If required, we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain such licenses on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are sued for infringement, we could encounter substantial delays in development, manufacture and commercialization of our product candidates. Any litigation, whether to enforce our patent rights or to defend against allegations that we infringe third party rights, will be costly, time consuming, and may distract management from other important tasks.
We also rely in our business on trade secrets, know-how and other proprietary information. We seek to protect this information, in part, through the use of confidentiality agreements with employees, consultants, advisors and others. Nonetheless, we cannot assure you that those agreements will provide adequate protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information and prevent their unauthorized use or disclosure. To the extent that consultants, key employees or other third parties apply technological information independently developed by them or by others to our proposed products, disputes may arise as to the proprietary rights to such information, which may not be resolved in our favor.
Health care reform measures and changes in policies, funding, staffing and leadership at the FDA and other agencies could hinder or prevent the commercial success of our products.
In the United States, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes to the healthcare system in ways that could affect our future results of operations and the future results of operations of our potential customers. For example, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 established a new Part D prescription drug benefit, which became effective January 1, 2006. Under the prescription drug benefit, Medicare beneficiaries can obtain prescription drug coverage from private sector plans that are permitted to limit the number of prescription drugs that are covered in each therapeutic category and class on their formularies. If our products are not widely included on the formularies of these plans, our ability to market our products may be adversely affected. Furthermore, there have been and continue to be a number of initiatives at the federal and state levels that seek to reduce healthcare costs. In March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010, as amended by the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, or collectively “ACA”, was signed into law, which includes measures to significantly change the way health care is financed by both governmental and private insurers.
In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the ACA was enacted. On August 2, 2011, the Budget Control Act of 2011, among other things, created measures for spending reductions by Congress. A Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, tasked with recommending a targeted deficit reduction of at least $1.2 trillion for the years 2013 through 2021, was unable to reach required goals, thereby triggering the legislation’s automatic reduction to several government programs. This includes aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to providers of up to 2% per fiscal year. On January 2, 2013, President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several providers, including hospitals, imaging centers and cancer treatment centers, and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. These laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other health care funding, which could have a material adverse effect on our customers and accordingly, our financial operations.
Additionally, individual states have become increasingly aggressive in passing legislation and implementing regulations designed to control pharmaceutical product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access, and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing. Legally-mandated price controls on payment amounts by third-party payors or other restrictions could harm our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects. In addition, regional healthcare authorities and individual hospitals are increasingly using bidding procedures to determine what pharmaceutical products and which suppliers will be included in their prescription drug and other healthcare programs. This can reduce demand for our products or put pressure on our product pricing, which could negatively affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.
Additionally, given recent federal and state government initiatives directed at lowering the total cost of healthcare, Congress and state legislatures will likely continue to focus on healthcare reform, the cost of prescription drugs and the reform of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. While we cannot predict the