As of December 31, 2020, our intellectual property portfolio for NB-02 included two issued U.S. patents, two pending U.S. non-provisional patent applications, 24 foreign granted patents, and 9 foreign patent applications. Patents issuing from these applications, if any, are expected to expire around 2035. The issued patents have an expiration date of December 3, 2035 and December 19, 2035. The jurisdictions for the foreign patents and applications include: Brazil, Canada, China, the European Patent Convention (including Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom), India, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, and Russia. All of the above patents and patent applications for NB-02 were assigned to us.
Gemcabene
As of March 22, 2021, our intellectual property portfolio relating to Gemcabene included eight issued U.S. patents, seven pending U.S. patent applications, 36 foreign-granted patents and 46 foreign patent applications directed to formulations, compositions, methods of use and methods of manufacturing. The Gemcabene intellectual property includes both owned and Pfizer-licensed issued and pending patents in the United States and foreign jurisdictions. The issued patents in the United States and foreign countries have expiration dates between July 2021 and November 2036. The patents in the United States and foreign countries that may be issued from pending applications, if any, are expected to expire between December 2031 and October 2039. The jurisdictions for the foreign countries include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Korea, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan and Thailand.
Government Regulation
Government authorities at the federal, state and local level in the United States and in other countries extensively regulate, among other things, the research, development, testing, manufacture (including any manufacturing changes), packaging, storage, recordkeeping, labeling, advertising, promotion, distribution, marketing, post-approval monitoring and reporting, import and export of pharmaceutical products, such as those we are developing.
United States — FDA Regulation
In the United States, pharmaceutical products are subject to extensive regulation by the FDA. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or the FDCA, and other federal and state statutes and regulations, govern, among other things, the research, development, testing, manufacture, storage, recordkeeping, approval, labeling, promotion and marketing, distribution, post-approval monitoring and reporting, sampling, and import and export of pharmaceutical products. Failure to comply with applicable U.S. requirements may subject a company to a variety of administrative or judicial sanctions, such as imposition of clinical holds, refusal by the FDA to approve pending NDAs, warning letters, product recalls, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, refusals of government contracts, restitution, disgorgement, civil penalties and criminal prosecution.
Pharmaceutical product development in the United States typically involves preclinical or other nonclinical laboratory and animal tests and the submission to the FDA of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application, which must become effective before clinical testing may commence. For commercial approval, the sponsor must submit adequate tests by all methods reasonably applicable to show that the drug is safe for use under the conditions prescribed, recommended or suggested in the proposed labeling. The sponsor must also submit substantial evidence, generally consisting of adequate, well-controlled clinical trials to establish that the drug will have the effect it purports or is represented to have under the conditions of use prescribed, recommended or suggested in the proposed labeling. In certain cases, the FDA may determine that a drug is effective based on one clinical study plus confirmatory evidence. Satisfaction of the FDA pre-market approval requirements typically takes many years and the actual time required may vary substantially based upon the type, complexity and novelty of the product or disease. For botanical drug products in particular, which may be heterogeneous in nature and may carry additional uncertainty about their active constituents in comparison to synthetic small-molecule drug products, one of the critical issues during drug development is ensuring that the therapeutic effect for marketed drug product batches is consistent. FDA has determined that therapeutic consistency can generally be supported by a "totality of the evidence" approach, which the agency has outlined in a 2016 guidance for industry entitled Botanical Drug Development.
Nonclinical tests include laboratory evaluation of product chemistry, formulation and toxicity, as well as animal studies to assess the characteristics and potential safety and efficacy of the product. The conduct of the nonclinical tests must