Chimerix (CMRX) Risk Factors

We process personal data and other sensitive information, which subjects us to numerous evolving data privacy and security obligations. In the ordinary course of business, we collect, receive, store, process, use, transfer, disclose, make accessible, protect, secure, dispose of, transmit, and share (collectively, process) personal data and other sensitive information, including proprietary and confidential business data, intellectual property, data we collect about trial participants in connection with clinical trials, sensitive third-party data, and other sensitive data. Our data processing activities may subject us to numerous data privacy and security obligations, such as various laws, regulations, guidance, industry standards, external and internal privacy and security policies, contractual requirements, and other obligations relating to data privacy and security. In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have enacted numerous data privacy and security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal data privacy laws, consumer protection laws (e.g., Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act), and other similar laws (e.g., wiretapping laws). For example, HIPAA, as amended by HITECH, imposes specific requirements relating to the privacy, security, and transmission of individually identifiable health information. In the past few years, numerous U.S. states-including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah-have enacted comprehensive privacy laws that impose certain obligations on covered businesses, including providing specific disclosures in privacy notices and affording residents with certain rights concerning their personal data. As applicable, such rights may include the right to access, correct, or delete certain personal data, and to opt-out of certain data processing activities, such as targeted advertising, profiling, and automated decision-making. The exercise of these rights may impact our business and ability to provide our products and services. Certain states also impose stricter requirements for processing certain personal data, including sensitive information, such as conducting data privacy impact assessments. These state laws allow for statutory fines for noncompliance. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA) (collectively, CCPA) applies to personal information of consumers, business representatives, and employees, and requires businesses to provide specific disclosures in privacy notices and honor requests of California residents to exercise certain privacy rights. The CCPA provides for fines of up to $7,500 per intentional violation and allows private litigants affected by certain data breaches to recover significant statutory damages. Similar laws are being considered in several other states, as well as at the federal and local levels. While these states, like the CCPA, also exempt some data processed in the context of clinical trials, these developments further complicate compliance efforts, and increase legal risk and compliance costs for us and the third parties upon whom we rely. Outside the United States, an increasing number of laws, regulations, and industry standards may govern data privacy and security. For example, we are subject to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) and the United Kingdom's GDPR (UK GDPR) (collectively, GDPR). Under the GDPR, companies may face temporary or definitive bans on data processing and other corrective actions; fines of up to 20 million Euros under the GDPR/ 17.5 million pounds sterling under the UK GDPR, or 4% of annual global revenue, whichever is greater; or private litigation related to processing of personal data brought by classes of data subjects or consumer protection organizations authorized at law to represent their interests. The Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) also applies to the collection and processing of personal data, including health-related information, by companies located in Switzerland, or in certain circumstances, by companies located outside of Switzerland. In the ordinary course of business, we may transfer personal data from Europe and other jurisdictions to the United States or other countries. Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted laws requiring data to be localized or limiting the transfer of personal data to other countries. In particular, the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have significantly restricted the transfer of personal data to the United States and other countries whose privacy laws it believes are inadequate. Other jurisdictions may adopt similarly stringent interpretations of their data localization and cross-border data transfer laws. Although there are currently various mechanisms that may be used to transfer personal data from the EEA, Switzerland, and United Kingdom to the United States in compliance with law, such as the EEA standard contractual clauses, the United Kingdom's International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum, and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the United Kingdom extension thereto (which allows for transfers to relevant U.S.-based organizations who self-certify compliance and participate in the Framework), these mechanisms are subject to legal challenges, and there is no assurance that we can satisfy or rely on these measures to lawfully transfer personal data to the United States. If there is no lawful manner for us to transfer personal data from the EEA, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or other jurisdictions to the United States, or if the requirements for a legally-compliant transfer are too onerous, we could face significant adverse consequences, including the interruption or degradation of our operations, the need to relocate part of or all of our business or data processing activities to other jurisdictions at significant expense, increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines and penalties, the inability to transfer data and work with partners, vendors and other third parties, and injunctions against our processing or transferring of personal data necessary to operate our business. Additionally, companies that transfer personal data out of the EEA, Switzerland, and United Kingdom to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, are subject to increased scrutiny from regulators, individual litigants, and activist groups. Some European regulators have ordered certain companies to suspend or permanently cease certain transfers out of Europe for allegedly violating the GDPR's cross-border data transfer limitations. Obligations related to data privacy and security (and consumers' data privacy expectations) are quickly changing, becoming increasingly stringent, and creating uncertainty. Additionally, these obligations may be subject to differing applications and interpretations, which may be inconsistent or conflict among jurisdictions. Preparing for and complying with these obligations requires us to devote significant resources, which may necessitate changes to our services, information technologies, systems, and practices and to those of any third parties that process personal data on our behalf. We may at times fail (or be perceived to have failed) in our efforts to comply with our data privacy and security obligations. Moreover, despite our efforts, our personnel or third parties on whom we rely may fail to comply with such obligations, which could negatively impact our business operations. If we or the third parties on which we rely fail, or are perceived to have failed, to address or comply with applicable data privacy and security obligations, we could face significant consequences, including but not limited to: government enforcement actions (e.g., investigations, fines, penalties, audits, inspections, and similar); litigation (including class-action claims) and mass arbitration demands; additional reporting requirements and/or oversight; bans on processing personal data; orders to destroy or not use personal data; and imprisonment of company officials. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, or financial condition, including but not limited to: interruptions or stoppages in our business operations (including our clinical trials); inability to process personal data or to operate in certain jurisdictions; limited ability to develop or commercialize our products; expenditure of time and resources to defend any claim or inquiry; adverse publicity; or substantial changes to our business model or operations.

New tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be enacted at any time. Further, existing tax laws, statutes, rules, regulations or ordinances could be interpreted differently, changed, or modified. Any such enactment, interpretation, change or modification could adversely affect us, possibly with retroactive effect. For example, the IRA imposes, among other rules, a 15% minimum tax on the book income of certain large corporations and a 1% excise tax on certain corporate stock repurchases. In addition, for certain research and experimental expenses incurred in tax years beginning after December 31, 2021, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Tax Act) requires the capitalization and amortization of such expenses over five years if incurred in the United States and fifteen years if incurred outside the United States, rather than deducting such expenses currently. There have been legislative proposals to repeal or defer the research and experimental expense capitalization rules, including legislation recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would restore the deductibility of U.S. based research and experimental expenses but not non-U.S. research and experimental expenses, but there can be no assurance that any such legislation will ultimately be enacted. Changes in corporate tax rates, the realization of net deferred tax assets relating to our operations, the taxation of foreign earnings, and the deductibility of expenses under the Tax Act as amended by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) or any future tax reform legislation, could have a material impact on the value of our deferred tax assets, could result in significant one-time charges, and could increase our future U.S. tax expense.

The success of our business depends primarily upon our ability to identify, develop and commercialize product candidates. Because we have limited financial and managerial resources, we focus on research programs and product candidates for specific indications. As a result, we may forego or delay pursuit of opportunities with other product candidates or other indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential. Our research programs may initially show promise in identifying potential product candidates, yet fail to yield product candidates for clinical development for a number of reasons, including: - our research methodology or that of our collaboration partners may be unsuccessful in identifying potential product candidates;- our potential product candidates may be shown to have harmful side effects or may have other characteristics that may make the products unmarketable or unlikely to receive marketing approval; and - our collaboration partners may change their development profiles for potential product candidates or abandon a therapeutic area. If any of these events occur, we may be forced to abandon our development efforts for a program or programs, which would have a material adverse effect on our business and could potentially cause us to cease operations. Research programs to identify new product candidates require substantial technical, financial and human resources. We may focus our research efforts and resources on potential programs or product candidates that ultimately prove to be unsuccessful. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular product candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that product candidate through collaboration, licensing or other royalty arrangements in cases in which it would have been advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights.

We rely upon a combination of patents, trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect the intellectual property related to our products and product candidates. The strength of patents in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field involves complex legal and scientific questions and can be uncertain. The patent applications that we own or in-license may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover the products in the United States or in other countries. If this were to occur, early generic competition could be expected against any product candidates we may develop. There is no assurance that all of the potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and patent applications has been found, which can invalidate a patent or prevent a patent from issuing based on a pending patent application. Even if patents do successfully issue, third parties may challenge their validity, enforceability, scope or ownership, which may result in such patents, or our rights to such patents, being narrowed or invalidated. Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, our patents and patent applications may not adequately protect our intellectual property or prevent others from designing around our claims. If the patent applications we hold or license with respect to any of our product candidates fails to issue or if their breadth or strength of protection is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to develop, and threaten our ability to commercialize, our products. We cannot offer any assurances about which, if any, patents will issue or whether any issued patents will be found not invalid and not unenforceable, will go unthreatened by third parties or will adequately protect our products and product candidates. Further, if we encounter delays in regulatory approvals, the period of time during which we could market an approved product under patent protection could be reduced. Since patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing, and some remain so until issued, we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to file any patent application related to any of our product candidates. Furthermore, if third parties have filed such patent applications, an interference proceeding in the United States can be provoked by a third-party or instituted by us to determine who was the first to invent any of the subject matter covered by the patent claims of our applications. An unfavorable outcome could require us to cease using the related technology or to attempt to license it from the prevailing party, which may not be possible. In addition to the protection afforded by patents, we rely on trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect proprietary know-how that is not patentable, processes for which patents are difficult to enforce and other elements of our drug discovery and development processes that involve proprietary know-how, information or technology that is not covered by patents. Although we expect all of our employees to assign their inventions to us, and all of our employees, consultants, advisors and any third parties who have access to our proprietary know-how, information or technology to enter into confidentiality agreements, we cannot provide any assurances that all such agreements have been duly executed, that such agreements provide adequate protection and will not be breached, that our trade secrets and other confidential proprietary information will not otherwise be disclosed or that competitors will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. If we are unable to prevent material disclosure of the non-patented intellectual property related to our technologies to third parties, and there is no guarantee that we will have any such enforceable trade secret protection, we may not be able to establish or maintain a competitive advantage in our market, which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Further, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect patents and other proprietary rights to the same extent or in the same manner as the laws of the United States. As a result, we may encounter significant problems in protecting and defending our intellectual property abroad. We may also fail to pursue or obtain patents and other intellectual property protection relating to our products and product candidates in all foreign countries. Finally, certain of our activities and our licensors' activities have been funded, and may in the future be funded, by the U.S. federal government. When new technologies are developed with U.S. federal government funding, the government obtains certain rights in any resulting patents, including a nonexclusive license authorizing the government to use the invention for non-commercial purposes. These rights may permit the government to disclose our confidential information to third parties and to exercise "march-in" rights to use or allow third parties to use our patented technology. The government can exercise its march-in rights if it determines that action is necessary because we fail to achieve practical application of the U.S. government-funded technology, because action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs, to meet requirements of federal regulations or to give preference to U.S. industry. In addition, U.S. government-funded inventions must be reported to the government, U.S. government funding must be disclosed in any resulting patent applications, and our rights in such inventions may be subject to certain requirements to manufacture products in the United States.

The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are intensely competitive. We have competitors both in the United States and internationally, including major multinational pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies and universities and other research institutions. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, commercial and other resources, such as larger research and development staff, stronger intellectual property portfolios and experienced marketing and manufacturing organizations and established sales forces. Additional mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries may result in even more resources being concentrated in our competitors. Competition may increase further as a result of advances in the commercial applicability of technologies and greater availability of capital for investment in these industries. Our competitors may succeed in developing, acquiring or licensing, on an exclusive basis, drug products that are more effective or less costly than any of our drug candidates that we are currently developing or that we may develop including dordaviprone. We will face competition from other drugs currently approved or that will be approved in the future for the same indications. Therefore, our ability to compete successfully will depend largely on our ability to: - discover and develop medicines that are superior to other products in the market;- demonstrate through our clinical trials that our product candidates, including dordaviprone, are differentiated from existing and future therapies;- attract qualified scientific, product development and commercial personnel;- obtain and successfully defend and enforce patent and/or other proprietary protection for our medicines and technologies;- obtain required regulatory approvals;- successfully collaborate with pharmaceutical companies in the discovery, development and commercialization of new medicines;- deliver a competitive value proposition compared to established competition and/or competitors who will enter the market before or after any of our product candidates, including dordaviprone; and - negotiate competitive pricing and reimbursement with third-party payers. The availability of our competitors' products could affect the price we are able to charge, for any product candidate we develop. The inability to compete with existing or subsequently introduced drug products would have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects. Established pharmaceutical companies may invest heavily to accelerate discovery and development of novel compounds or to in-license novel compounds that could make our product candidates less competitive. In addition, any new product that competes with an approved product must demonstrate compelling advantages in efficacy, convenience, tolerability and safety in order to overcome price competition and to be commercially successful. Accordingly, our competitors may succeed in obtaining patent protection, receiving FDA approval or discovering, developing and commercializing medicines before we do, which would have a material adverse impact on our business.

Recent media attention to individual patients' expanded access requests has resulted in the introduction of legislation at the local and national level referred to as "Right to Try" laws, such as the Right to Try Act, which are intended to give patients access to unapproved therapies. New and emerging legislation regarding expanded access to unapproved drugs for life-threatening illnesses could negatively impact our business in the future. In addition, we had previously been the target of an active and disruptive social media campaign related to a request for access to TEMBEXA. If we experience similar social media campaigns in the future, we may experience significant disruption to our business which could result in losses. A possible consequence of both activism and legislation in this area is the need for us to initiate an unanticipated expanded access program or to make our product candidates more widely available sooner than anticipated. We are a small company with limited resources and unanticipated trials or access programs could result in diversion of resources from our primary goals or may delay or prevent the regulatory approval of our products. In addition, patients who receive access to unapproved drugs through compassionate use or expanded access programs have life-threatening illnesses and have exhausted all other available therapies. The risk for serious adverse events in this patient population is high which could have a negative impact on the safety profile of our product candidates, which could cause significant delays or an inability to successfully commercialize them, which could materially harm our business. Patient demand for dordaviprone or ONC206 outside of our clinical trial could impair the conduct or delay the completion of our controlled clinical trials. Currently, there are a limited number of therapeutic options available to glioma patients suffering from this severe and life-threatening disease. In the face of a glioma diagnosis, patients will often turn to alternate means of access to drug outside the scope of our current clinical trials. We are, and from time to time may be, aware of such counterfeit providers that purport to supply dordaviprone, ONC206 or similar versions thereof. We have taken and intend to continue taking meaningful action to eliminate such counterfeit supplies when and if appropriate. For example, we have initiated patent and trademark infringement litigation and unfair trade practice claims in a jurisdiction outside of the United States against identified sources of counterfeit supplies for dordaviprone and ONC206, seeking among other things to enjoin the availability of such counterfeit supplies. These claims, and any similar actions we take, may not be successful or may take longer than anticipated to reduce or eliminate counterfeit supplies. If a significant number of patients continue to choose counterfeit supplies from third parties rather than enroll in our studies, our clinical program could be negatively impacted. In the event that patients choose to access counterfeit supplies while enrolled in our clinical studies, we may not be able to successfully meet the study endpoints and our clinical program could be negatively impacted. We have amended the protocol of our open expanded access program to focus on patients that are not eligible for the Phase 3 ACTION Study. Therefore, the Phase 3 ACTION Study will serve as the main mechanism for patients with newly diagnosed H3 K27M-mutant diffuse glioma following completion of radiotherapy to receive dordaviprone, apart from such counterfeit providers discussed above. This decision could prompt adverse publicity, could drive potential Phase 3 ACTION Study patients to seek drugs that purport to be dordaviprone or ONC206 from counterfeit providers, or cause other disruptions related to potential participants in such expanded access programs.

Market acceptance and sales of dordaviprone, or any other product candidates that we commercialize, if approved, will depend in part on the extent to which coverage and adequate reimbursement will be available from third-party payers, including government health administration authorities, managed care organizations and private health insurers. Third-party payers decide which therapies they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. Third-party payers in the United States often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own coverage and reimbursement policies. However, decisions regarding the extent of coverage and amount of reimbursement to be provided for any product candidates that we develop will be made on a payer-by-payer basis. One payer's determination to provide coverage for a drug does not assure that other payers will also provide coverage and adequate reimbursement for the drug. Additionally, a third-party payer's decision to provide coverage for a therapy does not imply that an adequate reimbursement rate will be approved. Third-party payers are increasingly challenging the price, examining the medical necessity and reviewing the cost-effectiveness of medical products, therapies and services, in addition to questioning their safety and efficacy. Even if favorable coverage and reimbursement status is attained for our products candidates for which we receive regulatory approval, less favorable coverage policies and reimbursement rates may be implemented in the future. In addition, companion diagnostic tests require coverage and reimbursement separate and apart from the coverage and reimbursement for their companion pharmaceutical or biological products. Similar challenges to obtaining coverage and reimbursement, applicable to pharmaceutical or biological products, will apply to companion diagnostics. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement in the United States or elsewhere will be available for any product that we may develop, and any reimbursement that may become available may be decreased or eliminated in the future.

In addition to our current assets, we may in-license or acquire additional assets, engage in a merger or acquisition transaction, issue additional shares of our common stock, or engage in other potential actions designed to maximize stockholder value. Our continuing review of these matters may not result in the identification or consummation of any transaction. The process of reviewing external opportunities may be time consuming and disruptive to our business operations and, if we are unable to effectively manage the process, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected. We could incur substantial expenses associated with identifying, evaluating, negotiating, and consummating potential transactions. There can be no assurance that any potential additional transaction, if consummated, will provide greater value to our stockholders than that reflected in the current price of our common stock. In addition, once any potential additional transaction is consummated, we are likely to incur substantial costs associated with future development and testing of any new product candidate, which may require us to raise additional capital.

We do not own or operate, and we do not expect to own or operate, facilities for product manufacturing, storage and distribution, or testing with respect to our product candidates, including dordaviprone. In the past, we have relied on third-party manufacturers for supply of our preclinical and clinical drug supplies. We expect that in the future we will continue to rely on such manufacturers for drug supply that will be used in clinical trials and for commercialization of any of our product candidates that receive regulatory approval. Our reliance on third-party manufacturers entails risks, including: - inability to meet our product specifications and quality requirements consistently;- delay or inability to procure or expand sufficient manufacturing capacity;- manufacturing and product quality issues related to scale-up of manufacturing;- costs and validation of new equipment and facilities required for scale-up;- failure to comply with cGMP and similar foreign standards;- inability to negotiate manufacturing agreements with third parties under commercially reasonable terms;- termination or nonrenewal of manufacturing agreements with third parties in a manner or at a time that is costly or damaging to us;- reliance on a limited number of sources, and in some cases, single sources for product components, such that if we are unable to secure a sufficient supply of these product components, we will be unable to manufacture and sell our product candidates in a timely fashion, in sufficient quantities or under acceptable terms;- lack of qualified backup suppliers for those components that are currently purchased from a sole or single source supplier;- operations of our third-party manufacturers or suppliers could be disrupted by conditions unrelated to our business or operations, including the bankruptcy of the manufacturer or supplier, or other factors outside our control;- carrier disruptions or increased costs that are beyond our control; and - failure to deliver our products under specified storage conditions and in a timely manner. Any of these events could lead to clinical study delays, failure to obtain regulatory approval or impact our ability to successfully commercialize our products. Some of these events could be the basis for FDA or equivalent foreign regulator action, including injunction, recall, seizure, or total or partial suspension of production.