trials, which could adversely affect our reputation and delay our clinical development of our product candidates. Further, our insurance coverage may not be sufficient to cover the financial, legal, business or reputational losses that may result from an interruption or breach of our systems.
Risks Related to Healthcare Laws and Other Legal Compliance Matters
We are subject to extensive and costly government regulation.
Our product candidates will be subject to extensive and rigorous domestic government regulation, including regulation and oversight by the FDA, the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), other divisions of US Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”), the US Department of Justice, state and local governments, and their respective equivalents outside of the US. The FDA regulates the research, development, preclinical and clinical testing, manufacture, safety, effectiveness, record-keeping, reporting, labeling, packaging, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale, distribution, import and export of pharmaceutical products. If our products are marketed abroad, they will also be subject to extensive regulation by foreign governments, whether or not they have obtained FDA approval. Such foreign regulation may be equally or more demanding than corresponding US regulation.
Government regulation substantially increases the cost and risk of researching, developing, manufacturing and, if approved, selling our products. The regulatory review and approval process, which includes preclinical testing and clinical trials of each product candidate, is lengthy, expensive and uncertain. We must obtain and maintain regulatory authorization to conduct clinical trials. We must obtain regulatory approval for each product we intend to market, and the manufacturing facilities used for the products must be inspected and meet legal requirements. Securing regulatory approval requires the submission of extensive preclinical and clinical data and other supporting information for each proposed therapeutic indication in order to establish the product’s safety and efficacy, potency and purity, for each intended use. The development and approval process takes many years, requires substantial resources, and may never lead to the approval of a product.
Even if we are able to obtain regulatory approval for a particular product, the approval may limit the indicated medical uses for the product, may otherwise limit our ability to promote, sell and distribute the product, may require that we conduct costly post-marketing surveillance, and/or may require that we conduct ongoing post-marketing studies. Material changes to an approved product, such as, for example, manufacturing changes or revised labeling, may require further regulatory review and approval. Once obtained, any approvals may be withdrawn, including, for example, if there is a later discovery of previously unknown problems with the product, such as a previously unknown safety issue.
If we, our consultants, CMOs, CROs or other vendors, fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements at any stage during the regulatory process, such noncompliance could result in, among other things, delays in the approval of applications or supplements to approved applications; refusal of a regulatory authority, including the FDA, to review pending market approval applications or supplements to approved applications; warning letters; fines; import and/or export restrictions; product recalls or seizures; injunctions; total or partial suspension of production; civil penalties; withdrawals of previously approved marketing applications or licenses; recommendations by the FDA or other regulatory authorities against governmental contracts; and/or criminal prosecutions.
Moreover, our operations are broadly subject to an evolving regulatory environment. New and changing laws, regulations, executive orders and enforcement priorities can also create uncertainty about how such laws and regulations will be interpreted and applied, which may increase our costs or otherwise adversely impact our business and results of operations.
Enacted and future healthcare legislation and policies may increase the difficulty and cost for us to commercialize our product candidates and could adversely affect our business.
In the US, the EU and other jurisdictions, there have been, and we expect there will continue to be, a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes to the healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval of our product candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities involving any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval, impact pricing and reimbursement and impact our ability to sell any such products profitably. In particular, there have been and continue to be a number of initiatives at the US federal and state levels that seek to reduce healthcare costs and improve the quality of healthcare. In addition, new regulations and interpretations of existing healthcare statutes and regulations are frequently adopted.