RAPT Therapeutics (RAPT) Risk Factors

Our stock price has been and is likely to continue to be highly volatile. The market price for our common stock may be influenced by many factors, including the other risks described in this "Risk Factors" section and the following: - our ability to advance our current or potential future drug candidates through clinical development;- results of our preclinical studies, non-clinical studies and clinical trials for our current and future drug candidates or those of our competitors or potential future partners;- regulatory or legal developments in the United States and other countries, especially changes in laws or regulations applicable to our products;- the success of competitive products or technologies;- introductions and announcements of new products by us, our future commercialization partners or our competitors, and the timing of these introductions or announcements;- actions taken by regulatory agencies with respect to our products, clinical trials, manufacturing process or sales and marketing terms;- actual or anticipated variations in our financial results or those of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;- the success of our efforts to acquire or in-license additional technologies, products or drug candidates;- developments concerning any future collaborations, including, but not limited to, those with our sources of manufacturing supply and our commercialization partners;- market conditions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors;- announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;- developments, disputes or litigation matters concerning patents or other intellectual property rights, and our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection for our products;- our ability or inability to raise additional capital and the terms on which we raise it;- the recruitment or departure of key personnel;- changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;- actual or anticipated changes in earnings estimates or changes in securities analyst recommendations regarding our common stock, other comparable companies or our industry generally;- our failure or the failure of our competitors to meet securities analysts' projections or guidance that we or our competitors may give to the market;- fluctuations in the valuation of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;- announcement and expectation of additional financing efforts;- speculation in the press or investment community;- trading volume of our common stock;- sales of our common stock by us or our stockholders, including after the expiration of the lockup agreements entered into in connection with our public offerings;- the concentrated ownership of our common stock;- changes in accounting principles;- terrorist acts, acts of war or periods of widespread civil unrest, including as a result of ongoing overseas conflicts;- natural disasters, medical epidemics, pandemics and other calamities; and - general economic, industry and market conditions. In addition, the stock markets in general, and the markets for pharmaceutical, therapeutics, biopharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks in particular, have experienced extreme volatility that has been often unrelated to the operating performance of the issuer, including in connection with ongoing overseas conflicts and potential future bank failures, each of which has resulted in decreased stock prices for many companies notwithstanding the lack of a fundamental change in their underlying business models or prospects. Broad market and industry factors, including worsening economic or financial conditions, macroeconomic factors including inflation and rising interest rates and geopolitical instability, including instability resulting from ongoing overseas conflicts, may negatively affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. These broad market and industry factors may seriously harm the market price of our common stock, regardless of our operating performance. Substantial purchases of common stock by existing stockholders could reduce the liquidity of the trading market for our common stock and increase volatility.

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain all of our future earnings, if any, to finance the growth and development of our business. As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common stock will be your sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.

From time to time, we may consider strategic transactions, such as collaborations, acquisitions of companies, asset purchases, joint ventures and out- or in-licensing of drug candidates or technologies. For example, we entered a Collaboration and License Agreement with Hanmi in December 2019, pursuant to which we granted Hanmi the exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize tivumecirnon in the Hanmi Territory. The competition for partners is intense, and the negotiation process may be time-consuming and complex. If we are not able to enter into collaborations or other strategic transactions, or continue our existing collaboration, we may not have access to necessary capital or expertise to further develop our potential future drug candidates or our drug discovery and development engine. Any such collaboration or other strategic transaction may require us to incur non-recurring or other charges, increase our near- and long-term expenditures and pose significant integration or implementation challenges or disrupt our management or business. We may acquire additional technologies and assets, form strategic alliances or create joint ventures with third parties that we believe will complement or augment our existing business, but we may not be able to realize the benefit of acquiring such assets. Conversely, any new collaboration that we do enter into may be on terms that are not optimal for us. These transactions would entail numerous operational and financial risks, including: - exposure to unknown liabilities;- disruption of our business and diversion of our management's time and attention in order to manage a collaboration or develop acquired products, drug candidates or technologies;- incurrence of substantial debt or dilutive issuances of equity securities to pay transaction consideration or costs;- higher-than-expected collaboration, acquisition or integration costs, write-downs of assets or goodwill or impairment charges or increased amortization expenses;- difficulty and cost in facilitating the collaboration or combining the operations and personnel of any acquired business;- impairment of relationships with key suppliers, manufacturers or customers of any acquired business due to changes in management and ownership; and - the inability to retain key employees of any acquired business. Accordingly, although there can be no assurance that we will undertake or successfully complete any collaborations or other strategic transactions of the nature described above, any transactions that we do complete may be subject to the foregoing or other risks and our business could be materially harmed by such transactions. Conversely, any failure to enter any collaboration or other strategic transaction that would be beneficial to us could delay the development and potential commercialization of our drug candidates and have a negative impact on the competitiveness of any drug candidate that reaches market. In addition, to the extent that any of our current or future partners were to terminate a collaboration agreement, we may be forced to seek additional partnerships, which may be less favorable to us, or independently develop our current and future drug candidates, including funding preclinical studies or clinical trials, assuming marketing and distribution costs and obtaining, maintaining, enforcing and defending intellectual property rights or, in certain instances, abandoning drug candidates altogether, any of which could result in a change to our business plan and materially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

In the ordinary course of business, we collect, receive, store, process, generate, 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, trade secrets, intellectual property, sensitive third-party data, business plans, transactions, financial information and clinical trial and other health data (collectively, "sensitive data"). Our data processing activities subject us to numerous data privacy and security obligations, such as various federal, state, local and foreign data protection 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 protected 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, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 ("CPRA") (collectively, "CCPA"), applies to personal data of consumers, business representatives and employees who are California residents, and requires businesses to provide specific disclosures in privacy notices and honor requests of such individuals 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, and we expect more states to pass similar laws in the future. While these laws also exempt some data processed in the context of clinical trials, these developments further complicate our compliance efforts and increase compliance costs for us, the third parties we rely on and our future customers. Outside the United States, an increasing number of laws, regulations and industry standards govern data privacy and security. For example, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation ("EU GDPR"), the United Kingdom's GDPR ("UK GDPR") (collectively, "GDPR") and Australia's Privacy Act impose strict requirements for processing personal data. For example, under the GDPR, companies may face temporary or definitive bans on data processing and other corrective actions; fines of up to €20 million under the EU GDPR, £17.5 million under the UK GDPR or, in each case, 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. In addition, we conduct and may conduct in the future clinical trials in Asia and may therefore be subject to new and emerging data privacy regimes in Asia, including South Korea's Personal Information Protection Act, Taiwan's Personal Data Protection Act, Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act and Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. In addition, we may be unable to transfer personal data from Europe and other jurisdictions to the United States or other countries due to data localization requirements or limitations on cross-border data flows. 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") and the United Kingdom ("UK") have significantly restricted the transfer of personal data to the United States and other countries whose privacy laws they generally believe 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 and UK to the United States in compliance with law, such as the EEA's standard contractual clauses, the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum, and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the UK 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, the UK 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 (such as Europe) 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 and UK to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, are subject to increased scrutiny from regulators, individual litigants and activities groups. Some European regulators have ordered certain companies to suspend or permanently cease certain transfers of personal data out of Europe for allegedly violating the GDPR's cross-border data transfer limitations. In addition to data privacy and security laws, we are contractually subject to data privacy and security obligations and may become subject to such obligations in the future. We are also bound by other contractual obligations related to data privacy and security and our efforts to comply with such obligations may not be successful. For example, clinical trial subjects about whom we or any of our potential collaborators obtain information, as well as the providers who share this information with us, may contractually limit our ability to use and disclose the information. We publish privacy policies, marketing materials and other statements regarding data privacy and security. If these policies, materials or statements are found to be deceptive, unfair, deficient, lacking in transparency or misrepresentative of our practices, we may be subject to investigation, enforcement actions by regulators or other adverse consequences. 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 and may necessitate changes to our services, information technologies, systems and practices and to those of any third parties that process personal data or sensitive 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. In the event of failure (or perceived failure) of us or the third parties we rely on 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, civil or criminal penalties, audits, inspections and similar); litigation (including class claims) and mass arbitration demands, additional reporting requirements and/or oversight, bans on processing personal data, orders to destroy or not use personal data, adverse publicity or imprisonment of company officials. In particular, plaintiffs have become increasingly more active in bringing privacy-related claims against companies, including class action claims and mass arbitration demands. Some of these claims allow for the recovery of statutory damages on a per violation basis and, if viable, carry the potential for monumental statutory damages, depending on the volume of data and the number of violations. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business or financial condition, including but not limited to: loss of customers, 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.

As we conduct clinical trials, we will be exposed to significant product liability risks inherent in the development, testing, manufacturing and marketing of inflammatory disease and cancer treatments. Product liability claims could delay or prevent completion of our development programs. If we succeed in marketing products, such claims could result in an FDA investigation of the safety and effectiveness of our products, our manufacturing processes and facilities, our marketing programs and potentially a recall of our products or more serious enforcement action, limitations on the approved indications for which they may be used or suspension or withdrawal of approvals. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may also result in decreased demand for our products, injury to our reputation, costs to defend the related litigation, a diversion of management's time and our resources, substantial monetary awards to trial participants or patients and a decline in our stock price. Any insurance we have or may obtain may not provide sufficient coverage against potential liabilities. Furthermore, clinical trial and product liability insurance is becoming increasingly expensive. As a result, our partners or we may be unable to obtain sufficient insurance at a reasonable cost to protect us against losses caused by product liability claims that could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Our research, development and manufacturing involve the use of hazardous materials and various chemicals. We maintain quantities of various flammable and toxic chemicals in our facilities that are required for our research, development and manufacturing activities. We are subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations governing the use, manufacture, storage, handling and disposal of these hazardous materials. We believe our procedures for storing, handling and disposing of these materials in our facilities comply with the relevant guidelines of the state of California and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. Although we believe that our safety procedures for handling and disposing of these materials comply with the standards mandated by applicable regulations, the risk of accidental contamination or injury from these materials cannot be eliminated. If an accident occurs, we could be held liable for resulting damages, which could be substantial. We are also subject to numerous environmental, health and workplace safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures, exposure to blood-borne pathogens and the handling of animals and biohazardous materials. Although we maintain workers' compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of these materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. Although we have some environmental liability insurance covering certain of our facilities, we may not maintain adequate insurance for all environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of biological or hazardous materials. Additional federal, state and local laws and regulations affecting our operations may be adopted in the future. We may incur substantial costs to comply with, and substantial fines or penalties if we violate, any of these laws or regulations.

We are exposed to the risk of fraud or other misconduct by our employees, principal investigators, consultants and commercial partners. Misconduct by employees could include intentional failures to comply with FDA regulations, provide accurate information to the FDA, comply with manufacturing standards we may establish, comply with federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse laws and regulations, report financial information or data accurately or disclose unauthorized activities to us. In particular, sales, marketing and business arrangements in the healthcare industry are subject to extensive laws and regulations intended to prevent fraud, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. These laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, sales commission, customer incentive programs and other business arrangements. Such misconduct could also involve the improper use of information obtained in the course of clinical trials, which could result in regulatory sanctions 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 controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to comply with such laws or regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a material and adverse effect on our business and financial condition, including the imposition of significant criminal, civil and administrative fines or other sanctions, such as monetary penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government-funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, integrity obligations, reputational harm and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations.

Healthcare providers and third-party payors, among others, will play a primary role in the prescription and recommendation of any drug candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current and future arrangements with third-party payors, providers and customers, among others, may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we research, market, sell and distribute our drug candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Restrictions under applicable federal and state healthcare laws and regulations, include the following: - the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits, among other things, a person or entity from knowingly and willfully soliciting, offering, paying, receiving or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, to induce or reward either the referral of an individual for, or the purchase, lease order, arranging for or recommendation of, any good, facility, item or service, for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, by a federal healthcare program, such as Medicare or Medicaid. A person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. In addition, a violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute can form the basis for a violation of the federal False Claims Act (discussed below);- federal civil and criminal false claims laws and civil monetary penalties laws, including the federal False Claims Act, which provides for civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, that impose penalties against individuals or entities for knowingly presenting or causing to be presented, to the federal government, claims for payment that are false or fraudulent or making a false statement to avoid, decrease or conceal an obligation to pay money to the federal government. In addition, the government may assert that a claim including items and services resulting from a referral made in violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the False Claims Act;- the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA") which imposes criminal and civil liability for executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program, or knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making any materially false statement in connection with the delivery of, or payment for, healthcare benefits, items or services. Similar to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, a person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation. As amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ("HITECH"), HIPAA also imposes obligations on certain covered entity healthcare providers, health plans and healthcare clearinghouses as well as their business associates and subcontractors that perform certain services involving the use or disclosure of individually identifiable health information, including mandatory contractual terms, with respect to safeguarding the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information, and require notification to affected individuals and regulatory authorities of certain breaches of security of individually identifiable health information;- the federal false statements statute, which prohibits knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing or covering up a material fact or making any materially false statement in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items or services;- the federal transparency requirements known as the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act, created as part of ACA, which requires certain manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program to report annually to the CMS information related to payments and other transfers of value made by that entity to physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors), other healthcare professionals (such as physicians assistants and nurse practitioners) and teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members; and - analogous local, state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws that may apply to healthcare items or services reimbursed by third-party payors, including private insurers; local, state and foreign transparency laws that require manufacturers to report information related to payments and transfers of value to other healthcare providers and healthcare entities, marketing expenditures or drug pricing; state laws that require pharmaceutical companies to register certain employees engaged in marketing activities in the location and comply with the pharmaceutical industry's voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government; and state and foreign laws governing the privacy and security of health information in certain circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts. Ensuring that our future business arrangements with third parties comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations could involve substantial costs. If our operations are found to be in violation of any such requirements, we may be subject to significant penalties, including criminal and significant civil monetary penalties, damages, fines, individual imprisonment, disgorgement, contractual damages, reputational harm, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, integrity obligations, injunctions, recall or seizure of products, total or partial suspension of production, denial or withdrawal of pre-marketing product approvals, private qui tam actions brought by individual whistleblowers in the name of the government, refusal to allow us to enter into supply contracts, including government contracts, additional reporting requirements and oversight if subject to a corporate integrity agreement or similar agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations. Although effective compliance programs can mitigate the risk of investigation and prosecution for violations of these laws, these risks cannot be entirely eliminated. Any action against us for an alleged or suspected violation could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and could divert our management's attention from the operation of our business, even if our defense is successful. In addition, achieving and sustaining compliance with applicable laws and regulations may be costly to us in terms of money, time and resources.

Our business is subject to risks associated with conducting business internationally. Some of our suppliers and clinical trial centers are located outside of the United States, and we are party to an agreement with Hanmi with respect to clinical development and other activities in the Hanmi Territory. Furthermore, if we or any future collaborator succeeds in developing any products, we anticipate marketing them in the European Union and other jurisdictions in addition to the United States. If approved, we or our collaborator may hire sales representatives and conduct physician and patient association outreach activities outside of the United States. Doing business internationally involves a number of risks, including but not limited to: - multiple, conflicting and changing laws and regulations such as privacy regulations, tax laws, export and import restrictions, employment laws, regulatory requirements and other governmental approvals, permits and licenses;- failure by us to obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for the use of our products in various countries;- rejection or qualification of foreign clinical trial data by the competent authorities of other countries;- additional potentially relevant third-party patent and other intellectual property rights that may be necessary to develop and commercialize our products and drug candidates;- complexities and difficulties in obtaining, maintaining, enforcing and defending our patent and other intellectual property rights;- difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations;- complexities associated with managing multiple payor reimbursement regimes, government payors or patient self-pay systems;- limits in our ability to penetrate international markets;- financial risks, such as longer payment cycles, difficulty collecting accounts receivable, the impact of local and regional financial crises on demand and payment for our products and exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations;- natural disasters; political and economic instability, including wars, terrorism and political unrest, including as a result of ongoing overseas conflicts; outbreak of disease; boycotts, curtailment of trade and other business restrictions and implementation of tariffs;- certain expenses, including among others, expenses for travel, translation and insurance; and - regulatory and compliance risks that relate to anti-corruption compliance and record-keeping that may fall within the purview of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, its accounting provisions or its anti-bribery provisions or provisions of anti-corruption or anti-bribery laws in other countries. Any of these factors could harm our ongoing international clinical operations and supply chain, as well as any future international expansion and operations and, consequently, our business, financial condition, prospects and results of operations.

Disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics in regions where we have concentrations of clinical trial sites and other business operations, could adversely affect our business, including by causing significant disruptions in our operations and/or in the operations of manufacturers and CROs we rely on. Disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics may have negative impacts on our ability to initiate new clinical trial sites, enroll new patients and to maintain existing patients who are participating in clinical trials, which may result in increased clinical trial costs, longer timelines and delay in our ability to obtain regulatory approvals of our product candidates, if at all. For example, in March 2020, we temporarily paused enrollment for a few months in the Phase 1b portion of our Phase 1a/1b trial to evaluate zelnecirnon in patients with AD due to circumstances and uncertainties created by the COVID-19 pandemic, including vulnerability of our studied patient populations, site staff shortages, clinical trial site suspensions, reallocation of medical resources and the challenges of working remotely due to shelter-in-place and similar government orders and guidelines, among other factors. General supply chain issues may be exacerbated during disease outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics and may also impact the ability of our clinical trial sites to obtain basic medical supplies used in our trials in a timely fashion, if at all. Moreover, the extent to which disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics may impact our business, results of operations and financial position will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence. New health epidemics or pandemics may emerge that result in similar or more severe disruptions to our business. To the extent any future disease outbreak, epidemic or pandemic adversely affects our business, financial condition, results of operations and growth prospects, it could also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks and uncertainties described in this "Risk Factors" section.