There are also companies developing therapies using additional genome editing technologies, which include Allogene Therapeutics, Inc., bluebird bio, Inc., Cellectis S.A., Editas Medicine, Inc., Life Edit Therapeutics (an ElevateBio Company), Myeloid Therapeutics, Inc., Poseida Therapeutics, Inc. (acquired by Roche Holdings, Inc.), Precision Biosciences, Inc., Prime Medicine, Inc., Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc., Seamless Therapeutics, Inc., Stylus Medicine, Inc. and Tessera Therapeutics, Inc.
We are also aware of companies developing therapies in various areas related to our specific research and development programs. For ex vivo, these companies include Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc., Allogene Therapeutics, Inc., BRL Medicine, Inc., Caribou Biosciences, Inc., CARSgen Therapeutics Corporation, Cellectis S.A., CRISPR Therapeutics AG, Legend Biotech USA, Inc., Poseida Therapeutics, Inc. (acquired by Roche Holdings, Inc.), Precision BioSciences, Inc., and Sana Biotechnology, Inc. For in vivo, these companies include Beam Therapeutics Inc., CRISPR Therapeutics AG, Editas Medicine, Inc., Ensoma, Inc., Metagenomi Technologies, LLC, Orna Therapeutics, Inc., Precision Biosciences, Inc., Prime Medicine, Inc., Tessera Therapeutics, Inc., Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Verve Therapeutics, Inc.
Our competitors will also include companies that are or will be developing other genome editing methods as well as small molecules, biologics, in vivo gene therapies, engineered cell therapies and nucleic acid-based therapies for the same indications that we are targeting with our CRISPR-based therapeutics.
Any advances in gene therapy, engineered cell therapies or genome editing technology made by a competitor may be used to develop therapies that could compete against any of our product candidates.
Many of these competitors have substantially greater research and development capabilities and financial, scientific, technical, intellectual property, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and other resources than we do, and we may not be able to successfully compete with them.
Even if we are successful in selecting and developing any product candidates, in order to compete successfully we may need to be first-to-market or demonstrate that our CRISPR-based products are superior to therapies based on the same or different treatment methods. If we are not first-to-market or are unable to demonstrate such superiority, any products for which we are able to obtain approval may not be commercially successful. Furthermore, in certain jurisdictions, if a competitor has orphan drug status for a product and if our product candidate is determined to be contained within the scope of a competitor’s orphan drug exclusivity, then approval of our product for that indication or disease could potentially be blocked, for example, for up to seven years in the U.S. and 10 years in the EU.
We may never succeed in any or all of these activities and, even if we do, we may never generate revenues that are significant or large enough to achieve profitability. If we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to become and remain profitable would decrease our value and could impair our ability to raise capital, maintain our research and development efforts, expand our business or continue our operations.
Risks Related to Commercialization
If, in the future, we are unable to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to sell, market and distribute products based on our technologies, we may not be successful in commercializing our products if and when any product candidates or therapies are approved and we may not be able to generate any revenue.
We do not currently have a sales, marketing or distribution infrastructure and, as a company, have no experience in the sale, marketing or distribution of therapeutic products. To achieve commercial success for any approved product candidate for which we retain sales and marketing responsibilities, we must build our sales, marketing, managerial and other non-technical capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services. There are risks involved with both establishing our own sales and marketing capabilities and entering into arrangements with third parties to perform these services.
Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our product candidates include:
•our inability to recruit, train and retain adequate numbers of effective sales and marketing personnel;
•the inability of sales personnel to obtain access to physicians or persuade adequate numbers of physicians to prescribe any future product candidates that we may develop;
•the lack of complementary treatments to be offered by sales personnel, which may put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to companies with more extensive product lines;