Elutia (ELUT) Risk Analysis

The Company has focused much of its attention recently on EluPro, which was cleared for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") in June 2024 and was indicated for use with implantable electronic devices including cardiac and neurostimulator devices. As previously reported, on October 1, 2025, Elutia and its subsidiary completed the sale of all of its assets related to its business of researching, developing, administering, operating, commercializing, manufacturing, selling and marketing cardiac implantable electronic device ("CIED") products, including its CanGaroo, CanGaroo RM, EluPro and CIED envelope products, including next generation CIED envelope products (collectively the "CIED Business"). The assets of the CIED Business constituted substantially all of the assets of Elutia's former Device Protection segment. Our future results consequently depend on the success of our Women's Health and Cardiovascular businesses. There can be no guarantee, however, that we will be able to increase the sales or profitability of the remaining businesses sufficiently to replace or exceed the financial contribution, or potential financial contribution, from the sold CIED Business. Elutia's current strategy principally focuses on applying the Company's drug-eluting biologics platform to advancing NXT-41x, a biomatrix that seeks to ameliorate breast reconstruction infections following mastectomy. We believe the development, commercialization and marketing efforts with respect to NXT-41x will require significant investments in time and resources. Although the sale of the CIED Business has resulted in significant cash net proceeds to the Company, there can be no assurance that these resources, or other resources we may raise or have access to in the future, will be sufficient to make the necessary investments in order to develop and commercially exploit NXT-41x, or that if made, such investments will yield the results sought. Moreover, development or marketing of NXT-41x may require further approvals or action from the FDA, and there can be no guarantee that the Company will be able to obtain such approvals on a timely basis, or at all. If we fail to successfully develop, commercialize, market and sell NXT-41x, the Company's business and financial condition may be materially adversely affected. Our enhanced reliance in the wake of the disposition of the CIED Business on a smaller suite of existing products and on future products poses risks to the Company's growth.  If the financial contribution from remaining legacy products and NXT-41x and other potential future drug-eluting biomatrix products fail to replace lost contribution from the CIED Business, or otherwise fail to meet expectations, the Company's business and financial condition may be materially adversely affected.

Our commercial success will depend in part on our success in obtaining and maintaining issued patents, trademarks and other intellectual property rights in the United States and elsewhere and protecting our proprietary technology. If we do not adequately protect our intellectual property and proprietary technology, competitors may be able to use our technologies or the goodwill we have acquired in the marketplace and erode or negate any competitive advantage we may have, which could harm our business and ability to achieve profitability. Some of our intellectual property rights depend on licensing agreements with third parties, and our patent coverage includes protection provided by licensed patents. If in the future we no longer have rights to one or more of these licensed patents, our patent coverage may be compromised, which in turn could adversely affect our ability to protect our products and defend against competitors. We have sought to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our products that we view as important to our business. This process is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. In addition, we cannot provide any assurances that any of our patents have, or that any of our pending patent applications that mature into issued patents will include, claims with a scope sufficient to protect our existing products, any enhancements we may develop to our existing products or any new products we may develop or acquire and introduce in the future. We, or our licensors, may fail to identify patentable aspects of inventions made in the course of development and commercialization activities before it is too late to obtain patent protection on them. Therefore, we may miss potential opportunities to strengthen our patent position. Other parties may have developed technologies that may be related or competitive to our system, may have filed or may file patent applications and may have received or may receive patents that overlap or conflict with our patent applications, either by claiming the same methods or devices or by claiming subject matter that could dominate our patent position. The patent positions of regenerative medicine companies, including our patent position, may involve complex legal, scientific and factual questions, and, therefore, the scope, validity, ownership and enforceability of any patent claims that we may obtain cannot be predicted with certainty. Patents, if issued, may be challenged, deemed unenforceable, narrowed, invalidated or circumvented. Proceedings challenging our patents could result in either loss of the patent or denial of the patent application or loss or reduction in the scope of one or more of the claims of the patent or patent application. In addition, such proceedings may be costly. Thus, any patents that we currently own or may own may not provide any protection against competitors. Furthermore, an adverse decision in an interference proceeding can result in a third party receiving the patent right sought by us, which in turn could affect our ability to commercialize our products. In recent years, patent rights have been the subject of significant litigation. Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of our owned or licensed patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection. Though an issued patent is presumed valid and enforceable, its issuance is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and it may not provide us with adequate proprietary protection or competitive advantages against competitors with similar products. Competitors could attempt to replicate some or all of the competitive advantages we derive from our development efforts, willfully infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our intellectual property rights, design around our patents or develop and obtain patent protection for more effective technologies, designs or methods. EluPro, CanGaroo and SimpliDerm are the only current products covered by issued patents. We rely on unpatented trade secrets and know-how for several of our current products to develop and maintain our competitive position. However, trade secrets and know-how can be difficult to protect and enforce against third parties. Accordingly, we cannot be certain that these intellectual property rights will provide us with adequate protection or enable us to prevent third parties from developing or commercializing competitive products. We may be unable to prevent the unauthorized disclosure or use of our technical knowledge or trade secrets by consultants, suppliers, vendors, current and former employees, distributors, commercial partners or independent sales agents. The laws of some foreign countries do not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and we may encounter significant problems in protecting our proprietary rights in these countries. Our ability to enforce our patent rights depends on our ability to detect infringement. It may be difficult to detect infringers who do not advertise the components that are used in their products. Moreover, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain evidence of infringement in a competitor's or potential competitor's product. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if we were to prevail, may not be commercially meaningful. In addition, proceedings to enforce or defend our patents could put our patents at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable or interpreted narrowly, which could limit our ability to stop or prevent us from stopping others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our technology and products. Such proceedings could provoke third parties to assert claims against us, including that some or all of the claims in one or more of our patents are invalid or otherwise unenforceable. If any of the patents covering our products are narrowed, invalidated or found unenforceable, or if a court found that valid, enforceable patents held by third parties covered one or more of our products, our competitive position could be harmed or we could be required to incur significant expenses to enforce or defend our rights. The degree of future protection for our proprietary rights is uncertain, and we cannot ensure that: - any of our patents, or any of our pending patent applications, if issued, will include claims having a scope sufficient to protect our products;- any of our pending patent applications will issue as patents;- we will be able to successfully commercialize our products on a substantial scale, if approved, before the relevant patents we currently have, or may have, expire;- we were the first to conceive and reduce to practice the inventions covered by each of our patents and pending patent applications;- we were the first to file patent applications for these inventions;- others will not develop similar or alternative technologies that do not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate our owned or licensed patents and other intellectual property rights;- any of our patents will ultimately be found to be valid and enforceable;- ownership of our patents or patent applications will not be challenged by third parties;- any patents issued to us will provide a basis for an exclusive market for our commercially viable products, will provide us with any competitive advantages or will not be challenged by third parties;- our competitors will not conduct research and development activities in countries where we do not have patent rights, or in countries where research and development safe harbor laws exist, and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our major commercial markets;- we will develop additional proprietary technologies or products that are separately patentable; or - our commercial activities or products will not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the patents and other intellectual property rights of others. - Should any of these events occur, they could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Quality is extremely important to us and our customers due to the serious and costly consequences of product failure. Quality and safety issues may occur with respect to any of our products, and our future operating results will depend on our ability to maintain an effective quality control system and effectively train and manage our workforce with respect to our quality system. The development, manufacture and control of our products are subject to extensive and rigorous regulation by numerous government agencies, including the FDA. Compliance with these regulatory requirements, including but not limited to the FDA's Quality System Regulation ("QSR"), current Good Manufacturing Practices ("GMPs") and adverse events/recall reporting requirements in the United States and other applicable regulations worldwide, is subject to continual review and is monitored rigorously through periodic inspections by the FDA. If we fail to comply with our reporting obligations, the FDA or other regulatory authority could take action, including issuance of warning letters and/or untitled letters, administrative actions, criminal prosecution, imposition of civil monetary penalties, revocation of our device clearance, seizure of our products or delay in the clearance of future products. The FDA may also require post-market testing and surveillance to monitor the performance of approved or certified products. Our facilities and those of our suppliers, commercial partners and independent sales agents are also subject to periodic regulatory inspections. If the FDA were to conclude that we have failed to comply with any of these requirements, it could institute a wide variety of enforcement actions, ranging from a public warning letter to more severe sanctions, such as product recalls or seizures, withdrawals, monetary penalties, consent decrees, injunctive actions to halt the manufacture or distribution of products, import detentions of products made outside the United States, export restrictions, restrictions on operations or other civil or criminal sanctions. Civil or criminal sanctions could be assessed against our officers, employees, or us. Any adverse regulatory action, depending on its magnitude, may restrict us from effectively manufacturing, marketing and selling our products. If our products do not function as designed, or are designed improperly, we or the third-party manufacturer of such products may withdraw such products from the market, whether by choice or as a result of regulatory requirements. We had two recalls in products formerly distributed through our recently divested Orthobiologics Business – one in June 2021 and one in July 2023. These recalls had negative effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations and resulted in a number of lawsuits filed against us as discussed under the risk factor"We face significant litigation related to our FiberCel and Viable Bone Matrix recalls, and have no more insurance coverage on the FiberCel recall" included in this Annual Report. Any product recall we or a third-party manufacturer may conduct in the future, whether voluntary or required, could also have a negative impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations, and this effect may be material. In addition, we cannot predict the results of future legislative activity or future court decisions, any of which could increase regulatory requirements, subject us to government investigations or expose us to unexpected litigation. Any regulatory action or litigation, regardless of the merits, may result in substantial costs, divert management's attention from other business concerns and place additional restrictions on our sales or the use of our products. In addition, negative publicity, including regarding a quality or safety issue, could damage our reputation, reduce market acceptance of our products, cause us to lose customers and decrease demand for our products. Any actual or perceived quality issues may also result in issuances of physician's advisories against our products or cause us to conduct voluntary recalls. Any product defects or problems, regulatory action, litigation, negative publicity or recalls could disrupt our business and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are exposed to the risk that our officers, employees, independent contractors (including contract research organizations ("CROs")), principal investigators, consultants, commercial partners and independent sales agents may engage in fraudulent conduct or other illegal activity and/or may fail to disclose unauthorized activities to us. Misconduct by these parties could include, but is not limited to, intentional, reckless and/or negligent failures to comply with the laws and regulations of the FDA and its foreign counterparts, including, but not limited to, those relating to the manufacture, processing, packing, holding, investigating or distributing in commerce of medical devices, biological products and/or HCT/Ps, requiring the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to such regulatory bodies (including any safety problems associated with the use of our products), and relating to the conduct of clinical studies and the protection of human research subject. In particular, companies involved in the manufacture of medical products are subject to laws and regulations intended to ensure that medical products that will be used in patients are safe and effective, and specifically that they are not adulterated or contaminated, that they are properly labeled, and have the identity, strength, quality and purity that they are represented to possess. Further, companies involved in the research and development of medical products are subject to extensive laws and regulations intended to protect research subjects and ensure the integrity of data generated from clinical studies and of the regulatory review process. Any misconduct in any of these areas, whether by our own employees or by contractors, vendors, business associates, consultants or other entities acting as our agents, could result in regulatory sanctions, criminal or civil liability and serious harm to our reputation. It is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in preventing such conduct, mitigating risks, or reducing the chance of governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to comply with these laws or regulations. If any such investigations or other actions or lawsuits are instituted against us, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations, including, without limitation, the imposition of significant fines and other sanctions that may materially impair our ability to run a profitable business. Even if we are successful in defending against the imposition of any such fines or other sanctions, we could be required to incur substantial legal fees and other costs, and management's attention will be diverted from our core business operations, either of which would negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Expedited, reliable shipping is essential to our operations. We rely heavily on providers of transport services for reliable, timely and secure point-to-point transport of our products to our customers and for tracking of these shipments. Should a carrier encounter delivery performance issues such as loss, delays, damage or destruction of any of our products, it would be costly to replace these products in a timely manner and such occurrences may damage our reputation and lead to decreased demand for our products and increased cost and expense to our business. In addition, any significant increase in shipping rates could adversely affect our operating margins and results of operations. Similarly, strikes, severe weather, natural disasters, equipment malfunctions or other service interruptions affecting the delivery services we use, would impair our ability to process orders for our products on a timely basis or at all, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Medical technology companies, healthcare systems and group purchasing organizations ("GPOs") have intensified competitive pricing pressure as a result of industry trends and new technologies. The healthcare system is under significant financial pressure to reduce costs, and rising healthcare costs have resulted in numerous cost reform initiatives by legislators, regulators and third-party payors. This cost reform has triggered a consolidation trend in the healthcare industry to aggregate purchasing power and, as a result, purchasing decisions are increasingly shifting to hospitals, integrated delivery networks ("IDNs") and other hospital groups, and away from individual surgeons and physicians. Many existing and potential facility customers for our products within the United States are members of GPOs and IDNs, including accountable care organizations or public-based purchasing organizations, and our business is partly dependent on contracts with these organizations. Purchases of our products can be contracted under national tenders or with larger hospital GPOs. GPOs and IDNs negotiate pricing arrangements with healthcare product manufacturers and distributors and offer the negotiated prices to affiliated hospitals and other members. GPOs and IDNs typically award contracts on a category-by-category basis through a competitive bidding process and, at any given time, we are typically in various stages of responding to bids and negotiating and renewing GPO and IDN agreements. Bids are generally solicited from multiple manufacturers or service providers with the intention of obtaining lower pricing. Due to the highly competitive nature of the bidding process and the GPO and IDN contracting processes in the United States, we may not be able to obtain or maintain contract positions with major GPOs and IDNs across our product portfolio. Furthermore, GPO and IDN contracts are typically terminable without cause upon 60 to 90 days' notice. In addition, while having a contract with a major purchaser for a given product category can facilitate sales, there can be no guarantee that sales volumes for those products will be maintained. For example, GPOs and IDNs are increasingly awarding contracts to multiple suppliers for the same product category and, even when we are the sole contracted supplier of a GPO or IDN for a certain product category, members of the GPO or IDN are generally free to purchase from other suppliers. If we are unable to maintain and renew our contracts with our current GPO and IDN customers and negotiate contracts with new customers on favorable terms, or if sales volumes under these agreements decline, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. In addition, most of our customers purchase our products directly and then bill third-party payors for procedures using those products. Because there is typically no separate reimbursement for supplies used in surgical procedures, the additional cost associated with the use of our products can affect the profit margin of the hospital or surgery center where the procedure is performed. Some of our target customers may be unwilling to adopt our products in light of the additional associated cost or may negotiate for lower pricing. Further, any decline in the amount payors are willing to reimburse our customers for procedures using our products, including those as a result of healthcare reform initiatives, could make it difficult for existing customers to continue using or to adopt our products and could create additional pricing pressure for us. In addition to these competitive forces, we continue to see pricing pressure as hospitals introduce new pricing structures into their contracts and agreements, including fixed price formulas, capitated pricing and episodic or bundled payments intended to contain healthcare costs. If we are forced to lower the price we charge for our products, our margins will decrease, which could impair our ability to grow our business and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations and impair our ability to grow our business. We expect that market demand, government regulation, third-party coverage and reimbursement policies and societal pressures will continue to change the healthcare industry worldwide, resulting in further business consolidations and alliances among our customers, which may exert further downward pressure on the prices for our products.

The medical device and biologics industries are regulated extensively by governmental authorities. The time required to obtain approval, clearance, certification of conformity or other marketing authorizations from the FDA and comparable foreign authorities is unpredictable but can often take many years following the commencement of clinical studies and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. In addition, policies, regulations, or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain clearance, certification or approval may change during a product candidate's development. Before we can market or sell a new medical device or a new use of or a claim for or significant modification to an existing medical device in the United States, we must obtain either clearance from the FDA under Section 510(k) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the "FDCA") or approval of an application for premarket approval, or PMA, unless an exemption applies. In the United States, we have obtained 510(k) premarket clearance from the FDA to market products such as our EluPro, CanGaroo, VasCure, ProxiCor and Tyke products. In the 510(k) premarket clearance process, the FDA must determine that a proposed device is "substantially equivalent" to a device legally on the market, known as a "predicate" device, with respect to intended use, technology and safety and effectiveness, in order to clear the proposed device for marketing. Clinical data is sometimes required to support a finding of substantial equivalence. Under certain conditions, a medical device is required to be approved under a PMA before it may be legally marketed. The PMA pathway requires an applicant to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of the device based on extensive data, including, but not limited to, technical, nonclinical, clinical study, manufacturing and labeling data. The process of obtaining regulatory clearances or approvals to market a medical device can be costly and time consuming, and we may not be able to successfully obtain pre-market reviews on a timely basis, if at all. If the FDA requires us to go through a lengthier, more rigorous examination for our products than we expect, our product introductions or modifications could be delayed or canceled, which could cause our sales to decline. Further, even where a PMA is not required, we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain 510(k) clearances with respect to such product candidates or modifications to previously cleared products. The FDA or any foreign regulatory agency or notified body can delay, limit or deny approval, certification or clearance of our product candidates or require us to conduct additional nonclinical or clinical testing or abandon a program for many reasons, including: - the FDA or the applicable foreign regulatory agency or notified body's disagreement with the design or implementation of our clinical studies;- negative or ambiguous results from our clinical studies or results that may not meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory agencies;- serious and unexpected drug or device-related side effects experienced by participants in our clinical studies or by individuals using devices similar to our products;- our inability to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FDA or the applicable foreign regulatory agency or notified body that our product candidates are safe and effective for their intended uses, or in the case of the 510(k) clearance process, that our product candidate is substantially equivalent to a predicate device;- the FDA's or the applicable foreign regulatory agency or notified body's disagreement with the interpretation of data from pre-clinical or clinical studies;- our inability to demonstrate the clinical and other benefits of our product candidates outweigh any safety or other perceived risks;- the FDA's or the applicable foreign regulatory agency or notified body's requirement for additional pre-clinical studies or clinical studies;- the FDA's or the applicable foreign regulatory agency or notified body's disagreement regarding the formulation, labeling or the specifications of our products or future product candidates;- the FDA's or the applicable foreign regulatory agency's failure to approve the manufacturing processes or facilities of third-party manufacturers with which we contract; or - the potential for approval or clearance policies or regulations of the FDA or the applicable foreign regulatory agencies or notified bodies to significantly change in a manner rendering our clinical data insufficient for approval. Of the large number of products in development, only a small percentage successfully complete the FDA or foreign regulatory approval or certification processes and are commercialized. The lengthy approval, marketing authorization or certification process, as well as the unpredictability of future clinical study results, may result in our failing to obtain regulatory clearance, approval, certification or other marketing authorization to market our product candidates, which would significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our products may cause or contribute to adverse medical events or be subject to failures or malfunctions that we are required to report to the FDA, and if we fail to do so, we would be subject to sanctions that could harm our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations. The discovery of serious safety issues with our products, or a recall of our products either voluntarily or at the direction of the FDA or another governmental authority, could have a negative impact on us. Certain marketed products are subject to Medical Device Reporting ("MDR") obligations, requiring us to report incidents to the FDA, EU competent authorities, or other foreign regulatory bodies if our products may have caused or contributed to a death, serious injury, or malfunction that could likely lead to such outcomes upon recurrence. The reporting timeline is triggered by our awareness of the adverse event. Failure to report within the prescribed timeframe or to recognize reportable adverse events could result in regulatory actions, such as warning letters, administrative actions, criminal prosecution, civil penalties, product seizure, or delays in clearance or approval for future products. The FDA, the competent authorities of the EU member states, and foreign regulatory authorities have the authority to require the recall of commercialized products in the event of material deficiencies or defects in design or manufacture of a product or in the event that a product poses an unacceptable risk to health. The FDA's authority to require a recall for a medical device must be based on a finding that there is reasonable probability that the device could cause serious injury or death. With respect to human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-based products ("HCT/Ps"), the FDA may also require a recall where the conditions of manufacture of the HCT/P do not provide adequate protections against risks of communicable disease transmission, or where the HCT/P is infected or contaminated so as to be a source of dangerous infections to humans. We may also choose to voluntarily recall a product if any material deficiency is found. A government-mandated or voluntary recall by us could occur as a result of an unacceptable risk to health, component failures, malfunctions, manufacturing defects, labeling or design deficiencies, packaging defects or other deficiencies or failures to comply with applicable regulations. Product defects or other errors may occur in the future. In the EU, compliance with the medical device vigilance system is imperative. Serious incidents and Field Safety Corrective Actions ("FSCAs") must be reported to the relevant authorities of EU member states, facilitated through Eudamed. FSCAs necessitate communication by the manufacturer or its legal representative to customers and end-users via Field Safety Notices ("FSNs"). In cases of similar incidents with the same device or type, manufacturers may submit periodic summary reports instead of individual incident reports. Depending on the corrective action we take to redress a product's deficiencies or defects, the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities may require, or we may decide, that we will need to obtain new clearances, certifications or approvals for the device before we may market or distribute the corrected device. Seeking such clearances, certification or approvals may delay our ability to replace the recalled devices in a timely manner. Moreover, if we do not adequately address problems associated with our devices, we may face additional regulatory enforcement action, including FDA or foreign regulatory body warning letters, product seizure, injunctions, administrative penalties or civil or criminal fines.

In the past, securities class action litigation has often been brought against a company following a decline in the market price of its securities. This risk is especially relevant for us because medical device companies have experienced significant stock price volatility in recent years. If we face such litigation, it could result in substantial costs and a diversion of management's attention and resources, which could harm our business.

We are subject to income taxes as well as non-income based taxes in the United States. We may from time to time be subject to tax audits in various jurisdictions. Tax authorities may disagree with certain positions we have taken and assess additional taxes. We regularly assess the likely outcomes of any tax audits to which we are subject in order to determine the appropriateness of our tax provision and have established contingency reserves for material, known tax exposures. However, the calculation of such tax exposures involves the application of complex tax laws and regulations in many jurisdictions. Therefore, there can be no assurance that we will accurately predict the outcomes of any tax audits to which we may be subject or that issues raised by tax authorities will be resolved at a financial cost that does not exceed our related reserves and the actual outcomes of any such audit could have a material impact on our results of operations or financial condition. Changes in tax laws and regulations, or their interpretation and application, in the jurisdictions where we are subject to tax, could materially impact our effective tax rate. For example, changes in tax law implemented by the tax reform legislation known as H.R. 1, commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the "TCJA") in the United States became effective in 2018 and 2019, and we expect the U.S. Treasury to continue to issue future notices and regulations under the TCJA. Certain provisions of the TCJA and the regulations issued thereunder could have a significant impact on our future results of operations as could interpretations made by us in the absence of regulatory guidance and judicial interpretations. In addition, in 2018, we established valuation allowances against all deferred tax assets (including interest carry forwards) to reflect certain limitations on these assets and their anticipated impact on our ability to utilize these tax assets following the adoption of the TCJA. Additionally, the U.S. Congress, government agencies in jurisdictions outside the United States where we do business and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (the "OECD") have recently focused on issues related to the taxation of multinational corporations. One example is in the area of "base erosion and profit shifting," where profits are claimed to be earned for tax purposes in low-tax jurisdictions, or payments are made between affiliates from a jurisdiction with high tax rates to a jurisdiction with lower tax rates. The OECD has released several components of its comprehensive plan to create an agreed set of international rules for fighting base erosion and profit shifting. As a result, the tax laws in the United States and other countries, in which we do business, could change on a prospective or retroactive basis and any such changes could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Even if we are able to increase awareness of our products among healthcare professionals, there can be no assurance that this will translate into greater acceptance of our products by the medical community. We believe physicians, surgeons and other healthcare professionals will only adopt our products if they determine, based on experience, clinical data and published peer reviewed journal articles, that the use of our products in a particular procedure is a favorable alternative to other available methods. Physicians also are more interested in using cost-effective products as they face increasing cost-containment pressure. In general, physicians may be slow to change their medical treatment practices and adopt our products for a variety of reasons, including, among others: - their lack of experience using our products and the time that must be dedicated to learning how to use our products;- lack of evidence supporting additional patient benefits from use of our products over conventional methods;- pressure to contain costs;- preference for other treatment modalities or our competitors' products;- perceived liability risks generally associated with the use of new products and procedures; and - limited availability of coverage and/or reimbursement from third-party payors. The degree of market acceptance of our products will continue to depend on a number of factors, some of which are outside of our control, including, among other things: - the actual and perceived safety and efficacy of our products;- the potential and perceived advantages of our products over alternative treatments;- clinical data and the clinical indications for which our products are approved or certified;- product labeling or product insert requirements of the FDA or other regulatory authorities, including any limitations or warnings contained in approved labeling;- the cost of using our products relative to the use of our competitors' products or alternative treatment modalities;- relative convenience and ease of administration;- the strength of marketing and distribution support;- the timing of market introduction of competitive products;- publicity concerning our products or competing products and treatments;- our reputation and the reputation of our products;- the prevalence and severity of any adverse events patients experience involving our products;- the shelf life of our products and our ability to manage the logistics of the end-user supply chain; and - sufficient and readily accessible third-party insurance coverage and reimbursement for procedures incorporating our products. In addition, we believe recommendations for, and support of our products by, influential physicians are essential for market acceptance and adoption. If we do not receive this support (e.g., because we are unable to demonstrate favorable long-term clinical data or otherwise), physicians and hospitals may not use our products, which would significantly impair our ability to increase our sales and prevent us from achieving and sustaining profitability.

We focus our sales, marketing and training efforts on physicians, surgeons and other healthcare professionals. The acceptance of our products depends in part on our ability to educate these individuals as to the distinctive characteristics, benefits, safety, clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness of our products compared to alternative products, procedures and therapies. We support our direct sales force, commercial partners and independent sales agents through in-person and online educational programs, among other things. We also produce and distribute marketing and educational materials, including materials outlining our products, for our sales teams using printed, video and multimedia formats. However, our efforts to educate physicians, surgeons and other healthcare professionals regarding our products may not be successful, particularly in markets where we rely exclusively on the efforts of our commercial partners and independent sales agents. If we do not adequately educate physicians, surgeons and other healthcare professionals about our products, as well as any adverse events involving these products, our products may not gain or maintain market acceptance, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.