markets there are government-mandated reductions in prices for certain pharmaceutical products, as well as government-imposed access restrictions in certain countries. All of the aforesaid may make it more difficult for us to commercialize our current commercial products, any products that we may commercialize or promote, and our therapeutic candidates, upon approval, if any.
Our business involves risks related to handling regulated substances, which could severely affect our ability to commercialize our current commercial products and any products that we may commercialize or promote in the future and to conduct research and development of our therapeutic candidates.
In connection with our or our development or commercialization partners’ research and development activities, as well as the manufacture of commercial products, materials, and therapeutic candidates and any products that we may commercialize or promote in the future, we and our development or commercialization partners are subject to federal, state and local laws, rules, regulations and policies governing the use, generation, manufacture, storage, air emission, effluent discharge, handling and disposal of certain materials, biological specimens and waste. We and our research and development or commercialization partners may be required to incur significant costs to comply with environmental and health and safety regulations in the future. Our research and development, as well as the activities of our commercial and clinical manufacturing and commercialization partners, both now and in the future, may involve the controlled use of hazardous materials, including, but not limited to, certain hazardous chemicals. We cannot completely eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or injury from these materials. In the event of such an occurrence, we could be held liable for any damages that could result and any such liability could exceed our resources.
Security breaches, loss of data, and other disruptions could compromise sensitive information and expose us to liability, which would cause our business and reputation to suffer.
In the ordinary course of our business, we may collect and store sensitive data, including intellectual property, compliance-related data, research data, our proprietary business information and that of our suppliers and business partners, technical information about our products, clinical trial plans as well as personally identifiable information of patients, clinical trial participants and employees. We also have outsourced elements of our information technology structure, and as a result, we are managing independent vendor relationships with third parties who may or could have access to our confidential information. Similarly, our business partners and other third-party providers possess certain of our sensitive data and confidential information. The secure maintenance of this information is critical to our operations and business strategy. Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal computer systems, and those of third parties on which we rely, are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, malware, ransomware, cyber-fraud, natural disasters, terrorism, war, telecommunication and electrical failures, cyber-attacks or cyber-intrusions over the Internet, attachments to emails, persons inside our organization, or persons with access to systems inside our organization. The risk of a security breach or disruption, particularly through cyber-attacks or cyber-intrusion, including by computer hackers, foreign governments, and cyber-terrorists, has generally increased as the number, intensity and sophistication of attempted attacks and intrusions from around the world have increased.
We, our partners, vendors, and other third-party providers could be susceptible to attacks on our and their information security systems, which attacks are of ever-increasing levels of sophistication and are made by groups and individuals with a wide range of motives and expertise, including criminal groups. Any such breach could compromise our and their networks and the information stored there could be accessed, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen. Any such access, inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information or other loss of information, including our data being breached at third-party providers, could result in legal claims or proceedings, liability or financial loss under laws that protect the privacy of personal information, disrupt our operations, or our product development programs and damage our reputation, any of which could adversely affect our business. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from completed or ongoing or planned clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data.
We are highly dependent on information technology networks and systems, including the Internet, to securely process, transmit and store this critical information. Security breaches of this infrastructure, including physical or electronic break-ins, computer viruses, attacks by hackers and similar breaches, can create system disruptions, shutdowns or unauthorized disclosure or modification of confidential information. The secure processing, storage, maintenance and transmission of