approvability of the application, which is subject to the usual benefit-risk evaluation by FDA reviewers, and it does not affect the FDA’s Prescription Drug User Fee Act timelines. Although early approvals have occurred with applications selected for RTOR, this may not be the case for our application even if it is selected for RTOR. If at any time the FDA determines our participation in RTOR, if selected, is no longer appropriate, the FDA may rescind our acceptance and instruct us to follow routine submission procedures for marketing approval.

We may seek designation for our platform technology as a designated platform technology, but we might not receive such designation, and even if we do, such designation may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process.

We may seek designation for our platform technology as a designated platform technology. A sponsor may request the FDA to designate a platform technology as a designated platform technology concurrently with, or at any time after, submission of an IND application for a drug that incorporates or utilizes the platform technology that is the subject of the request. If so designated, the FDA may expedite the development and review of any subsequent original NDA or BLA for a drug that uses or incorporates the platform technology. Even if we believe our platform technology meets the criteria for such designation, the FDA may disagree and instead determine not to grant such designation. In addition, the receipt of such designation for a platform technology does not ensure that a drug will be developed more quickly or receive a faster FDA review process or ultimate FDA approval. Moreover, the FDA may revoke a designation if the FDA determines that a designated platform technology no longer meets the criteria for such designation. See the section titled, “Business — Government Regulation — Expedited Development and Review Programs.”

If we are unable to successfully validate, develop and obtain regulatory approval for companion diagnostic tests for our drug candidates that require or would commercially benefit from such tests, or experience significant delays in doing so, we may not realize the full commercial potential of these product candidates.

In connection with the clinical development of our product candidates for certain indications, we may work with collaborators to develop or obtain access to in vitro companion diagnostic tests to identify patient subsets within a disease category who may derive selective and meaningful benefit from our drug candidates. Such companion diagnostics would be used during our clinical trials as well as in connection with the commercialization of our product candidates. To be successful, we or our collaborators will need to address a number of scientific, technical, regulatory and logistical challenges. The FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities regulate in vitro companion diagnostics as medical devices and, under that regulatory framework, will likely require the conduct of clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of any diagnostics we may develop, which we expect will require separate regulatory clearance or approval prior to commercialization.

We may rely on third parties for the design, development and manufacture of companion diagnostic tests for our therapeutic product candidates that may require such tests. If we enter into such collaborative agreements, we will be dependent on the sustained cooperation and effort of our future collaborators in developing and obtaining approval for these companion diagnostics. It may be necessary to resolve issues such as selectivity/specificity, analytical validation, reproducibility, or clinical validation of companion diagnostics during the development and regulatory approval processes. Moreover, even if data from preclinical studies and early clinical trials appear to support development of a companion diagnostic for a product candidate, data generated in later clinical trials may fail to support the analytical and clinical validation of the companion diagnostic. We and our future collaborators may encounter difficulties in developing, obtaining regulatory approval for, manufacturing and commercializing companion diagnostics similar to those we face with respect to our therapeutic candidates and therapeutics themselves, including issues with achieving regulatory clearance or approval, production of sufficient quantities at commercial scale and with appropriate quality standards, and in gaining market acceptance. If we are unable to successfully develop companion diagnostics for these therapeutic product candidates, or experience delays in doing so, the development of these therapeutic product candidates may be adversely affected, these therapeutic product candidates may not obtain marketing approval, and we may not realize the full commercial potential of any of these therapeutics that have or may obtain marketing approval. As a result, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially harmed. In addition, a diagnostic company with whom we contract may decide to discontinue selling or manufacturing the companion diagnostic test that we anticipate using in connection with development and commercialization of our product candidates or our relationship with such diagnostic company may otherwise terminate. We may not be able to enter into arrangements with another diagnostic company to obtain supplies of an alternative diagnostic test for use in connection with the development and commercialization of our product candidates or do so on commercially reasonable terms, which could adversely affect and/or delay the development or commercialization of our therapeutic candidates.

If approved, our investigational products regulated as biologics may face competition from biosimilars approved through an abbreviated regulatory pathway.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, or collectively the ACA, includes a subtitle called the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009, or BPCIA, which created an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products that are biosimilar to or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed reference biological product. Under the BPCIA, an application for a biosimilar product may not be submitted to the FDA until four years following the date that the reference product was first licensed by the FDA. In addition, the approval of a biosimilar product may not be made effective by the FDA until 12 years from the date on which the reference product was first licensed. During this 12-year period of exclusivity, another company may still market a competing version of the reference product if the FDA approves a BLA for the competing product containing the sponsor’s own preclinical data and data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials to demonstrate the safety, purity, and potency of the other company’s product. The law is complex and is still being interpreted and implemented by the FDA. As a result, its ultimate impact, implementation, and meaning are subject to uncertainty.

We believe that any of our product candidates approved as a biological product under a BLA should qualify for the 12-year period of exclusivity. However, there is a risk that this exclusivity could be shortened due to congressional action or otherwise, or that the FDA will not consider our investigational medicines to be reference products for competing products, potentially creating the opportunity for generic competition sooner than anticipated. Other aspects of the BPCIA, some of which may impact the BPCIA exclusivity provisions, have also been the subject of recent litigation. Moreover, the extent to which a biosimilar, once licensed, will be substituted for any one of our reference products in a way that is similar to traditional generic substitution for non-biological products is not yet clear, and will depend on a number of marketplace and regulatory factors that are still developing.

If competitors are able to obtain marketing approval for biosimilars referencing any of our product candidates, our products may become subject to competition from such biosimilars, which would impair our ability to successfully commercialize and generate revenues from sales of such products.

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

Our product candidates, if approved, will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements and review by the FDA and other applicable regulatory authorities for manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, advertising, promotion, sampling, record-keeping, conduct of post-marketing studies, and submission of safety, efficacy, and other post-market information, including both federal and state requirements in the United States and requirements of comparable foreign regulatory authorities.

Manufacturers and manufacturers’ facilities are required to comply with extensive requirements imposed by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities, including ensuring that quality control and manufacturing procedures conform to current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, regulations. As such, we and our CMOs will be subject to continual review and inspections to assess compliance with cGMP and adherence to commitments made in any NDA, BLA or marketing authorization application, or MAA. Accordingly, we and others with whom we work must continue to expend time, money, and effort in all areas of regulatory compliance, including manufacturing, production and quality control. Furthermore, under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, for certain commercial prescription drug products, manufacturers and other parties involved in the supply chain must also meet chain of distribution requirements and build electronic, interoperable systems for product tracking and tracing and for notifying the FDA of counterfeit, diverted, stolen, and intentionally adulterated products or other products that are otherwise unfit for distribution in the U.S. In addition, the distribution of prescription pharmaceutical products, including samples, is subject to the Prescription Drug Marketing Act, or PDMA, which regulates the distribution of drugs and drug samples at the federal level, and sets minimum standards for the registration and regulation of drug distributors by the states. Both the PDMA and state laws limit the distribution of prescription pharmaceutical product samples and impose requirements to ensure accountability in distribution. Prescription drug products must also meet applicable child-resistant packaging requirements under the U.S. Poison Prevention Packaging Act. If we are not able to comply with post-approval regulatory requirements, we could have the marketing approvals for any approved products withdrawn by regulatory authorities and our ability to market such products could be limited, which could adversely affect our ability to achieve or sustain profitability and we could be subject to substantial penalties. As a result, the cost of compliance with post-approval regulations may have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition.

Any regulatory approvals that we may receive for our product candidates, are or will be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the product may be marketed and promoted or to the conditions of approval, or contain requirements for potentially costly post-marketing testing, including Phase 4 clinical trials and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the product. We will be required to report certain adverse reactions and production problems, if any, to the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Any new legislation addressing drug safety issues could result in delays in product development or commercialization, or increased costs to assure compliance. Additionally, under FDORA, sponsors of approved drugs and biologics must provide six months’ notice to the FDA of any changes in marketing status, such as the withdrawal of a drug, and failure to do so could result in the FDA placing the product on a list of discontinued products, which would revoke the product’s ability to be marketed.

The FDA and other agencies, including the Department of Justice, closely regulate and monitor the post-approval marketing, labeling, advertising and promotion of products to ensure that they are manufactured, marketed and distributed only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved label. We are required to comply with requirements concerning advertising and promotion for products that may be approved. Promotional communications with respect to prescription drugs are subject to a variety of legal and regulatory restrictions and must be consistent with the information in the product’s approved label. As such, we may not promote those products for indications or uses for which they do not have approval.

The holder of an approved NDA, BLA or MAA must submit new or supplemental applications and obtain approval for certain changes to the approved product, product labeling, or manufacturing process. We could also be asked to conduct post-marketing clinical trials to verify the safety and efficacy of our products, if approved in general or in specific patient subsets. If original marketing approval was obtained via the accelerated approval pathway, we could be required to conduct a successful post-marketing clinical trial to confirm clinical benefit for those products.

If a regulatory agency discovers previously unknown problems with a product, such as AEs of unanticipated severity or frequency, or problems with the facility where the product is manufactured, or disagrees with the promotion, marketing or labeling of a product, such regulatory agency may impose restrictions on that product or us, including requiring withdrawal of the product from the market. If we fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, a regulatory agency or enforcement authority may, among other things:

Any government investigation of alleged violations of law could require us to expend significant time and resources in response, and could generate negative publicity. Any failure to comply with ongoing regulatory requirements may significantly and adversely affect our ability to commercialize and generate revenue from our products. If regulatory sanctions are applied or if regulatory approval is withdrawn, our operating results will be adversely affected and our stock price may decline. The FDA’s and other regulatory authorities’ policies may change, and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay regulatory approval of our product candidates or suspend, withdraw or modify regulatory approval of our products.

The FDA and other regulatory agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses.

If any of our current product candidates are approved and we are found to have improperly promoted off-label uses of our products, we may become subject to significant liability. The FDA and other regulatory agencies strictly regulate the promotional claims that may be made about prescription products. In particular, while the FDA permits the dissemination of truthful and non-misleading information about an approved product, a sponsor may not promote a product for uses that are not approved by the FDA or such other regulatory agencies as reflected in the product’s approved labeling. If we are found to have promoted such off-label uses, we may become subject to significant liability. The federal government has levied large civil and criminal fines against companies for alleged improper promotion of off-label use and has enjoined several companies from engaging in off-label promotion. The FDA has also requested that companies enter into consent decrees, corporate integrity agreements or permanent injunctions under which specified promotional conduct must be changed or curtailed. If we cannot successfully manage the promotion of our product candidates, if approved, we could become subject to significant liability, which would materially adversely affect our business and financial condition.

Notwithstanding regulations related to product promotion, the FDA and other regulatory authorities allow companies to engage in truthful, non-misleading, and non-promotional scientific exchange concerning their products. We intend to engage in medical education activities and communicate with healthcare providers in compliance with all applicable laws and regulatory guidance.

Risks Related to the Novel Nature of our Product Candidates

Certain of our product candidates, including our protein therapeutic and gene therapy product candidates, are novel, complex and difficult to manufacture. We could experience manufacturing problems that result in delays in our development or commercialization programs or otherwise harm our business.

The manufacturing processes our CMOs use to produce our product candidates, including our protein therapeutic and gene therapy product candidates, are complex, novel and have not been validated for commercial use. Several factors have caused and may cause future production interruptions, including restrictions on certain manufacturing operations and shortages in on-site personnel at our CMOs’ manufacturing facilities, equipment malfunctions, facility contamination, raw material shortages or contamination, natural disasters, disruption in utility services, human error or disruptions in the operations of our suppliers, including historical disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could reoccur in connection with any future global pandemic or health emergency.

Several of our small molecule product candidates are particularly complex and difficult to manufacture, in some cases due to the number of steps required, the process complexity and the toxicity of end or intermediate-stage products. Our protein therapeutic and gene therapy product candidates require processing steps that are more complex than those required for most small molecule drugs. Moreover, unlike small molecules, the physical and chemical properties of certain of our biologic product candidates generally cannot be fully characterized. As a result, assays of the finished product may not be sufficient to ensure that the product is consistent from lot-to-lot or will perform in the intended manner. Accordingly, our CMOs must employ multiple steps to control the manufacturing process to assure that the process is reproducible and the product candidate is made strictly and consistently in compliance with the process. 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 to conduct clinical trials or supply commercial markets. We may encounter problems achieving adequate quantities and quality of clinical-grade materials that meet the FDA, the EMA or other applicable standards or specifications with consistent and acceptable production yields and costs.

In addition, the FDA, the EMA and other foreign regulatory authorities may require us to submit samples of any lot of any approved product together with the protocols showing the results of applicable tests at any time. Under some circumstances, the FDA, the EMA or other foreign regulatory authorities may require that we not distribute a lot until the agency authorizes its release. Slight deviations in the manufacturing process, including those affecting quality attributes and stability, may result in unacceptable changes in the product that could result in lot failures or product recalls. Lot failures or product recalls could cause us to delay product launches or clinical trials, which could be costly to us and otherwise harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our CMOs also may encounter problems hiring and retaining the experienced scientific, quality assurance, quality-control and manufacturing personnel needed to operate our manufacturing processes, which could result in delays in production or difficulties in maintaining compliance with applicable regulatory requirements.

Any problems in our CMOs’ manufacturing process or facilities could result in delays in planned clinical trials and increased costs, and could make us a less attractive collaborator for potential partners, including larger biotechnology companies and academic research institutions, which could limit access to additional attractive development programs. Problems in our manufacturing process could also restrict our ability to meet potential future market demand for any products that may be approved.

Certain of our product candidates are based on a novel adeno-associated virus, or AAV, gene therapy technology with which there is limited clinical or regulatory experience to date, which makes it difficult to predict the time and cost of product candidate development and subsequently obtaining regulatory approval.

Certain of our product candidates are based on gene therapy technology and our future success depends on the successful development of this novel therapeutic approach. We cannot assure you that any development problems we or other gene therapy companies experience in the future related to gene therapy technology will not cause significant delays or unanticipated costs in the development of our product candidates, or that such development problems can be solved. In addition, the clinical study requirements of the FDA, the EMA and other regulatory agencies and the criteria these regulators use to determine the safety and efficacy of a product candidate vary substantially according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use and market of the potential products. The regulatory approval process for novel product candidates such as ours can be more expensive and take longer than for other, better known or extensively studied therapeutic modalities. Further, as we are developing novel treatments for diseases in which there is limited clinical experience with new endpoints and methodologies, there is heightened risk that the FDA, the EMA or comparable foreign regulatory bodies may not consider the clinical trial endpoints to provide clinically meaningful results, and the resulting clinical data and results may be more difficult to analyze. To date, few gene therapy products have been approved by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, which makes it difficult to determine how long it will take or how much it will cost to obtain regulatory approvals for our product candidates in the United States, the European Union or other jurisdictions. Further, approvals by one regulatory agency may not be indicative of what other regulatory agencies may require for approval.

Regulatory requirements governing the development of gene therapy products have changed frequently and may continue to change in the future. In 2016, the FDA established the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies, or OTAT, within its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, or CBER, to consolidate the review of gene therapy and related products, and to advise CBER on its review. In September 2022, the FDA announced retitling of OTAT to the Office of Therapeutic Products, or OTP, and elevation of OTP to a “Super Office” to meet its growing cell and gene therapy workload. In addition, under guidelines issued by the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, gene therapy clinical trials are also subject to review and oversight by an institutional biosafety committee, or IBC, a local institutional committee that reviews and oversees research utilizing recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules at that institution. Before a clinical trial can begin at any institution, that institution’s institutional review board, or IRB, and its IBC assesses the safety of the research and identifies any potential risk to public health or the environment. While the NIH guidelines are not mandatory unless the research in question is being conducted at or sponsored by institutions receiving NIH funding of recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecule research, many companies and other institutions not otherwise subject to the NIH Guidelines voluntarily follow them. Moreover, serious adverse events or developments in clinical trials of gene therapy product candidates conducted by others may cause the FDA or other regulatory bodies to initiate a clinical hold on our clinical trials or otherwise change the requirements for approval of any of our product candidates. Although the FDA decides whether individual cell and gene therapy protocols may proceed, the review process and determinations of other reviewing bodies can impede or delay the initiation of a clinical trial, even if the FDA has reviewed the trial and approved its initiation.

Similarly, the EMA governs the approval of gene therapies in the European Union and may issue new guidelines concerning the development and marketing authorization for gene therapy products and require that we comply with these new guidelines.

These regulatory review committees and advisory groups and the new guidelines they promulgate may lengthen the regulatory review process, require us to perform additional studies or trials, increase our development costs, lead to changes in regulatory positions and interpretations, delay or prevent approval and commercialization of our product candidates or lead to significant post-approval limitations or restrictions. As we advance our product candidates, we will be required to consult with these regulatory and advisory groups and comply with applicable guidelines. If we fail to do so, we may be required to delay or discontinue development of such product candidates. These additional processes may result in a review and approval process that is longer than we otherwise would have expected. Delays as a result of an increased or lengthier regulatory approval process or further restrictions on the development of our product candidates can be costly and could negatively impact our ability to complete clinical trials and commercialize our current and future product candidates, if approved, in a timely manner, if at all.

Our product candidates based on gene therapy technology may cause undesirable and unforeseen side effects or be perceived by the public as unsafe, which could delay or prevent their advancement into clinical trials or regulatory approval, the imposition of a clinical hold, limit the commercial potential or result in significant negative consequences.

Public attitudes may be influenced by claims that gene therapy as a novel technology is unsafe, unethical, or immoral, and, consequently, our product candidates may not gain the acceptance of the public or the medical community. Adverse public attitudes may adversely impact our ability to enroll clinical trials. In addition, the FDA has imposed an increased number of clinical holds on gene therapy candidates in recent years. Moreover, our success will depend upon physicians prescribing, and their patients being willing to receive, treatments that involve the use of product candidates we may develop in lieu of, or in addition to, existing treatments with which they are already familiar and for which greater clinical data may be available. For example, there have been several significant adverse side effects in prior clinical trials of gene therapy product candidates, including reported cases of leukemia and death seen in other trials using other vectors. While new AAV vectors have been developed to reduce these side effects, gene therapy is still a relatively new approach to disease treatment and additional adverse side effects could develop. There also is the potential risk of delayed AEs following exposure to gene therapy products due to persistent biologic activity of the genetic material or other components of products used to carry the genetic material.

Possible adverse side effects that could occur with treatment with gene therapy products include an immunologic reaction early after administration which could be detrimental to the patient’s health or substantially limit the effectiveness and durability of the treatment. For example, an increasingly anticipated side effect of AAV gene therapy is the development of a T-cell immunological response, most often seen affecting the liver. Any actual or perceived negative effects of our AAV gene therapy product candidates or those under development by third parties could impair our ability to continue the development of these product candidates and have an adverse effect on our prospects.

Risks Related to Our Reliance on Third Parties

We expect to rely on third parties to conduct our clinical trials and some aspects of our research and preclinical testing, and those third parties may not perform satisfactorily, including failing to meet deadlines for the completion of such trials, research or testing.

We currently rely and expect to continue to rely on third parties, such as CROs, clinical data management organizations, medical institutions and clinical investigators, to conduct some aspects of research and preclinical testing and clinical trials. Any of these third parties may terminate their engagements with us or be unable to fulfill their contractual obligations. If any of our relationships with these third parties terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative third parties on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. If we need to enter into alternative arrangements, it will delay our product development activities.

Our reliance on these third parties for research and development activities reduces control over these activities but does not relieve us of our responsibilities. For example, we remain responsible for ensuring that each of our respective clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the general investigational plan and protocols for the trial and applicable legal, regulatory, and scientific standards, and our reliance on third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. In addition, the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities require compliance with GCPs for conducting, recording and reporting the results of clinical trials to assure that data and reported results are credible, reproducible and accurate and that the rights, integrity and confidentiality of trial participants are protected. Regulatory authorities enforce these GCPs through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we or any of these third parties fail to comply with applicable GCP regulations, some or all of the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional nonclinical or clinical trials or to enroll additional patients before approving our marketing applications. We cannot be certain that, upon inspection, such regulatory authorities will determine that any of our clinical trials complies with the GCP regulations. For any violations of laws and regulations during the conduct of clinical trials, we could be subject to untitled and warning letters or enforcement action that may include civil penalties up to and including criminal prosecution. We also are required to register ongoing clinical trials and post the results of completed clinical trials on a government-sponsored database within certain 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 clinical trials in accordance with regulatory requirements or our stated protocols, we will not be able to obtain, or may be delayed in obtaining, marketing approvals for any product candidates we may develop and will not be able to, or may be delayed in our efforts to, successfully commercialize our medicines. Our failure or the failure of these third parties to comply applicable regulatory requirements or our stated protocols could also subject us to enforcement action.

We also expect to rely on other third parties to store 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 any product candidates we may develop or commercialization of our medicines, producing additional losses and depriving us of potential product revenue.

We rely entirely on third parties for the manufacturing of our current product candidates or other product candidates that we may develop for preclinical studies and clinical trials. Our business could be harmed if those third parties fail to provide us with sufficient quantities of drug product, or fail to do so at acceptable quality levels or prices.

We do not currently have, nor do we plan to acquire, the infrastructure or capability internally to manufacture drug supplies for our ongoing clinical trials or any future clinical trials that we may conduct, and we lack the resources to manufacture our product candidates, if approved, on a commercial scale. We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third-party manufacturers to produce our current product candidates or other product candidates that we may identify for clinical trials, as well as for commercial manufacture of any product candidates that may receive marketing approval. Although we generally do not begin a clinical trial unless we believe we have a sufficient supply of a product candidate to complete the trial, any significant delay or discontinuity in the supply of a product candidate, or the raw material components thereof, for an ongoing clinical trial due to the need to replace a third-party manufacturer could considerably delay the clinical development and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates, which could harm our business and results of operations. We also expect to rely primarily on third parties for the manufacturing of commercial supply of our product candidates, if approved.

We may be unable to identify and appropriately qualify third-party manufacturers or establish agreements with third-party manufacturers or do so on acceptable terms. Even if we are able to establish agreements with third-party manufacturers, reliance on third-party manufacturers entails additional risks, including:

Furthermore, all of our CMOs are engaged with other companies to supply and/or manufacture materials or products for such companies, which exposes our manufacturers to regulatory risks for the production of such materials and products. The facilities used by our contract manufacturers to manufacture our product candidates are subject to review by the FDA pursuant to inspections that will be conducted after we submit an NDA or BLA to the FDA. We do not control the manufacturing process of, and are completely dependent on, our contract manufacturing partners for compliance with the regulatory requirements, known as cGMP, requirements for manufacture of drug and biologic products. If our contract manufacturers cannot successfully manufacture material that conforms to our specifications and the strict regulatory requirements of the FDA or others, we will not be able to secure or maintain regulatory approval for our product candidates manufactured at these manufacturing facilities. In addition, we have no control over the ability of our contract manufacturers to maintain adequate quality control, quality assurance and qualified personnel. If the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory agency does not approve these facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates or if any agency withdraws its approval in the future, we may need to find alternative manufacturing facilities, which would negatively impact the ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for or market, if approved, our product candidates.

On March 27, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, former President Trump signed into law the CARES Act, which enhanced the FDA’s authority with respect to drug shortage measures. Under the CARES Act, we must have in place a risk management plan that identifies and evaluates the risks to the supply of approved drugs for certain serious diseases or conditions for each establishment where the drug or active pharmaceutical ingredient is manufactured. The risk management plan will be subject to FDA review during an inspection. If we experience shortages in the supply of our product candidates that receive marketing approval, our results could be materially impacted.

Our product candidates may compete with other product candidates and marketed drugs for access to manufacturing facilities. In addition, any performance failure on the part of our existing or future manufacturers could delay clinical development, marketing approval or commercialization. Our current and anticipated future dependence upon others for the manufacturing of our product candidates may adversely affect our future profit margins and our ability to commercialize any product candidates that receive marketing approval on a timely and competitive basis.

The drug substance and drug product for certain of our product candidates are currently acquired from single-source suppliers. The loss of these suppliers, or their failure to supply us with the drug substance or drug product, could materially and adversely affect our business.

The drug substance and drug product for certain of our product candidates are manufactured by single-source suppliers or CMOs under development and manufacturing contracts and services and quality agreements and purchase orders. We do not currently have any other suppliers for the drug substance or drug product of these product candidates and, although we believe that there are alternate sources of supply that could satisfy our clinical and commercial requirements, we cannot assure you that identifying alternate sources and establishing relationships with such sources would not result in significant delay in the development of our product candidates.

Our dependence on single-source suppliers exposes us to certain risks, including the following:

Additionally, we may not be able to enter into supply arrangements with alternative suppliers on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. A delay in the development of our product candidates or having to enter into a new agreement with a different third party on less favorable terms than we have with our current suppliers could have a material adverse impact upon on our business.

If the contract manufacturing facilities on which we rely do not continue to meet regulatory requirements or are unable to meet our supply demands, our business will be harmed.

All entities involved in the preparation of product candidates for clinical trials or commercial sale, including our existing CMOs for all of our product candidates, are subject to extensive regulation. Components of a finished therapeutic product approved for commercial sale or used in late-stage clinical trials must be manufactured in accordance with cGMP, or similar regulatory requirements outside the United States. These regulations govern manufacturing processes and procedures, including recordkeeping, and the implementation and operation of quality systems to control and assure the quality of investigational products and products approved for sale. Poor control of production processes can lead to the introduction of contaminants or to inadvertent changes in the properties or stability of our product candidates. Our failure, or the failure of 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, suspension of production, seizures or recalls of product candidates or marketed drugs, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect clinical or commercial supplies of our product candidates.

We or our CMOs must supply all necessary documentation in support of an NDA, BLA or MAA on a timely basis, and must adhere to regulations enforced by the FDA and other regulatory agencies through their facilities inspection program. Some of our CMOs have never produced a commercially approved pharmaceutical product and therefore have not obtained the requisite regulatory authority approvals to do so. The facilities and quality systems of some or all of our third-party contractors must pass a pre-approval inspection for compliance with the applicable regulations as a condition of regulatory approval of our product candidates or any of our other potential products. In addition, the regulatory authorities may, at any time, audit or inspect a manufacturing facility involved with the preparation of our product candidates or our other potential products or the associated quality systems for compliance with the regulations applicable to the activities being conducted. Although we oversee the CMOs, we cannot control the manufacturing process of, and are completely dependent on, our CMO partners for compliance with the regulatory requirements. If these facilities do not pass a pre-approval plant inspection, regulatory approval of the applicable product candidates may not be granted or may be substantially delayed until any violations are corrected to the satisfaction of the regulatory authority, if ever.

The regulatory authorities also may, at any time following approval of a product for sale, audit the manufacturing facilities of our third-party contractors. If any such inspection or audit identifies a failure to comply with applicable regulations or if a violation of our product specifications or applicable regulations occurs independent of such an inspection or audit, we or the relevant regulatory authority may require remedial measures that may be costly and/or time consuming for us or a third party to implement, and that may include the temporary or permanent suspension of a clinical trial or commercial sales or the temporary or permanent closure of a facility. Any such remedial measures imposed upon us or third parties with whom we contract could materially harm our business.

Additionally, if supply from one approved manufacturer is interrupted, an alternative manufacturer would need to be qualified through an NDA, BLA supplement or MAA variation, or equivalent foreign regulatory filing, which could result in further delay. The regulatory agencies may also require additional studies if a new manufacturer is relied upon for commercial production. In some cases, the technical skills required to manufacture our product candidates may be unique or proprietary to the original CMO and we may have difficulty, or there may be contractual restrictions prohibiting us from, transferring such skills to a back-up or alternate supplier, or we may be unable to transfer such skills at all. In addition, if we are required to change CMOs for any reason, we will be required to verify that the new CMO maintains facilities and procedures that comply with quality standards and with all applicable regulations. We will also need to verify, such as through a manufacturing comparability study, that any new manufacturing process will produce our product or product candidate according to the specifications previously submitted to or approved by the FDA or another regulatory authority. The delays associated with the verification of a new CMO could negatively affect our ability to develop product candidates or once approved, to commercialize those product candidates in a timely manner or within budget. In addition, changes in manufacturers often involve changes in manufacturing procedures and processes, which could require that we conduct bridging studies between our prior clinical supply used in our clinical trials and that of any new manufacturer. We may be unsuccessful in demonstrating the comparability of clinical supplies, which could require the conduct of additional clinical trials. Accordingly, switching manufacturers may involve substantial costs and is likely to result in a delay in our desired clinical and commercial timelines.

These factors could cause us to incur higher costs and could cause the delay or termination of clinical trials, regulatory submissions, required approvals, or commercialization of our product candidates. Furthermore, if our suppliers fail to meet contractual requirements and we are unable to secure one or more replacement suppliers capable of production at a substantially equivalent cost, our clinical trials may be delayed or we could lose potential revenue.

Collaborative relationships with third parties could cause us to expend significant resources and incur substantial business risk with no assurance of financial return.

We anticipate relying upon strategic collaborations for marketing and commercializing our existing product candidates. For example, Eidos is party to a license agreement with Alexion Pharma International Operations Unlimited Company, or Alexion, pursuant to which we depend on Alexion for the clinical development and commercialization of acoramidis in Japan, and QED was previously party to a license and collaboration agreement with Helsinn Healthcare S.A. and Helsinn Therapeutics (U.S.), Inc., to which we refer collectively as Helsinn, pursuant to which QED granted to Helsinn exclusive licenses to develop, manufacture and commercialize QED’s product candidate, infigratinib, in selected indications and geographic territories. The collaboration with Helsinn, was terminated effective in March 2023 pursuant to a mutual termination agreement. In addition, we may rely even more on strategic collaborations for R&D of other product candidates, and we may sell or license other product offerings through strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

If we enter into R&D collaborations during the early phases of product development, success will in part depend on the performance of research collaborators. We will not directly control the amount or timing of resources devoted by research collaborators to activities related to product candidates. Research collaborators may not commit sufficient resources to our R&D programs. If any research collaborator fails to commit sufficient resources, the preclinical or clinical development programs related to the collaboration could be delayed or terminated. Also, collaborators may pursue existing or other development-stage products or alternative technologies in preference to those being developed in collaboration with us. Finally, if we fail to make required milestone or royalty payments to collaborators or to observe other obligations in agreements with them, the collaborators may have the right to terminate or stop performance of those agreements.

Establishing strategic collaborations is difficult and time-consuming. Our discussions with potential collaborators may not lead to the establishment of collaborations on favorable terms, if at all. Potential collaborators may reject collaborations based upon their assessment of our financial, regulatory or intellectual property position. 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. Even if we successfully establish collaborations, these relationships may never result in the successful development or commercialization of product candidates or the generation of sales revenue. To the extent that we enter into collaborative arrangements, the related product revenues are likely to be lower than if we directly marketed and sold such products. Such collaborators may also consider alternative product candidates or technologies for similar indications that may be available to collaborate on and whether such a collaboration could be more attractive than the one with us for any future product candidate.

Management of our relationships with collaborators will require:

If we are unable to establish or maintain such strategic collaborations on terms favorable to us in the future, our R&D efforts and potential to generate revenue may be limited.

We are parties to and may seek to enter into additional collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements, and may not be successful in maintaining existing arrangements or entering into new ones, and even if we are, we may not realize the benefits of such relationships.

The success of our collaboration arrangements will depend heavily on the efforts and activities of our collaborators. Collaborations are subject to numerous risks, which may include risks that:

Additionally, we may seek to enter into additional collaborations, joint ventures, licenses and other similar arrangements for the development or commercialization of our product candidates, due to capital costs required to develop or commercialize the product candidate or manufacturing constraints. We may not be successful in our efforts to establish such collaborations for our product candidates because our research and development pipeline may be insufficient, our product candidates may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaborative effort or third parties may not view our product candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy or significant commercial opportunity. In addition, we face significant competition in seeking appropriate strategic partners, and the negotiation process can be time consuming and complex. Further, any future collaboration agreements may restrict us from entering into additional agreements with potential collaborators. We cannot be certain that, following a strategic transaction or license, we will achieve an economic benefit that justifies such transaction.

Even if we are successful in our efforts to establish such collaborations, the terms that we agree upon may not be favorable to us, and we may not be able to maintain such collaborations if, for example, development or approval of a product candidate is delayed, the safety of a product candidate is questioned or actual or projected sales of an approved product candidate are unsatisfactory. For example, our license and collaboration agreement with Helsinn for the development and commercialization of QED’s product candidate, infigratinib, in selected indications and geographic territories was terminated for convenience by Helsinn effective in March 2023, citing commercial considerations.

In addition, any potential future collaborations may be terminable by our strategic partners, and we may not be able to adequately protect our rights under these agreements. Furthermore, strategic partners may negotiate for certain rights to control decisions regarding the development and commercialization of our product candidates, if approved, and may not conduct those activities in the same manner as we do. Any termination of collaborations we enter into in the future, or any delay in entering into collaborations related to our product candidates, could delay the development and commercialization of our product candidates and reduce their competitiveness if they reach the market, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient intellectual property protection for our product candidates, including acoramidis, low-dose infigratinib, BBP-418, and encaleret, or if the scope of the intellectual property protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products or product candidates similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates may be impaired.

As is the case with other pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain protection of the intellectual property we may own solely and jointly with others, particularly patents, in the United States and other countries with respect to our product candidates and technology. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our product candidates.

Obtaining and enforcing pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical patents is costly, time consuming and complex, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications, or maintain, enforce and license any patents that may issue from such 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. We may not have the right to control the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications, or to maintain the rights to patents licensed to third parties. Therefore, these patents and applications may not be prosecuted and enforced in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business.

The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal, technological and factual questions and has in recent years been the subject of much litigation. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, or vice versa. Further, we may not be aware of all third-party intellectual property rights potentially relating to our product candidates. 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 know with certainty whether we were the first to make the inventions claimed in our patents or pending patent applications, or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. Furthermore, the scope of a patent claim is determined by an interpretation of the law, the written disclosure in a patent and the patent’s prosecution history and can involve other factors such as expert opinion. Our analysis of these issues, including interpreting the relevance or the scope of claims in a patent or a pending application, determining applicability of such claims to our proprietary technologies, product candidates, predicting whether a third party’s pending patent application will issue with claims of relevant scope, and determining the expiration date of any patent in the United States or abroad that we consider relevant may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to develop and market our product candidates. We do not always conduct independent reviews of pending patent applications of and patents issued to third parties. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued that protect our product candidates, in whole or in part, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive products. Even if our patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Our competitors may be able to circumvent our patents by developing similar or alternative product candidates in a non-infringing manner.

Our ability to enforce patent rights also depends on our ability to detect infringement. It may be difficult to detect infringers who do not advertise the components or methods that are used in connection with their products and services. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain evidence of infringement in a competitor’s or potential competitor’s product or service. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded if we were to prevail may not be commercially meaningful. If we initiate lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents, or litigate against third-party claims, such proceedings would be expensive and would divert the attention of our management and technical personnel. Such proceedings could also provoke third parties to assert claims against us, including that some or all of the claims in one or more of our patents are invalid or otherwise unenforceable.

Moreover, we may be subject to a third-party preissuance submission of prior art to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or the USPTO, or become involved in opposition, derivation, reexamination, inter partes review, post-grant review or interference proceedings challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others. 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 product candidates and compete directly with us, without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize drugs without infringing third-party patent rights. In addition, if the breadth or strength of protection provided by our patents and patent applications is threatened, regardless of the outcome, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to license, develop or commercialize current or future product candidates.

In addition, the issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and our patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Such 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 stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical product candidates to ours, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our product candidates. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such product candidates might expire before or shortly after such product candidates are commercialized. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing drugs similar or identical to ours.

Furthermore, our intellectual property rights may be subject to a reservation of rights by one or more third parties. For example, the research resulting in certain of our patent rights and technology was funded in part by the U.S. government. As a result, the government has certain rights, including march-in rights, to such patent rights and technology. When new technologies are developed with government funding, the government generally obtains certain rights in any resulting patents, including a non-exclusive license authorizing the government to use the invention or to have others use the invention on its behalf. These rights may permit the government to disclose our information to third parties and to exercise march-in rights to use or allow third parties to use our technology under certain circumstances. For example, the government may exercise its march-in rights if it determines that action is necessary because we fail to achieve practical application of the government-funded technology, because action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs, to meet requirements of federal regulations, or to give preference to U.S. industry. In addition, our rights in such inventions may be subject to certain requirements to manufacture products embodying such inventions in the United States. Any exercise by the government of such rights or by any third party of its reserved rights could harm our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

Our rights to develop and commercialize our product candidates are subject in part to the terms and conditions of licenses granted to us by others, and the patent protection, prosecution and enforcement for some of our product candidates may be dependent on our licensors.

We currently are reliant upon licenses of certain intellectual property rights and proprietary technology from third parties that are important or necessary to the development of our proprietary technology, including technology related to product candidates. These licenses, and other licenses we may enter into in the future, may not provide adequate rights to use such intellectual property rights and proprietary technology in all relevant fields of use or in all territories in which we may wish to develop or commercialize technology, and product candidates in the future. Licenses to additional third-party proprietary technology or intellectual property rights that may be required for our development programs may not be available in the future or may not be available on commercially reasonable terms. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to redesign our proprietary technology or product candidates or to develop or license replacement technology, which may not be feasible on a technical or commercial basis. If we are unable to do so, we may not be able to develop and commercialize technology, and product candidates in fields of use and territories for which we are not granted rights pursuant to such licenses, which could harm our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects significantly.

In some circumstances, we may not have the right to control the preparation, filing, prosecution and enforcement of patent applications, or to maintain the patents, covering technology that we license from third parties. In addition, some of our agreements with our licensors require us to obtain consent from the licensor before we can enforce patent rights, and our licensor may withhold such consent or may not provide it on a timely basis. Therefore, we cannot be certain that our licensors or collaborators will prosecute, maintain, enforce and defend such intellectual property rights in a manner consistent with the best interests of our business, including by taking reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality of know-how and trade secrets, or by paying all applicable prosecution and maintenance fees related to intellectual property registrations for any of our product candidates. We also cannot be certain that our licensors have drafted or prosecuted the patents and patent applications licensed to us in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, which may affect the validity and enforceability of such patents or any patents that may issue from such applications. This could cause us to lose rights in any applicable intellectual property that we in-license, and as a result our ability to develop and commercialize product candidates may be adversely affected and we may be unable to prevent competitors from making, using and selling competing products.

In addition, our licensors may own or control intellectual property that has not been licensed to us and, as a result, we may be subject to claims, regardless of their merit, that we are infringing or otherwise violating the licensor’s rights. In addition, while we cannot currently determine the amount of the royalty obligations we would be required to pay on sales of future products, if any, the amounts may be significant. The amount of our future royalty obligations will depend on the technology and intellectual property we use in our product candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize. In addition, we may seek to obtain additional licenses from our licensors and, in connection with obtaining such licenses, we may agree to amend our existing licenses in a manner that may be more favorable to the licensors, including by agreeing to terms that could enable third parties (potentially including our competitors) to receive licenses to a portion of the intellectual property rights that are subject to our existing licenses. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

If we fail to comply with our obligations in the agreements under which we license intellectual property rights from third parties, or these agreements are terminated or we otherwise experience disruptions to our business relationships with our licensors, we could lose intellectual property rights that are important to our business.

We are party to various agreements that we depend on to operate our business, and our rights to use currently licensed intellectual property, or intellectual property to be licensed in the future, are or will be subject to the continuation of and our compliance with the terms of these agreements. For example, we are a party to an exclusive license agreement with the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, or Stanford, and may need to obtain additional licenses from others to advance our research and development activities to allow the commercialization of acoramidis or any other product candidates we may identify and pursue. Our license agreement with Stanford imposes, and we expect that future license agreements will impose, various development, diligence, commercialization, and other obligations on us. In particular, under our license agreement with Stanford, we are required to use commercially reasonable efforts to engage in various development and commercialization activities with respect to licensed products, and must satisfy specified milestone and royalty payment obligations. We are also a party to a license agreement with Novartis International Pharmaceutical Ltd. for infigratinib under which we are required to use commercially reasonable efforts to develop infigratinib, and to obtain regulatory approval for and commercialize at least one therapeutic product incorporating infigratinib in the United States and the European Union.

In spite of our efforts, our licensors might conclude that we have materially breached our obligations under such license agreements and might therefore terminate the license agreements, thereby removing or limiting our ability to develop and commercialize products and technology covered by these license agreements. For example, if our license agreement with Stanford is terminated, competitors or other third parties would have the freedom to seek regulatory approval of, and to market, products identical to acoramidis and we may be required to cease our development and commercialization of acoramidis. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

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

In addition, certain provisions in our license agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property or technology, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the agreement, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Moreover, if disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on commercially acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates, which could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Third-party claims of intellectual property infringement may prevent or delay our development and commercialization efforts.

Our commercial success depends in part on our avoiding infringement of the patents and proprietary rights of third parties. However, our research, development and commercialization activities may be subject to claims that we infringe or otherwise violate patents or other intellectual property rights owned or controlled by third parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation, both within and outside the United States, involving patent and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, including patent infringement lawsuits in the courts, and interferences, oppositions, inter partes review, and other proceedings before the USPTO, and corresponding foreign patent offices. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by third parties, exist in the fields in which we are pursuing development candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued, the risk increases that acoramidis, low-dose infigratinib, BBP-418, encaleret or other product candidates that we may identify may be subject to claims of infringement of the patent rights of third parties.

Other third parties may assert that we are employing their proprietary technology without authorization. There may be other third-party patents or patent applications with claims to materials, formulations, methods of manufacture or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of our product candidates. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications which may later result in issued patents that our product candidates may infringe. In addition, third parties may obtain patents in the future and claim that use of our technologies infringes upon these patents. If any third-party patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover the manufacturing process of our product candidates, any molecules formed during the manufacturing process or any final product itself, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to commercialize such product or product candidate unless we obtained a license under the applicable patents, or until such patents expire.