ARAV Aravive Inc

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should consider carefully the following risks, together with all the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including the section titled “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” and Part II, Item 7.“Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation” and our consolidated financial statements and the accompanying notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Any of the following risks could materially and adversely affect our business. If any of the following risks actually materializes, our operating results, financial condition and liquidity could be materially adversely affected. As a result, the trading price of our common stock could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment. Our business, financial condition and results of operations could also be harmed by risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe are material.

Risks related to our financial position and capital requirements.

We have a limited operating history and have incurred significant losses since our inception, and we anticipate that we will continue to incur substantial and increasing losses for the foreseeable future. We have only one product candidate and no commercial sales, which, together with our limited operating history, makes it difficult to evaluate our business and assess our future viability.

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a limited operating history. We have never generated any product revenue and do not have any products approved for sale. From our inception (under our former corporate name, Versartis, Inc.) in 2008 through September 2017, we were focused on developing a single product candidate, somavaratan, a long-acting form of recombinant human growth hormone. The Phase 3 clinical trial of somavaratan failed to meet its primary endpoint, and we subsequently discontinued our somavaratan development effort. In October 2018, we acquired Private Aravive in a merger whereby Private Aravive became our wholly owned subsidiary. All of our clinical development activities are now carried out through Private Aravive.

Private Aravive was founded in 2007, and its operations to date have been primarily limited to organizing and staffing its company and developing its only product candidate, AVB-500. Private Aravive has not yet successfully completed any clinical trials in the target patient population, obtained marketing approval, manufactured AVB-500 product at commercial scale, or conducted sales and marketing activities that will be necessary to successfully commercialize AVB-500. Consequently, predictions about our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history or a history of successfully developing and commercializing product candidates.

Even if we receive regulatory approval for the sale of any of our product candidates, we do not know when we will begin to generate revenue, if at all. Our ability to generate revenue depends on a number of factors, including our ability to:

Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with development and manufacturing, we are unable to predict if we will generate revenue. If we cannot successfully execute on any of the factors listed above, our business may not succeed, we may never generate revenue and your investment will be adversely affected.

We have incurred significant losses since inception and expect to continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future and may never achieve or maintain profitability.

We have incurred significant operating losses in each year since our inception and expect to incur substantial and increasing losses for the foreseeable future. As of December 31, 2019, we had an accumulated deficit of approximately $470.1 million. Other than our financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019 and part of the fourth quarter of 2018, our historical financial statements are solely those of Versartis, Inc., and our accumulated deficit does not reflect the cumulative deficit of Private Aravive.

28

To date, we have financed our operations primarily through private placements of our equity securities, debt financing, CPRIT grant proceeds, and our initial public offering in 2014 along with additional common stock offerings in January 2015, October 2016, and December 2019 as well as a $40.0 million upfront payment received from our strategic license agreement with Teijin. A significant portion of Private Aravive’s funding has been through a $20 million grant it received from CPRIT. We have devoted substantially all of our efforts to research and development, including clinical studies, but have not completed development of any product candidate, and our Phase 3 clinical trial of somavaratan failed to meet its primary endpoint. We anticipate that our expenses will increase to the extent we:

To be profitable in the future, we must succeed in developing and eventually commercializing AVB-500 as well as other products with significant market potential. This will require us to be successful in a range of activities, including advancing AVB-500 and any future product candidates, completing clinical studies of these product candidates, obtaining regulatory approval for these product candidates and manufacturing, marketing and selling those products for which we may obtain regulatory approval.  We may not succeed in these activities and may never generate revenue that is sufficient to be profitable in the future. Even if we are profitable, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to achieve sustained profitability would depress the value of our company and could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business, diversify our product candidates, market our product candidates, if approved, or continue our operations.

To date, our only completed clinical trial with AVB-500 has been our completed Phase 1 clinical trial with 42 dosed subjects. We expect our research and development expenses to increase significantly as our product candidates advance in clinical development. Because of numerous risks and uncertainties involved in our business, the timing or amount of increased development expenses cannot be accurately predicted and, our expenses could increase beyond expectations if we are required by the FDA, or comparable non-U.S. regulatory authorities, to perform studies or clinical trials in addition to those we currently anticipate. Even if our product candidate is approved for commercial sale, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with the commercial launch of and the related commercial-scale manufacturing requirements for our product candidate. As a result, we expect to continue to incur significant and increasing operating losses and negative cash flows for the foreseeable future. Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with biopharmaceutical product development and commercialization, we are unable to accurately predict the timing or amount of future expenses or when, or if, we will be able to achieve or maintain profitability. These losses have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our financial position and working capital.

We will need additional funds to support our operations, and such funding may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all, which would force us to delay, reduce or suspend our research and development programs and other operations or commercialization efforts. Raising additional capital may subject us to unfavorable terms, cause dilution to our existing stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our product candidates and technologies.

The completion of the development and the potential commercialization of AVB-500 and any future product candidates, should they receive approval, will require substantial funds. As of December 31, 2019, we had approximately $65.1 million in cash and cash equivalents. We believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents, will be sufficient to sustain operations for at least the next 12 months based on our existing business plan; however, our existing cash and cash equivalents will not be sufficient to enable us to complete the clinical development and commercialization of AVB-500. Our future financing requirements will depend on many factors, some of which are beyond our control, including the following:

29

We do not have any material committed external source of funds or other support for our development efforts. Until we can generate a sufficient amount of product revenue to finance our cash requirements, which we may never do, we expect to finance future cash needs through a combination of public or private equity offerings, debt financings, collaborations, strategic alliances, licensing arrangements and other marketing and distribution arrangements. Additional financing may not be available to us when we need it or it may not be available on favorable terms. In addition, certain SEC and Nasdaq limitations with respect to fundraising may make it more difficult to raise additional funds. If we raise additional capital through marketing and distribution arrangements or other collaborations, strategic alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish certain valuable rights to AVB-500 or potential future product candidates, technologies, future revenue streams or research programs, or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we raise additional capital through public or private equity offerings, the ownership interest of our existing stockholders will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect our stockholders’ rights. If we raise additional capital through debt financing, we may be subject to covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing when needed, we may have to delay, reduce the scope of, or suspend one or more of our clinical studies or research and development programs or our commercialization efforts.

Raising additional funds by issuing securities may cause dilution to existing stockholders, and raising funds through lending and licensing arrangements may restrict our operations or require it to relinquish proprietary rights.

We expect that significant additional capital will be needed in the future to continue our planned operations and commercialize AVB-500. Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial product revenues, we expect to finance our cash needs through a combination of equity offerings, debt financings, strategic alliances and license and development agreements in connection with any collaborations. We do not currently have any committed external source of funds. To the extent that we raise additional capital by issuing equity securities, existing stockholders’ ownership may experience substantial dilution, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect the rights of a common stockholder. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures, declaring dividends, creating liens, redeeming its stock or making investments.

If we raise additional funds through collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies, future revenue streams, research programs or product candidates or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings when needed, or through collaborations, strategic alliances or marketing, distribution or licensing arrangements with third parties on acceptable terms, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market product candidates that we would otherwise develop and market.

30

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes our future operating results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or our guidance.

Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate significantly in the future, which makes it difficult for us to predict our future operating results. From time to time, we may enter into collaboration agreements with other companies that include development funding and significant upfront and milestone payments and/or royalties, which may become an important source of our revenue. Accordingly, our revenue may depend on development funding and the achievement of development and clinical milestones under any potential future collaboration and license agreements and sales of our products, if approved. These upfront and milestone payments may vary significantly from period to period and any such variance could cause a significant fluctuation in our operating results from one period to the next. In addition, our manufacturing and clinical trial expenses, which are anticipated to be significant, may fluctuate significantly quarter to quarter based upon whether or not we are engaged in clinical trials or manufacturing our product candidate, and timing of our process development work.  Furthermore, we measure compensation cost for stock-based awards made to employees at the grant date of the award, based on the fair value of the award as determined by our board of directors, and recognize the cost as an expense over the employee’s requisite service period. As the variables that we use as a basis for valuing these awards change over time, our underlying stock price and stock price volatility, the magnitude of the expense that we must recognize may vary significantly. Furthermore, our operating results may fluctuate due to a variety of other factors, many of which are outside of our control and may be difficult to predict, including the following:

The cumulative effects of these factors could result in large fluctuations and unpredictability in our quarterly and annual operating results. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Investors should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance. This variability and unpredictability could also result in our failing to meet the expectations of industry or financial analysts or investors for any period. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of analysts or investors or below any forecasts we may provide to the market, or if the forecasts we provide to the market are below the expectations of analysts or investors, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Such a stock price decline could occur even when we have met any previously publicly stated revenue and/or earnings guidance we may provide.

31

Because of the Merger and other factors, our pre-merger U.S. net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes will be subject to limitations.

At December 31, 2019, we had net operating loss carryforwards for federal income tax purposes of approximately $27.9 million, of which $23.1 million was generated post December 31, 2017 (after section 382 limitation) and will have no expiration date. The remaining $4.8 million of net operating loss carryforwards begin to expire in 2037. The Company also has Federal research and development tax credits of approximately $90 thousand which begin to expire in 2037.

At December 31, 2019, our total gross deferred tax assets were $13.2 million. Due to our lack of earnings history and uncertainties surrounding our ability to generate future taxable income, the net deferred tax assets have been fully offset by a valuation allowance. The deferred tax assets were primarily comprised of federal and state tax net operating losses and tax credit carryforwards. Utilization of net operating losses and tax credit carryforwards may be limited by the “ownership change” rules, as defined in Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code (any such limitation, a “Section 382 limitation”). Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We have performed an analysis to determine whether an “ownership change” occurred from inception up to the Private Aravive's acquisition date. Based on this analysis during 2018, management determined that both Versartis, Inc. and Private Aravive did experience ownership changes, which resulted in a significant impairment of the net operating losses and credit carryforwards. In 2019, no additional significant ownership changes were noted. Future changes in our stock ownership, some of which are outside of our control, could result in a further ownership change under Section 382 of the Code. Furthermore, our ability to utilize net operating losses of Private Aravive or other companies that we may acquire in the future may be subject to limitations. For these reasons, we may not be able to utilize a material portion of the net operating losses, even if we were to achieve profitability.

The TCJA changed certain of the rules governing net operating loss carryforwards. For net operating losses arising in tax years beginning after December 31, 2017, the TCJA limits a taxpayer’s ability to utilize net operating loss carryforwards to 80% of taxable income. In addition, net operating losses arising in tax years ending after December 31, 2017 can be carried forward indefinitely, but carryback is generally prohibited. Net operating losses generated in tax years beginning before January 1, 2018 will not be subject to the taxable income limitation, and net operating losses generated in tax years ending before January 1, 2018 will continue to have a two-year carryback and 20-year carryforward period. Deferred tax assets for net operating losses will need to be measured at the applicable tax rate in effect when the net operating loss is expected to be utilized. The changes in the carryforward/carryback periods as well as the new limitation on use of net operating losses may significantly impact the merged company’s valuation allowance assessments for net operating losses generated after December 31, 2017.

Risks Related To Our Business

Global health crises may adversely affect our planned operations. 

Our business and the business of the supplier of our clinical product candidate and the suppliers of the standard of care drugs that are administered in combination with our clinical product candidate could be materially and adversely affected by the risks, or the public perception of the risks, related to a pandemic or other health crisis, such as the recent outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). A significant outbreak of contagious diseases in the human population could result in a widespread health crisis that could adversely affect our planned operations. Such events could result in the complete or partial closure of one or more manufacturing facilities which could impact our supply of our clinical product candidate or the standard of care drugs that are administered in combination with our clinical product candidate. In addition, an outbreak near our clinical trial sites are located would likely impact our ability to recruit patients, delay our clinical trials, and could affect our ability to complete our clinical trials within the planned time periods. In addition, it could impact economies and financial markets, resulting in an economic downturn that could impact our ability to raise capital or slow down potential partnering relationships.

Coronavirus could adversely impact our business, including our clinical trials.

In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, was reported to have surfaced in Wuhan, China. Since then, the COVID-19 coronavirus has spread to multiple countries, including the United States and European and Asia-Pacific countries, including countries in which we have planned or active clinical trial sites. As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread around the globe, we will likely experience disruptions that could severely impact our business and clinical trials, including:

32

In addition, the outbreak of the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) could disrupt our operations due to absenteeism by infected or ill members of management or other employees, or absenteeism by members of management and other employees who elect not to come to work due to the illness affecting others in our office or laboratory facilities, or due to quarantines. COVID-19 illness could also impact members of our Board of Directors resulting in absenteeism from meetings of the directors or committees of directors, and making it more difficult to convene the quorums of the full Board of Directors or its committees needed to conduct meetings for the management of our affairs.

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to rapidly evolve. The extent to which the COVID-19 coronavirus may impact our business and clinical trials will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, such as the ultimate geographic spread of the disease, the duration of the outbreak, travel restrictions and social distancing in the United States and other countries, business closures or business disruptions and the effectiveness of actions taken in the United States and other countries to contain and treat the disease.

Reliance on government funding for our programs may impose requirements that limit our ability to take certain actions, and subject us to potential financial penalties, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

A significant portion of our funding has been through a grant Private Aravive received from CPRIT. The CPRIT Grant (as described below) includes provisions that reflect the government’s substantial rights and remedies, many of which are not typically found in commercial contracts, including powers of the government to potentially require repayment of all or a portion of the grant award proceeds, in certain cases with interest, in the event we violate certain covenants pertaining to various matters that include any potential relocation outside of the State of Texas. Although our contract with CPRIT terminated November 30, 2019, our royalty and other obligations, including our obligation to repay the disbursed grant proceeds under certain circumstances, to maintain certain records and documentation, to notify CPRIT of certain unexpected adverse events  and our obligation to use reasonable efforts to ensure that any new or expanded preclinical testing, clinical trials, commercialization or manufacturing related to any aspect to our CPRIT project  take place in Texas, survive the termination of the agreement. In addition, if we relocate our principal place of business outside of Texas within the three year period after the date of final payment of grant funds (which final payment has not yet occurred), we are required to repay to CPRIT all grant funds received. We have received $18.4 million of the grant proceeds and expect to expend all of the grant award proceeds by the agreement termination date. We have recorded a CPRIT receivable balance of $1.6 million as of December 31, 2019 in other current assets for the remaining grant award for reimbursement of eligible expenses.

Our award from CPRIT requires us to pay CPRIT a portion of our revenues from sales of certain products by us, or received from our licensees or sublicensees, at tiered percentages of revenue in the low- to mid-single digits until the aggregate amount of such payments equals 400% of the grant award proceeds, and thereafter at a rate of less than one percent for as long as we maintain government exclusivity, subject to our right, under certain circumstances, to make a one-time payment in a specified amount to CPRIT to terminate such payment obligations. In addition, the grant contract also contains a provision that provides for repayment to CPRIT of some amount not to exceed the full amount of the grant proceeds under certain specified circumstances involving relocation of our principal place of business outside Texas.

In order to meet the requirements that any new or expanded preclinical testing, clinical trials, commercialization or manufacturing related to any aspect of our CPRIT project  take place in Texas, we will need to hire additional qualified personnel and vendors with expertise in preclinical testing, clinical research and testing, government regulation, formulation and manufacturing, sales and marketing and accounting and financing located in Texas. We will compete for qualified individuals, vendors, clinical trial sites, manufacturers with numerous biopharmaceutical companies, universities and other research institutions. Competition for such individuals is intense, and there can be no assurance that the search for such personnel will be successful, especially in light of the territorial restrictions imposed by CPRIT.

33

If we fail to maintain compliance with any such requirements that may apply to us now or in the future, we may be subject to potential liability and to termination of our contracts, including potentially the CPRIT Grant, which could result in significant expense to us.

We rely on licenses to use various technologies that are material to our business and if the agreements underlying the licenses were to be terminated or if other rights that may be necessary for commercializing our intended products cannot be obtained, it would halt our ability to market our products and technology, as well as have an immediate material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

Our prospects are significantly dependent upon our license with Stanford University, or the Stanford License. The Stanford License grants us exclusive, worldwide rights to certain existing patents and related intellectual property that cover AVB-500, the lead development candidate selected from the AVB-S6 family of proteins. If we breach the terms of the Stanford License, including any failure to make minimum royalty payments required thereunder or failure to reach certain developmental milestones and by certain deadlines or other factors, including but not limited to, the failure to comply with material terms of the Stanford License, the licensor has the right to terminate the license. If we were to lose or otherwise be unable to maintain the license on acceptable terms, or find that it is necessary or appropriate to secure new licenses from other third parties, we would not be able to market our products and technology, which would likely require us to cease our current operations which would have an immediate material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

If we fail to comply with our obligations in our intellectual property licenses with third parties, we could lose license rights that are important to our business.

In addition to the Stanford License, we are a party to intellectual property license agreements with third parties, and we expect to enter into additional license agreements in the future. Our existing license agreements impose, and we expect that our future license agreements will impose, various diligence, milestone payment, royalty, insurance and other obligations on us. If we fail to comply with these obligations, our licensors may have the right to terminate these agreements, in which event we may not be able to develop and market any product that is covered by these agreements. The occurrence of such events could materially harm our business and financial condition.

The risks described elsewhere pertaining to our intellectual property rights also apply to the intellectual property rights that we license, and any failure by us or our licensors to obtain, maintain, defend and enforce these rights could have a material adverse effect on our business. In some cases we do not have control over the prosecution, maintenance or enforcement of the patents that we license, and may not have sufficient ability to provide input into the patent prosecution, maintenance and defense process with respect to such patents, and our licensors may fail to take the steps that we believe are necessary or desirable in order to obtain, maintain, defend and enforce the licensed patents. We are responsible for preparing, filing, and prosecuting broad patent claims (including any interference or reexamination actions) for Stanford University’s benefit and for maintaining all licensed patents.

We rely extensively on our information technology systems and are vulnerable to damage and interruption.

We rely on our information technology systems and infrastructure to process transactions, summarize results and manage our business, including maintaining client and supplier information. Additionally, we utilize third parties, including cloud providers, to store, transfer and process data. Our information technology systems, as well as the systems of our suppliers and other partners, whose systems we do not control, are vulnerable to outages and an increasing risk of continually evolving deliberate intrusions to gain access to company sensitive information. Likewise, data security incidents and breaches by employees and others with or without permitted access to our systems pose a risk that sensitive data may be exposed to unauthorized persons or to the public. A cyber-attack or other significant disruption involving our information technology systems, or those of our vendors, suppliers and other partners, could also result in disruptions in critical systems, corruption or loss of data and theft of data, funds or intellectual property.  We may be unable to prevent outages or security breaches in our systems.  We remain potentially vulnerable to additional known or yet unknown threats as, in some instances, we, our suppliers and our other partners may be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects.  We also face the risk that we expose our vendors or partners to cybersecurity attacks.  Any or all of the foregoing could adversely affect our results of operations and our business reputation. 

34

Any failure to maintain the security of information relating to our customers, employees and suppliers, whether as a result of cybersecurity attacks or otherwise, could expose us to litigation, government enforcement actions and costly response measures, and could disrupt our operations and harm our reputation. 

In connection with the sales and marketing of our products and services, we may from time to time transmit confidential information. We also have access to, collect or maintain private or confidential information regarding our clinical trials and the patients enrolled therein, employees, and suppliers, as well as our business. Cyberattacks are rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly sophisticated. It is possible that computer hackers and others might compromise our security measures, or security measures of those parties that we do business with now or in the future, and obtain the personal information of patients in our clinical trials, vendors, employees and suppliers or our business information. A security breach of any kind, including physical or electronic break-ins, computer viruses and attacks by hackers, employees or others, could expose us to risks of data loss, litigation, government enforcement actions, regulatory penalties and costly response measures, and could seriously disrupt our operations. Any resulting negative publicity could significantly harm our reputation, which could cause us to lose market share and have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

We currently have only one product candidate in clinical development and are dependent on the success of this product candidate, which requires significant additional clinical testing before seeking regulatory approval. If our clinical product candidate does not receive regulatory approval or is not successfully commercialized, our business may be harmed.

We are currently developing one clinical product candidate, AVB-500, as a potential treatment for several types of cancer and fibrosis. AVB-500 is currently being tested in clinical trials, and, to date, we have not had any product candidate approved for commercial sale. It is possible that we may never be able to develop a marketable product candidate. Our main focus is the development of AVB-500, for which we completed a Phase 1 clinical trial, commenced the Phase 1b portion of our planned Phase 1b/2 clinical trial for the treatment of platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer.

We may need to engage in further dose-finding studies for AVB-500.  In our Phase 1 clinical trial of AVB-500, single doses ranging from 1 mg per kg to 10 mg per kg were evaluated and repeat doses of 5 mg per kg per week (for a total of 4 doses) were evaluated. Based upon the results of our Phase 1 clinical trial, in the Phase 1b portion of our Phase 1b/2 clinical trial we initially used a 10mg per kg dose for all patients receiving AVB-500; which was increased to 15mg per kg and then to 20 mg per kg based on our exposure response analysis  from the initial 31 patients in the Phase 1b clinical trial.  However, our hypothesis on dose response may be incorrect and we may discover that 20mg per kg is not an adequate dose. In order for AVB-500 to successfully complete development, we may need to continue to refine its dosage, which, as occurred when we increased the dose from 10 mg per kg to 20 mg per kg, will increase our costs and slow down our product candidate development and approval process.

We expect that a substantial portion of our efforts and expenditures over the next few years will be devoted to AVB-500. Accordingly, our business currently depends heavily on the successful development, regulatory approval and commercialization of AVB-500, which may not receive regulatory approval or be successfully commercialized even if regulatory approval is received. The research, testing, manufacturing, labeling, approval, sale, marketing and distribution of product candidates are and will remain subject to extensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in the United States and other countries that each have differing regulations. We are not permitted to market any product in the United States unless and until we receive approval of a BLA, from the FDA, or in any foreign countries unless and until we receive the requisite approval from regulatory authorities in such countries. We have never submitted a BLA to the FDA or comparable applications to other regulatory authorities and do not expect to be in a position to do so for the foreseeable future. Obtaining approval of a BLA is an extensive, lengthy, expensive and inherently uncertain process, and the FDA may delay, limit or deny approval of its product for many reasons.

Our success depends largely upon our ability to advance our clinical product candidate, which is in early stages of development, through the various stages of drug development. If we are unable to successfully advance or develop our clinical product candidate, our business will be materially harmed.

Our clinical product candidate is in early stages of clinical development, and its commercial viability remains subject to the successful outcome of future preclinical studies, clinical trials, manufacturing processes, regulatory approvals and the risks generally inherent in the development of pharmaceutical product candidates. Failure to advance the development of our clinical product candidate may have a material adverse effect on our business. The long-term success of our business ultimately depends upon our ability to advance the development of our product candidate through clinical trials, appropriately formulate and consistently manufacture it in accordance with strict specifications and regulations, obtain approval for sale by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities in other countries, and ultimately successfully commercialize it directly or with a strategic partner or licensee. We cannot assure investors that the results of our ongoing or future research, preclinical studies or clinical trials will support or justify the continued development of our clinical product candidate or that we will ultimately receive approval from the FDA, or similar regulatory authorities in other countries, to advance the development of AVB-500.

35

AVB-500 must satisfy rigorous regulatory standards of safety, efficacy and manufacturing before we can advance or complete its development and before it can be approved for sale by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities in other countries. To satisfy these standards, we must engage in expensive and lengthy studies and clinical trials, develop acceptable and cost effective manufacturing processes, and obtain regulatory approval of our clinical product candidate. Despite these efforts, our clinical product candidate may not:

Even if we demonstrate favorable results in preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials, we cannot assure you that the results of late-stage clinical trials will be sufficient to support the continued development of our clinical product candidate. Many, if not most, companies in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries have experienced significant delays, setbacks and failures in all stages of development, including late-stage clinical trials, even after achieving promising results in preclinical testing or early-stage clinical trials. Accordingly, results from completed preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials of our clinical product candidate may not be predictive of the results we may obtain in future late-stage trials. Furthermore, even if the data collected from preclinical studies and clinical trials involving any of our clinical product candidate demonstrate a satisfactory safety, tolerability and efficacy profile, such results may not be sufficient to obtain regulatory approval from the FDA in the United States, or other similar regulatory agencies in other jurisdictions, which is required to market and sell the product.

Clinical trials are risky, lengthy and expensive. We incur substantial expense for, and devote significant time and resources to, preclinical testing and clinical trials, yet cannot be certain that these tests and trials will demonstrate that a product candidate is effective and well-tolerated, or will ever support its approval and commercial sale. For example, clinical trials require adequate supplies of clinical trial material and sufficient patient enrollment to power the trial. Delays in patient enrollment can result in increased costs and longer development times. Even if we, or a licensee or collaborator, if applicable, successfully complete clinical trials for our clinical product candidate, we or they might not file the required regulatory submissions in a timely manner and may not receive marketing approval for the clinical product candidate. We cannot assure you that our clinical product candidate will successfully progress further through the drug development process, or ultimately will result in an approved and commercially viable product.

We have limited experience conducting clinical trials.

We are an early stage clinical stage company, and our success is dependent upon our ability to obtain regulatory approval for and commercialization of our clinical product candidate, and we have not demonstrated an ability to perform the functions necessary for the approval or successful commercialization of any product candidate. The successful commercialization of any product candidate may require us to perform a variety of functions, including:

We have limited experience conducting and enrolling subjects in clinical trials. While certain members of our management and staff have significant experience in conducting clinical trials, to date, we have only limited experience conducting clinical trials since the Merger. In part because of this lack of experience, we cannot guarantee that planned clinical trials will be completed on time, if at all. Large-scale trials require significant additional financial and management resources, monitoring and oversight, and reliance on third-party clinical investigators, consultants or contract research organizations, or CROs. Relying on third-party clinical investigators, CROs and manufacturers, which are all also subject to governmental oversight and regulations, may also cause us to encounter delays that are outside of our control.

36

If the actual or perceived therapeutic benefits, or the safety or tolerability profile of our clinical product candidate is not equal to or superior to other competing treatments approved for sale or in clinical development, we may terminate the development of our clinical product candidate at any time, and our business prospects and potential profitability could be harmed.

We are aware of a number of companies marketing or developing product candidates for the treatment of patients with cancer and fibrosis that are either approved for sale or further advanced in clinical development than ours, such that their time to approval and commercialization may be shorter than that for AVB-500.

There are currently FDA approved biological drugs that target the GAS6/AXL pathway. However, if ever approved as a treatment for cancer, AVB-500 would indirectly compete with drugs approved to treat various types of cancer, such as those that regulate T-cell proliferation, including nivolumab, pembrolizumab, atezolizumab and other small molecule chemically manufactured drugs that target this pathway or other classes of drugs that are used for the clinical indications that ours is currently pursuing in clinic.

If at any time we believe that AVB-500 may not provide meaningful or differentiated therapeutic benefits, perceived or real, equal to or better than its competitor’s products or product candidates, or we believe that it may not have as favorable a safety or tolerability profile as potentially competitive compounds, we may delay or terminate its development. We cannot provide any assurance that the future development of AVB-500 will demonstrate any meaningful therapeutic benefits over potentially competitive compounds currently approved for sale or in development, or an acceptable safety or tolerability profile sufficient to justify its continued development.

For the Phase 1b portion of our Phase 1b/2 clinical trial in patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer and for the Phase 1b clinical trial testing in patients with clear cell renal carcinoma , we are  administering, or plan to administer, our clinical product candidate in combination with other approved standard of care drugs. Any problems obtaining the standard of care drugs could result in a delay or interruption in our clinical trials.

For the Phase 1b portion of our Phase 1b/2 clinical trial of AVB-500 for the treatment of patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer, we are administering our clinical product candidate in combination with already approved standard of care drugs. For the Phase 1b portion of our Phase 1b/2 clinical trial of AVB-500 for the treatment of patients with clear cell renal carcinoma, our clinical trial we intend to administer our clinical product candidate in combination with an already approved standard of care drug.  Therefore, our success will be dependent upon the continued use of these other standard of care drugs. We expect that in any other clinical trials we conduct for additional indications, our clinical product candidate will also be administered in combination with drugs owned by third parties. If any of the standard of care drugs that are used in our clinical trials are unavailable while the trials are continuing, the timeliness and commercialization costs could be impacted. In addition, if any of these other drugs are determined to have safety or efficacy problems, our clinical trials and commercialization efforts would be adversely affected.

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

In connection with the clinical development of AVB-500 or other 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 may 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 be unable to successfully validate, develop and obtain regulatory clearance or approval for any such companion diagnostic tests or may experience delays in doing so, which could materially harm or limit the commercial potential of our product candidates.

Our clinical product candidate may exhibit undesirable side effects when used alone or in combination with other approved pharmaceutical products, which may delay or preclude its development or regulatory approval, or limit its use if ever approved.

Throughout the drug development process, we must continually demonstrate the activity, safety and tolerability of our clinical product candidate in order to obtain regulatory approval to further advance our clinical development, or to eventually market it. Even if our clinical product candidate demonstrates adequate biologic activity and clear clinical benefit, any unacceptable side effects or adverse events, when administered alone or in the presence of other pharmaceutical products, may outweigh these potential benefits. We may observe adverse or serious adverse events or drug-drug interactions in preclinical studies or clinical trials of our clinical product candidate, which could result in the delay or termination of its development, prevent regulatory approval, or limit its market acceptance if it is ultimately approved.

37

For our clinical product candidate, we rely upon one third party to manufacture its drug substance. Any problems experienced by either our third-party manufacturer or our vendors could result in a delay or interruption in the supply of our clinical product candidate to us until the third-party manufacturer or its vendor cures the problem or until we locate and qualify an alternative source of manufacturing and supply.

For our clinical product candidate, we currently rely on one third-party manufacturer located in China to manufacture our clinical product candidate for our clinical studies and that manufacturer purchases materials from our third-party vendors and transports the materials necessary to produce our clinical product candidate, such as the required reagents and containers. The recent outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus has caused a widespread health crisis in several districts in China resulting in temporary work stoppages in many affected districts. Although our manufacturer’s facilities are not located in the affected districts, if the virus should spread to the districts in which our manufacturer’s facilities are located, we could experience delays in manufacturing and shipments of our clinical product, which could result in clinical trial delays.  If the third-party manufacturer were to experience any prolonged disruption for our manufacturing, we could be forced to seek additional third party manufacturing contracts, thereby increasing our development costs and negatively impacting our timelines and any commercialization costs. If we change manufacturers at any point during the development process or after approval of a product candidate, we will be required to demonstrate comparability between the product manufactured by the old manufacturer and the product manufactured by the new manufacturer. If we are unable to do so we may need to conduct additional clinical trials with product manufactured by the new manufacturer.

If our manufacturer is not able to manufacture sufficient quantities of our clinical product candidate, our development activities would be impaired. In addition, the manufacturing facility where our clinical product candidate is manufactured is subject to ongoing, periodic inspection by the FDA or other comparable regulatory agencies to ensure compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practice, or cGMP. Any failure to follow and document the manufacturer’s adherence to such cGMP regulations or other regulatory requirements may lead to significant delays in the availability of clinical bulk drug substance and finished product for clinical trials, which may result in the termination of or a hold on a clinical trial, or may delay or prevent filing or approval of marketing applications for our clinical product candidate. We also may encounter problems with the following:

If we encounter any of these problems or are otherwise delayed, or if the cost of manufacturing in the China facility is not economically feasible or we cannot find another third-party manufacturer, we may not be able to produce our clinical product candidate in a sufficient quantity to meet future demand.

In addition, since we rely on a third-party manufacturer located in China, our business is subject to risks associated with doing business in China, including:

38

These risks are likely to be exacerbated by our limited experience with our current products and manufacturing processes. If demand for our products materializes, we may have to invest additional resources to purchase materials, hire and train employees, and enhance our manufacturing processes. It may not be possible for us to manufacture our clinical product candidate at a cost or in quantities sufficient to make its clinical product candidate commercially viable. Any of these factors may affect our ability to manufacture our products and could reduce gross margins and profitability.

Reliance on third-party manufacturers and suppliers entails risks to which we would not be subject if we manufactured our clinical product candidate itself, including:

If our contract manufacturer or its suppliers fail to deliver the required commercial quantities of our clinical product candidate required for our clinical trials and, if approved, for commercial sale, on a timely basis and at commercially reasonable prices, and we are unable to find one or more replacement manufacturers or suppliers capable of production at a substantially equivalent cost, in substantially equivalent volumes and quality, and on a timely basis, we would likely be unable to meet demand for our products and would have to delay or terminate our pre-clinical or clinical trials, and we would lose potential revenue. It may also take a significant period of time to establish an alternative source of supply for our clinical product candidate and to have any such new source approved by the FDA or any applicable foreign regulatory authorities. Furthermore, any of the above factors could cause the delay or suspension of initiation or completion of clinical trials, regulatory submissions or required approvals of our clinical product candidate, cause it to incur higher costs and could prevent us from commercializing our clinical product candidate successfully.

We may not be able to manufacture AVB-500 in sufficient quantities for commercialization.

In order to receive FDA approval of our clinical product candidate, we will need to manufacture such clinical product candidate in larger quantities. Our third party manufacturer may not be willing or able to increase successfully the manufacturing capacity for our clinical product candidate in a timely or economic manner, or at all. In the event FDA approval is received, we will need to increase production of our clinical product candidate. Significant scale-up of manufacturing may require additional validation studies, which the FDA must review and approve. If we are unable to successfully increase the manufacturing capacity for our clinical product candidate, the clinical trials as well as the regulatory approval or commercial launch of our clinical product candidate may be delayed or there may be a shortage in supply. Our clinical product candidate requires precise, high quality manufacturing. Failure to achieve and maintain high quality manufacturing, including the incidence of manufacturing errors, could result in patient injury or death, delays or failures in testing or delivery, cost overruns or other problems that could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In the event that we need to change our third-party contract manufacturer, our preclinical studies or our clinical trials, the commercialization of our clinical product candidate could be delayed, adversely affected or terminated, or such a change may result in the need for us to incur significantly higher costs, which could materially harm our business.

Due to various regulatory restrictions in the United States and many other countries, as well as potential capacity constraints on manufacturing that occur from time-to-time in our industry, various steps in the manufacture of our clinical product candidate is solely-sourced from certain contract manufacturers. In accordance with cGMPs, changing manufacturers may require the re-validation of manufacturing processes and procedures, and may require further preclinical studies or clinical trials to show comparability between the materials produced by different manufacturers. Changing our current or future contract manufacturers may be difficult, if not impossible for us, and could be extremely costly if we do make such a change, which could result in our inability to manufacture our clinical product candidate for an extended period of time and a delay in the development of our clinical product candidate. Further, in order to maintain our development timelines in the event of a change in a third-party contract manufacturer, we may incur significantly higher costs to manufacture our clinical product candidate.

39

If third-party vendors, upon whom we rely to conduct our preclinical studies or clinical trials, do not perform or fail to comply with strict regulations, these studies or trials may be delayed, terminated, or fail, or we could incur significant additional expenses, which could materially harm our business.

We have limited resources dedicated to designing, conducting and managing our preclinical studies and clinical trials. We have historically relied on, and intend to continue to rely on, third parties, including clinical research organizations, or CROs, consultants and principal investigators, to assist us in designing, managing, conducting, monitoring and analyzing the data from our preclinical studies and clinical trials. In addition, institution sponsored clinical trials, such as the one being conducted by M.D. Anderson Cancer that uses AVB-500 in combination AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP’s medicinal product Durvalumab, will be conducted by the institution. We rely on these vendors and individuals to perform many facets of the clinical development process on our behalf, including conducting preclinical studies, the recruitment of sites and subjects for participation in our clinical trials, maintenance of good relations with the clinical sites, and ensuring that these sites are conducting our trials in compliance with the trial protocol and applicable regulations. If these third parties fail to perform satisfactorily, or do not adequately fulfill their obligations under the terms of our agreements with them, we may not be able to enter into alternative arrangements without undue delay or additional expenditures, and therefore the preclinical studies and clinical trials of our clinical product candidate may be delayed or prove unsuccessful.

Further, the FDA, the EMA, or similar regulatory authorities in other countries, may inspect some of the clinical sites participating in our clinical trials or our third-party vendors’ sites to determine if our clinical trials are being conducted according to good clinical practices, or GCPs, or similar regulations. If we or a regulatory authority determine that our third-party vendors are not in compliance with, or have not conducted our clinical trials according to applicable regulations, we may be forced to exclude certain data from the results of the trial, or delay, repeat or terminate such clinical trials.

We rely on third parties to conduct, supervise and monitor our clinical trials, and if those third parties perform in an unsatisfactory manner, it may harm our business.

We rely on CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure the proper and timely conduct of our clinical trials, and we expect to have limited influence over their actual performance.

We also rely upon CROs to monitor and manage data for our clinical programs, as well as the execution of future nonclinical studies. We expect to control only certain aspects of our CROs’ activities. Nevertheless, we will be responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific standards and our reliance on the CROs does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities.

We and our CROs will be required to comply with the Good Laboratory Practices and GCPs, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA and are also required by the Competent Authorities of the Member States of the European Economic Area and comparable foreign regulatory authorities in the form of International Conference on Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use guidelines for any of our product candidates that are in preclinical and clinical development. The Regulatory authorities enforce GCPs through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and clinical trial sites. If we or our CROs fail to comply with GCPs, 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 clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. Accordingly, if our CROs fail to comply with these regulations or fail to recruit a sufficient number of subjects, we may be required to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process.

Our CROs will not be our employees, and we will not control whether or not they devote sufficient time and resources to our future clinical and nonclinical programs. These CROs may also have relationships with other commercial entities, including our competitors, for whom they may also be conducting clinical trials, or other drug development activities which could harm our competitive position. We face the risk of potential unauthorized disclosure or misappropriation of our intellectual property by CROs, which may reduce our trade secret protection and allow our potential competitors to access and exploit our proprietary technology. If our CROs do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations, fail to meet expected deadlines, or if the quality or accuracy of the clinical data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our clinical protocols or regulatory requirements or for any other reasons, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for, or successfully commercialize any product candidate that we develops. As a result, our financial results and the commercial prospects for any product candidate that it develops would be harmed, its costs could increase, and our ability to generate revenues could be delayed.

If our relationship with these CROs terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative CROs or do so on commercially reasonable terms. Switching or adding additional CROs involves substantial cost and requires management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new CRO commences work. As a result, delays occur, which can materially impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines. Though we intend to carefully manage our relationships with our CROs, there can be no assurance that it will not encounter challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects.

40

We may seek to selectively establish collaborations, and, if we are unable to establish them on commercially reasonable terms, it may have to alter our development and commercialization plans.

Our product development programs and the potential commercialization of our clinical product candidate will require substantial additional cash to fund expenses. For some of our product candidates we may decide to collaborate with governmental entities or additional pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for the development and potential commercialization of our product candidates.

We face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators. Whether we reach a definitive agreement for a collaboration will depend, among other things, upon our assessment of the collaborator’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and the proposed collaborator’s evaluation of a number of factors. Those factors may include the design or results of clinical trials, the likelihood of approval by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States, the potential market for the subject product candidate, the costs and complexities of manufacturing and delivering such product candidate to patients, the potential of competing products, the existence of uncertainty with respect to our ownership of technology, which can exist if there is a challenge to such ownership without regard to the merits of the challenge and industry and market conditions generally. The collaborator may also consider alternative product candidates for similar indications that may be available to collaborate on and whether such a collaboration could be more attractive than the one with our product candidate.

Our future success depends on our ability to retain executive officers and attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel.

We are highly dependent on our executive officers and the other principal members of our management and scientific teams. The employment of our executive officers is at-will and our executive officers may terminate their employment at any time. The loss of the services of any of our senior executive officers could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives. We do not maintain “key person” insurance for any executive officer or employee.

Recruiting and retaining qualified scientific, clinical, manufacturing and sales and marketing personnel is also critical to our success. We may not be able to attract and retain these personnel on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for similar personnel. We also experience competition for the hiring of scientific and clinical personnel from universities and research institutions. Our industry has experienced an increasing rate of turnover of management and scientific personnel in recent years. In addition, we rely on consultants and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist it in devising our research and development and commercialization strategy. Our consultants and advisors may be employed by third parties and have commitments under consulting or advisory contracts with other entities that may limit their availability to advance our strategic objectives. If any of these advisors or consultants can no longer dedicate a sufficient amount of time to the company, our business may be harmed.

Many of the other pharmaceutical companies that we compete against for qualified personnel and consultants have greater financial and other resources, different risk profiles and a longer history in the industry than we do. They also may provide more diverse opportunities and better chances for career advancement. Some of these characteristics may be more appealing to high-quality candidates and consultants than what it has to offer. If we are unable to continue to attract and retain high-quality personnel and consultants, the rate and success at which we can select and develop our clinical product candidate and our business will be limited.

We will need to expand our organization, and we may experience difficulties in managing this growth, which could disrupt operations.

Our future financial performance, our ability to commercialize our clinical product candidate and our ability to compete effectively will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth. As of December 31, 2019, we had 17 employees. We expect to hire additional employees for our managerial, clinical, scientific and engineering, operational, manufacturing, sales and marketing teams. We may have operational difficulties in connection with identifying, hiring and integrating new personnel, especially in light of the CPRIT Grant requirements, including the requirement that we maintain our headquarters in Texas. Future growth would impose significant additional responsibilities on our management, including the need to identify, recruit, maintain, motivate and integrate additional employees, consultants and contractors. Also, our management may need to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from our day-to-day activities and devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities. We may not be able to effectively manage the expansion of our operations, which may result in weaknesses in our infrastructure, give rise to operational mistakes, loss of business opportunities, loss of employees and reduced productivity among remaining employees. Our expected growth could require significant capital expenditures and may divert financial resources from other projects, such as the development of our clinical product candidate. If we are unable to effectively manage our growth, our expenses may increase more than expected, our ability to generate and/or grow revenues could be reduced, and we may not be able to implement our business strategy.

41

Our business and operations would suffer in the event of system failures.

Our computer systems and those of our service providers, including its CROs, are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, unauthorized access, natural disasters (including hurricanes), terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. If such an event were to occur and cause interruptions in our or their operations, it could result in a material disruption of our development programs and other aspects of our business. For example, the loss of preclinical or clinical trial data from completed, ongoing or planned trials could result in delays in its regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. To the extent that any disruption or security breach were to result in a loss of or damage to data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of personal, confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and the further development of our clinical product candidate could be delayed.

Risks Related to Clinical Development, Regulatory Approval and Commercialization

If the results from preclinical studies or clinical trials of AVB-500 are unfavorable, we could be delayed or precluded from its further development or commercialization, which could materially harm our business.

In order to further advance the development of, and ultimately receive marketing approval to sell AVB-500, we must conduct extensive preclinical studies and clinical trials to demonstrate our safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA or similar regulatory authorities in other countries, as the case may be. Preclinical studies and clinical trials are expensive, complex, can take many years to complete, and have highly uncertain outcomes. Delays, setbacks, or failures can and do occur at any time, and in any phase of preclinical or clinical testing, and can result from concerns about safety, tolerability, toxicity, a lack of demonstrated biologic activity or improved efficacy over similar products that have been approved for sale or are in more advanced stages of development, poor study or trial design, and issues related to the formulation or manufacturing process of the materials used to conduct the trials. The results of prior preclinical studies or early-stage clinical trials are not predictive of the results we may observe in late-stage clinical trials, especially since the number of subjects in our Phase 1 clinical trial was small and all were healthy volunteers with larger number of subjects and with our drug candidate in combinations with standard of care may have different results.  In many cases, product candidates in clinical development may fail to show the desired tolerability, safety and efficacy characteristics, despite having favorably demonstrated such characteristics in preclinical studies or early-stage clinical trials.

In addition, we may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, preclinical studies and the clinical trial process, which could delay or impede our ability to advance the development of, receive marketing approval for, or commercialize our clinical product candidate, including, but not limited to:

42

Even if the data collected from preclinical studies or clinical trials involving our clinical product candidate demonstrate a satisfactory tolerability, safety and efficacy profile, such results may not be sufficient to support the submission of a BLA to obtain regulatory approval from the FDA in the United States, or other similar regulatory authorities in other foreign jurisdictions, which is required for us to market and sell its clinical product candidate.

Clinical trials are very expensive, time-consuming, difficult to design and implement and involve an uncertain outcome, and if they fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy to the satisfaction of the FDA, or similar regulatory authorities, we will be unable to commercialize its clinical product candidate.

Our clinical product candidate is still in early-stage clinical development and will require extensive additional clinical testing before we are prepared to submit a BLA for regulatory approval for any indication or for any treatment regime. We cannot predict with any certainty if or when we might submit a BLA for regulatory approval for AVB-500, for which we completed a Phase 1 clinical trial in June 2018 and began the Phase 1b portion of a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial for ovarian cancer in December 2018 or whether any such future BLA would be approved by the FDA. Human clinical trials are very expensive and difficult to design and implement, in part because they are subject to rigorous regulatory requirements. For instance, the FDA may not agree with endpoints for any clinical trial we propose, which may delay the commencement of our clinical trials. The clinical trial process is also time-consuming. Furthermore, failure can occur at any stage of the trials, and we could encounter problems that cause us to abandon or repeat clinical trials. A product candidate in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials, and the results of our Phase 1 clinical trial of the clinical product candidate as well as the pre-clinical results may not be predictive of the results of our Phase 2 trials. A number of companies in the biopharmaceutical industry have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials due to lack of efficacy or adverse safety profiles, including us with respect to our phase 3 VELOCITY trial, of notwithstanding promising results in earlier trials.

Moreover, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to multiple interpretations and analyses. Many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their products. Success in preclinical testing and early clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials, which involve many more subjects and the results of later clinical trials may not replicate the results of prior clinical trials and preclinical testing.

We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our clinical product candidate, including that:

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

43

Product development costs will also increase if we experience delays in testing or in receiving marketing approvals. We do not know whether any clinical trials will begin as planned, will need to be restructured or will be completed on schedule, or at all. Significant clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our clinical product candidate, could allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do, and could impair our ability to successfully commercialize our clinical product candidate, any of which may harm our business and results of operations.

Enrollment and retention of subjects in clinical trials is an expensive and time-consuming process and could be made more difficult or rendered impossible by multiple factors outside our control.

We may encounter delays in enrolling, or be unable to enroll, a sufficient number of participants to complete any of our clinical trials. Once enrolled, we may be unable to retain a sufficient number of participants to complete any of our trials. Late-stage clinical trials of our clinical product candidate may require the enrollment and retention of large numbers of subjects. Subject enrollment and retention in clinical trials depends on many factors, including the size of the subject population, the nature of the trial protocol, the existing body of safety and efficacy data with respect to the trial drug, the number and nature of competing treatments and ongoing clinical trials of competing drugs for the same indication, the proximity of subjects to clinical sites and the eligibility criteria for the trial.

Furthermore, any negative results we may report in clinical trials of our clinical product candidate or negative results of similar product candidates may make it difficult or impossible to recruit and retain participants in other clinical trials of that same clinical product candidate. Delays or failures in planned subject enrollment or retention may result in increased costs, program delays or both, which could have a harmful effect on its ability to develop its clinical product candidate, or could render further development impossible. In addition, we expect to rely on CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure proper and timely conduct of our future clinical trials and, while we intend to enter into agreements governing our services, we will be limited in our ability to compel our actual performance in compliance with applicable regulations. Enforcement actions brought against these third parties may cause further delays and expenses related to our clinical development programs.

We face significant competition from other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and our operating results will suffer if we fail to compete effectively.

Development of cancer treatments is highly competitive and subject to rapid and significant technological advancements. In particular, we face competition from various sources, including larger and better funded pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as academic institutions, governmental agencies and public and private research institutions. These competitors are focused on delivering therapeutics for the treatment of various cancers with products that are available and have gained market acceptance as the standard treatment protocol. Further, it is likely that additional drugs or other treatments will become available in the future for the treatment of certain cancers.

Many of our existing or potential competitors have substantially greater financial, technical and human resources than we do and significantly greater experience in the discovery and development of products for the treatment of cancer, as well as in obtaining regulatory approvals of those products in the United States and in foreign countries. Our current and potential future competitors also have significantly more experience commercializing drugs that have been approved for marketing. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries could result in even more resources being concentrated among a small number of our competitors.

Competition may increase further as a result of advances in the commercial applicability of technologies and greater availability of capital for investment in these industries. Our competitors may succeed in developing, acquiring or licensing, on an exclusive basis, drugs that are more effective or less costly than any product candidate that we may develop.

We will face competition from other drugs currently approved or that will be approved in the future for the treatment of the other infectious diseases we are currently targeting. Therefore, our ability to compete successfully will depend largely on our ability to:

44

The availability of our competitors’ products could limit the demand, and the price we are able to charge, for any product candidate we develop. The inability to compete with existing or subsequently introduced therapies would have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects.

Established pharmaceutical companies may invest heavily to accelerate discovery and development of novel compounds or to in-license novel compounds that could make our product candidate less competitive. In addition, any new products that competes with an approved product must demonstrate compelling advantages in efficacy, convenience, tolerability and safety in order to overcome price competition and to be commercially successful. Accordingly, our competitors may succeed in obtaining patent protection, discovering, developing, receiving the FDA’s approval for or commercializing medicines before we do, which would have an adverse impact on our business and results of operations.

Our clinical product candidate may cause adverse effects or have other properties that could delay or prevent our regulatory approval or limit the scope of any approved label or market acceptance.

Adverse events caused by our clinical product candidate could cause reviewing entities, clinical trial sites or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in the denial of regulatory approval. If an unacceptable frequency or severity of adverse events are reported in our clinical trials for our clinical product candidate, our ability to obtain regulatory approval for such clinical product candidate may be negatively impacted. In addition, adverse events caused by any clinical product candidate administered in combination with our product candidate could cause similar interruptions and delays, even though not caused by our clinical product candidate.

Furthermore, if any of our products are approved and then cause serious or unexpected side effects, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:

Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the affected product candidate and could substantially increase the costs of commercialization.

Our employees, independent contractors, principal investigators, consultants, commercial collaborators, service providers and other vendors may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including noncompliance with regulatory standards and requirements, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

We are exposed to the risk that our employees and contractors, including principal investigators, consultants, commercial collaborators, service providers and other vendors may engage in fraudulent or other illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless and/or negligent conduct or other unauthorized activities that violate the laws and regulations of the FDA and other similar regulatory bodies, including those laws that require the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to such regulatory bodies, manufacturing standards, federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse and health regulatory laws and other similar foreign fraudulent misconduct laws, or laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data. Misconduct by these parties may also involve the improper use or misrepresentation of information obtained in the course of clinical trials, which could result in regulatory sanctions and serious harm to our reputation. It is not always possible to identify and deter third party misconduct, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting it from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to be in compliance with such laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business and financial results, including the imposition of significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, monetary fines, possible exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, and curtailment of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations.

45

If we are not able to obtain, or if there are delays in obtaining, required regulatory approvals, we will not be able to commercialize, or will be delayed in commercializing, our clinical product candidate, and our ability to generate revenue will be impaired.

Our clinical product candidate and the activities associated with our development and commercialization, including our design, testing, manufacture, safety, efficacy, recordkeeping, labeling, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale and distribution, are subject to comprehensive regulation by the FDA and other regulatory agencies in the United States and by comparable authorities in other countries. Failure to obtain marketing approval for a clinical product candidate will prevent us from commercializing the clinical product candidate. We have not received approval to market our clinical product candidate from regulatory authorities in any jurisdiction. We only have limited experience in filing and supporting the applications necessary to gain marketing approvals and expect to rely on CROs to assist us in this process. Securing regulatory approval requires the submission of extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to the various regulatory authorities for each therapeutic indication to establish the clinical product candidate’s safety and efficacy. Securing regulatory approval also requires the submission of information about the product manufacturing process to, and inspection of manufacturing facilities by, the relevant regulatory authority. Our clinical product candidate may not be effective, may be only moderately effective or may prove to have undesirable or unintended side effects, toxicities or other characteristics that may prevent it from obtaining marketing approval or prevent or limit commercial use.

The process of obtaining marketing approvals, both in the United States and elsewhere, is expensive, may take many years and can vary substantially based upon a variety of factors, including the type, complexity and novelty of the product candidate involved. We cannot assure you that it will ever obtain any marketing approvals in any jurisdiction. The fact that the FDA has designated the investigation of our lead development candidate for platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer as a Fast Track development program, while potentially favorable, provides no assurance as to the timing or outcome of any FDA regulatory process. Fast Track status may be withdrawn if the conditions for such designation are no longer met. Changes in marketing approval policies during the development period, changes in or the enactment of additional statutes or regulations or changes in regulatory review for each submitted product application may cause delays in the approval or rejection of an application. The FDA and comparable authorities in other countries have substantial discretion in the approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our data is insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical or other studies, and clinical trials. In addition, varying interpretations of the data obtained from preclinical testing and clinical trials could delay, limit or prevent marketing approval of a product candidate. Additionally, any marketing approval we ultimately obtain may be limited or subject to restrictions or post-approval commitments that render the approved product not commercially viable.

Even if we obtain FDA approval in the United States, we may never obtain approval for or commercialize our clinical product candidate in any other jurisdiction, which would limit our ability to realize each product’s full market potential.

In order to market our clinical product candidate in a particular jurisdiction, we must establish and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements on a country-by-country basis regarding safety and efficacy. Approval by the FDA in the United States does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions. In addition, clinical trials conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries, and regulatory approval in one country does not guarantee regulatory approval in any other country. Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional product candidate testing and validation and additional administrative review periods. Seeking foreign regulatory approval could result in difficulties and costs for us and require additional preclinical 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 clinical product candidate in those countries. We do not have any product candidates approved for sale in any jurisdiction, including in international markets, and it does not have 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 approvals in international markets are delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of any product candidate we develop will be unrealized.

Even if we obtain regulatory approval, we will still face extensive ongoing regulatory requirements and our clinical product candidate may face future development and regulatory difficulties.

Any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval, along with the manufacturing processes, post-approval clinical data, labeling, packaging, distribution, adverse event reporting, storage, recordkeeping, export, import, advertising and promotional activities for such product candidate, among other things, will be subject to extensive and ongoing requirements of and review by the FDA and other regulatory authorities. These requirements include submissions of safety, efficacy and other post-marketing information and reports, establishment registration and drug listing requirements, continued compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practice, or cGMP, requirements relating to manufacturing, quality control, quality assurance and corresponding maintenance of records and documents, requirements regarding the distribution of samples to physicians and recordkeeping and current GCP requirements for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval. Even if marketing approval of a product candidate is granted, the approval may be subject to limitations on the indicated uses for which the product candidate may be marketed or to the conditions of approval. If our clinical product candidate receives marketing approval, the accompanying label may limit the approved use of our product, which could limit sales.

46

The FDA may also impose requirements for costly post-marketing studies or clinical trials and surveillance to monitor the safety and/or efficacy of our clinical product candidate. The FDA closely regulates the post-approval marketing and promotion of drugs to ensure drugs are marketed only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved labeling. The FDA imposes stringent restrictions on manufacturers’ communications regarding off-label use and if we do not market our clinical product candidate for its approved indications, we may be subject to enforcement action for off-label marketing. Violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act relating to the promotion of prescription drugs may lead to FDA enforcement actions and investigations alleging violations of federal and state health care fraud and abuse laws, as well as state consumer protection laws.

In addition, later discovery of previously unknown adverse events or other problems with our clinical product candidate, manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may yield various results, including:

The FDA’s policies may change and additional government regulations may be enacted that could prevent, limit or delay regulatory approval of our clinical product candidate. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may lose any marketing approval that we may have obtained.

Even if our clinical product candidate receives marketing approval, we may fail to achieve market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors or others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.

If our clinical product candidate receives marketing approval, we may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. If we do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant revenues and become profitable. The degree of market acceptance, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:

47

Because we expect sales of our clinical product candidate to be based on the same mechanism of action, the failure of our first product candidate to achieve market acceptance would harm our business and could require us to seek additional financing sooner than we otherwise planned.

The insurance coverage and reimbursement status of newly-approved products is uncertain. Our product candidates may become subject to unfavorable pricing regulations, third-party coverage and reimbursement practices, or healthcare reform initiatives, which would harm our business. Failure to obtain or maintain adequate coverage and reimbursement for new or current products could limit our ability to market those products and decrease our ability to generate revenue.

The regulations that govern marketing approvals, pricing, coverage, and reimbursement for new drugs vary widely from country to country. In the United States, recently enacted legislation may significantly change the approval requirements in ways that could involve additional costs and cause delays in obtaining approvals. Some countries require approval of the sale price of a drug before it can be marketed. In many countries, the pricing review period begins after marketing or product licensing approval is granted. In some foreign markets, prescription pharmaceutical pricing remains subject to continuing governmental control even after initial approval is granted. As a result, we might obtain marketing approval for a product in a particular country, but then be subject to price regulations that delay our commercial launch of the product, possibly for lengthy time periods, and negatively impact the revenue we are able to generate from the sale of the product in that country. Adverse pricing limitations may hinder our ability to recoup our investment in one or more product candidates, even if any product candidates we may develop obtain marketing approval.

Our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates also will depend in part on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement for these products and treatments will be available from government health administration authorities, private health insurers, and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. The availability of coverage and extent of reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford treatments such as gene therapy products. Sales of these or other product candidates that we may identify will depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of our product candidates will be paid 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. If coverage and adequate reimbursement is not available, or is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize our product candidates. 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.

The availability and extent of reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford expensive treatments. Sales of our clinical product candidate that receive marketing approval will depend substantially, both in the United States and internationally, on the extent to which the costs of our clinical product candidate will be paid 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. If reimbursement is not available, or is available only on a limited basis, we may not be able to successfully commercialize our clinical product candidate. Even if coverage is provided, the approved reimbursement amount may not be high enough to allow us to establish or maintain adequate pricing that will allow it to realize a sufficient return on our investment.

Outside the United States, international operations are generally subject to extensive governmental price controls and other market regulations, and we believe the increasing emphasis on cost-containment initiatives in Europe, Canada and other countries may cause us to price our clinical product candidate on less favorable terms that we currently anticipate. In many countries, particularly the countries of the European Union, the prices of medical products are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. In these countries, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after the receipt of marketing approval for a product. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our clinical product candidate to other available therapies. In general, the prices of products under such systems are substantially lower than in the United States. Other countries allow companies to fix their own prices for products, but monitor and control company profits. Additional foreign price controls or other changes in pricing regulation could restrict the amount that it is able to charge for its clinical product candidate. Accordingly, in markets outside the United States, the reimbursement for its products may be reduced compared with the United States and may be insufficient to generate commercially reasonable revenues and profits.

Moreover, increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors, in the United States and internationally, to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and level of reimbursement for newly approved products and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for its clinical product candidate. We expect to experience pricing pressures in connection with the sale of our clinical product candidate due to the trend toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations and additional legislative changes. The downward pressure on healthcare costs in general, particularly prescription drugs and surgical procedures and other treatments, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected for new products entering the marketplace.

48

If we fail to comply with state and federal healthcare regulatory laws, we could face substantial penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, exclusion from participation in governmental healthcare programs, and the curtailment of its operations, any of which could harm our business.

Although we do not provide healthcare services or submit claims for third party reimbursement, we are subject to healthcare fraud and abuse regulation and enforcement by federal and state governments which could significantly impact our business. The laws that may affect our ability to operate include, but are not limited to:

Further, the Affordable Care Act, among other things, amended the intent requirements of the federal anti-kickback statute and certain criminal statutes governing healthcare fraud. A person or entity can now be found guilty of violating the statute without actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it. In addition, the Affordable Care Act provided 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 FCA. Moreover, while it does not submit claims and its customers make the ultimate decision on how to submit claims, from time to time, we may provide reimbursement guidance to our customers. If a government authority were to conclude that we provide improper advice to our customers or encouraged the submission of false claims for reimbursement, we could face action against us by government authorities. Any violations of these laws, or any action against us for violation of these laws, even if we successfully defend against it, could result in a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, results of operations and financial condition.

We have entered into consulting and scientific advisory board arrangements with physicians and other healthcare providers. Compensation for some of these arrangements includes the provision of stock options. While we have worked to structure our arrangements to comply with applicable laws, because of the complex and far-reaching nature of these laws, regulatory agencies may view these transactions as prohibited arrangements that must be restructured, or discontinued, or for which we could be subject to other significant penalties. We could be adversely affected if regulatory agencies interpret our financial relationships with providers who influence the ordering of and use our products to be in violation of applicable 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.

49

Responding to investigations can be time- and resource-consuming and can divert management’s attention from the business. Additionally, as a result of these investigations, healthcare providers and entities may have to agree to additional onerous compliance and reporting requirements as part of a consent decree or corporate integrity agreement. Any such investigation or settlement could increase our costs or otherwise have an adverse effect on its business.

Product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and could limit the commercialization of any product candidates we may develop.

We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our clinical product candidate in human clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if we commercially sell any products that we may develop after approval. Any adverse reactions in our clinical trials could be deemed to be related to our clinical product candidate and could result in claims from these injuries and we could incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

Although we maintain product liability insurance coverage in the amount of up to $10 million per claim and in the aggregate, we may not be adequate to cover all liabilities that we may incur. We anticipate that we will need to increase our insurance coverage as we continue clinical trials and if we successfully commercialize any products. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise.

If we are unable to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities either on our own or in collaboration with third parties, we may not be successful in commercializing our clinical product candidate, if approved.

We do not have any infrastructure for the sales, marketing or distribution of our clinical product candidate, and the cost of establishing and maintaining such an organization may exceed the cost-effectiveness of doing so. In order to market any product candidate that may be approved, we must build our sales, distribution, marketing, managerial and other non-technical capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services. To achieve commercial success for any product candidate for which we have obtained marketing approval, we will need a sales and marketing organization. We expect to build a focused sales, distribution and marketing infrastructure to market any other product candidates in the United States, if approved. There are significant expenses and risks involved with establishing our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, including our ability to hire, retain and appropriately incentivize qualified individuals, generate sufficient sales leads, provide adequate training to sales and marketing personnel, and effectively manage a geographically dispersed sales and marketing team. Any failure or delay in the development of our internal sales, marketing and distribution capabilities could delay any product candidate launch, which would adversely impact commercialization.

Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our clinical product candidate on our own include:

We intend to pursue collaborative arrangements regarding the sale and marketing of our clinical product candidate, if approved, for certain international markets; however, we may not be able to establish or maintain such collaborative arrangements, if able to do so, that our collaborators may not have effective sales. To the extent that we depend on third parties for marketing and distribution, any revenues we receive will depend upon the efforts of such third parties, and there can be no assurance that such efforts will be successful.

If we are unable to build our own sales force in the United States or negotiate a collaborative relationship for the commercialization of our clinical product candidate outside the United States we may be forced to delay the potential commercialization or reduce the scope of our sales or marketing activities. We may have to enter into arrangements with third parties or otherwise at an earlier stage than we would otherwise choose and we may be required to relinquish rights to our intellectual property or otherwise agree to terms unfavorable to us, any of which may have an adverse effect on our business, operating results and prospects.

50

We may be competing with many companies that currently have extensive and well-funded marketing and sales operations. Without an internal team or the support of a third party to perform marketing and sales functions, we may be unable to compete successfully against these more established companies.

If we obtain approval to commercialize our clinical product candidate outside of the United States, a variety of risks associated with international operations could harm our business.

If our clinical product candidate is approved for commercialization, we intend to enter into agreements with third parties to market them in certain jurisdictions outside the United States. We expect that we will be subject to additional risks related to international operations or entering into international business relationships, including:

We have no prior experience in these areas. In addition, there are complex regulatory, tax, labor and other legal requirements imposed by both the European Union and many of the individual countries in Europe with which we will need to comply.

Recently enacted and future legislation may increase the difficulty and cost for us to obtain marketing approval of and commercialize our clinical product candidate and affect the prices we may obtain.

In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system that could, among other things, prevent or delay marketing approval of our clinical product candidate, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to profitably sell any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval. 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 products or (iv) additional record-keeping requirements. If any such changes were to be imposed, they could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Among policy makers in the United States and elsewhere, there is significant interest in promoting changes in healthcare systems with the stated goals of containing healthcare costs, improving quality and/or expanding access. In the United States, the pharmaceutical industry has been a particular focus of these efforts and has been significantly affected by major legislative initiatives. In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, was passed, which substantially changed the way healthcare is financed by both the government and private insurers, and significantly impacts the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. The ACA, among other things, subjects biological products to potential competition by lower-cost biosimilars, addresses a new methodology by which rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program are calculated for drugs that are inhaled, infused, instilled, implanted or injected, increases the minimum Medicaid rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and extends the rebate program to individuals enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations, establishes annual fees and taxes on manufacturers of certain branded prescription drugs, and creates a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program, in which manufacturers must agree to offer point-of-sale discounts off negotiated prices of applicable brand drugs to eligible beneficiaries during their coverage gap period, as a condition for the manufacturer’s outpatient drugs to be covered under Medicare Part D.

Some of the provisions of the ACA have yet to be fully implemented, while certain provisions have been subject to judicial and Congressional challenges. Congress has considered legislation that would repeal or repeal and replace all or part of the ACA, and it is unclear how such challenges and other efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act will impact the Affordable Care Act and our business.

51

There have been, and likely will continue to be, legislative and regulatory proposals at the foreign, federal and state levels directed at broadening the availability of healthcare and containing or lowering the cost of healthcare. The implementation of cost containment measures or other healthcare reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability, or commercialize our products. Such reforms could have an adverse effect on anticipated revenue from product candidates that we may successfully develop and for which we may obtain regulatory approval and may affect our overall financial condition and ability to develop product candidates.

We expect that additional state and federal healthcare reform measures will be adopted in the future, any of which could limit the amounts that federal and state governments will pay for healthcare products, which could result in reduced demand for our clinical product candidate or additional pricing pressures. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for our clinical product candidate or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, we may not be able to compete effectively in our markets.

We rely upon a combination of patents, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect the intellectual property related to our drug development programs and clinical product candidate. Our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection in the United States and other countries. We seek to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our development programs and clinical product candidate. The patent prosecution process is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner.

It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. The patent applications that we own or in-license may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our product candidates in the United States or in other countries. There is no assurance that all potentially relevant prior art that could invalidate our patents or that could prevent our pending patent applications from issuing as patents have been found. Even if patents do successfully issue, third parties may challenge their validity, enforceability or scope, which may result in such patents being narrowed, invalidated, or held unenforceable. Any successful challenge to these patents or any other patents owned by or licensed to us could deprive us of rights necessary for the successful commercialization of our product candidates or companion diagnostic that we may develop. Further, if we encounter delays in regulatory approvals, the period of time during which we could market a product candidate and companion diagnostic under patent protection could be reduced.

If the patent applications we hold with respect to our platform technology and clinical product candidate fail to issue, if their breadth or strength of protection is threatened, or if they fail to provide meaningful exclusivity for our clinical product candidate, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to develop future product candidates, and threaten our ability to commercialize future drugs. Any such outcome could harm our business.

The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions and has in recent years been the subject of much litigation. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. For example, European patent law restricts the patentability of methods of treatment of the human body more than U.S. law does. Publications of discoveries in 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 owned or licensed patents or pending patent applications, or that we were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. 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 technology or product candidates, in whole or in part, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies. Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of our patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection.

Recent patent reform legislation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of ours issued patents. In 2011, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy-Smith Act, was signed into law. The Leahy-Smith Act includes a number of significant changes to United States patent law. These include provisions that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. The U.S. Patent Office recently developed new regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act, and in particular, the first to file provisions, only became effective in 2013. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents, all of which could have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

52

Moreover, we may be subject to a third party pre-issuance submission of prior art to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, or become involved in derivation, reexamination, inter partes review, post-grant review or interference proceedings challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others. In other countries, we may be subject to or become involved in opposition proceedings challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others. An adverse determination in any such submission or proceeding could reduce the scope of, or invalidate, our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize our technology or product candidates and compete directly with us, without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize product candidates without infringing third-party patent rights. In addition, if the breadth or strength of protection provided by our patents and patent applications is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to license, develop or commercialize current or future product candidates.

The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and its owned and licensed patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Such challenges may result in patent claims being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, in whole or in part, which could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our technology and product candidates. Moreover, patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States and other countries, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years after it is filed. Various extensions may be available; however the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Without patent protection for our current or future product candidates, we may be open to competition from generic versions of such product candidates. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, we owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing product candidates similar or identical to ours.

We may be involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents, the patents of our licensors or our other intellectual property rights, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful.

Competitors and other third parties may infringe or otherwise violate our patents, the patents of our licensors or our other intellectual property rights. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file legal claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming. In addition, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent of ours or our licensors is not valid or is unenforceable, or may refuse to stop the other party from using the technology at issue on the grounds that such patents do not cover the technology in question. An adverse result in any litigation or defense proceedings could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing. The initiation of a claim against a third party may also cause the third party to bring counter claims against us such as claims asserting that our patents are invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of novelty, obviousness, nonenablement or lack of statutory subject matter. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld relevant material information from the USPTO, or made a materially misleading statement, during prosecution. Third parties may also raise similar validity claims before the USPTO in post-grant proceedings such as inter partes review, or post-grant review, or oppositions or similar proceedings outside the United States, in parallel with litigation or even outside the context of litigation. The outcome following legal assertions of invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable. We cannot be certain that there is no invalidating prior art, of which we and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution. For the patents and patent applications that we have licensed, we may have limited or no right to participate in the defense of any licensed patents against challenge by a third party. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of any future patent protection on our current or future product candidates. Such a loss of patent protection could harm our business.

We may not be able to prevent, alone or with our licensors, misappropriation of our intellectual property rights, particularly in countries where the laws may not protect those rights as fully as in the United States. Our business could be harmed if in litigation the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms. Any litigation or other proceedings to enforce our intellectual property rights may fail, and even if successful, may result in substantial costs and distract our management and other employees.

Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have an adverse effect on the price of our common stock.

53

Changes in U.S. patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our clinical product candidate.

The United States has recently enacted and implemented wide-ranging patent reform legislation. The United States Supreme Court has ruled on several patent cases in recent years, either narrowing the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances or weakening the rights of patent owners in certain situations. In addition to increasing uncertainty with regard to our ability to obtain patents in the future, this combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents, once obtained. Depending on actions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts, and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce patents that we have licensed or that we might obtain in the future.

If a third party claims we are infringing on their intellectual property rights, we could incur significant expenses, or be prevented from further developing or commercializing our clinical product candidate, which could materially harm our business.

Our success will also depend on our ability to operate without infringing the patents and other proprietary intellectual property rights of third parties. This is generally referred to as having “freedom to operate.” We have not conducted an in-depth freedom to operate search which would be time consuming and costly. The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are characterized by extensive litigation regarding patents and other intellectual property rights. The defense and prosecution of intellectual property claims, interference proceedings and related legal and administrative proceedings, both in the United States and internationally, involve complex legal and factual questions. As a result, such proceedings are lengthy, costly and time-consuming, and their outcome is highly uncertain. We may become involved in protracted and expensive litigation in order to determine the enforceability, scope and validity of the proprietary rights of others, or to determine whether we have freedom to operate with respect to the intellectual property rights of others. For example, we are aware of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,168,415 and 8,920,799, which claim AXL fusion proteins and their use in treating cancer. In the event that one of these patents or another patent is successfully asserted against our GAS6-AXL program in the future, we may be unable to market the product, absent a license from the patentee, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all.

Patent applications in the United States are, in most cases, maintained in secrecy until approximately 18 months after the patent application is filed. The publication of discoveries in the scientific or patent literature frequently occurs substantially later than the date on which the underlying discoveries were made. Therefore, patent applications relating to product candidates similar to ours may have already been filed by others without our knowledge. In the event that a third party has also filed a patent application covering our clinical product candidate, we may have to participate in an adversarial proceeding, such as an interference proceeding, in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, or similar proceedings in other countries, to determine the priority of invention. In the event an infringement claim is brought against us, we may be required to pay substantial legal fees and other expenses to defend such a claim and, if we are unsuccessful in defending the claim, we may be prevented from pursuing the development and commercialization of a product candidate and may be subject to injunctions and/or damage awards.

In the future, the USPTO or a foreign patent office may grant patent rights covering our clinical product candidate to third parties. Subject to the issuance of these future patents, the claims of which will be unknown until issued, we may need to obtain a license or sublicense to these rights in order to have the appropriate freedom to further develop or commercialize them. Any required licenses may not be available to us on acceptable terms, if at all. If we need to obtain such licenses or sublicenses, but is unable to do so, we could encounter delays in the development of our clinical product candidate, or be prevented from developing, manufacturing and commercializing our clinical product candidate at all. If it is determined that we have infringed an issued patent and do not have freedom to operate, we could be subject to injunctions, and/or compelled to pay significant damages, including punitive damages. In cases where we have in-licensed intellectual property, our failure to comply with the terms and conditions of such agreements could harm our business.

It is becoming common for third parties to challenge patent claims on any successfully developed product candidate or approved drug. If we or our licensees or collaborators become involved in any patent litigation, interference or other legal proceedings, we could incur substantial expense, and the efforts and attention of our technical and management personnel could be significantly diverted. A negative outcome of such litigation or proceedings may expose us to the loss of our proprietary position or to significant liabilities, or require us to seek licenses that may not be available from third parties on commercially acceptable terms, if at all. We may be restricted or prevented from developing, manufacturing and selling our clinical product candidate in the event of an adverse determination in a judicial or administrative proceeding, or if we fail to obtain necessary licenses.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world, which could impair our business.

Filing, prosecuting and defending patents covering our clinical product candidate throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and, further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we may obtain patent protection, but where patent enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These other products may compete with our clinical product candidate in jurisdictions where we do not have any issued or licensed patents and any future patent claims or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from so competing.

54

Our reliance on third parties requires us to share our trade secrets, which increases the possibility that a competitor will discover them or that our trade secrets will be misappropriated or disclosed.

We seek to protect our proprietary technology in part by entering into confidentiality agreements with third parties and, if applicable, material transfer agreements, consulting agreements or other similar agreements with our advisors, employees, third-party contractors and consultants prior to beginning research or disclosing proprietary information. These agreements typically limit the rights of the third parties to use or disclose our confidential information, including our trade secrets. Despite the contractual provisions employed when working with third parties, the need to share trade secrets and other confidential information increases the risk that such trade secrets become known by our competitors, are inadvertently incorporated into the technology of others, or are disclosed or used in violation of these agreements. Given that our proprietary position is based, in part, on our know-how and trade secrets, a competitor’s discovery of our trade secrets or other unauthorized use or disclosure would impair our competitive position and may have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

In addition, these agreements typically restrict the ability of our advisors, employees, third-party contractors and consultants to publish data potentially relating to our trade secrets, although our agreements may contain certain limited publication rights. Despite our efforts to protect our trade secrets, our competitors may discover our trade secrets, either through breach of our agreements with third parties, independent development or publication of information by any of our third-party collaborators. A competitor’s discovery of our trade secrets would impair our competitive position and have an adverse impact on our business.

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

Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary fee payments and other similar provisions during the patent application process. While an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Non-compliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. If us and our licensors fail to maintain the patents and patent applications covering our clinical product candidate, our competitive position would be adversely affected.

Intellectual property rights do not necessarily address all potential threats to our competitive advantage.

The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations, and may not adequately protect our business or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. The following examples are illustrative:

Should any of these events occur, they could significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

55

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

Many of our employees, including our senior management, were previously employed at other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies. These employees typically executed proprietary rights, non-disclosure and non-competition agreements in connection with their previous employers. Although we try to ensure that our employees do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these employees have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such employee’s former employer. We are not aware of any threatened or pending claims related to these matters, but in the future litigation may be necessary to defend against such claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.

Risks Related to the ownership of our common stock

Our stock price has fluctuated in the past, has recently been volatile and may be volatile in the future, and as a result, investors in our common stock could incur substantial losses.

Our stock price has fluctuated in the past, has recently been volatile and may be volatile in the future. From January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2019 the reported sale price of our common stock has fluctuated between $3.07 and $144.00 per share. Following the announcement of the failure of our Phase 3 clinical trial to meet its primary endpoint in September 2017, our stock price declined substantially. In addition, the recent outbreak of the novel strain of coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused broad stock market and industry fluctuations, including a significant decline in our stock price. The stock market in general and the market for biotechnology companies in particular have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. As a result of this volatility, investors may experience losses on their investment in our common stock. The market price for our common stock may be influenced by many factors, including the following:

56

These broad market and industry factors may seriously harm the market price of our common stock, regardless of our operating performance. Since the stock price of our common stock has fluctuated in the past, has been recently volatile and may be volatile in the future, investors in our common stock could incur substantial losses. In the past, following periods of volatility in the market, securities class-action litigation has often been instituted against companies. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects.  

Our executive officers, directors, and entities under our control, and principal stockholders will continue to maintain the ability to control or significantly influence all matters submitted to stockholders for approval.

As of December 31, 2019, our executive officers, directors and entities under our control, and principal stockholders, in the aggregate, owned shares representing approximately 25.9% of our common stock. As a result, if these stockholders were to choose to act together, they would be able to control or significantly influence all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, as well as our management and affairs. For example, these stockholders, if they choose to act together, will control or significantly influence the election of directors and approval of any merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets. This concentration of voting power could delay or prevent an acquisition of our company on terms that other stockholders may desire.

We incur significant costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management devotes substantial time to new compliance initiatives.

As a public company, we have incurred and will continue to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the other rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and the rules and regulations of The Nasdaq Global Select Market, or Nasdaq. Compliance with the various reporting and other requirements applicable to public companies requires considerable time and attention of management. For example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the rules of the SEC and national securities exchanges have imposed various requirements on public companies, including requiring establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls. Our management and other personnel are devoting and will continue to need to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. These rules and regulations will continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time-consuming and costly. The impact of these events could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified personnel to serve on our board of directors, our board committees, or as executive officers

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. In particular, we must perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In addition, we will be required to have our independent registered public accounting firm attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting beginning with our annual report on Form 10-K following the date on which we are once again an accelerated filer and are no longer an emerging growth company. Our compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will require that we incur substantial accounting expense and expend significant management efforts. If we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404 in a timely manner, or if we or our independent registered public accounting firm identify deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by Nasdaq, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

Our ability to successfully implement our business plan and comply with Section 404 requires us to be able to prepare timely and accurate consolidated financial statements. We expect that we will need to continue to improve existing, and implement new operational and financial systems, procedures and controls to manage our business effectively. Any delay in the implementation of, or disruption in the transition to, new or enhanced systems, procedures or controls, may cause our operations to suffer and we may be unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective and to obtain an unqualified report on internal controls from our auditors as required under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This, in turn, could have an adverse impact on trading prices for our common stock, and could adversely affect our ability to access the capital markets.

57

For the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, we were an “emerging growth company,” and availed ourselves of certain the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies

As of December 31, 2019, we are no longer an emerging growth company under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act enacted in April 2012 (“JOBS ACT”). However, for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 we were an emerging growth company. As an emerging growth company and for so long as we continued to be an emerging growth company, we were permitted to and did rely on exemptions from certain disclosure requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. These exemptions include:

We have chosen to take advantage of some, but not all, of the available exemptions. As a result of these scaled regulatory requirements, our disclosure may be more limited than that of other public companies and investors may not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of such companies. In addition, investors may find our common stock less attractive since we relied on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and the price of our common stock price may be more volatile.

We ceased to be an “emerging growth company,” which means we will no longer be able to take advantage of certain reduced disclosure requirements in our public filings.

We ceased to be an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, on December 31, 2019. As a result, we anticipate that costs and compliance initiatives will increase as a result of the fact that we ceased to be an “emerging growth company.” In particular, we are now, or will be, subject to certain disclosure requirements that are applicable to other public companies that had not been applicable to us as an emerging growth company. These requirements include:

There can be no assurance that we will be able to comply with the applicable regulations in a timely manner, if at all.

An active trading market for our common stock may not be maintained, or we may fail to satisfy applicable Nasdaq listing requirements.

Our common stock is currently traded on Nasdaq, but we can provide no assurance that we will be able to maintain an active trading market for our shares on Nasdaq or any other exchange in the future. The fact that a significant portion of our outstanding shares of common stock is closely held by a few individuals, results in it being more difficult for us to maintain an active trading market. If there is no active market for our common stock, it may be difficult for our stockholders to sell shares without depressing the market price for the shares or at all, our stock price could decline, and we may be unable to maintain compliance with applicable Nasdaq listing requirements.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research, or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research, about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock depends, in part, on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. The analysts that cover us may cease to publish research on our company at any time in their discretion. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company, or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our common stock could decrease, which might cause our stock price and trading volume to decline. In addition, if one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, our stock price would likely decline. If our operating results fail to meet the forecast of analysts, our stock price would likely decline.

58

Provisions in our corporate charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult and may prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.

Provisions in our corporate charter and our bylaws may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition or other change in control of us that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. These provisions could also limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, thereby depressing the market price of our common stock. In addition, these provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors. Because our board of directors is responsible for appointing the members of our management team, these provisions could in turn affect any attempt by our stockholders to replace current members of our management team. Among others, these provisions include the following:

Moreover, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which prohibits a person who owns in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock from merging or combining with us for a period of three years after the date of the transaction in which the person acquired in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock, unless the merger or combination is approved in a prescribed manner.

Our employment arrangements with our executive officers may require us to pay severance benefits to any of those persons who are terminated in connection with a change in control of us, which could harm our financial condition or results.

Certain of our executive officers are parties to employment or other agreements or participants under plans that contain change in control and severance provisions providing for aggregate cash payments for severance and other benefits and acceleration of vesting of stock options in the event of a termination of employment in connection with a change in control of us. The accelerated vesting of options could result in dilution to our existing stockholders and harm the market price of our common stock. The payment of these severance benefits could harm our financial condition and results. In addition, these potential severance payments may discourage or prevent third parties from seeking a business combination with us.

Because we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future, capital appreciation, if any, will be our stockholders’ sole source of gain.

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all of our future earnings, if any, to finance the growth and development of our business. In addition, the terms of existing or any future debt agreements may preclude us from paying dividends. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common stock will be our stockholders’ sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.  

59