DRS/A
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As confidentially submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 17, 2021 as Amendment No. 1 to the draft Registration Statement

Registration No. 333-                

 

 

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

 

FORM S-1

REGISTRATION STATEMENT

UNDER

THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933

 

 

ICOSAVAX, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

 

Delaware   2836   82-3640549

(State or other jurisdiction of

incorporation or organization)

 

(Primary Standard Industrial

Classification Code Number)

 

(I.R.S. Employer

Identification No.)

1616 Eastlake Avenue E., Suite 208

Seattle, Washington 98102

(206) 737-0085

(Address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of registrant’s principal executive offices)

 

 

Adam Simpson

Chief Executive Officer

Icosavax, Inc.

1616 Eastlake Avenue E., Suite 208

Seattle, Washington 98102

(206) 737-0085

(Name, address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of agent for service)

 

 

Copies to:

 

Cheston J. Larson

Matthew T. Bush

Christopher G. Geissinger

Latham & Watkins LLP

12670 High Bluff Drive

San Diego, California 92130

(858) 523-5400

 

Lisa Firenze

Jeffries L. Oliver-Li

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP

7 World Trade Center

250 Greenwich Street

New York, New York 10007

(212) 230-8800

 

 

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: As soon as practicable after this Registration Statement is declared effective.

If any of the securities being registered on this Form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act of 1933, check the following box.

If this Form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.             

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.             

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.             

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

Large accelerated filer      Accelerated filer  
Non-accelerated filer      Smaller reporting company  
Emerging growth company       

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act.

 

 

CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE

 

 

Title of Each Class of Securities To Be Registered  

Proposed Maximum            

Aggregate Offering Price (1)             

 

Amount of        

Registration Fee (2)        

Common Stock, $0.0001 par value per share

  $               $            

 

 

 

(1)   Estimated solely for the purpose of calculating the registration fee pursuant to Rule 457(o) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Includes shares of common stock that the underwriters have the option to purchase.
(2)   Calculated pursuant to Rule 457(o) based on an estimate of the proposed maximum aggregate offering price.

 

 

The Registrant hereby amends this Registration Statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the Registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this Registration Statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or until the Registration Statement shall become effective on such date as the Commission, acting pursuant to said Section 8(a), may determine.

 

 

 


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The information in this preliminary prospectus is not complete and may be changed. We may not sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This prospectus is not an offer to sell these securities and it is not soliciting an offer to buy these securities in any state where the offer or sale is not permitted.

 

SUBJECT TO COMPLETION, DATED                , 2021

 

PRELIMINARY PROSPECTUS

            Shares

 

LOGO

Common Stock

We are offering                shares of our common stock. This is the initial public offering of our common stock.

Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for our shares. We expect that the initial public offering price will be between $                 and $                 per share. We have applied to list our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “ICVX.”

We are an “emerging growth company” under applicable Securities and Exchange Commission rules and have elected to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements for this prospectus and future filings.

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. Before buying any shares, you should carefully read the discussion of the material risks of investing in our common stock under the heading “Risk Factors” starting on page 12 of this prospectus.

Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission nor any state securities commission approved or disapproved of the securities that may be offered under this prospectus, nor have any of these organizations determined if this prospectus is truthful or complete. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

 

 

    

PER SHARE

    

     TOTAL     

 

Public offering price

   $                        $                    

Underwriting discount (1)

   $        $    

Proceeds, before expenses, to us

   $        $    

 

 

(1)   We refer you to “Underwriting” beginning on page 177 of this prospectus for additional information regarding underwriting compensation.

Delivery of the shares of common stock is expected to be made on or about                 , 2021.

We have granted the underwriters an option for a period of 30 days to purchase an additional                 shares of our common stock. If the underwriters exercise the option in full, the total underwriting discounts and commissions payable by us will be $                 , and the total proceeds to us, before expenses, will be $                .

 

Jefferies   Cowen   Evercore ISI   William Blair

The date of this prospectus is                , 2021.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

     PAGE  

PROSPECTUS SUMMARY

     1  

RISK FACTORS

     12  

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

     65  

MARKET AND INDUSTRY DATA

     66  

USE OF PROCEEDS

     67  

DIVIDEND POLICY

     69  

CAPITALIZATION

     70  

DILUTION

     72  

SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

     75  

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

     77  

BUSINESS

     93  

MANAGEMENT

     136  

EXECUTIVE AND DIRECTOR COMPENSATION

     144  

CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED PERSON TRANSACTIONS

     161  

PRINCIPAL STOCKHOLDERS

     164  

DESCRIPTION OF CAPITAL STOCK

     166  

SHARES ELIGIBLE FOR FUTURE SALE

     171  

MATERIAL UNITED STATES FEDERAL INCOME TAX CONSEQUENCES TO NON-U.S. HOLDERS

     173  

UNDERWRITING

     177  

LEGAL MATTERS

     185  

EXPERTS

     186  

WHERE YOU CAN FIND MORE INFORMATION

     187  

INDEX TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

     F-1  

 

 

 


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Neither we nor the underwriters have authorized anyone to provide you with information other than that contained in this prospectus or any free writing prospectus prepared by or on behalf of us or to which we have referred you. We and the underwriters take no responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may give you. We and the underwriters are offering to sell, and seeking offers to buy, common stock only in jurisdictions where offers and sales are permitted. The information contained in this prospectus or any free writing prospectus is accurate only as of its date, regardless of its time of delivery or of any sale of shares of our common stock. Our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may have changed since that date.

Through and including                , 2021 (the 25th day after the date of this prospectus), all dealers effecting transactions in these securities, whether or not participating in this offering, may be required to deliver a prospectus. This delivery is in addition to a dealer’s obligation to deliver a prospectus when acting as an underwriter and with respect to an unsold allotment or subscription.

For investors outside of the United States: We have not, and the underwriters have not, done anything that would permit this offering or possession or distribution of this prospectus in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required, other than the United States. Persons outside of the United States who come into possession of this prospectus must inform themselves about, and observe any restrictions relating to, the offering of the shares of common stock and the distribution of this prospectus outside of the United States.


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PROSPECTUS SUMMARY

This summary highlights information contained elsewhere in this prospectus. This summary does not contain all of the information you should consider before investing in our common stock. You should read this entire prospectus carefully, especially the sections titled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, before making an investment decision. As used in this prospectus, unless the context otherwise requires, references to “we,” “us,” “our,” “the Company” and “Icosavax” refer to Icosavax, Inc.

Overview

We are a biopharmaceutical company leveraging our innovative virus-like particle (VLP) platform technology to develop vaccines against infectious diseases, with an initial focus on life-threatening respiratory diseases. Our VLP platform technology is designed to enable multivalent, particle-based display of complex viral antigens, which we believe will induce broad, robust, and durable protection against the specific viruses targeted. Our pipeline includes vaccine candidates targeting some of the most prevalent viral causes of pneumonia. We are developing these candidates for older adults, a patient population with high unmet need. Our vaccine candidate IVX-A12 is a bivalent candidate, or a mixture of two different VLP candidates. IVX-A12 combines IVX-121, a vaccine candidate designed to target respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and IVX-241, a vaccine candidate designed to target human metapneumovirus (hMPV). There are currently no vaccines approved for either RSV or hMPV, which are two common causes of pneumonia in older adults. We filed a clinical trial application (CTA) for IVX-121 with the regulatory authority in Belgium (FAMHP) in June 2021 and plan to initiate a clinical trial of IVX-121 in the second half 2021, with topline data expected in the first half of 2022. Assuming favorable results from the IVX-121 clinical trial and favorable preclinical data for IVX-241, we plan to submit an investigational new drug application (IND) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the first half of 2022 and, thereafter, initiate a clinical trial of our combination vaccine candidate, IVX-A12, in the second half of 2022. Additionally, we are developing two severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine candidates, IVX-411 and IVX-421, and initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of IVX-411 in Australia in June 2021, with proof-of-concept data expected in the first half of 2022. We believe that our pipeline and platform can deliver a meaningful impact globally in preventing life-threatening infectious diseases.

Global Vaccine Market Opportunity

The global market for vaccines was over $50 billion in 2020, of which over $12.5 billion was from vaccines for influenza and pneumococcus, two of the leading causes of pneumonia. Lower respiratory infection, including pneumonia, is the leading cause of death and hospitalization from infections and the fourth highest cause of death globally. Older adults are particularly susceptible to respiratory pathogens and it is estimated that prior to COVID-19, lower respiratory infection caused over one million deaths globally in people over the age of 70 every year. RSV is estimated to cause 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths in adults 65 years of age or older annually in the United States alone. Many of the viral causes of pneumonia have no approved vaccines, limited treatment options, and result in high morbidity and mortality in the older adult population. There are currently no marketed vaccines for RSV or hMPV, two common causes of pneumonia.

Our Two-Component Computationally Designed VLP Technology

Our technology platform is based on the VLP approach to vaccine development. VLPs enable multivalent display of antigens in a manner that closely resembles viruses but contain no genetic material. Approved vaccines that are derived from naturally occurring VLPs have shown efficacy when formulated as combination vaccines and have shown the ability to induce high and sustained levels (titers) of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) in adults, which have generally been associated with protective immunity. However, VLPs engineered to display complex viral antigens have in general been difficult to develop or successfully manufacture at scale, limiting the pathogens that can be addressed by this approach.



 

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Our vaccine technology was licensed from the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington (UW IPD) and is designed to enable the application of VLP-based vaccines against a broader array of pathogens than has been possible with naturally occurring VLPs and to overcome the manufacturing challenges experienced with these VLPs as well as other VLP technologies. Our licensed VLP technology encompasses VLPs formed from two protein components that are separately produced using traditional recombinant protein manufacturing techniques. The antigenic Component A consists of a trimeric protein that is genetically fused to the target antigen of interest and produced in eukaryotic cells. The second protein, Component B, is a pentameric structural protein that is produced by bacterial fermentation and is common across all candidates in our pipeline.

 

 

LOGO

Using our VLP platform technology we engineer vaccine candidates comprised of self-assembling proteins that are designed to have the following potential benefits:

 

   

Robust, durable, and broad immune responses. The icosahedral symmetry of our VLPs mimics viral geometry and is designed to allow for increased antigen density, which is known to trigger robust B cell responses. We believe that preclinical data support the potential of our platform to generate VLPs that induce high nAb levels, durable immunogenicity and cross-protection against related viral strains.

 

   

Potential to display complex heterologous antigens. Our approach allows for the multivalent display of complex antigens that would not normally form into VLPs.

 

   

Highly scalable manufacturing and ease of purification. Our two-component technology facilitates the use of standard, scalable recombinant protein methods for vaccine manufacturing and purification with well-established cell line and fermentation technologies.

 

   

Increased antigen stability. Our VLPs are designed to confer increased stability to our vaccine candidates, which we believe will allow for improved storage and distribution.



 

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Our Programs

Our initial focus is on developing vaccine candidates for viral causes of pneumonia in older adults. The following chart summarizes our current candidates.

 

LOGO

 

*^   VLP technology underlying all candidates is licensed from the University of Washington
*   Icosavax does not plan to pursue the IVX-121 RSV monovalent candidate as a standalone candidate for RSV in older adults, and plans to transition development to the IVX-A12 bivalent RSV/hMPV candidate following Phase 1. The RSV antigen incorporated into IVX-121 is licensed from the National Institutes of Health; key mutations in the hMPV antigen incorporated into IVX-A12 are licensed from the National Institute of Health and the University of Texas at Austin
^   Icosavax has worldwide nonexclusive rights with exception of South Korea, along with an option to convert to exclusive rights in North America and Europe

IVX-A12 (RSV-hMPV vaccine candidate), a bivalent combination of IVX-121 (RSV vaccine candidate) and IVX-241 (hMPV vaccine candidate)

IVX-A12 is a bivalent combination of IVX-121, which is designed to target RSV, and IVX-241, which is designed to target hMPV. IVX-121 and IVX-241 have been designed to display prefusion stabilized F antigens of RSV and hMPV, respectively. The F (fusion) proteins of these viruses are critical for viral entry. F proteins are also one of the main targets for nAbs and are a focus of most vaccine efforts for respiratory viruses such as RSV and hMPV. We have licensed a prefusion stabilized form of the RSV F antigen, DS-Cav1, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that has been demonstrated in clinical trials conducted by the NIH to be a robust immunogen. An initial clinical trial with DS-Cav1 showed an induction of nAb titers much higher than had previously been seen with other vaccine approaches to RSV. We have incorporated DS-Cav1 into our VLP candidate IVX-121. Preclinical data with hMPV antigens provide support for the F antigen as a potential target for protective immunity, and we have incorporated a prefusion F antigen into our VLP candidate IVX-241. The prefusion F antigen in IVX-241 incorporates key mutations that we have licensed from the NIH and the University of Texas at Austin (UT). We plan to assess different ratios of IVX-121 and IVX-241 in preclinical studies in an effort to identify the ratio least likely to induce immunologic interference between product candidates prior to initiating clinical trials of IVX-A12. We also plan to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the optimal ratio of IVX-121 to IVX-241 in humans. We believe that multivalent display of these prefusion F antigens on the surface of our VLPs has the potential to induce a robust nAb response capable of conferring protection against infection of both viruses, which we also plan to assess in clinical trials.

We plan to initiate clinical development of IVX-A12 with a clinical trial of IVX-121. We filed a CTA in Belgium for IVX-121 in June 2021 and plan to initiate a Phase 1/1b clinical trial in the second half of 2021 to assess the safety and immunogenicity of IVX-121 in adults aged 18-45 and 60-75. We expect to report topline data from this trial in the first half of 2022. Assuming favorable results, we plan to submit an IND to the FDA and, thereafter, initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial of IVX-A12 in the second half of 2022 to assess its safety and immunogenicity in adults aged 18-45 and 60-85, though we have not yet discussed this development plan with the FDA. We believe that a bivalent VLP vaccine targeting RSV and hMPV is the optimal approach to prevent these two common causes of pneumonia, neither of which has an approved vaccine to date.

SARS-CoV-2

In addition to RSV and hMPV, we are developing two SARS-CoV-2 VLP vaccine candidates, IVX-411 and IVX-421. IVX-411 is designed to present 60 copies of the receptor binding domain (RBD) protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus



 

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strain first identified in China (original viral strain). IVX-421 has been designed with a similar structure and incorporates the key B.1.351 RBD mutations found in the variant strain first identified in South Africa (beta variant strain). For our SARS-CoV-2 candidates, we have a license from the University of Washington (UW) that is nonexclusive with an option for an exclusive license in the United States and EU. SK Biosciences (SK) has also licensed the technology for use in SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. SK has initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in South Korea for a product candidate similar to IVX-411 and is also pursuing variant vaccine candidates.

The SARS-CoV-2 vaccine landscape is currently very crowded, with several vaccines having received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA and similar authorizations from other regulatory authorities, as well as additional vaccine candidates in development. However, we believe that given the global demand for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, our vaccine candidates, if successfully developed and approved, may help address specific gaps in access, either as primary vaccines or as boosters to already authorized vaccines. In October 2020, we announced a grant for $10 million, awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a global non-profit dedicated to improving global health. We are using this grant to evaluate IVX-411 in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial that we initiated in Australia in June 2021 where we plan to assess its safety and potential to induce a robust functional immune response against the original viral strain as well as emerging viral variants. In this clinical trial, we will also be evaluating the potential of IVX-411 to stimulate increased nAb titers in previously vaccinated individuals for its potential use as a booster vaccine. We are also planning to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the potential of IVX-411 to stimulate increased nAb titers in previously infected individuals. We will evaluate our plans for the clinical development of IVX-421 based on the initial results from these trials as well as the results of additional preclinical studies planned to evaluate IVX-421.

Our Strategy

Our goal is to utilize our VLP platform technology to develop vaccines against infectious diseases with an initial focus on life-threatening respiratory diseases. Key elements of our strategy include:

 

   

advancing our combination RSV-hMPV VLP vaccine candidate, IVX-A12, through clinical development and regulatory approval for the prevention of respiratory disease and pneumonia in older adults;

 

   

leveraging our VLP platform technology to pursue additional vaccine candidates in indications with high unmet need;

 

   

building manufacturing scale-up capability early in the development process;

 

   

further optimizing our VLP platform technology; and

 

   

maximizing the value of our vaccine candidates through selective partnerships.

Our Team and Investors

We were formed in 2017 to advance the breakthrough VLP technology from the UW IPD with the goal to discover, develop, and commercialize vaccines against infectious diseases. We have assembled an experienced management team, board of directors, and scientific advisory board, who bring extensive industry experience to our company. Our scientific co-founders, Neil King and David Baker, are world leaders in protein design. The Chair of our Board of Directors, Tachi Yamada, is a leader in vaccine development, as the previous head of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as the previous Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Takeda responsible for expanding their vaccine business unit. Our CEO, Adam Simpson, has over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, and previously served as CEO of PvP Biologics, a company based on IPD recombinant protein technology, which was acquired by Takeda. Other members of our executive team have deep experience in discovering, developing, manufacturing, and commercializing pharmaceuticals, including vaccines. This includes having worked at major pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Takeda, Gilead, and Merck.

Since our inception we have raised over $150 million from leading investors in the life science and biotechnology industry. Investors with 5% or greater ownership are Qiming Venture Partners USA, Adams Street Partners, RA Capital Management, Sanofi Ventures and ND Capital.



 

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Summary of Risks Related to Our Business

Our ability to execute our business strategy is subject to numerous risks, as more fully described in “Risk Factors” immediately following this Prospectus Summary. These risks include, among others:

 

   

We have a limited operating history, have incurred significant operating losses since our inception and expect to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future. We may never generate any revenue or become profitable or, if we achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain it.

 

   

We will require substantial additional financing to achieve our goals, and a failure to obtain this necessary capital when needed on acceptable terms, or at all, could force us to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our development programs, commercialization efforts or other operations.

 

   

We are early in our development efforts and all but one of our development programs are still in preclinical development. If we are unable to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approval or ultimately commercialize vaccine candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be materially harmed.

 

   

Our approach to the discovery and development of vaccine candidates is unproven, including our plan to pursue combination vaccine candidates using our VLP technology, and we do not know whether we will be able to develop any products of commercial value, or if competing approaches will limit the commercial value of our vaccine candidates.

 

   

Our business is highly dependent on the success of IVX-A12, which is in the early stages of development. If we are unable to obtain approval for IVX-A12 or effectively commercialize IVX-A12, our business would be significantly harmed.

 

   

Preclinical and clinical development involves a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome, and the results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials are not necessarily predictive of future results. We have not completed clinical trials for any of our vaccine candidates and we may not have favorable results in preclinical studies or clinical trials, or receive regulatory approval on a timely basis, if at all.

 

   

Any difficulties or delays in the commencement or completion, or the termination or suspension, of our planned clinical trials could result in increased costs to us, delay or limit our ability to generate revenue or adversely affect our commercial prospects.

 

   

We rely on third parties to conduct many of our preclinical studies and clinical trials. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, comply with applicable regulatory requirements or meet expected deadlines, our development programs and our ability to seek or obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our vaccine candidates may be delayed.

 

   

We rely on third parties for the manufacture of our vaccine candidates for preclinical and clinical development and expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This reliance on third parties increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our vaccine candidates or products or such quantities at an acceptable cost, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.

 

   

We face significant competition, and if our competitors develop technologies or vaccine candidates more rapidly than we do or their technologies are more effective, our business and our ability to develop and successfully commercialize products may be adversely affected.

 

   

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes our future operating results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or any guidance we may provide.

 

   

Our business is subject to risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and other epidemic diseases.

 

   

If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for our vaccine candidates, or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our vaccine candidates may be adversely affected.



 

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We rely heavily on certain license agreements with the UW and also depend on intellectual property licensed from other third parties, and these licensors may not always act in our best interest. If we fail to comply with our obligations under our intellectual property licenses, if the licenses are terminated, or if disputes regarding these licenses arise, we could lose significant rights that are important to our business.

Corporate Information

We were originally founded as a Delaware corporation on November 1, 2017. Our principal executive offices are located at 1616 Eastlake Avenue E., Suite 208, Seattle, Washington 98102, and our telephone number is (206) 737-0085. Our website address is www.icosavax.com. The information contained in, or accessible

through, our website does not constitute part of this prospectus. We have included our website address as an inactive textual reference only.

We use our trademarks in this prospectus as well as trademarks, tradenames and service marks that are the property of other organizations. Solely for convenience, trademarks and tradenames referred to in this prospectus appear without the ® and symbols, but those references are not intended to indicate, in any way, that we will not assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, our rights or that the applicable owner will not assert its rights, to these trademarks and tradenames.

Implications of Being an Emerging Growth Company and a Smaller Reporting Company

We qualify as an “emerging growth company” as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (the JOBS Act). As an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of reduced reporting requirements that are otherwise applicable to public companies. These provisions include, but are not limited to:

 

   

being permitted to provide only two years of audited financial statements, in addition to any required unaudited interim financial statements, with correspondingly reduced “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” disclosure;

 

   

not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended (Sarbanes-Oxley);

 

   

not being required to comply with any requirement that may be adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regarding mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor’s report providing additional information about the audit and the financial statements, unless the SEC determines the new rules are necessary for protecting the public;

 

   

reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation; and

 

   

exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved.

We may take advantage of these provisions until the last day of our fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the date of the first sale of our common equity securities pursuant to an effective registration statement under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act), which such fifth anniversary will occur in 2026. However, if certain events occur prior to the end of such five-year period, including if we become a “large accelerated filer” as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act), our annual gross revenues exceed $1.07 billion or we issue more than $1.0 billion of non-convertible debt in any three-year period, we will cease to be an emerging growth company prior to the end of such five-year period.

We have elected to take advantage of certain of the reduced disclosure obligations in this prospectus and in the registration statement of which this prospectus is a part and may elect to take advantage of other reduced reporting requirements in future filings. As a result, the information in this prospectus and that we provide to our stockholders in the future may be different than what you might receive from other public reporting companies in which you hold equity interests.



 

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In addition, the JOBS Act provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. We have irrevocably elected not to avail ourselves of this exemption and, therefore, we will be subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. We intend to rely on other exemptions provided by the JOBS Act, including without limitation, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley.

We are also a smaller reporting company as defined in the Exchange Act. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company even after we are no longer an emerging growth company. We may take advantage of certain of the scaled disclosures available to smaller reporting companies and will be able to take advantage of these scaled disclosures for so long as our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $250.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter, or our annual revenue is less than $100.0 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $700.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter.



 

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THE OFFERING

 

Common stock offered by us

                shares.

 

Common stock to be outstanding immediately after this offering

                shares (or                shares if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares of common stock in full).

 

Option to purchase additional shares

The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to a total of                 additional shares of our common stock.

 

Use of proceeds

We estimate that the net proceeds from this offering will be approximately $            million (or approximately $            million if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full), based on an assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commission and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

 

  We intend to use the net proceeds of this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, to fund the continued development of IVX-A12, to fund ongoing development of our other vaccine candidates and for working capital and general corporate purposes. See the section titled “Use of Proceeds.”

 

Risk factors

See the section titled “Risk Factors” and other information included in this prospectus for a discussion of factors you should consider carefully before deciding to invest in our common stock.

 

Directed share program

At our request, the underwriters have reserved up to     % of the shares offered by this prospectus for sale at the initial public offering price in a directed share program to our directors, officers, employees and related persons. The number of shares of common stock available for sale to the general public in the offering will be reduced to the extent these persons purchase the directed shares in the program. Any directed shares not so purchased will be offered by the underwriters to the general public on the same terms as the other shares. Directed shares purchased in the program will not be subject to a lock-up restriction, with the exception of directed shares purchased by our directors and officers, which will be subject to a 180-day lock-up restriction. See the section titled “Underwriting” for additional information.

 

Proposed Nasdaq Global Select Market symbol

ICVX

The number of shares of our common stock to be outstanding after this offering set forth above is based on 105,457,508 shares of our common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2021, including 3,531,896 shares subject to forfeiture or our right of repurchase, after giving effect to the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into 89,908,215 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the closing of this offering, and excludes:

 

   

7,137,239 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of outstanding stock options as of March 31, 2021, at a weighted-average exercise price of $0.24 per share;



 

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14,187,099 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options granted after March 31, 2021, at a weighted-average exercise price of $1.48 per share;

 

   

                shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2021 Incentive Plan (the 2021 Plan), which will become effective in connection with this offering (which number does not include any potential evergreen increases pursuant to the terms of the 2021 Plan); and

 

   

                shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2021 Employee Stock Purchase Plan (the ESPP), which will become effective in connection with this offering (which number does not include any potential evergreen increases pursuant to the terms of the ESPP).

Unless otherwise indicated, all information contained in this prospectus assumes or gives effect to:

 

   

the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and the adoption of our amended and restated bylaws, each of which will occur immediately prior to the closing of this offering;

 

   

the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into 89,908,215 shares of our common stock immediately prior to the closing of this offering;

 

   

a     -for-     reverse stock split of our common stock to be effected before the closing of this offering;

 

   

no exercise of the outstanding options described above; and

 

   

no exercise by the underwriters of their option to purchase                 additional shares of our common stock.



 

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SUMMARY FINANCIAL DATA

The following tables summarize our financial data as of and for the periods indicated. We have derived the summary statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020 from our audited financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have derived the summary statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021 and the summary balance sheet data as of March 31, 2021 from our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our unaudited interim condensed financial statements have been prepared on a basis consistent with our audited financial statements and, in the opinion of management, reflect all adjustments, consisting solely of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for the fair presentation of the financial information in those statements.

Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected in the future. The following summary financial data should be read in conjunction with the section of this prospectus titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our audited financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus.

 

 

 

    YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31,     THREE MONTHS ENDED
MARCH 31,
 
    2019     2020         2020             2021      
                (unaudited)  
    (in thousands, except
share and per share data)
 

Statement of Operations and Comprehensive Loss Data:

       

Grant revenue

  $     $ 1,616     $     $ 2,001  

Operating expenses:

       

Research and development

  $ 4,157     $ 17,667     $ 2,920     $ 5,553  

General and administrative

    1,241       2,659       612       1,091  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

    5,398       20,326       3,532       6,644  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss from operations

    (5,398     (18,710     (3,532     (4,643

Other income (expense):

       

Change in fair value of derivative liability

          187             (205

Loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note

                      (754

Interest and other income (expense)

    101       (331     61       (249
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total other income (expense)

    101       (144     61       (1,208
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss and comprehensive loss

  $ (5,297   $ (18,854   $ (3,471     (5,851

Series 1 preferred stock dividends

    (272                  

Series 1 preferred stock extinguishment

    (400                  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss attributable to common stockholders

  $ (5,969     (18,854   $ (3,471   $ (5,851
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (1)

  $ (0.90   $ (2.02   $ (0.42   $ (0.51
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Weighted-average shares of common stock outstanding, basic and diluted (1)

    6,600,083       9,331,305       8,213,516       11,512,118  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (unaudited) (2)

    $ (0.44     $ (0.09
   

 

 

     

 

 

 

Pro forma weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted (unaudited) (2)

      42,557,462         63,225,300  
   

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 



 

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(1)    See Note 2 to our audited financial statements and Note 2 to our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for an explanation of the method used to calculate the basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders and the number of shares used in the computation of the per share amounts.

 

(2)    The calculations for the unaudited pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted, for the year ended December 31, 2020, exclude the $187,000 change in fair value of the derivative liability and $417,000 of interest expense from the convertible notes, resulting in pro forma net loss attributable to common stockholders of $18.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The unaudited pro forma weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted, assume the conversion of all our outstanding shares of preferred stock into 32,198,879 shares of our common stock, as if the conversion had occurred at the beginning of the period presented, or the issuance date, if later, and the conversion of our convertible notes into shares of our common stock, resulting in an additional 1,027,278 weighted average shares of our common stock.

The calculations for the unaudited pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted, for the three months ended March 31, 2021, exclude the $205,000 change in fair value of the derivative liability and $264,000 of interest expense from the convertible notes, resulting in pro forma net loss attributable to common stockholders of $5.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. The unaudited pro forma weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted, assume the conversion of all our outstanding shares of preferred stock into 49,312,622 shares of our common stock, as if the conversion had occurred at the beginning of the period presented, or the issuance date, if later, and the conversion of our convertible notes into shares of our common stock, resulting in an additional 2,400,561 weighted average shares of our common stock.

 

 

 

     AS OF MARCH 31, 2021  
     ACTUAL     PRO FORMA (1)     PRO FORMA
AS ADJUSTED (2)(3)
 
    

(unaudited)

(in thousands)

 

Balance Sheet Data:

      

Cash and restricted cash

   $ 124,961     $ 124,961   $              

Working capital (4)

     119,539       119,539    

Total assets

     125,411       125,411    

Total liabilities

     5,959       5,959    

Convertible preferred stock

     151,638          

Accumulated deficit

     (32,949     (32,949  

Total stockholders’ (deficit) equity

     (32,186     119,452    

 

 

(1)    Gives effect to (i) the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 89,908,215 shares of our common stock and the related reclassification of the convertible preferred stock to permanent equity in connection with the closing of this offering and (ii) the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, which will occur immediately prior to the closing of this offering.

 

(2)    Gives effect to (i) the pro forma adjustments set forth above and (ii) our sale of                shares of common stock in this offering at an assumed initial public offering price of $            per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

 

(3)    Pro forma as adjusted balance sheet data is illustrative only and will change based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing. Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $            per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) pro forma as adjusted cash and restricted cash, working capital, total assets and total stockholders’ deficit by approximately $                million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. A one million share increase (decrease) in the number of shares offered by us would increase or decrease pro forma as adjusted cash and restricted cash, working capital, total assets and total stockholders’ deficit by approximately $                million, assuming that the assumed initial offering price to the public remains the same, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions.

 

(4)    We define working capital as current assets less current liabilities. See our financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus for further details regarding our current assets and current liabilities.


 

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RISK FACTORS

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should consider carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this prospectus, including our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus and the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”, before making an investment decision. If any of the following risks are realized, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the trading price of our common stock could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial also may impair our business operations. This prospectus also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including the risks described below. See “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.”

Risks Related to Our Limited Operating History, Financial Position and Capital Requirements

We have a limited operating history, have incurred significant operating losses since our inception and expect to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future. We may never generate any revenue or become profitable or, if we achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain it.

Biopharmaceutical product development is a highly speculative undertaking and involves a substantial degree of risk. We are a biopharmaceutical company with a limited operating history upon which you can evaluate our business and prospects. We commenced operations in 2017, and, to date, we have focused primarily on organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, in-licensing intellectual property rights related to and developing our VLP platform technology, identifying vaccine candidates, establishing our intellectual property portfolio, process development for manufacturing, manufacturing our product candidates to support preclinical studies and clinical trials, and preparing for our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and clinical trials. Our approach to the discovery and development of vaccine candidates based on our VLP platform technology is unproven, and we do not know if any of our vaccine candidates will succeed in clinical development or become products of commercial value.

Only one of our vaccine candidates is in the clinical stage and the rest are in the preclinical stage. We have not yet completed any clinical trials, obtained regulatory approvals, manufactured a commercial-scale product or arranged for a third party to do so on our behalf, or conducted sales and marketing activities necessary for successful product commercialization. Consequently, any predictions made about our future success or viability may not be as accurate as they would be if we had a history of successfully developing and commercializing vaccines.

We have incurred significant operating losses since our inception. We do not have any products approved for sale and have not generated any revenue since our inception. If our vaccine candidates are not successfully developed and approved, we may never generate any significant revenue. Our net losses were $5.3 million and $18.9 million for the years ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2020, respectively, and $5.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. As of March 31, 2021, we had an accumulated deficit of $32.9 million. Substantially all of our losses have resulted from expenses incurred in connection with our research and development programs and from general and administrative costs associated with our operations. All of our vaccine candidates will require substantial additional development time and resources before we would be able to apply for or receive regulatory approvals and begin generating revenue from product sales. We expect to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future, and we anticipate these losses will increase substantially as we continue our development of, seek regulatory approval for and potentially commercialize any of our vaccine candidates and seek to identify, assess, acquire, in-license or develop additional vaccine candidates.

To become and remain profitable, we must succeed in developing and eventually commercializing products that generate significant revenue. This will require us to be successful in a range of challenging activities, including completing preclinical studies and clinical trials of our vaccine candidates, obtaining regulatory approval for these vaccine candidates, and manufacturing, marketing and selling any products for which we may obtain regulatory approval. We are only in the preliminary stages of most of these activities. We may never succeed in these activities and, even if we do, may never generate revenues that are significant enough to achieve profitability. In addition, we have not yet demonstrated an ability to successfully overcome many of the risks and uncertainties frequently

 

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encountered by companies in new and rapidly evolving fields, particularly in the biopharmaceutical industry. Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with biopharmaceutical product development, we are unable to accurately predict the timing or amount of increased expenses or when or if, we will be able to achieve profitability. Even if we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to become and remain profitable may have an adverse effect on the value of our company and could impair our ability to raise capital, expand our business, maintain our research and development efforts, diversify our vaccine candidates or even continue our operations. A decline in the value of our company could also cause you to lose all or part of your investment.

We will require substantial additional financing to achieve our goals, and a failure to obtain this necessary capital when needed on acceptable terms, or at all, could force us to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our development programs, commercialization efforts or other operations.

The development of vaccine candidates is capital-intensive. We expect our expenses to increase in connection with our ongoing activities, particularly as we conduct our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and clinical trials for our vaccine candidates and seek regulatory approval for our current vaccine candidates and any future vaccine candidates we may develop. In addition, if we are able to progress our vaccine candidates through development and commercialization, we will need to make milestone payments to the licensors and other third parties from whom we have in-licensed or acquired our VLP platform technology or other technologies necessary for our vaccine candidates. If we obtain regulatory approval for any of our vaccine candidates, we also expect to incur significant commercialization expenses related to product manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution. Because the outcome of any preclinical study or clinical trial is highly uncertain, we cannot reliably estimate the actual amounts necessary to successfully complete the development and commercialization of our vaccine candidates. Furthermore, following the completion of this offering, we expect to incur additional costs associated with operating as a public company.

Based on our current operating plan, we believe that the net proceeds from this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, will enable us to fund our operations for at least the next          months from the date of this prospectus. In particular, we expect that the net proceeds from this offering and our existing cash will allow us to         . We have based these estimates on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could use our capital resources sooner than we currently expect. The net proceeds of this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, will not be sufficient to complete development of IVX-A12, IVX-411, or any other vaccine candidate, and after this offering, we will require substantial capital in order to advance our current and future vaccine candidates through clinical trials, regulatory approval and commercialization. Accordingly, we will need to obtain substantial additional funding in connection with our continuing operations. If we are unable to raise capital when needed or on attractive terms, we could be forced to delay, reduce or eliminate our research and development programs or any future commercialization efforts.

Our operating plans and other demands on our cash resources may change as a result of many factors currently unknown to us, and we may need to seek additional funds sooner than planned, through public or private equity or debt financings or other capital sources, including potential collaborations, licenses, non-dilutive sources of financing, such as grants, and other similar arrangements. In addition, we may seek additional capital due to favorable market conditions or strategic considerations even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans. Attempting to secure additional financing may divert our management from our day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop our vaccine candidates.

Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including, but not limited to:

 

   

the initiation, type, number, scope, results, costs and timing of, our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and clinical trials of our vaccine candidates or other potential product candidates we may choose to pursue in the future, including any modifications to our preclinical or clinical development plans based on feedback that we may receive from regulatory authorities;

 

   

the costs and timing of manufacturing for current or future product candidates, including commercial scale manufacturing, if any product candidate is approved;

 

   

the costs, timing and outcome of regulatory reviews of current or future product candidates;

 

   

any delays and cost increases that may result from the COVID-19 pandemic;

 

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the costs of obtaining, maintaining and enforcing our patents and other intellectual property rights;

 

   

our efforts to enhance operational systems and hire additional personnel to satisfy our obligations as a public company, including enhanced internal controls over financial reporting;

 

   

the costs associated with hiring additional personnel and consultants as our business grows, including additional executive officers and clinical development personnel;

 

   

the terms and timing of establishing and maintaining collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements;

 

   

the timing and amount of the milestone or other payments we must make to current and future licensors;

 

   

the costs and timing of establishing or securing sales and marketing capabilities if any current or future product candidates are approved;

 

   

our ability to achieve sufficient market acceptance, coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors and adequate market share and revenue for any approved products;

 

   

vaccine recipients’ willingness to pay out-of-pocket for any approved products in the absence of coverage and/or adequate reimbursement from third-party payors; and

 

   

costs associated with any products or technologies that we may in-license or acquire.

Further, identifying potential vaccine candidates and conducting preclinical studies and clinical trials is a time consuming, expensive and uncertain process that takes years to complete, and we may never generate the necessary data or results required to obtain regulatory approval and commercialize our vaccine candidates. If approved, our vaccine candidates may not achieve commercial success. Our commercial revenues, if any, will be derived from sales of products that we do not expect to be commercially available for many years, if at all. Accordingly, we will need to continue to rely on additional financing to achieve our business objectives. Adequate additional financing may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all.

Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders, including purchasers of common stock in this offering, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or vaccine candidates.

Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial product revenues, we expect to finance our cash needs through equity offerings, debt financings, or other capital sources, including potential collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements. In addition, though we may seek non-dilutive grant funding or collaborations to fund the continued development, preclinical studies and clinical trials of our Sars-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, we may not be successful in securing such funding in a sufficient amount, if at all. We do not have any committed external source of funds. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, your ownership interest may be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect your rights as a common stockholder. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. Such restrictions could adversely impact our ability to conduct our operations and execute our business plan.

If we raise additional funds through future collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements, we may be required to relinquish valuable rights to our future revenue streams, research programs, vaccine candidates or proprietary technology, or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us and/or that may reduce the value of our common stock. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings or other arrangements when needed or on terms acceptable to us, we would be required to delay, limit, reduce, or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market vaccine candidates that we might otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.

 

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Risks Related to the Discovery, Development and Regulatory Approval of Our Vaccine Candidates

We are early in our development efforts and all but one of our development programs are still in preclinical development. If we are unable to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approval or ultimately commercialize vaccine candidates, or experience significant delays in doing so, our business will be materially harmed.

We are early in our development efforts and have only one vaccine candidate, IVX-411, in clinical development and four vaccine candidates, IVX-121, IVX-241, IVX-421 and IVX-A12, in preclinical development. Our ability to generate product revenues, which we do not expect will occur for many years, if ever, will depend heavily on the successful development and eventual commercialization of our vaccine candidates. The success of our vaccine candidates will depend on several factors, including the following:

 

   

successful completion of preclinical studies with favorable results, including toxicology and other studies designed to be compliant with good laboratory practices (GLP) and dose finding studies in animals;

 

   

acceptance of INDs by the FDA, or of similar regulatory filings by comparable foreign regulatory authorities for the conduct of clinical trials of our vaccine candidates and our proposed design of future clinical trials;

 

   

successful initiation and enrollment of clinical trials and completion of clinical trials with favorable results;

 

   

demonstrating the safety, purity, immunogenicity and efficacy of our vaccine candidates to the satisfaction of applicable regulatory authorities;

 

   

receipt of marketing approvals from applicable regulatory authorities, including approvals of biologics license applications (BLAs) from the FDA, and maintaining such approvals;

 

   

making arrangements with our third-party manufacturers for, or establishing, commercial manufacturing capabilities;

 

   

establishing sales, marketing and distribution capabilities and launching commercial sales of our products, if and when approved, whether alone or in collaboration with others;

 

   

establishing and maintaining patent and trade secret protection or regulatory exclusivity for our vaccine candidates;

 

   

maintaining an acceptable safety profile of our products following approval; and

 

   

maintaining and growing an organization of people who can develop and commercialize our products and technology.

In addition, our development plan for our IVX-A12 program targets the population of adults greater than 60 years of age. Our interactions and feedback from regulatory agencies could limit our target population to a subset of this population such as a more narrow age range or individuals without certain underlying health conditions common within this age range. These restrictions could negatively impact our ability to complete clinical trials along our planned timeline and could limit our commercial potential.

If we are unable to develop, obtain regulatory approval for, or, if approved, successfully commercialize our vaccine candidates, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to continue our business.

Our approach to the discovery and development of vaccine candidates is unproven, including our plan to pursue combination vaccine candidates using our VLP technology, and we do not know whether we will be able to develop any products of commercial value, or if competing approaches will limit the commercial value of our vaccine candidates.

The success of our business depends primarily upon our ability to identify, develop and commercialize our vaccine candidates based on our VLP platform technology. While there are a number of approved vaccines based on VLPs, we have not yet succeeded and may not succeed in demonstrating safety, purity, immunogenicity, and/or efficacy for any vaccine candidates based on our VLP platform technology in clinical trials or in obtaining marketing approval thereafter. IVX-A12 is in the late preclinical development stage, and we have not yet submitted an IND or commenced or completed any clinical trials for this candidate. In addition, while we believe our pipeline will yield multiple additional INDs for our development programs in the future, we may not be successful in our discovery efforts, and even if successful, we may not be able to submit INDs and have such INDs authorized to enable us to commence clinical trials on the timelines we expect, if at all. Our research methodology and VLP technology may be unsuccessful in identifying additional vaccine candidates, and any vaccine candidates may be shown to have harmful side effects or may have other characteristics that may necessitate additional clinical testing

 

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or make the vaccine candidates unmarketable or unlikely to receive marketing approval. 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. Further, because all of our vaccine candidates and development programs are based on our VLP platform, adverse developments with respect to one of our programs may have a significant adverse impact on the actual or perceived likelihood of success and value of our other programs.

In addition, we are in the process of developing combination candidates using our VLP technology, such as IVX-A12, which we have not tested in clinical trials. Combining multiple vaccine candidates may result in immunologic interference between vaccine candidates, which may reduce the immunogenicity of either or both of the combined vaccine candidates. We will not be able to ascertain the degree of immunologic interference, if any, between any vaccine candidates within any of our combined vaccine candidates in humans until our Phase 2 clinical trials.

We may also experience delays in developing a sustainable, reproducible and scalable manufacturing process based on our VLP platform technology or transferring that process to third-party manufacturers, which may prevent us from completing our clinical trials or commercializing our vaccine candidates on a timely or profitable basis, if at all. In addition, since we have not yet completed a clinical trial, we do not know the specific doses that may be effective in clinical trials or, if approved, commercially. Any delays in finding a suitable dose may delay our anticipated clinical development timelines.

In addition, the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are characterized by rapidly advancing and often competing technologies. Our future success will depend in part on our ability to maintain a competitive position with our VLP platform technology. While we believe that clinical data has shown that VLPs may perform more effectively than soluble proteins, to our knowledge there are no published clinical trials conducting a head-to-head comparison. Further, some preclinical studies have suggested that soluble proteins may perform with equal or greater efficacy than VLPs. For example, in certain preclinical studies of IVX-121, IVX-121 induced similar increases in nAb

titers as soluble DS-Cav1 at high dose levels, and a formulation of IVX-121 using Adjuphos induced similar increases in nAb titers as soluble DS-Cav1 formulated with Adjuphos. If we fail to develop VLP technology superior to soluble proteins, or if we otherwise fail to stay at the forefront of technological change in utilizing our VLP platform to create and develop vaccine candidates, we may be unable to compete effectively. Our competitors may render our VLP platform technology obsolete, or limit the commercial value of our vaccine candidates, through advances in existing technological approaches or the development of new or different approaches, potentially eliminating the advantages that we believe we derive from our scientific approach and technologies. By contrast, adverse effects using VLP technologies generally may negatively impact the actual or perceived value of our VLP platform technology and potential of our vaccine candidates. If any of these events occur, we may be forced to abandon our development efforts for our vaccine candidates, which would have a material adverse effect on our business and could potentially cause us to cease operations.

Our business is highly dependent on the success of IVX-A12, which is in the early stages of development. If we are unable to obtain approval for IVX-A12 or effectively commercialize IVX-A12, our business would be significantly harmed.

We have invested a significant portion of our efforts and financial resources in developing our lead candidate, IVX-A12, a bivalent combination of our vaccine candidates IVX-121 and IVX-241. To date, we have only conducted independent preclinical studies of IVX-121 and IVX-241. We have not commenced clinical testing of IVX-121 or IVX-241, nor have we initiated clinical trials of the combination of these vaccine candidates in IVX-A12. Although IVX-121 and IVX-241 have produced successful results in animal studies, IVX-A12 may not demonstrate the same properties in humans and may interact with human biological systems in unforeseen, ineffective or harmful ways. Our business prospects are highly dependent on our ability to develop, obtain marketing approval for and successfully commercialize IVX-A12, which will require us to succeed in a range of challenging activities that are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section. Many of these risks and uncertainties are beyond our control, including the clinical development and regulatory approval process; potential threats to our intellectual property rights; and the manufacturing, marketing and sales efforts of any current or future third-party contractors. Furthermore, given the early stage of development of IVX-A12, it will be years before we are potentially able to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of IVX-A12 sufficient to warrant marketing approval, and we may never be able to do so. If we are unable to develop, receive marketing approval for and successfully commercialize IVX-A12, or if we experience delays as a result of any of these factors or otherwise, our business would be significantly harmed.

 

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Preclinical and clinical development involves a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome, and the results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials are not necessarily predictive of future results. We have not completed clinical trials for any of our vaccine candidates and we may not have favorable results in preclinical studies or clinical trials, or receive regulatory approval on a timely basis, if at all.

Preclinical and clinical development is expensive and can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. We cannot guarantee that any preclinical studies or clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all, and failure can occur at any time during the preclinical study or clinical trial process. Despite promising preclinical or clinical results, any vaccine candidate can unexpectedly fail at any stage of preclinical or clinical development. The historical failure rate for vaccine candidates in our industry is high, particularly in the early stages of development.

The results from preclinical studies or clinical trials of a vaccine candidate or a competitor’s vaccine candidate in the same class may not predict the results of later clinical trials of such vaccine candidate, and interim, topline, or preliminary results of a clinical trial are not necessarily indicative of final results. Vaccine candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy characteristics despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials. While we have conducted certain preclinical studies of certain of our vaccine candidates, we do not know whether they or our other potential vaccine candidates will perform in future clinical trials as they have performed in these prior studies. Specifically, immunosenescence in older adults (our targeted population) cannot be fully replicated in preclinical studies, which increases the risk that the results at certain dose levels or formulations of our vaccine candidates tested in our preclinical models may not be predictive of results in clinical trials. In addition, formulations and adjuvants can behave differently in different species, so results of preclinical studies with specific formulations may not be replicated in clinical trials. Animals used in preclinical studies are often highly inbred, with homogenous genetic backgrounds that lead to results that are not replicable across diverse human populations. Preclinical models of infection that rely on host-pathogen interactions that do not normally occur in nature can generate misleading results as the pathogens are not well adapted to replicate and infect the animals used in the model, making it possible to protect against infection with weaker immune responses than would be required to provide protection in humans from the same pathogen. For these reasons and others, it is not uncommon to observe results in clinical trials that are unexpected based on preclinical studies and early clinical trials, many vaccine candidates fail in clinical trials despite very promising early results, and a number of companies in the biopharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in clinical development even after achieving promising results in earlier preclinical studies and clinical trials.

As a result, we cannot be certain that our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and clinical trials will be successful. Any safety concerns observed in any one of our clinical trials in our targeted indications could limit the prospects for regulatory approval of our vaccine candidates in those and other indications, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Any difficulties or delays in the commencement or completion, or the termination or suspension, of our planned clinical trials could result in increased costs to us, delay or limit our ability to generate revenue or adversely affect our commercial prospects.

Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our vaccine candidates, we must conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety, purity, immunogenicity and efficacy of the vaccine candidates in humans. Before we can initiate clinical trials for our vaccine candidates, we must submit the results of preclinical studies to the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities along with other information, including information about vaccine candidate chemistry, manufacturing and controls and our proposed clinical trial protocol, as part of an IND or similar regulatory filing required for authorization to proceed with clinical development. For example, our planned initiation of a clinical trial for IVX-121 is subject to our submission of a CTA (the regulatory filing in Belgium, where we plan to conduct a Phase 1/1b trial of IVX-121) and acceptance of such CTA by the FAMHP, and our planned initiation of a clinical trial for IVX-A12 is subject to our submission of an IND and the acceptance of such IND by the FDA. Acceptance by the FDA of our planned IND will be subject to the FDA’s agreement with our proposal to initiate clinical trials of IVX-A12 based upon data from our Phase 1 clinical trial of IVX-121 and preclinical data with respect to IVX-241 and IVX-231. If the FDA does not agree with this proposal, it may require us to conduct clinical evaluation of IVX-241 before progressing to clinical evaluation of IVX-A12. The FAMHP, FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to conduct additional preclinical studies, or

 

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added clinical evaluation under any CTA, IND or similar regulatory filing, which may lead to delays and increase the costs of our preclinical and clinical development programs. Moreover, even if we commence clinical trials, issues may arise that could cause regulatory authorities to suspend or terminate such clinical trials. Any such delays in the commencement or completion of our ongoing and planned clinical trials for our vaccine candidates could significantly affect our product development timelines and product development costs.

We do not know whether our planned clinical trials will begin on time or be completed on schedule, if at all. The commencement and completion of clinical trials can be delayed for a number of reasons, including delays related to:

 

   

inability to generate sufficient preclinical, toxicology, or other in vivo or in vitro data to support the initiation or continuation of clinical trials;

 

   

obtaining regulatory authorizations to commence a trial or reaching a consensus with regulatory authorities on trial design;

 

   

the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities disagreeing as to the implementation of our clinical trials;

 

   

any failure or delay in reaching an agreement with contract research organizations (CROs) and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different CROs and trial sites;

 

   

delays in identifying, recruiting and training suitable clinical investigators;

 

   

obtaining approval from one or more institutional review boards (IRBs) or ethics committees at clinical trial sites;

 

   

IRBs refusing to approve, suspending or terminating the trial at an investigational site, precluding enrollment of additional subjects, or withdrawing their approval of the trial;

 

   

major changes or amendments to the clinical trial protocol;

 

   

clinical sites deviating from the trial protocol or dropping out of a trial;

 

   

failure by our CROs to perform in accordance with good clinical practice (GCP) requirements or applicable regulatory guidelines in other countries;

 

   

manufacturing sufficient quantities of a vaccine candidate for use in clinical trials, which could be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic;

 

   

subjects failing to enroll or remain in our trials at the rate we expect, or failing to return for post-treatment follow-up, including subjects failing to remain in our trials due to movement restrictions, heath reasons or otherwise resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic;

 

   

individuals choosing an alternative vaccine for the indication for which we are developing our vaccine candidates, or participating in competing clinical trials;

 

   

lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial;

 

   

subjects experiencing severe or serious unexpected vaccine-related adverse effects;

 

   

occurrence of vaccine-related serious adverse events in trials of other protein-based vaccine candidates conducted by other companies that could be considered similar to our vaccine candidates;

 

   

selection of clinical endpoints that require prolonged periods of clinical observation or extended analysis of the resulting data;

 

   

transfer of manufacturing processes to larger-scale facilities operated by a contract manufacturing organization (CMO), delays or failure by our CMOs or us to make any necessary changes to such manufacturing process, or failure of our CMOs to produce clinical trial materials in accordance with current good manufacturing (cGMP) regulations or other applicable requirements; and

 

   

third parties being unwilling or unable to satisfy their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner.

In addition, disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may increase the likelihood that we encounter such difficulties or delays in initiating, enrolling, conducting or completing our planned clinical trials. Specific COVID-19 or future pandemic-related mandates, such as mask-wearing and limits to congregating, could also result in a diminished circulation of target respiratory viruses, which could result in challenges establishing efficacy in our planned late-stage clinical trials that have endpoints specific to rates of infection in placebo- versus vaccine- treated groups.

We could also encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by the IRBs of the institutions in which such trials are being conducted, by a Data Safety Monitoring Board for such trial or by the FDA or comparable

 

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foreign regulatory authorities. Such authorities may impose such a suspension or termination due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a drug, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. In addition, changes in regulatory requirements and policies may occur, and we may need to amend clinical trial protocols to comply with these changes. Amendments may require us to resubmit our clinical trial protocols to IRBs for reexamination, which may impact the costs, timing or successful completion of a clinical trial.

Further, conducting clinical trials in foreign countries, as we plan to do for our vaccine candidates, presents additional risks that may delay completion of our clinical trials. These risks include the failure of enrolled subjects in foreign countries to adhere to clinical protocols as a result of differences in healthcare services or cultural customs, managing additional administrative burdens associated with foreign regulatory schemes, and political and economic risks relevant to such foreign countries.

In addition, many of the factors that cause, or lead to, the termination or suspension of, or a delay in the commencement or completion of, clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of a vaccine candidate. We may make formulation or manufacturing changes to our vaccine candidates, in which case we may need to conduct additional preclinical studies to bridge our modified vaccine candidates to earlier versions. Any resulting delays to our clinical trials could shorten any period during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our vaccine candidates. In such cases, our competitors may be able to bring products to market before we do, and the commercial viability of our vaccine candidates could be significantly reduced. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

We may find it difficult to enroll subjects in our clinical trials. If we encounter difficulties enrolling subjects in our clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.

Successful and timely completion of clinical trials will require that we identify and enroll a specified number of subjects for each of our clinical trials. We may not be able to initiate or continue clinical trials for our vaccine candidates if we are unable to identify and enroll a sufficient number of eligible subjects to participate in these trials as required by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States. Subject enrollment, a significant factor in the timing of clinical trials, is affected by many factors including the size and nature of the subject population, the severity of the disease under investigation, the proximity of subjects to clinical sites, the eligibility and exclusion criteria for the trial, the design of the clinical trial, the ability to obtain and maintain informed consents, the risk that enrolled subjects will not complete a clinical trial, our ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience, and competing clinical trials and clinicians’ and subjects’ perceptions as to the potential advantages and risks of the vaccine candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new products that may be approved for the indications we are investigating as well as any vaccine candidates under development. For our Phase 1/2 clinical trial in Australia of our SARS-CoV-2 candidate IVX-411, we intend to assess our vaccine candidate as a booster vaccine following completion of an alternative licensed vaccine regimen. We are dependent on the ability to recruit subjects that have received a full vaccine regimen of an alternative vaccine and may be delayed if the vaccine rollout in Australia is slower than anticipated and we are therefore unable to recruit subjects at our projected pace. Additionally, across our ongoing and anticipated clinical trials and target subjects, other pharmaceutical companies targeting these same diseases are recruiting clinical trial subjects from these target populations, which may make it more difficult to fully enroll our clinical trials.

In addition, the process of finding and diagnosing subjects may prove costly. The timing of our clinical trials depends, in part, on the speed at which we can recruit subjects to participate in our trials, as well as completion of required follow-up periods. The eligibility criteria of our clinical trials, once established, may further limit the pool of available trial participants. If subjects are unwilling or unable to participate in our trials for any reason, including the existence of concurrent clinical trials for similar target populations, negative perceptions of vaccines generally or of any of our vaccine candidates in particular, the availability of approved or authorized therapies, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, or the fact that enrolling in our trials would prevent subjects from taking a different vaccine, or we otherwise have difficulty enrolling a sufficient number of subjects, the timeline for recruiting subjects, conducting trials and obtaining regulatory approval of our vaccine candidates may be delayed. Our inability to enroll

 

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a specified number of subjects for any of our future clinical trials would result in significant delays or may require us to abandon one or more clinical trials altogether. In addition, we rely on, and will continue to rely on, CROs and clinical trial sites to ensure proper and timely conduct of our preclinical studies and clinical trials. Though we have entered into agreements governing their services, we will have limited influence over their actual performance.

We cannot assure you that our assumptions used in determining expected clinical trial timelines are correct or that we will not experience delays in enrollment, which would result in the delay of completion of such trials beyond our expected timelines.

If the incidence rates of infection for the specific pathogens we are targeting are smaller than we believe they are, our clinical development may be adversely affected, and our business may suffer.

Our projections of both the number of people who have respiratory diseases, as well as the subset of people with these diseases who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our vaccine candidates, are based on our estimates. These estimates have been derived from a variety of sources, including scientific literature, epidemiologic surveys, and market research based on healthcare databases, and may prove to be incorrect or imprecise. In addition, precise incidence for all the respiratory conditions we aim to address with our vaccine candidates may vary from season to season, similar to influenza. Further, new trials or information may change the estimated incidence of these diseases. Our planned clinical trial sizes for later stage efficacy trials are based on our current estimates for rates of infection for the specific pathogens targeted by our vaccine candidates. If our estimates are incorrect, this may impact the number of subjects that need to be recruited for our clinical trials, may result in us having to repeat a clinical trial, or could impact the likelihood of success of our clinical development. In particular, the incidence rate of hMPV is uncertain. We are planning our own epidemiological assessment of hMPV and RSV infections in older adults prior to commencing our planned Phase 2b clinical trial to inform our determination of the size of the patient population to be enrolled in the trial. If the outcome of that assessment is a lower incidence rate than we are currently anticipating, we may need to plan for a larger Phase 2b clinical trial than we are currently planning for, which would result in increased clinical development costs.

Use of our vaccine candidates could be associated with adverse side effects, adverse events or other safety risks, which could delay or preclude approval, cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials, abandon a vaccine candidate, limit the commercial profile of an approved label or result in other significant negative consequences that could severely harm our business, prospects, operating results and financial condition.

As is the case with biopharmaceuticals generally, it is likely that there may be adverse side effects associated with our vaccine candidates’ use. We cannot provide assurance that our vaccine candidates will not have similar effects to other experimental or licensed vaccines as we have not evaluated any vaccine candidates in clinical trials.

We will monitor for expected and unexpected side effects in our clinical trials. Results of our clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of expected or unexpected side effects. Vaccine-related side effects could affect subject recruitment or the ability of enrolled subjects to complete the trial or result in potential product liability claims. Undesirable side effects caused by our vaccine candidates when used alone or in combination with approved drugs, biologics or vaccines could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or lead to the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly. For example, we plan to assess reactogenicity and immunogenicity of our RSV/hMPV bivalent candidate IVX-A12 when administered concurrently with a quadrivalent influenza vaccine in our planned Phase 2 clinical trial. This could lead to unanticipated side effects or interfere with the potential immunogenicity of IVX-A12. An inability to be dosed concurrently with a quadrivalent influenza vaccine could limit the commercial potential of IVX-A12.

Moreover, if our vaccine candidates are associated with undesirable side effects in clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may elect to abandon their development or limit their development to more narrow uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk-benefit perspective, which may limit the commercial expectations for the vaccine candidate if approved. We may also be required to modify our development and clinical trial plans based on findings after we commence clinical trials. Many compounds that initially showed promise in early-stage testing have later been found to cause side effects that prevented further development of the compound. In addition, regulatory authorities may draw different conclusions or require additional testing to confirm these determinations.

 

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We will also monitor in our clinical trials for less common adverse events of special interest to regulatory authorities, such as enhanced respiratory disease after vaccination. It is possible that as we test our vaccine candidates in larger, longer and more extensive clinical trials, or if the use of these vaccine candidates becomes more widespread following regulatory approval, more illnesses, injuries, discomforts and other adverse events than were observed in earlier trials, as well as new conditions that did not occur or went undetected, may be discovered. If such side effects become known later in development or upon approval, if any, such findings may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

In addition, if one or more of our vaccine candidates receives marketing approval, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by such vaccine a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including:

 

   

regulatory authorities may withdraw, suspend or limit approvals of such vaccine or seek an injunction against its manufacture or distribution;

 

   

we may be required to recall a vaccine or change the way such vaccine is administered to individuals;

 

   

regulatory authorities may require additional warnings on the label, such as a “black box” warning or a contraindication;

 

   

we may be required to implement a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) or create a medication guide outlining the risks of such side effects for distribution to individuals;

 

   

we may be required to change the way a vaccine is distributed or administered, conduct additional clinical trials or change the labeling of a vaccine or be required to conduct additional post-marketing studies or surveillance;

 

   

we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to vaccine recipients;

 

   

sales of the vaccine may decrease significantly or the vaccine could become less competitive; and

 

   

our reputation may suffer.

Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining market acceptance of the particular vaccine candidate, if approved, and could significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

As an organization, we have never completed any clinical trials, and may be unable to do so for any of our vaccine candidates.

We have initiated clinical trials for one of our vaccine candidates, with our other vaccine candidates in the preclinical development stage. We will need to successfully complete our planned clinical trials in order to seek FDA or comparable foreign regulatory approval to market our vaccine candidates. Carrying out clinical trials and the submission of a successful BLA is a complicated process. We have received regulatory authorization to conduct and have initiated our first clinical trial of our vaccine candidate IVX-411 in Australia and we plan to initiate clinical trials for other vaccine candidates beginning in 2021, subject to receiving authorization to proceed with clinical trials under INDs or comparable applications submitted to foreign regulatory authorities. We have not previously completed any clinical trials, have limited experience as a company in preparing, submitting and prosecuting regulatory filings and our company has only previously submitted a Clinical Trial Notification in Australia for IVX-411 and has otherwise not previously submitted any IND, BLA or other comparable foreign regulatory submission. We also plan to conduct a number of clinical trials for multiple vaccine candidates in parallel over the next several years, which may be a difficult process to manage with our limited resources and which may divert the attention of management. In addition, for our IVX-121 program, through June 15, 2021, we have had limited interactions with only one regulatory authority outside the United States on our development and clinical trial plans. We have not had any discussions with the FDA. Therefore, we cannot be certain how many clinical trials of our IVX-121, IVX-241, IVX-412 or IVX-A12 vaccine candidates will be required or how such trials should be designed, or that we will not encounter material delays in our plans to commence clinical development. For example, we may be required to conduct additional preclinical studies of the individual vaccine candidates comprising our combination candidate, IVX-A12, prior to testing IVX-A12 in clinical trials. We may also be required to conduct clinical testing of our hMPV candidate IVX-241 prior to testing IVX-A12, which would cause a delay in the development of our IVX-A12 candidate. Consequently, we may be unable to successfully and efficiently execute and complete necessary clinical trials in a way that leads to regulatory submission and approval of any of our vaccine candidates. We may require more time and incur greater costs than our competitors and may not succeed in obtaining regulatory approvals of

 

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vaccine candidates that we develop. Failure to commence or complete, or delays in, our planned clinical trials, could prevent us from or delay us in submitting BLAs for and commercializing our vaccine candidates.

We have licensed the rights in our technology for a limited number of infectious diseases in certain jurisdictions, which may limit our ability to obtain regulatory approval, commercialize our vaccine candidates, or expand our pipeline to fully realize the commercial potential of our VLP platform.

We have a prescribed list of infectious disease applications for which we have obtained licenses from UW to develop vaccine candidates using our VLP technology platform. For certain infectious disease applications, such as SARS-CoV-2, these licenses may only be available to us in certain jurisdictions. Third parties may also have licensed or will license the same VLP technology from UW for use in infectious disease applications or jurisdictions where we do not have an exclusive license. Any adverse developments that occur during clinical trials related to these infectious disease applications conducted by third parties in other jurisdictions may result in delays, limitations or denials of regulatory approvals of our vaccine candidates, may cause regulators to require us to conduct additional clinical trials as a condition to marketing approval, may result in the withdrawal of any approvals of our vaccine candidates that we receive in the future, or may result in further restrictions on our ability to commercialize our vaccine candidates. Such adverse developments may also negatively impact the perception of our vaccine candidates, which may reduce the enrollment of subjects in our clinical trials or inhibit our ability to market our vaccine candidates in the future if approved. For example, SK Bioscience has initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in South Korea for a vaccine candidate that is similar to IVX-411 and uses the same VLP technology that we have licensed from UW for our vaccine candidates, and adverse developments related to such clinical trial could negatively impact the development of IVX-411 and our other vaccine candidates.

In addition, the expansion of our pipeline to target additional infectious diseases for which we do not currently have a license will require us to seek additional licenses, which could increase our costs. Failure to acquire such licenses would reduce the infectious diseases that we may target with the vaccine candidates that we develop, which would prevent us from realizing the full potential of our VLP technology platform.

Our vaccine candidates are subject to extensive regulation and compliance, which is costly and time consuming, and such regulation and compliance may cause unanticipated delays or prevent the receipt of the required approvals and licenses to commercialize our vaccine candidates.

The clinical development, manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, record-keeping, advertising, promotion, import, export, marketing, distribution and adverse event reporting, including the submission of safety and other information, of our vaccine candidates are subject to extensive regulation by the FDA in the United States and by comparable foreign regulatory authorities in foreign markets. In the United States, we are not permitted to market our vaccine candidates until we receive regulatory approval from the FDA, which is referred to as licensure. The process of obtaining regulatory approval is expensive, often takes many years following the commencement of clinical trials and can vary substantially based upon the type, complexity and novelty of the vaccine candidates involved, as well as the target indications and populations. Approval policies or regulations may change, and the FDA has substantial discretion in the vaccine approval process, including the ability to delay, limit or deny approval of a vaccine candidate for many reasons. Despite the time and expense invested in clinical development of vaccine candidates, regulatory approval is never guaranteed. Neither we nor any current or future collaborator is permitted to market any of our vaccine candidates in the United States until we receive approval of a BLA from the FDA.

Prior to obtaining approval to commercialize a vaccine candidate in the United States or abroad, we or our collaborators must demonstrate with substantial evidence from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials, and to the satisfaction of the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, that such vaccine candidates are safe, pure and potent for their intended uses. Results from preclinical studies and clinical trials can be interpreted in different ways. Even if we believe the preclinical or clinical data for our vaccine candidates are promising, such data may not be sufficient to support approval by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, as the case may be, may also require us to conduct additional preclinical studies or clinical trials for our vaccine candidates either prior to approval or post-approval, or may object to elements of our clinical development program.

 

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The FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities can delay, limit or deny approval of a vaccine candidate for many reasons, including:

 

   

such authorities may disagree with the design or implementation of our current or future collaborators’ clinical trials;

 

   

negative or ambiguous results from our clinical trials, or results may not otherwise meet the level of statistical significance required by the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory agencies for approval;

 

   

serious and unexpected vaccine-related side effects may be experienced by participants in our clinical trials or by individuals using vaccines similar to our vaccine candidates;

 

   

such authorities may not accept clinical data from trials that are conducted at clinical facilities or in countries where the standard of care is potentially different from those of their respective home countries;

 

   

we or any of our current or future collaborators may be unable to demonstrate that a vaccine candidate is safe and effective, and that such vaccine candidate’s clinical and other benefits outweigh its safety risks;

 

   

such authorities may disagree with our interpretation of data from preclinical studies or clinical trials;

 

   

such authorities may not agree that the data collected from clinical trials of our vaccine candidates are acceptable or sufficient to support the submission of a BLA or other marketing application, and such authorities may impose requirements for additional preclinical studies or clinical trials;

 

   

such authorities may disagree regarding the formulation, labeling and/or the specifications of our vaccine candidates;

 

   

approval may be granted only for indications that are significantly more limited than what we apply for and/or be subject to other significant restrictions on distribution and use;

 

   

such authorities may find deficiencies in the manufacturing processes, approval policies or facilities of our third-party manufacturers with which we or any of our future collaborators contract for clinical and commercial supplies;

 

   

regulations of such authorities may significantly change in a manner rendering our or any of our potential future collaborators’ clinical data insufficient for approval; or

 

   

such authorities may not accept a submission due to, among other reasons, the content or formatting of the submission.

Of the large number of vaccines and biologics in development, only a small percentage successfully complete the FDA or foreign regulatory approval processes and are commercialized. The lengthy approval process as well as the unpredictability of future clinical trial results may result in our failing to obtain regulatory approval to market our vaccine candidates, which would significantly harm our business, results of operations and prospects.

With respect to foreign markets, approval procedures vary among countries and, in addition to the foregoing risks, may involve additional product testing, administrative review periods and agreements with pricing authorities. In addition, events raising questions about the safety of certain marketed biopharmaceuticals may result in increased cautiousness by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities in reviewing new drugs based on safety, efficacy or other regulatory considerations and may result in significant delays in obtaining regulatory approvals.

Further, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a more uncertain regulatory landscape that may adversely impact our ability to receive approvals for our vaccine candidates. For example, it is unclear how the increased population of individuals receiving SARS-CoV-2 vaccines will impact the approval processes of other vaccine candidates for SARS-CoV-2. In addition, there is a less clearly defined regulatory path for booster vaccines, which may be our target development path for our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates. Any delay in obtaining, or inability to obtain, applicable regulatory approvals would prevent us or any of our potential future collaborators from commercializing our vaccine candidates.

We may expend our limited resources to pursue a particular vaccine candidate and fail to capitalize on vaccine candidates that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.

Because we have limited financial and managerial resources, we focus on specific vaccine candidates, development programs and indications. We are also conducting and plan to conduct several clinical trials for multiple vaccine candidates in parallel over the next several years, which may make our decision as to which vaccine candidates to focus on more difficult. As a result, we may forgo or delay pursuit of opportunities with other vaccine candidates that

 

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could have had greater commercial potential. Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial products or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future research and development programs and vaccine candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable vaccine candidates. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular vaccine candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that vaccine candidate through collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights to such vaccine candidate.

We may seek an EUA from the FDA or comparable emergency authorizations from foreign regulatory authorities with respect to IVX-411 or IVX-421, and if we fail to obtain or maintain such authorizations, we may be required to pursue a more lengthy clinical development process than we expect, and our business may be harmed.

We may seek an EUA from the FDA or comparable emergency authorizations with respect to our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, IVX-411 and IVX-421. The FDA has the authority to issue an EUA during a public health emergency if it determines that, based on the totality of the scientific evidence it is reasonable to believe that the product may be effective, that the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks, and that there are no adequate, approved, and available alternatives, and if other regulatory criteria are met. The FDA’s standards for granting an EUA are lower than for approving BLAs in accordance with traditional review procedures, and even if we seek and obtain an EUA for one or more of our vaccine candidates, we cannot assure you that the FDA would approve a BLA for such vaccine candidate, if such approval is required. Accordingly, even if we obtain an EUA for one or more of our vaccine candidates, we may be required to conduct additional clinical trials before we are able to submit BLAs or comparable marketing applications for such vaccine candidates.

In addition, the FDA’s policies regarding an EUA can change unexpectedly, and the FDA may revoke an EUA if the Secretary of Health and Human Services determines that the underlying health emergency no longer exists or warrants such authorization, or if the FDA identifies safety or efficacy concerns with the authorized product. We cannot predict how long any authorization, if obtained, will remain in place. The FDA’s policies regarding vaccines and other products used to diagnose, treat or mitigate COVID-19 remain in flux as the FDA responds to new and evolving public health information and clinical evidence. Therefore, even if we obtain an EUA or other emergency authorizations for one or more of our vaccine candidates, it is possible that such EUA or other authorizations may be revoked and we may be required to cease any commercialization activities, which would adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We plan to conduct certain of our clinical trials for our vaccine candidates outside of the United States. However, the FDA and other foreign equivalents may not accept data from such trials, in which case our development plans will be delayed, which could materially harm our business.

We plan to conduct certain of our clinical trials for our vaccine candidates outside the United States, including a planned Phase 1/1b clinical trial in Belgium of IVX-121 in adults aged 18-45 and 60-75 and our Phase 1/2 clinical trial of IVX-411 in Australia. Although the FDA may accept data from clinical trials conducted outside the United States, acceptance of these data is subject to certain conditions imposed by the FDA. Where data from foreign clinical trials are intended to serve as the basis for marketing approval in the United States, the FDA will not approve the application on the basis of foreign data alone unless those data are applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice; the trials were performed by clinical investigators of recognized competence; and the data are considered valid without the need for an on-site inspection by the FDA or, if the FDA considers such an inspection to be necessary, the FDA is able to validate the data through an on-site inspection or other appropriate means. For clinical trials that are conducted only at sites outside of the United States and not subject to an IND, the FDA requires the clinical trial to have been conducted in accordance with GCPs, and the FDA must be able to validate the data from the clinical trial through an on-site inspection if it deems such inspection necessary. For such trials not subject to an IND, the FDA generally does not provide advance comment on the clinical protocols for the trials, and therefore there is an additional potential risk that the FDA could determine that the trial design or protocol for a non-U.S. clinical trial was inadequate, which could require us to conduct additional clinical trials. There can be no assurance the FDA will accept data from clinical trials conducted outside of the United States. If the FDA does not accept data from our clinical trials of our vaccine candidates, it would likely result in the need for additional clinical trials, which would be costly and time consuming and delay or permanently halt our development of our vaccine candidates.

 

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Conducting clinical trials outside the United States also exposes us to additional risks, including risks associated with:

 

   

additional foreign regulatory requirements;

 

   

variability in expense due to foreign currency exchange fluctuations;

 

   

compliance with foreign manufacturing, customs, shipment and storage requirements;

 

   

cultural differences in medical practice and clinical research; and

 

   

diminished protection of intellectual property in some countries.

Interim, topline and preliminary data from our preclinical studies and clinical trials that we announce or publish from time to time may change as more subject data become available and are subject to audit and verification procedures that could result in material changes in the final data.

From time to time, we may publicly disclose interim, preliminary or topline data from our preclinical studies and clinical trials, which are based on a preliminary analysis of then-available data, and the results and related findings and conclusions are subject to change following a more comprehensive review of the data related to the particular trial. We also make assumptions, estimations, calculations and conclusions as part of our analyses of data, and we may not have received or had the opportunity to fully and carefully evaluate all data. As a result, the interim, preliminary or topline results that we report may differ from future results of the same trials, or different conclusions or considerations may qualify such results, once additional data have been received and fully evaluated. Topline data also remain subject to audit and verification procedures that may result in the final data being materially different from the preliminary data we previously published. As a result, topline data should be viewed with caution until the final data are available.

In particular, we may disclose interim data from our preclinical studies and clinical trials. Interim data from clinical trials that we may complete are subject to the risk that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change as subject enrollment continues and more clinical trial data become available. Adverse differences between interim data and final data could significantly harm our business prospects. Further, disclosure of interim data by us or by our competitors could result in volatility in the price of our common stock after this offering.

Further, others, including regulatory agencies, may not accept or agree with our assumptions, estimates, calculations, conclusions or analyses or may interpret or weigh the importance of data differently, which could impact the value of the particular program, the approvability or commercialization of the particular vaccine candidate or product and the value of our company in general. In addition, the information we choose to publicly disclose regarding a particular study or clinical trial is based on what is typically extensive information, and you or others may not agree with what we determine is the material or otherwise appropriate information to include in our disclosure, and any information we determine not to disclose may ultimately be deemed significant with respect to future decisions, conclusions, views, activities or otherwise regarding a particular product, vaccine candidate or our business. If the interim, topline, or preliminary data that we report differ from actual results, or if others, including regulatory authorities, disagree with the conclusions reached, our ability to obtain approval for, and commercialize, our vaccine candidates may be harmed, which could harm our business, operating results, prospects or financial condition.

Disruptions at the FDA and other government agencies caused by funding shortages or global health concerns could hinder their ability to hire, retain or deploy key leadership and other personnel, or otherwise prevent new or modified products from being developed, approved or commercialized in a timely manner or at all, which could negatively impact our business.

The ability of the FDA and other government agencies to review and approve new products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, statutory, regulatory and policy changes, a government agency’s ability to hire and retain key personnel and accept the payment of user fees, and other events that may otherwise affect the government agency’s ability to perform routine functions. Average review times at the FDA and other government agencies have fluctuated in recent years as a result. In addition, government funding of other government agencies that fund research and development activities is subject to the political process, which is inherently fluid and unpredictable. Disruptions at the FDA and other agencies may also slow the time necessary for new biologics or modifications to approved biologics to be reviewed and/or approved by necessary government

 

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agencies, which would adversely affect our business. For example, over the last several years, including for 35 days beginning on December 22, 2018, the U.S. government has shut down several times and certain regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, have had to furlough critical employees and stop critical activities.

Separately, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, on March 10, 2020, the FDA announced its intention to postpone most inspections of foreign manufacturing facilities and products. Subsequently, on March 18, 2020 the FDA temporarily postponed routine surveillance inspections of domestic manufacturing facilities. Subsequently, on July 10, 2020, the FDA announced its intention to resume certain on-site inspections of domestic manufacturing facilities subject to a risk-based prioritization system. The FDA intends to use this risk-based assessment system to identify the categories of regulatory activity that can occur within a given geographic area, ranging from mission critical inspections to resumption of all regulatory activities. Additionally, on April 15, 2021, the FDA issued a guidance document in which the FDA described its plans to conduct voluntary remote interactive evaluations of certain drug manufacturing facilities and clinical research sites. According to the guidance, the FDA intends to request such remote interactive evaluations in situations where an in-person inspection would not be prioritized, deemed mission-critical, or where direct inspection is otherwise limited by travel restrictions, but where the FDA determines that remote evaluation would be appropriate. Regulatory authorities outside the United States may adopt similar restrictions or other policy measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. If a prolonged government shutdown occurs, or if global health concerns continue to prevent the FDA or other regulatory authorities from conducting their regular inspections, reviews or other regulatory activities, it could significantly impact the ability of the FDA or other regulatory authorities to timely review and process our regulatory submissions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks Related to Our Reliance on Third Parties

We rely on third parties to conduct many of our preclinical studies and clinical trials. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, comply with applicable regulatory requirements or meet expected deadlines, our development programs and our ability to seek or obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our vaccine candidates may be delayed.

We are dependent on third parties to conduct our preclinical studies and clinical trials for our vaccine candidates, and expect to rely on third parties for the conduct of any preclinical studies and clinical trials for our future vaccine candidates. Specifically, we have used and relied on, and intend to continue to use and rely on, medical institutions, clinical investigators, CROs and consultants to conduct our preclinical studies and clinical trials, in each case in accordance with our clinical protocols and regulatory requirements. These CROs, investigators and other third parties play a significant role in the conduct and timing of these trials and subsequent collection and analysis of data. Though we carefully manage our relationships with our CROs, investigators and other third parties, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects. Further, we have and will have agreements governing the activities of our third-party contractors, we have limited influence over their actual performance. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our preclinical studies and clinical trials are conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol and legal, regulatory and scientific standards, and our reliance on our CROs and other third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. For example, toxicology studies of our vaccine candidates must be completed under GLP regulations and our or our CROs’ failure to comply with these regulations may delay our ability to initiate clinical trials. In addition, we and our CROs are required to comply with GCP requirements, which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for all of our vaccine candidates in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce these GCPs through periodic inspections of trial sponsors, principal investigators and trial sites. If we or any of our CROs or trial sites fail to comply with applicable GCPs, the clinical data generated in our clinical trials may be deemed unreliable, and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. Furthermore, our clinical trials must be conducted with vaccine candidates produced under cGMP regulations. Our failure to comply with these regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process.

There is no guarantee that any of our CROs, investigators or other third parties will devote adequate time and resources to our preclinical studies or clinical trials or perform as contractually required. If any of these third parties

 

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fails to meet expected deadlines, adhere to our clinical protocols or meet regulatory requirements, or otherwise performs in a substandard manner, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated. In addition, many of the third parties with whom we contract may also have relationships with other commercial entities, including our competitors, for whom they may also be conducting preclinical studies, clinical trials or other development activities that could harm our competitive position.

Principal investigators for our clinical trials may serve as scientific advisors or consultants to us from time to time and may receive cash or equity compensation in connection with such services. If these relationships and any related compensation result in perceived or actual conflicts of interest, or the FDA concludes that the financial relationship may have affected the interpretation of the study, the integrity of the data generated at the applicable clinical trial site may be questioned and the utility of the clinical trial itself may be jeopardized, which could result in the delay or rejection by the FDA of any BLA we submit. Any such delay or rejection could prevent us from commercializing our vaccine candidates.

Our CROs have the right to terminate their agreements with us in the event of an uncured material

breach, and under other specified circumstances. If any of our relationships with these third parties terminate, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with alternative third parties on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Switching or adding additional CROs, investigators and other third parties involves additional cost and requires our management’s time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new CRO commences work. As a result, delays occur, which can materially impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines. Though we work to carefully manage our relationships with our CROs, investigators and other third parties, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter challenges or delays in the future or that these delays or challenges will not have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and prospects.

We rely on third parties for the manufacture of our vaccine candidates for preclinical and clinical development and expect to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This reliance on third parties increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our vaccine candidates or products or such quantities at an acceptable cost, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.

We do not own or operate manufacturing facilities and have no plans to develop our own clinical or commercial-scale manufacturing capabilities. We rely, and will continue to rely, on third parties for the manufacture of our vaccine candidates and related raw materials for preclinical and clinical development, as well as for commercial manufacture if any of our vaccine candidates receive marketing approval. The facilities used by third-party manufacturers to manufacture our vaccine candidates must be approved by the FDA and any comparable foreign regulatory authority pursuant to inspections that will be conducted after we submit an BLA to the FDA or any comparable submission to a foreign regulatory authority. We do not control the manufacturing process of, and are completely dependent on, third-party manufacturers for compliance with cGMP requirements for manufacture of products. In addition, we have no control over the ability of third-party manufacturers to maintain adequate quality control, quality assurance and qualified personnel. Furthermore, the process of manufacturing biologics is complex and highly susceptible to product loss due to contamination, equipment failure, improper installation or operation of equipment, vendor or operator error, inconsistency in yields, variability in product characteristics and difficulties in scaling the production process. Even minor deviations from normal manufacturing processes could result in reduced production yields, product defects, other supply disruptions and higher costs. If microbial, viral or other contaminations are discovered at the facilities of our third-party manufacturers, such facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination, which could delay clinical trials, result in higher costs of drug product and adversely affect our business.

If our third-party manufacturers cannot successfully manufacture material that conforms to our specifications and the strict regulatory requirements of the FDA or any comparable foreign regulatory authority, they will not be able to secure and/or maintain regulatory approval for their manufacturing facilities. If the FDA or any comparable foreign regulatory authority does not approve these facilities for the manufacture of our vaccine candidates or if it withdraws any such approval in the future, we may need to find alternative manufacturing facilities, which would significantly impact our ability to develop, obtain regulatory approval for or market our vaccine candidates, if approved. Our failure, or the failure of our third-party manufacturers, to comply with applicable regulations could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including clinical holds, fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, seizures or recalls of vaccine candidates or products, operating restrictions and criminal

 

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prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect supplies of our products. Additionally, our third-party manufacturers may rely on single source suppliers for certain of the raw materials for our preclinical and clinical product supplies. If current or future suppliers are delayed or unable to supply sufficient raw materials to manufacture product for our preclinical studies and clinical trials, we may experience delays in our development efforts as materials are obtained or we locate and qualify new raw material manufacturers.

Our or a third party’s failure to execute on our manufacturing requirements on commercially reasonable terms and in compliance with cGMP or other regulatory requirements could adversely affect our business in a number of ways, including:

 

   

an inability to initiate clinical trials of our vaccine candidates under development;

 

   

delay in submitting regulatory applications, or receiving marketing approvals, for our vaccine candidates;

 

   

subjecting third-party manufacturing facilities or our potential future manufacturing facilities to additional inspections by regulatory authorities;

 

   

requirements to cease development or to recall batches of our vaccine candidates; and

 

   

in the event of approval to market and commercialize our vaccine candidates, an inability to meet commercial demands for our vaccine candidates or any other future vaccine candidates.

In addition, we may be unable to establish any agreements with third-party manufacturers or to do so on acceptable terms. Even if we are able to establish agreements with third-party manufacturers, reliance on third-party manufacturers entails additional risks, including:

 

   

failure of third-party manufacturers to comply with regulatory requirements and maintain quality assurance;

 

   

breach of the manufacturing agreement by the third party;

 

   

failure to manufacture our product according to our specifications, our schedule, or at all;

 

   

misappropriation of our proprietary information, including our trade secrets and know-how; and

 

   

termination or nonrenewal of the agreement by the third party at a time that is costly or inconvenient for us.

Our vaccine candidates and any products that we may develop may compete with other vaccine candidates and products for access to manufacturers and manufacturing facilities. There are a limited number of manufacturers that operate under cGMP regulations and that might be capable of manufacturing for us. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced manufacturing capacity worldwide and limited access to materials needed to manufacture key components of our vaccine candidates. Further, certain of our in-license agreements require that vaccine products sold in the United States be manufactured in the United States, which limits the number of manufacturers available to us. Increased competition amongst developers to access manufacturers and materials could increase the costs of, or otherwise limit our ability to, manufacture our vaccine candidates.

Any performance failure on the part of our existing or future manufacturers could delay clinical development or marketing approval, and any related remedial measures may be costly or time consuming to implement. We do not currently have arrangements in place for redundant supply or a second source for all required raw materials used in the manufacture of our vaccine candidates. If our existing or future third-party manufacturers cannot perform as agreed, we may be required to replace such manufacturers and we may be unable to replace them on a timely basis or at all.

Our current and anticipated future dependence upon others for the manufacture of our vaccine candidates or products may adversely affect our future profit margins and our ability to commercialize any products that receive marketing approval on a timely and competitive basis.

We and our third-party manufacturers may face difficulty scaling up manufacturing capabilities which could delay our development timelines, or substantially increase our overall development costs.

As part of our development strategy, we plan to initiate scale-up of manufacturing process development activities to enable incorporation of final process changes early in the overall development cycle. However, we may face significant challenges in this scale-up of manufacturing capabilities, including challenges with respect to large scale process development, analytical development and quality control testing, and manufacturing our vaccine candidates to our specifications and in a timely manner to support our preclinical and clinical trials. We may also face challenges in identifying and securing third-party manufacturers to support our manufacturing development activities

 

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and to produce sufficient quantities at an acceptable cost. Delays in establishing and scaling up our manufacturing process and in securing third-party manufacturers may materially delay or disrupt our development efforts, and increase our overall development costs.

Our reliance on third parties requires us to share our trade secrets, which increases the possibility that a competitor will discover them or that our trade secrets will be misappropriated or disclosed.

Because we currently rely on third parties to manufacture our vaccine candidates and to perform quality testing, we must, at times, share our proprietary technology and confidential information, including trade secrets, with them. We seek to protect our proprietary technology, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements, and, if applicable, material transfer agreements, collaborative research agreements, consulting agreements or other similar agreements with our collaborators, advisors, employees and consultants prior to beginning research or disclosing proprietary information. These agreements typically limit the rights of the third parties to use or disclose our confidential information. Despite the contractual provisions employed when working with third parties, the need to share trade secrets and other confidential information increases the risk that such trade secrets become known by our competitors, are intentionally or inadvertently incorporated into the technology of others or are disclosed or used in violation of these agreements. Given that our proprietary position is based, in part, on our know-how and trade secrets and despite our efforts to protect our trade secrets, a competitor’s discovery of our proprietary technology and confidential information or other unauthorized use or disclosure would impair our competitive position and may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may seek to enter into collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements and may not be successful in doing so, and even if we are, we may relinquish valuable rights and may not realize the benefits of such relationships.

We may seek to enter into collaborations, joint ventures, licenses and other similar arrangements for the development or commercialization of our vaccine candidates, due to capital costs required to develop or commercialize the vaccine candidate or manufacturing constraints. We may not be successful in our efforts to establish or maintain such collaborations for our vaccine candidates because our research and development pipeline may be insufficient, our vaccine candidates may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaborative effort or third parties may not view our vaccine candidates as having the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy or significant commercial opportunity. In addition, we face significant competition in seeking appropriate strategic partners, and the negotiation process can be time-consuming and complex. We may need to relinquish valuable rights to our future revenue streams, research programs, vaccine candidates or VLP platform, or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us, as part of any such arrangement, and such arrangements may restrict us from entering into additional agreements with other potential collaborators. We cannot be certain that, following a collaboration, license or strategic transaction, we will achieve an economic benefit that justifies such transaction.

Even if we are successful in our efforts to establish such collaborations, the terms that we agree upon may not be favorable to us, and we may not be able to maintain such collaborations if, for example, the development or approval of a vaccine candidate is delayed, the safety of a vaccine candidate is questioned or the sales of an approved vaccine candidate are unsatisfactory.

Collaborations involving our vaccine candidates would pose significant risks to us, including the following:

 

   

collaborators have significant discretion in determining the efforts and resources that they will apply to these collaborations;

 

   

collaborators may not perform their obligations as expected;

 

   

we could grant exclusive rights to our collaborators that would prevent us from collaborating with others;

 

   

collaborators may not pursue development and commercialization of any vaccine candidates that achieve regulatory approval or may elect not to continue or renew development or commercialization programs based on clinical trial results, changes in the collaborators’ strategic focus or available funding, or external factors, such as an acquisition, that divert resources or create competing priorities;

 

   

collaborators may delay clinical trials, provide insufficient funding for a clinical trial program, stop a clinical trial or abandon a vaccine candidate, repeat or conduct new clinical trials or require a new formulation of a vaccine candidate for clinical testing;

 

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collaborators could independently develop, or develop with third parties, vaccines that compete directly or indirectly with our vaccine candidates if the collaborators believe that competitive vaccines are more likely to be successfully developed or can be commercialized under terms that are more economically attractive than ours;

 

   

vaccine candidates discovered in collaboration with us may be viewed by our collaborators as competitive with their own vaccine candidates or drugs, which may cause collaborators to cease to devote resources to the commercialization of our vaccine candidates;

 

   

a collaborator with marketing and distribution rights to one or more of our vaccine candidates that achieve regulatory approval may not commit sufficient resources to the marketing and distribution of such vaccines;

 

   

a collaborator’s sales and marketing activities or other operations may not be in compliance with applicable laws resulting in civil or criminal proceedings;

 

   

disagreements with collaborators, including disagreements over proprietary rights, contract interpretation or the preferred course of development, might cause delays in or termination of the research, development or commercialization of vaccine candidates, might lead to additional responsibilities for us with respect to vaccine candidates, or might result in litigation or arbitration, any of which would be time-consuming and expensive;

 

   

collaborators may not properly maintain or defend our or their intellectual property rights or may use our or their proprietary information in such a way as to invite litigation that could jeopardize or invalidate such intellectual property or proprietary information or expose us to potential litigation;

 

   

collaborators may infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties, which may expose us to litigation and potential liability;

 

   

collaborators may not provide us with timely and accurate information regarding development, regulatory or commercialization status or results, which could adversely impact our ability to manage our own development efforts, accurately forecast financial results or provide timely information to our stockholders regarding our out-licensed vaccine candidates;

 

   

if a collaborator of ours were to be involved in a business combination, the continued pursuit and emphasis on our product development or commercialization program could be delayed, diminished or terminated; and

 

   

collaborations may be terminated, including for the convenience of the collaborator, and, if terminated, we may find it more difficult to enter into future collaborations or be required to raise additional capital to pursue further development or commercialization of the applicable vaccine candidates.

Any termination of collaborations we enter into in the future, or any delay in entering into collaborations related to our vaccine candidates, could delay the development and commercialization of our vaccine candidates and reduce their competitiveness if they reach the market, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to Commercialization of Our Vaccine Candidates

Even if we receive regulatory approval for any vaccine candidate, we will be subject to ongoing regulatory obligations and continued regulatory review, which may result in significant additional expense. Additionally, our vaccine candidates, if approved, could be subject to labeling and other restrictions on marketing or withdrawal from the market, and we may be subject to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or if we experience unanticipated problems with our vaccine candidates, when and if any of them are approved.

Any regulatory approvals that we may receive for our vaccine candidates will require the submission of reports to regulatory authorities, subject us to surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the product, may contain significant limitations related to use restrictions for specified age groups, warnings, precautions or contraindications, and may include burdensome post-approval study or risk management requirements. For example, the FDA may require a REMS as a condition of approval of our vaccine candidates, which could include requirements for a medication guide, physician communication plans or additional elements to ensure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. In addition, if the FDA or a comparable foreign regulatory authority approves our vaccine candidates, the manufacturing processes, labeling, packaging, distribution, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion, import, export and recordkeeping for our

 

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products will be subject to extensive and ongoing regulatory requirements. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, registration, as well as continued compliance with cGMPs and GCP requirements for any clinical trials that we conduct post-approval. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with our products, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with our third-party manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in, among other things:

 

   

restrictions on the marketing or manufacturing of our products, withdrawal of the product from the market or voluntary or mandatory product recalls;

 

   

restrictions on product distribution or use, or requirements to conduct post-marketing studies or clinical trials;

 

   

restrictions on our ability to conduct clinical trials, including full or partial clinical holds on ongoing or planned trials;

 

   

fines, restitutions, disgorgement of profits or revenues, warning letters, untitled letters or holds on clinical trials;

 

   

refusal by the FDA or other regulatory authorities to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications submitted by us or suspension or revocation of approvals;

 

   

warning letters, untitled letters, or adverse publicity requirements;

 

   

product seizure or detention, or refusal to permit the import or export of our products; and

 

   

injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties.

The occurrence of any event or penalty described above may inhibit our ability to commercialize our vaccine candidates and generate revenue and could require us to expend significant time and resources in response and could generate negative publicity.

The FDA’s and other regulatory authorities’ policies may change and additional government regulations may be promulgated that could prevent, limit or delay marketing authorization of any product candidates we develop. If we are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, we may be subject to enforcement action and we may not achieve or sustain profitability

Our vaccine candidates for which we intend to seek approval as biologic products may face competition sooner than anticipated.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, collectively, the ACA) includes a subtitle called the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA), which created an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products that are biosimilar to or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed reference biological product. Under the BPCIA, an application for a highly similar or “biosimilar” product may not be submitted to the FDA until four years following the date that the reference product was first approved by the FDA. In addition, the approval of a biosimilar product may not be made effective by the FDA until 12 years from the date on which the reference product was first approved. During this 12-year period of exclusivity, the FDA may approve a full BLA for the competing product containing the sponsor’s own preclinical data and data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials to demonstrate the safety, purity and potency of their product. The law is complex and is still being interpreted and implemented by the FDA. As a result, its ultimate impact, implementation, and meaning are subject to uncertainty. We believe that any of our vaccine candidates approved as a biological product under a BLA should qualify for the 12-year period of exclusivity. However, there is a risk that this exclusivity could be shortened due to congressional action or otherwise, or that the FDA will not consider our vaccine candidates to be reference products for competing products, potentially creating the opportunity for competition sooner than anticipated.

 

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The commercial success of our vaccine candidates will depend upon the degree of market acceptance of such vaccine candidates by healthcare providers, vaccine recipients, healthcare payors and others in the medical community.

Our vaccine candidates may not be commercially successful. Even if any of our vaccine candidates receive regulatory approval, they may not gain market acceptance among healthcare providers, individuals within our target population, healthcare payors, national immunization technical advisory groups (NITAGs) or the medical community. The commercial success of any of our current or future vaccine candidates will depend significantly on the broad adoption and use of the resulting product by these individuals and organizations for approved indications. The degree of market acceptance of our products will depend on a number of factors, including:

 

   

demonstration of clinical efficacy and safety compared to other more-established products;

 

   

the indications for which our vaccine candidates are approved;

 

   

any anti-vaccine sentiments within our targeted patient population;

 

   

the limitation of our targeted population and other limitations or warnings contained in any FDA-approved labeling;

 

   

acceptance of a competing vaccine for the relevant indication by healthcare providers and their patients;

 

   

acceptance of, and preference for, a therapeutic that treats the condition our vaccine targets, by healthcare providers and their patients;

 

   

the pricing and cost-effectiveness of our products, as well as the cost of treatment with our products in relation to alternative treatments and therapies;

 

   

our ability to obtain and maintain sufficient third-party coverage and adequate reimbursement from government healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, private health insurers and other third-party payors;

 

   

receiving recommendations from U.S. Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), or other foreign NITAGs, for use, as well as placement of our vaccine candidates on national immunization programs, which may impact the likelihood of third-party coverage and extent of healthcare provider acceptance;

 

   

the willingness of vaccine recipients to pay all, or a portion of, out-of-pocket costs associated with our products in the absence of sufficient third-party coverage and adequate reimbursement;

 

   

any restrictions on the use of our products, and the prevalence and severity of any adverse effects;

 

   

potential product liability claims;

 

   

the timing of market introduction of our products as well as competitive drugs;

 

   

the effectiveness of our or any of our current or potential future collaborators’ sales and marketing strategies; and

 

   

unfavorable publicity relating to the product.

In the United States, the ACIP develops vaccine recommendations, and there are similar NITAG agencies in other jurisdictions around the world that develop vaccine recommendations. To develop its recommendations, the ACIP forms working groups that gather, analyze and prepare scientific information. The ACIP also considers many of the factors above, as well as myriad additional factors such as the value of vaccination for the target population regarding the outcomes, health economic data and implementation issues. The ACIP recommendations are also made within categories, such as in an age group or a specified risk group and vaccines that receive a preferred ACIP recommendation are generally widely adopted in the United States. We expect that other developers of RSV vaccine candidates that are in later stages of development will secure a recommendation from the ACIP. The failure of these developers to secure such an ACIP recommendation, or any limitations of any ACIP recommendations secured by these developers, may limit the market opportunity of our vaccine candidates or otherwise require us to seek an ACIP recommendation ourselves, which may cause us to expend additional time and/or resources. If any vaccine candidate is approved but does not achieve an adequate level of acceptance by physicians, hospitals, healthcare payors or patients, we may not generate sufficient revenue from that product and may not become or remain profitable.

 

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The FDA and other regulatory agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses. If we are found or alleged to have improperly promoted off-label uses, we may become subject to significant liability.

The FDA and other regulatory agencies strictly regulate the promotional claims that may be made about prescription products. In particular, a product may not be promoted for uses that are not approved by the FDA or such other regulatory agencies as reflected in the product’s approved labeling. If any of our vaccine candidates are approved, and we are found to have promoted such off-label uses, we may become subject to significant liability. The federal government has levied large civil and criminal fines against companies for alleged improper promotion and has enjoined several companies from engaging in off-label promotion. The government has also required companies to enter into consent decrees or imposed permanent injunctions under which specified promotional conduct is changed or curtailed. If we cannot successfully manage the promotion of our vaccine candidates, if approved, we could become subject to significant liability, which would materially adversely affect our business and financial condition.

The successful commercialization of our vaccine candidates, if approved, will depend in part on the extent to which governmental authorities and health insurers establish coverage, adequate reimbursement levels and favorable pricing policies. Failure to obtain or maintain coverage and adequate reimbursement for our products could limit our ability to market those products and decrease our ability to generate revenue.

The availability of coverage and the adequacy of reimbursement by governmental healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, private health insurers and other third-party payors are essential for most vaccine recipients to be able to afford prescription medications such as our vaccine candidates, if approved. Our ability to achieve coverage and acceptable levels of reimbursement for our products by third-party payors will have an effect on our ability to successfully commercialize those products. Accordingly, we will need to successfully implement a coverage and reimbursement strategy for any approved vaccine candidate. Even if we obtain coverage for a given product by a third-party payor, the resulting reimbursement payment rates may not be adequate or may require co-payments that vaccine recipients find unacceptably high. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement in the United States, the European Union 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.

There is significant uncertainty related to third-party payor coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products. In the United States, third-party payors, including private and governmental payors, such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs, play an important role in determining the extent to which new vaccines will be covered. Some third-party payors may require pre-approval of coverage for new or innovative products before they will reimburse healthcare providers who use such products. It is difficult to predict at this time what third-party payors will decide with respect to the coverage and reimbursement for our vaccine candidates. In addition, certain ACA marketplace and other private payor plans are required to include coverage for certain preventative services, including vaccinations recommended by the ACIP and on the CDC’s National Immunization Program, without cost share obligations (i.e., co-payments, deductibles or co-insurance) for plan members. Children through 18 years of age without other health insurance coverage may be eligible to receive such vaccinations free-of-charge through the CDC’s Vaccines for Children program. For Medicare beneficiaries, vaccines may be covered for reimbursement under either the Part B program or Part D depending on several criteria, including the type of vaccine and the beneficiary’s coverage eligibility. If our vaccine candidates, if approved, are reimbursed only under the Part D program, healthcare providers may be less willing to use our products because of the claims adjudication costs and time related to the claims adjudication process and collection of co-payment associated with the Part D program.

Obtaining and maintaining reimbursement status is time consuming, costly and uncertain. The Medicare and Medicaid programs increasingly are used as models for how private payors and other governmental payors develop their coverage and reimbursement policies for drugs. However, no uniform policy for coverage and reimbursement for products exists among third-party payors in the United States. Therefore, coverage and reimbursement for products can differ significantly from payor to payor. As a result, the coverage determination process is often a time consuming and costly process that will require us to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of our products to each payor separately, with no assurance that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be applied consistently or obtained in the first instance. Furthermore, rules and regulations regarding reimbursement change frequently, in some cases at short notice, and we believe that changes in these rules and regulations are likely.

 

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Outside the United States, international operations are generally subject to extensive governmental price controls and other market regulations, and we believe the increasing emphasis on cost-containment initiatives in Europe and other countries has and will continue to put pressure on the pricing and usage of our products. In many countries, the prices of medical products are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. Other countries allow companies to fix their own prices for medical products but monitor and control company profits. Additional foreign price controls or other changes in pricing regulation could restrict the amount that we are able to charge for our products. Accordingly, in markets outside the United States, the reimbursement for our products may be reduced compared with the United States and may be insufficient to generate commercially reasonable revenue and profits.

Moreover, increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors in the United States and abroad to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and the level of reimbursement for newly approved products and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for our products. We expect to experience pricing pressures in connection with the sale of any of our products due to the trend toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations and additional legislative changes. The downward pressure on healthcare costs in general, particularly prescription drugs and surgical procedures and other treatments, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected to the entry of new products.

We face significant competition, and if our competitors develop technologies or vaccine candidates more rapidly than we do or their technologies are more effective, our business and our ability to develop and successfully commercialize products may be adversely affected.

The biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries are characterized by rapid advancing technologies, intense competition and a strong emphasis on proprietary and novel products and vaccine candidates. We compete with (i) developers of vaccine candidates using technologies other than VLP technologies that target the same or similar infectious diseases targeted by our vaccine candidates and (ii) other developers of VLP technologies. Our competitors have developed, are developing or may develop products, vaccine candidates and processes competitive with our vaccine candidates. Any vaccine candidates that we successfully develop and commercialize will compete with existing therapies and new therapies that may become available in the future. We believe that a significant number of products are currently under development, and may become commercially available in the future, for the treatment of conditions for which we may attempt to develop vaccine candidates. In particular, there is intense competition in the VLP technology field and the RSV, hMPV and SARS-CoV-2 vaccine fields. Our competitors include larger and better funded pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, biotechnological and therapeutics companies. Moreover, we may also compete with universities and other research institutions who may be active in respiratory vaccine research and could be in direct competition with us. We also compete with these organizations to recruit management, scientists and clinical development personnel, which could negatively affect our level of expertise and our ability to execute our business plan. We will also face competition in establishing clinical trial sites, enrolling subjects for clinical trials and in identifying and in-licensing new vaccine candidates. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies.

A number of companies have initiated trials, announced plans to initiate trials, or completed trials, of non-VLP vaccine candidates targeting RSV, hMPV and SARS-CoV-2. For example, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bavarian Nordic, Janssen, Moderna, Codagenix and Meissa are currently developing vaccines against RSV for use in older adults, and Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Janssen, along with many other companies, are currently marketing SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. We also compete with companies that have developed VLP technologies targeting SARS-Cov-2 and may target RSV or hMPV in the future. These companies include SpyBiotech, VLP Therapeutics, VBI Vaccines, Medicago and Artes Biotechnology. To the extent these companies develop vaccines or vaccine candidates that provide or have the potential to provide comparable or better efficacy than our vaccine candidates, these efforts could create competition for subject recruitment into our trials and our commercial opportunity.

Many of our competitors have significantly greater financial, technical, manufacturing, marketing, sales and supply resources or experience than we do. If we successfully obtain approval for any vaccine candidate, we will face competition based on many different factors, including the safety and effectiveness of our products, the ease with which our products can be administered, the extent to which vaccine recipients accept relatively new vaccines, the

 

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timing and scope of regulatory approvals for these products, the availability and cost of manufacturing, marketing and sales capabilities, price, reimbursement coverage and patent position. Competing products could present superior treatment alternatives, including by being more effective, safer, more convenient, less expensive or marketed and sold more effectively than any products we may develop. Competitive products approaches may make any products we develop obsolete or noncompetitive before we recover the expense of developing and commercializing our vaccine candidates. We plan to pursue development of a combination RSV and hMPV vaccine candidate, and it takes significant manufacturing and development resources to develop combination candidates. Our competitors may have greater resources than we do, allowing them to advance combination candidates faster than we are able to or allowing them to advance additional combination vaccine candidates incorporating more pathogens in a single candidate. These combination candidates could limit the commercialization potential of our combination candidates. If we are unable to compete effectively, our opportunity to generate revenue from the sale of our products we may develop, if approved, could be adversely affected.

We currently have no marketing and sales organization and have no experience as a company in commercializing products, and we may need to invest significant resources to develop these capabilities. If we are unable to establish marketing and sales capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to market and sell our products, we may not be able to generate product revenue.

We have no internal sales, marketing or distribution capabilities, nor have we commercialized a product. If any of our vaccine candidates ultimately receives regulatory approval, we must build a marketing and sales organization with technical expertise and supporting distribution capabilities to commercialize each such product in major markets, which will be expensive and time consuming. Alternatively, we may need to collaborate with third parties that have direct sales forces and established distribution systems, in lieu of or to augment our own sales force and distribution systems. We have no prior experience as a company in the marketing, sale and distribution of biopharmaceutical products and there are significant risks involved in building and managing of a sales organization, including our ability to hire, retain and incentivize qualified individuals, generate sufficient sales leads, provide adequate training to sales and marketing personnel and effectively manage a geographically dispersed sales and marketing team. Any failure or delay in the development of our internal sales, marketing and distribution capabilities would adversely impact the commercialization of these products. We may not be able to enter into collaborations or hire consultants or external service providers to assist us in sales, marketing and distribution functions on acceptable financial terms, or at all. In addition, our product revenues and our profitability, if any, may be lower if we rely on third parties for these functions than if we were to market, sell and distribute any products that we develop ourselves. We likely will have little control over such third parties, and any of them may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our products effectively. If we are not successful in commercializing our products, either on our own or through arrangements with one or more third parties, we may not be able to generate any future product revenue and we would incur significant additional losses.

Our future growth may depend, in part, on our ability to operate in foreign markets, where we would be subject to additional regulatory burdens and other risks and uncertainties.

Our future growth may depend, in part, on our ability to develop and commercialize our vaccine candidates in foreign markets. We are not permitted to market or promote any of our vaccine candidates before we receive regulatory approval from applicable regulatory authorities in foreign markets, and we may never receive such regulatory approvals for any of our vaccine candidates. To obtain separate regulatory approval in many other countries we must comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements regarding safety and efficacy and governing, among other things, clinical trials, commercial sales, pricing and distribution of our vaccine candidates. If we obtain regulatory approval of our vaccine candidates and ultimately commercialize our products in foreign markets, we would be subject to additional risks and uncertainties, including:

 

   

different regulatory requirements for approval of drugs in foreign countries;

 

   

reduced protection for intellectual property rights;

 

   

the existence of additional third-party patent rights of potential relevance to our business;

 

   

pricing pressure from vaccine procurement organizations;

 

   

determinations by NITAGs not to include our vaccine products in immunization schedules for our target patient population, older adults;

 

   

unexpected changes in tariffs, trade barriers and regulatory requirements;

 

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economic weakness, including inflation, or political instability in particular foreign economies and markets;

 

   

compliance with tax, employment, immigration and labor laws for employees living or traveling abroad;

 

   

compliance with export control and import laws and regulations;

 

   

foreign currency fluctuations, which could result in increased operating expenses and reduced revenues, and other obligations incident to doing business in another country;

 

   

foreign reimbursement, pricing and insurance regimes;

 

   

workforce uncertainty in countries where labor unrest is common;

 

   

differing regulatory requirements with respect to manufacturing of vaccine products;

 

   

production shortages resulting from any events affecting raw material supply or manufacturing capabilities abroad; and

 

   

business interruptions resulting from geopolitical actions, including war and terrorism, or natural disasters including earthquakes, typhoons, floods and fires.

We received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which subjects certain of our vaccine candidates to pricing and other restrictions.

On September 24, 2020, we entered into a grant agreement (the Grant Agreement) with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), pursuant to which BMGF awarded us a grant (the Grant) to help fund our development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. We are using the Grant to develop IVX-411. The Grant Agreement, along with the Global Access and Price Commitment Agreement (the GACA), which we entered into with BMGF on February 17, 2021, subjects our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, including IVX-411, to certain pricing requirements in certain geographies, global access requirements and reporting and other covenants to ensure that such vaccine candidates are made available by us worldwide and on a nondiscriminatory basis. Such covenants may limit the prices we can charge for such vaccine candidates in low and middle income countries, and include a license to use certain of our proprietary technology related to such vaccine candidates for use in low and middle income countries if we do not comply with the Grant Agreement or GACA. Such price limitations or license, if invoked, could limit the prices we charge, or in some cases, restrict our control over the manufacturing and distribution of certain of our vaccine candidates targeting SARS-CoV-2, which could harm our ability to initiate or continue clinical trials of such vaccine candidates, adversely affect the development or commercialization of such vaccine candidates, or otherwise negatively impact our market position.

Risks Related to Our Business Operations and Industry

Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes our future operating results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or any guidance we may provide.

Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate significantly, which makes it difficult for us to predict our future operating results. These fluctuations may occur due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, including, but not limited to:

 

   

the timing and cost of, and level of investment in, research, development, regulatory approval and commercialization activities relating to our vaccine candidates, which may change from time to time;

 

   

coverage and reimbursement policies with respect to our vaccine candidates, if approved, and potential future drugs that compete with our products;

 

   

the cost of manufacturing our vaccine candidates, which may vary depending on the quantity of production and the terms of our agreements with third-party manufacturers;

 

   

expenditures that we may incur to acquire, develop or commercialize additional vaccine candidates and technologies;

 

   

the level of demand for any approved products, which may vary significantly;

 

   

future accounting pronouncements or changes in our accounting policies; and

 

   

the timing and success or failure of preclinical studies or clinical trials for our vaccine candidates or competing vaccine candidates, or any other change in the competitive landscape of our industry, including consolidation among our competitors or partners.

 

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The cumulative effects of these factors could result in large fluctuations and unpredictability in our quarterly and annual operating results. As a result, comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. Investors should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance.

This variability and unpredictability could also result in our failing to meet the expectations of industry or financial analysts or investors for any period. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of analysts or investors or below any forecasts we may provide to the market, or if the forecasts we provide to the market are below the expectations of analysts or investors, the price of our common stock could decline substantially. Such a stock price decline could occur even when we have met any previously publicly stated revenue or earnings guidance we may provide.

We are dependent on the services of our management and other clinical and scientific personnel, and if we are not able to retain these individuals or recruit additional management or clinical and scientific personnel, our business will suffer.

Our success depends in part on our continued ability to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified management, clinical and scientific personnel. We are highly dependent upon our senior management, as well as our senior scientists and other members of our management team. The loss of services of any of these individuals could delay or prevent the successful development of our product pipeline, initiation or completion of our preclinical studies and clinical trials or the commercialization of our vaccine candidates. Although we have executed employment agreements or offer letters with each member of our senior management team, these agreements are terminable at will with or without notice and, therefore, we may not be able to retain their services as expected. We do not currently maintain “key person” life insurance on the lives of our executives or any of our employees. This lack of insurance means that we may not have adequate compensation for the loss of the services of these individuals.

We will need to expand and effectively manage our managerial, operational, financial and other resources in order to successfully pursue our clinical development and commercialization efforts. We may not be successful in maintaining our unique company culture and continuing to attract or retain qualified management and scientific and clinical personnel in the future due to the intense competition for qualified personnel among biopharmaceutical, biotechnology and other businesses, particularly in the Seattle area. Our industry has experienced a high rate of turnover of management personnel in recent years. If we are not able to attract, integrate, retain and motivate necessary personnel to accomplish our business objectives, we may experience constraints that will significantly impede the achievement of our development objectives, our ability to raise additional capital and our ability to implement our business strategy.

We may encounter difficulties in managing our growth and expanding our operations successfully.

We had 21 full-time employees as of June 15, 2021. As we continue development and pursue the potential commercialization of our vaccine candidates, as well as function as a public company, we will need to expand our financial, development, regulatory, manufacturing, marketing and sales capabilities or contract with third parties to provide these capabilities for us. As our operations expand, we expect that we will need to manage additional relationships with various strategic partners, suppliers and other third parties. In addition, we may need to expand our facilities, including laboratory operations, and may be unable to do so on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Our future financial performance and our ability to develop and commercialize our vaccine candidates and to compete effectively will depend, in part, on our ability to manage any future growth effectively.

We are subject to various U.S. federal, state and foreign healthcare laws and regulations, which could increase compliance costs, and our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could harm our results of operations and financial condition.

Our business operations and current and future arrangements with investigators, healthcare professionals, consultants, third-party payors, patient organizations and customers expose us to broadly applicable foreign, federal and state fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations. These laws may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we conduct our operations, including how we research, market, sell and distribute any products for which we obtain marketing approval. Such laws include:

 

   

the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits, among other things, persons or entities from knowingly and willfully soliciting, offering, receiving or providing any remuneration (including any kickback, bribe or certain rebates), directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, in return for, either the referral

 

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of an individual or the purchase, lease, or order, or arranging for or recommending the purchase, lease, or order of any good, facility, item or service, for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under a federal healthcare program such as Medicare and Medicaid. A person or entity does not need to have actual knowledge of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute or specific intent to violate it in order to have committed a violation;

 

   

the federal false claims laws, including the civil False Claims Act, and civil monetary penalties laws, which prohibit, among other things, individuals or entities from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, to the federal government, claims for payment or approval that are false or fraudulent, knowingly making, using or causing to be made or used, a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim, or from knowingly making or causing to be made 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 or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the civil False Claims Act;

 

   

the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which imposes criminal and civil liability for, among other things, knowingly and willfully executing, or attempting to execute, 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;

 

   

the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act, 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 (with certain exceptions) to report annually to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), information related to payments and other “transfers of value” made to physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors) and teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by such healthcare professionals and their immediate family members. Beginning in 2022, applicable manufacturers also will be required to report such information regarding payments and transfers of value provided, as well as ownership and investment interests held, during the previous year to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified nurse anesthetists, anesthesiology assistants and certified nurse-midwives; and

 

   

analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws, may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-governmental third-party payors, including private insurers; some state laws require biotechnology companies to comply with the biotechnology industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government and may require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures; some state laws that require biotechnology companies to report information on the pricing of certain drug products; and some state and local laws require the registration or pharmaceutical sales representatives.

Efforts to ensure that our current and future business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare and privacy laws and regulations will involve ongoing substantial costs. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices, including consulting agreements with certain physicians who are paid in the form of stock or stock options as compensation for services provided to us, may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant penalties, including civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, integrity oversight and reporting obligations, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. Defending against any such actions can be costly, time-consuming and may require significant financial and personnel resources. Therefore, even if we are successful in defending against any such actions that may be brought against us, our business may be impaired. Further, if any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or

 

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entities with whom we expect to do business is found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to significant criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare program.

Recently enacted legislation, future legislation and healthcare reform measures may increase the difficulty and cost for us to obtain marketing approval for and commercialize our vaccine candidates and may affect the prices we may set.

In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been, and we expect there will continue to be, a number of legislative and regulatory changes to the healthcare system, including cost-containment measures that may reduce or limit coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs and affect our ability to profitably sell any vaccine candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. In particular, there have been and continue to be a number of initiatives at the U.S. federal and state levels that seek to reduce healthcare costs and improve the quality of healthcare.

For example, in March 2010, the ACA was enacted in the United States. Among the provisions of the ACA of importance to our potential vaccine candidates, the ACA: established an annual, nondeductible fee on any entity that manufactures or imports specified branded prescription drugs and biologic agents; extended manufacturers’ Medicaid rebate liability to covered drugs dispensed to individuals who are enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations; expanded eligibility criteria for Medicaid programs; expanded the entities eligible for discounts under the Public Health program; increases the statutory minimum rebates a manufacturer must pay under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program; created a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program; established a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to oversee, identify priorities in and conduct comparative clinical effectiveness research, along with funding for such research; and established a Center for Medicare Innovation at CMS to test innovative payment and service delivery models to lower Medicare and Medicaid spending.

Since its enactment, there have been executive, judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the ACA, and on June 17, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the most recent judicial challenge to the ACA brought by several states without specifically ruling on the constitutionality of the ACA. Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, President Biden had issued an executive order to initiate a special enrollment period from February 15, 2021 through August 15, 2021 for purposes of obtaining health insurance coverage through the ACA marketplace. The executive order also instructed certain governmental agencies to review and reconsider their existing policies and rules that limit access to healthcare, including among others, reexamining Medicaid demonstration projects and waiver programs that include work requirements, and policies that create unnecessary barriers to obtaining access to health insurance coverage through Medicaid or the ACA. It is unclear how the healthcare reform measures of the Biden administration, or other efforts to challenge the ACA, if any, will impact the ACA or our business.

In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the ACA was enacted. On August 2, 2011, the Budget Control Act of 2011 was signed into law, which, among other things, resulted in reductions to Medicare payments to providers of 2% per fiscal year, which went into effect on April 1, 2013 and, due to subsequent legislative amendments to the statute, will remain in effect through 2030, with the exception of a temporary suspension from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2021, unless additional Congressional action is taken. In addition, on January 2, 2013, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was signed into law, which, among other things, further reduced Medicare payments to several providers, including hospitals, and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years.

Further, there has been heightened governmental scrutiny in the United States of pharmaceutical pricing practices in light of the rising cost of prescription drugs. Such scrutiny has resulted in several recent congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to product pricing, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient assistance programs, and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for products. At the federal level, the former Trump administration used several means to propose or implement drug pricing reform, including through federal budget proposals, executive orders and policy initiatives. It is unclear whether the Biden administration will work to reverse these measures or pursue similar policy initiatives. Further, it is possible that additional governmental action is taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

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At the state level, legislatures have increasingly passed legislation and implemented regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological product pricing, including price or reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing. Legally mandated price controls on payment amounts by third-party payors or other restrictions could harm our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects. In addition, regional healthcare authorities and individual hospitals are increasingly using bidding procedures to determine what pharmaceutical products and which suppliers will be included in their prescription drug and other healthcare programs. This could reduce the ultimate demand for our vaccine candidates, if approved, or put pressure on our product pricing, which could negatively affect our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

We expect that the ACA, these new laws and other healthcare reform measures that may be adopted in the future may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, more rigorous coverage criteria, new payment methodologies and additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any approved product. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. The implementation of cost containment measures or other healthcare reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability or commercialize our vaccine candidates, if approved.

If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our products.

We face an inherent risk of product liability as a result of the clinical trials of our vaccine candidates and will face an even greater risk if we commercialize our vaccine candidates. For example, we may be sued if our vaccine candidates allegedly cause injury or are found to be otherwise unsuitable during product testing, manufacturing, marketing or sale. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the vaccine candidate, negligence, strict liability and a breach of warranties. Claims may be brought against us by clinical trial participants, vaccine recipients or others using, administering or selling products that may be approved in the future. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection acts.

If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability claims, we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit or cease the commercialization of our products. Even a successful defense would require significant financial and management resources. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

 

   

decreased demand for our products;

 

   

injury to our reputation and significant negative media attention;

 

   

withdrawal of clinical trial participants;

 

   

costs to defend the related litigation;

 

   

a diversion of our management’s time and our resources;

 

   

substantial monetary awards to trial participants or vaccine recipients;

 

   

product recalls, withdrawals or labeling, marketing or promotional restrictions;

 

   

significant negative financial impact;

 

   

the inability to commercialize our vaccine candidates; and

 

   

a decline in our stock price.

We currently hold $15 million of clinical trial liability insurance coverage. We may need to increase our insurance coverage as we expand our clinical trials or if we commence commercialization of our vaccine candidates. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. Our inability to obtain and retain sufficient product liability insurance at an acceptable cost to protect against potential product liability claims could prevent or inhibit the commercialization of our vaccine candidates. Although we will maintain such insurance, any claim that may be brought against us could result in a court judgment or settlement in an amount that is not covered, in whole or in part, by our insurance or that is in excess of the limits of our insurance coverage. Our insurance policies will also have various exclusions, and we may be subject to a product liability claim for which we have no coverage. We may have to pay any amounts

 

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awarded by a court or negotiated in a settlement that exceed our coverage limitations or that are not covered by our insurance, and we may not have, or be able to obtain, sufficient capital to pay such amounts.

Our insurance policies are expensive and only protect us from some business risks, which will leave us exposed to significant uninsured liabilities.

We do not carry insurance for all categories of risk that our business may encounter. Some of the policies we currently maintain include property, general liability, employment benefits liability, business automobile, workers’ compensation, products liability, malicious invasion of our electronic systems, and clinical trials, and directors’ and officers’, employment practices and fiduciary liability insurance. We do not know, however, if we will be able to maintain insurance with adequate levels of coverage. Any significant uninsured liability may require us to pay substantial amounts, which would adversely affect our financial position and results of operations.

We and any of our potential future collaborators will be required to report to regulatory authorities if any of our approved products cause or contribute to adverse medical events, and any failure to do so would result in sanctions that would materially harm our business.

If we or any of our potential future collaborators are successful in commercializing our products, the FDA and foreign regulatory authorities would require that we and such collaborators report certain information about adverse medical events if those products may have caused or contributed to those adverse events. The timing of our obligation to report would be triggered by the date we become aware of the adverse event as well as the nature of the event. We and any of our potential future collaborators or CROs may fail to report adverse events within the prescribed timeframe. If we or any of our current or potential future collaborators or CROs fail to comply with such reporting obligations, the FDA or a foreign regulatory authority could take action, including criminal prosecution, the imposition of civil monetary penalties, seizure of our products or delay in approval or clearance of future products.

We and our service providers may be subject to a variety of privacy and data security laws and contractual obligations, which could increase compliance costs and actual or perceived failure to comply with them could subject us to potentially significant fines or penalties and otherwise harm our business. Our internal computer systems, or those of any of our service providers, may fail or suffer security breaches, which could result in a material disruption of our product development programs.

We and our service providers maintain and will maintain a large quantity of sensitive information, including confidential business and patient health information in connection with our preclinical studies and planned clinical trials, and are subject to laws and regulations governing the privacy and security of such information. The global data protection landscape is rapidly evolving, and we may be affected by or subject to new, amended or existing laws and regulations in the future, including as our operations continue to expand or if we operate in foreign jurisdictions. These laws and regulations may be subject to differing interpretations, which adds to the complexity of processing personal data. Guidance on implementation and compliance practices are often updated or otherwise revised. This may create uncertainty in our business, affect our ability to operate in certain jurisdictions or to collect, store, transfer use and share personal information, necessitate the acceptance of more onerous obligations in our contracts, result in liability or impose additional costs on us. The cost of compliance with these laws, regulations and standards is high and is likely to increase in the future. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with federal, state or foreign laws or regulation, our internal policies and procedures or our contracts governing our processing of personal information could result in negative publicity, government investigations and enforcement actions, claims by third parties and damage to our reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our operations, financial performance and business.

As our operations and business grow, we may become subject to or affected by new or additional data protection laws and regulations and face increased scrutiny or attention from regulatory authorities. In the United States, numerous federal and state laws and regulations, including health information privacy laws, data breach notification laws and consumer protection laws (e.g., Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act), that govern the collection, use, disclosure and protection of health-related and other personal information could apply to our operations or the operations of our collaborators and third-party providers. In addition, we may obtain health information from third parties (including research institutions from which we obtain clinical trial data) that are subject to privacy and security requirements under HIPAA. Depending on the facts and circumstances, we could be subject to significant penalties if we violate HIPAA.

 

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In addition, certain state laws govern the privacy and security of health and other information in certain circumstances. These laws are evolving rapidly and may differ from each other in significant ways and may not have the same effect, thus complicating compliance efforts. By way of example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which went into effect on January 1, 2020, gives California residents individual privacy rights to access and delete their personal information, opt out of certain personal information sharing, and receive detailed information about how their personal information is used. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for data breaches that is expected to increase data breach litigation. The CCPA may increase our compliance costs and potential liability and many similar laws have been proposed at the federal level and in other states. Further, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) recently passed in California. The CPRA will impose additional data protection obligations on covered businesses, including additional consumer rights processes, limitations on data uses, new audit requirements for higher risk data, and opt outs for certain uses of sensitive data. It will also create a new California data protection agency authorized to issue substantive regulations and could result in increased privacy and information security enforcement. The majority of the provisions will go into effect on January 1, 2023, and additional compliance investment and potential business process changes may be required. Other states are exploring their own laws, which may or may not be similar to CCPA or the CPRA. In the event that we are subject to or affected by HIPAA, the CCPA, the CPRA or other domestic privacy and data protection laws, any liability from failure to comply with the requirements of these laws could adversely affect our financial condition.

There also are a wide variety of privacy laws in other countries that may impact our operations, now or in the future. For example, in Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes stringent requirements regarding the collection, use, disclosure, transfer or other processing of personal data of individuals within the European Economic Area (EEA). Companies that must comply with the GDPR face increased compliance obligations and risk, including more robust regulatory enforcement of data protection requirements and potential fines for noncompliance of up to 20 million or 4% of the annual global revenues of the noncompliant company, whichever is greater. The GDPR also confers a private right of action in some circumstances on data subjects and consumer associations to lodge complaints with supervisory authorities, seek judicial remedies and obtain compensation for damages resulting from violations of the GDPR. Among other things, the GDPR requires the establishment of a lawful basis for the processing of data, imposes requirements relating to the consent of the individuals to whom the personal data relates, including detailed notices for clinical trial subjects and investigators, as well as requirements regarding the security of personal data and notification of data processing obligations to the competent national data processing authorities. In addition, the GDPR increases the scrutiny of transfers of personal data from clinical trial sites located in the EEA to the United States and other jurisdictions that the European Commission does not recognize as having “adequate” data protection laws. Recent legal developments in Europe have created complexity and uncertainty regarding transfers of personal data from the EEA to the United States. For example, on July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework (Privacy Shield) under which personal data could be transferred from the EEA to United States entities that had self-certified under the Privacy Shield scheme. While the CJEU upheld the adequacy of the standard contractual clauses (a standard form of contract approved by the European Commission as an adequate personal data transfer mechanism, and potential alternative to the Privacy Shield), it made clear that reliance on them alone may not necessarily be sufficient in all circumstances. Use of the standard contractual clauses must now be assessed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the legal regime applicable in the destination country, in particular applicable surveillance laws and rights of individuals and additional measures and/or contractual provisions may need to be put in place, however, the nature of these additional measures is currently uncertain.

Further, following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and the EEA and the end of the transition period, from January 1, 2021, we will have to comply with the GDPR and separately the GDPR as implemented in the United Kingdom, which, together with the amended UK Data Protection Act 2018, retains the GDPR in UK national law. The UK GDPR mirrors the fines under the GDPR and has the ability to fine up to the greater of 20 million/£17 million or 4% of global turnover. The relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union and the EEA in relation to certain aspects of data protection law remains unclear, and it is unclear how United Kingdom data protection laws and regulations will develop in the medium to longer term, and how data transfers to and from the United Kingdom will be regulated in the long term. These changes will lead to additional costs and increase our overall risk exposure. Currently there is a four to six-month grace period agreed in the European Union and United Kingdom Trade and Cooperation Agreement, ending June 30, 2021 at the latest, whilst

 

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the parties discuss an adequacy decision. The European Commission published a draft adequacy decision on February 19, 2021. If adopted, the decision will enable data transfers from European Union member states to the United Kingdom for a four-year period, subject to subsequent extensions.

In many jurisdictions, enforcement actions and consequences for noncompliance are rising. In the United States, these include enforcement actions in response to rules and regulations promulgated under the authority of federal agencies and state attorneys general and legislatures and consumer protection agencies. If we fail to follow these security standards, even if no personal information is compromised, we may incur significant fines or experience a significant increase in costs. Many state legislatures have adopted legislation that regulates how businesses operate online, including measures relating to privacy, data security and data breaches. Laws in all U.S. states require businesses to provide notice to customers whose personally identifiable information has been disclosed as a result of a data breach. The laws are not consistent, and compliance in the event of a widespread data breach is costly.

Compliance with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could require us to take on more onerous obligations in our contracts, restrict our ability to collect, use and disclose data, update our data privacy and security policies and procedures, or in some cases, impact our ability to operate in certain jurisdictions. Failure by us or our collaborators and service providers to comply with U.S. and international data protection laws and regulations could result in government enforcement actions (which could include civil or criminal penalties), private litigation and/or adverse publicity and could negatively affect our operating results and business. Moreover, clinical trial subjects about whom we or 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. Claims that we have violated individuals’ privacy rights, failed to comply with data protection laws, or breached our contractual obligations, even if we are not found liable, could be expensive and time consuming to defend, could result in adverse publicity and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Should any of these events occur, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

In addition, attacks upon information technology systems are increasing in their frequency, levels of persistence, sophistication and intensity, and are being conducted by sophisticated and organized groups and individuals with a wide range of motives and expertise. These attacks can present meaningful risks to our operations, data and commercial information. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we may also face increased cybersecurity risks due to our reliance on internet technology and the number of our employees who are working remotely, which may create additional opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities. Furthermore, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to, or to sabotage, systems change frequently and often are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures. We may also experience security breaches that may remain undetected for an extended period. Any security breach or other incident, whether actual or perceived, could impact our reputation and/or operations, cause us to incur significant costs, including legal expenses, harm customer confidence, hurt our expansion into new markets, cause us to incur remediation costs, or cause us to lose existing customers. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. We also rely on third parties to manufacture our vaccine candidates, and similar events relating to their computer systems could also have a material adverse effect on our business. To the extent that any actual or perceived disruption or security breach affects our systems (or those of our third-party collaborators, service providers, contractors or consultants) or were to result in a loss of or accidental, unlawful or unauthorized access to, use of, release of, or other processing of personally identifiable information, or damage to, our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability, the further development and commercialization of our vaccine candidates could be delayed, and we could be subject to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for any noncompliance to certain privacy and security laws.

Further, despite the implementation of security measures, our internal technology systems (including infrastructure) and those of our current and any future CROs and other contractors, consultants and collaborators are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, cybersecurity threats (such as denial-of-service attacks, cyber-attacks or cyber-intrusions over the Internet, hacking, phishing and other social engineering attacks), unauthorized access or use, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. If such an event were to occur and

 

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cause interruptions in our operations or result in the unauthorized disclosure of or access to personally identifiable information or individually identifiable health information, it could result in a material disruption of our development programs and our business operations, whether due to a loss of our trade secrets or other similar disruptions. We have also outsourced elements of our information technology infrastructure, and as a result a number of third-party vendors may or could have access to our confidential information. If our third-party vendors fail to protect their information technology systems and our confidential and proprietary information, we may be vulnerable to disruptions in service and unauthorized access to our confidential or proprietary information and we could incur liability and reputational damage. Some of the federal, state and foreign government requirements include obligations of companies to notify individuals of security breaches involving particular categories of personally identifiable information, which could result from breaches experienced by us or by our vendors, contractors, or organizations with which we have formed strategic relationships.

Our business is subject to risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and other epidemic diseases.

The current COVID-19 worldwide pandemic has presented substantial public health and economic challenges and is affecting our employees, clinical trial subjects, physicians and other healthcare providers, communities and business operations, as well as the U.S. and global economies and financial markets. International and U.S. governmental authorities in impacted regions have taken, and are continuing to take, actions in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, including issuing varying forms of “stay-at-home” orders, and restricting business functions outside of one’s home. In response, our administrative employees have worked remotely and we have limited the number of staff in our research and development laboratories. To date we have not experienced material disruptions in our business operations. However, while it is not possible at this time to estimate the impact that COVID-19 could have on our business in the future, particularly as we advance our vaccine candidates through clinical development, the continued spread of COVID-19 and the measures taken by the governmental authorities, and any future epidemic disease outbreaks, could disrupt the supply chain and the manufacture or shipment of drug substances and finished drug products for our vaccine candidates for use in our research, preclinical studies and clinical trials, delay, limit or prevent our employees and CROs from continuing research and development activities, impede our clinical trial initiation and recruitment and the ability of subjects to continue in clinical trials, impede testing, monitoring, data collection and analysis and other related activities, any of which could delay our preclinical studies and clinical trials and increase our development costs, and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. The COVID-19 pandemic and any future epidemic disease outbreak could also potentially further affect the business of the FDA or other regulatory authorities, which could result in delays in meetings related to planned clinical trials. The COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation measures have had and may continue to have, and any future epidemic disease outbreak may have, an adverse impact on global economic conditions which could have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition, including impairing our ability to raise capital when needed. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacts our results will depend on future developments that are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information that may emerge concerning the severity of the virus and the actions to contain its impact.

Our business could be affected by litigation, government investigations and enforcement actions.

We currently operate in a number of jurisdictions in a highly regulated industry and we could be subject to litigation, government investigation and enforcement actions on a variety of matters in the United States. or foreign jurisdictions, including, without limitation, intellectual property, regulatory, product liability, environmental, whistleblower, false claims, privacy, anti-kickback, anti-bribery, securities, commercial, employment and other claims and legal proceedings which may arise from conducting our business. Any determination that our operations or activities are not in compliance with existing laws or regulations could result in the imposition of fines, civil and criminal penalties, equitable remedies, including disgorgement, injunctive relief and/or other sanctions against us, and remediation of any such findings could have an adverse effect on our business operations.

Legal proceedings, government investigations and enforcement actions can be expensive and time consuming. An adverse outcome resulting from any such proceeding, investigations or enforcement actions could result in significant damages awards, fines, penalties, exclusion from the federal healthcare programs, healthcare debarment, injunctive relief, product recalls, reputational damage and modifications of our business practices, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

 

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Our employees and independent contractors, including principal investigators, CROs, consultants and vendors, may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including noncompliance with regulatory standards and requirements.

We are exposed to the risk that our employees and independent contractors, including principal investigators, CROs, consultants and vendors may engage in misconduct or other illegal activity. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional, reckless and/or negligent conduct or disclosure of unauthorized activities to us that violate: (i) the laws and regulations of the FDA and other similar regulatory requirements, including those laws that require the reporting of true, complete and accurate information to such authorities, (ii) manufacturing standards, including cGMP requirements, (iii) federal and state data privacy, security, fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations in the United States and abroad or (iv) laws that require the true, complete and accurate reporting of financial information or data. Activities subject to these laws also involve the improper use or misrepresentation of information obtained in the course of clinical trials, the creation of fraudulent data in our preclinical studies or clinical trials or illegal misappropriation of drug product, which could result in regulatory sanctions and cause serious harm to our reputation. It is not always possible to identify and deter misconduct by employees and other third parties, 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 be in compliance with such laws or regulations. In addition, we are subject to the risk that a person or government could allege such fraud or other misconduct, even if none occurred. 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 significant impact on our business and financial results, including, without limitation, the imposition of significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, monetary fines, disgorgements, possible exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare programs, imprisonment, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, additional reporting requirements and oversight if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or similar agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with these laws and curtailment of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations.

We may engage in strategic transactions that could impact our liquidity, increase our expenses and present significant distractions to our management.

From time to time, we may consider strategic transactions, such as acquisitions of companies, asset purchases and out-licensing or in-licensing of intellectual property, products or technologies. Additional potential transactions that we may consider in the future include a variety of business arrangements, including spin-offs, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, restructurings, divestitures, business combinations and investments. Any future transactions could increase our near and long-term expenditures, result in potentially dilutive issuances of our equity securities, including our common stock, or the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities, amortization expenses or acquired in-process research and development expenses, any of which could affect our financial condition, liquidity and results of operations. Future acquisitions may also require us to obtain additional financing, which may not be available on favorable terms or at all. These transactions may never be successful and may require significant time and attention of our management. In addition, the integration of any business that we may acquire in the future may disrupt our existing business and may be a complex, risky and costly endeavor for which we may never realize the full benefits of the acquisition. Accordingly, although there can be no assurance that we will undertake or successfully complete any additional transactions of the nature described above, any additional transactions that we do complete could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we are unable to obtain and maintain patent protection for our vaccine candidates, or if the scope of the patent protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize products similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our vaccine candidates may be adversely affected.

Our success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection in the United States and other countries with respect to our therapeutic programs and other proprietary technologies we may develop. We seek to protect our proprietary position, in part, by exclusively licensing and filing company-owned patent applications in the United States and abroad relating to our vaccine candidates, VLP technology, manufacturing processes, and methods of use. If we or our principal licensor, UW, are unable to obtain or maintain patent protection, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed.

 

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Changes in either the patent laws or their interpretation in the United States and other jurisdictions may diminish our ability to protect our intellectual property, obtain, maintain and enforce our intellectual property rights and, more generally, could affect the value of our intellectual property or narrow the scope of our protection. We cannot predict whether the patent applications we are currently pursuing will issue as patents in any particular jurisdiction or whether the claims of any issued patents will provide sufficient protection against competitors or other third parties.

The patent prosecution process is expensive, time-consuming, and complex, and we or our licensors may not be able to file, prosecute or maintain all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output in time to obtain patent protection. Although we enter into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to confidential or patentable aspects of our research and development output, such as our employees, third party collaborators, CROs, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose such output before a patent application is filed, thereby jeopardizing our ability to seek patent protection. In addition, our ability to obtain and maintain valid and enforceable patents depends on whether the differences between our inventions and the prior art allow our inventions to be patentable over the prior art. Furthermore, publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all. Therefore, we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions claimed in any of our owned or licensed patents or pending patent applications, or that we or our licensors were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. For example, many of the patent applications related to discoveries in the SARS-CoV-2 field have not yet published and could impact our freedom to operate using our technology in the SARS-CoV-2 space. This may result in us needing to obtain additional licenses, which could have a financial impact, or ceasing development of our candidates if not able to obtain additional necessary licenses.

The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions and has been the subject of much litigation in recent years. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our patent applications may not result in patents being issued which protect our vaccine candidates or proprietary technologies we may develop or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and products.

Moreover, the claim coverage in a patent application can be significantly reduced before the patent is granted. Even if our patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors or other third parties from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Any patents issuing from our patent applications may be challenged, narrowed, circumvented or invalidated by third parties. Our competitors or other third parties may avail themselves of safe harbors under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (Hatch-Waxman Amendments) to conduct research and clinical trials. Consequently, we do not know whether our therapeutic programs and other proprietary technology will be protectable or remain protected by valid and enforceable patents. Even if a patent is granted, our competitors or other third parties may be able to circumvent the patent by developing similar or alternative technologies or products in a non-infringing manner which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. In addition, given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of our therapeutic programs and eventual vaccine candidates, patents protecting the vaccine candidates might expire before or shortly after such vaccine candidates are commercialized. As a result, our intellectual property may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.

The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity, or enforceability and our patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. We may be subject to a third-party pre-issuance submission of prior art to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or become involved in opposition, derivation, revocation, reexamination, post-grant review, inter partes review, or other similar proceedings challenging our patent rights. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of, or invalidate or render unenforceable, our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize our therapeutic programs and other proprietary technologies we may develop and compete directly

 

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with us, without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize products without infringing third-party patent rights. Such proceedings also may result in substantial cost and require significant time from our scientists and management, even if the eventual outcome is favorable to us.

Moreover, some of our owned and in-licensed patent rights may in the future be, co-owned with third parties. If we are unable to obtain an exclusive license to any such third-party co-owners’ interest in such patent rights, such co-owners may be able to license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners of such patent rights in order to enforce such patent rights against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects.

We rely heavily on certain license agreements with UW and also depend on intellectual property licensed from other third parties, and these licensors may not always act in our best interest. If we fail to comply with our obligations under our intellectual property licenses, if the licenses are terminated, or if disputes regarding these licenses arise, we could lose significant rights that are important to our business.

We are dependent, in part, on patents, know-how and proprietary technology licensed from others. We are a party to a number of license agreements under which we are granted rights to intellectual property that are important to our business and we may enter into additional license agreements in the future. Our existing license agreements impose, and we expect that any future license agreements where we in-license intellectual property will impose on us, various development, regulatory and/or commercial diligence obligations, payment of milestones and/or royalties and other obligations. Specifically, we are party to various option and license agreements with UW including (i) an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing, sublicensable license under certain UW patents to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import and otherwise exploit any product covered by the licensed patents or products for the prophylactic and/or therapeutic treatment of RSV, hMPV and four other infectious diseases, (ii) a non-exclusive, worldwide (excluding South Korea), sublicensable license under certain UW patents to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import or otherwise exploit any product covered under the licensed patents for the prophylactic and/or therapeutic treatments of SARS-CoV-2 infection with an option for an exclusive license in certain jurisdictions, and (iii) certain non-exclusive licenses to use certain know-how related to the foregoing. These licenses and, if exercised, options impose various diligence, milestone payment, royalty, and other obligations on us, and any future license agreements we enter into may do the same. In addition, we rely on in-licensing antigens from third parties other than UW to combine with our VLP platform. If we fail to comply with our obligations under these agreements, or we are subject to bankruptcy-related proceedings, the licensor may have the right to terminate the license, in which event we would not be able to develop or market the products covered by the license. In addition, we may need to obtain additional licenses from our existing licensors and others to advance our research or allow commercialization of vaccine candidates we may develop. It is possible that we may be unable to obtain any additional licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. In either event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to redesign our technology, vaccine candidates, or the methods for manufacturing them or to develop or license replacement technology, all of which may not be feasible on a technical or commercial basis. If we are unable to do so, we may be unable to develop or commercialize the affected technology or vaccine candidates.

If we or our licensors fail to adequately protect our licensed intellectual property, our ability to commercialize vaccine candidates could suffer. We do not have complete control over the maintenance, prosecution and litigation of our in-licensed patents and patent applications and may have limited control over future intellectual property that may be in-licensed. For example, we cannot be certain that activities such as the maintenance and prosecution by our licensors have been or will be conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations or will result in valid and enforceable patents and other intellectual property rights. It is possible that our licensors’ infringement proceedings or defense activities may be less vigorous than had we conducted them ourselves, or may not be conducted in accordance with our best interests. Furthermore, there may be certain limitations to our right to enforce certain exclusively licensed patents, including, for example, the requirement that we obtain the licensor’s consent prior to settling such lawsuits in a manner that would adversely affect the licensor’s rights, and a general prohibition on enforcement against non-profit entities.

 

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In addition, the agreements under which we license intellectual property or technology from third parties are complex, and certain provisions in such agreements may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant patents, know-how and proprietary technology, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under the relevant agreement. Disputes that may arise between us and our licensors regarding intellectual property subject to a license agreement could include disputes regarding:

 

   

the scope of rights granted under the license agreement and other interpretation-related issues;

 

   

whether and the extent to which our technology and processes infringe on intellectual property of the licensor that is not subject to the licensing agreement;

 

   

our right to sublicense patent and other rights to third parties under collaborative development relationships;

 

   

our diligence obligations with respect to the use of the licensed technology in relation to our development and commercialization of our vaccine candidates and what activities satisfy those diligence obligations; and

 

   

the ownership of inventions and know-how resulting from the joint creation or use of intellectual property by our licensors and us.

If disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected technology or vaccine candidates. As a result, any termination of or disputes over our intellectual property licenses could result in the loss of our ability to develop and commercialize our vaccine candidates, or we could lose other significant rights, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Furthermore, our licensed patent rights are or may be subject to retained or reserved rights by the licensor or one or more third parties. For example, UW retained rights to conduct academic research for itself and other rights necessary for UW to comply with its obligations to BMGF, which funded in part the research resulting in certain of our licensed patent rights and technology under the UW agreements. With respect to our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, we granted BMGF a humanitarian license that allows BMGF to make our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine available to certain developing countries. Further, because our licensed patent rights allow the licensor to continue their research on the licensed technology, a licensor may develop new inventions that we may want to license in the future. Any such licenses provided to us will increase our costs. Alternatively, if a licensor does not provide us with a license, we may be limited in our ability to develop competitive vaccine candidates in the future. For additional information on our material license agreements, see “Business–Material Agreements.”

Intellectual property discovered through government funded programs may be subject to federal regulations such as “march-in” rights, certain reporting requirements and a preference for U.S.-based companies. Compliance with such regulations may limit our exclusive rights and limit our ability to contract with non-U.S. manufacturers.

We have in-licensed certain patents and patent applications that were generated through the use of U.S. government funding or grants, and we may acquire or license in the future intellectual property rights that have been generated through the use of U.S. government funding or grants. Pursuant to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the U.S. government has certain rights in inventions developed with government funding. These U.S. government rights include a non-exclusive, non-transferable, irrevocable worldwide license to use inventions for any governmental purpose. In addition, the U.S. government has the right, under certain limited circumstances, to require us to grant exclusive, partially exclusive, or non-exclusive licenses to any of these inventions to a third-party if it determines that: (1) adequate steps have not been taken to commercialize the invention; (2) government action is necessary to meet public health or safety needs; or (3) government action is necessary to meet requirements for public use under federal regulations (also referred to as “march-in rights”). If the U.S. government exercises its march-in rights in our current or future intellectual property rights that are generated through the use of U.S. government funding or grants, we could be forced to license or sublicense intellectual property developed by us or that we license on terms unfavorable to us, and there can be no assurance that we would receive compensation from the U.S. government for the exercise of such rights. The U.S. government also has the right to take title to these inventions if the grant recipient fails to disclose the invention to the government or fails to file an application to register the intellectual property within specified time limits. Intellectual property generated under a government funded program is also

 

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subject to certain reporting requirements, compliance with which may require us or the applicable licensor to expend substantial resources. In addition, the U.S. government requires that any products embodying any of these inventions or produced through the use of any of these inventions be manufactured substantially in the United States. This preference for U.S. industry may be waived by the federal agency that provided the funding if the owner or assignee of the intellectual property can show that reasonable but unsuccessful efforts have been made to grant licenses on similar terms to potential licensees that would be likely to manufacture substantially in the United States or that under the circumstances domestic manufacture is not commercially feasible. This preference for U.S. industry may limit our ability to contract with non-U.S. product manufacturers for products covered by such intellectual property. Any failure by us to comply with federal regulations regarding intellectual property rights that were developed through the use of U.S. government funding could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects.

For example, because the research resulting in certain of our licensed patent rights and technology under the UW agreements and the agreement with the National Institutes of Health was funded in whole or in part by the U.S. government, the U.S. government has certain rights to such patent rights and technology, including a non-exclusive license authorizing the government to use the invention for non-commercial purposes and march-in rights, and impose certain reporting and domestic manufacturing requirements. These rights apply to IVX-121, IVX-241, IVX-A12, IVX-411, and IVX-421 and may permit the U.S. government to disclose our confidential information to third parties and to exercise march-in rights to use or allow third parties to use our licensed 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 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, our rights in such inventions are and may be subject to certain requirements to manufacture products embodying such inventions in the United States. Any exercise by the government of such rights could harm our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property and proprietary rights throughout the world.

Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on our vaccine candidates and/or VLP technology in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and the laws of foreign countries may not protect our intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States, or from selling or importing products made using our intellectual property in and into the United States or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our intellectual property in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and, further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection but enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our products, and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing. Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biotechnology products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our intellectual property and proprietary rights generally. In addition, some jurisdictions, such as Europe, Japan and China, may have a higher standard for patentability than in the United States, including, for example, the requirement of claims having literal support in the original patent filing and the limitation on using supporting data that is not in the original patent filing. Under those heightened patentability requirements, we may not be able to obtain sufficient patent protection in certain jurisdictions even though the same or similar patent protection can be secured in the United States and other jurisdictions.

Proceedings to enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly, could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop.

 

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Many countries have compulsory licensing laws under which a patent owner may be compelled to grant licenses to third parties. In addition, many countries limit the enforceability of patents against government agencies or government contractors. In these countries, the patent owner may have limited remedies, which could materially diminish the value of such patent. If we are forced to grant a license to third parties with respect to any patents relevant to our business, our competitive position may be impaired, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may be adversely affected.

Certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement) limit the use of compulsory licenses by World Trade Organization (WTO) members. Several WTO members and various public interest advocates have proposed the WTO implement a waiver of such provision of the TRIPS Agreement so that members may improve the supply of COVID-19 vaccines without fear of trade retaliation. In May 2021, the United States Trade Representative announced that the Biden Administration “will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen. Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved.” A waiver is unlikely to impact patent protection in the jurisdictions where we anticipate having the majority of our sales. Rather, with respect to our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, BMGF has retained or been granted rights in the jurisdictions where patent protection would be impacted. Nevertheless, the outcome of these negotiations is highly uncertain, and if the WTO agrees to waive provisions of the TRIPS Agreement relevant to our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may be adversely affected.

Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment, and other requirements imposed by government patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.

Periodic maintenance fees, renewal fees, annuity fees, and various other government fees on patents and applications will be due to be paid to the USPTO and various government patent agencies outside of the United States over the lifetime of our owned or licensed patents and applications. In certain circumstances, we rely on our licensors to pay these fees due to U.S. and non-U.S. patent agencies. The USPTO and various non-U.S. patent agencies require compliance with several procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. We are also dependent on our licensors to take the necessary action to comply with these requirements with respect to our licensed intellectual property. In some cases, an inadvertent lapse can be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules. There are situations, however, in which non-compliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in a partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. In such an event, potential competitors might be able to enter the market with similar or identical products or technology, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. The COVID-19 pandemic may impair our and our licensors’ ability to comply with these procedural, document submission, fee payment, and other requirements imposed by government patent agencies, which may materially and adversely affect our ability to obtain or maintain patent protection for our products and vaccine candidates.

Changes in U.S. patent law could diminish the value of patents in general, thereby impairing our ability to protect our products.

Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of patent applications and the enforcement or defense of issued patents. Assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, prior to March 2013, in the United States, the first to invent the claimed invention was entitled to the patent, while outside the United States, the first to file a patent application was entitled to the patent. After March 2013, under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (the America Invents Act) enacted in September 2011, the United States transitioned to a first inventor to file system in which, assuming that other requirements for patentability are met, the first inventor to file a patent application will be entitled to the patent on an invention regardless of whether a third party was the first to invent the claimed invention. A third party that files a patent application in the USPTO after March 2013, but before us could therefore be awarded a patent covering an invention of ours even if we had made the invention before it was made by such third party. This will require us to be cognizant going forward of the time from invention to filing of a patent application. Since patent applications in the United States and most other countries are confidential for a period of time after filing or until issuance, we cannot be certain that we were the first to either (i) file any patent application

 

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related to our therapeutic programs and other proprietary technologies we may develop or (ii) invent any of the inventions claimed in our patent applications.

The America Invents Act also includes a number of significant changes that affect the way patent applications will be prosecuted and also may affect patent litigation. These include allowing third party submission of prior art to the USPTO during patent prosecution and additional procedures to attack the validity of a patent by USPTO administered post-grant proceedings, including post-grant review, inter partes review and derivation proceedings. Because of a lower evidentiary standard in USPTO proceedings compared to the evidentiary standard in United States federal courts necessary to invalidate a patent claim, a third party could potentially provide evidence in a USPTO proceeding sufficient for the USPTO to hold a claim invalid even though the same evidence would be insufficient to invalidate the claim if first presented in a district court action. Accordingly, a third party may attempt to use the USPTO procedures to invalidate our patent claims that would not have been invalidated if first challenged by the third party as a defendant in a district court action. Therefore, the America Invents Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of patents issuing from those patent applications, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

In addition, the patent positions of companies in the development and commercialization of biologics and pharmaceuticals are particularly uncertain. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. This combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the validity and enforceability of patents, once obtained. Depending on future actions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that could have a material adverse effect on our existing patent portfolio and our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property in the future.

Issued patents covering our vaccine candidates and VLP technology could be found invalid or unenforceable if challenged in court or before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad.

If we initiated legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent covering our vaccine candidates or VLP technology, the defendant could counterclaim that such patent is invalid or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of novelty, obviousness or non-enablement. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld relevant information from the USPTO, or made a misleading statement, during prosecution. Third parties may raise claims challenging the validity or enforceability of a patent before administrative bodies in the United States or abroad, even outside the context of litigation. Such mechanisms include re-examination, post-grant review, inter partes review, derivation proceedings, and equivalent proceedings in foreign jurisdictions (e.g., opposition proceedings). Such proceedings could result in the revocation of, cancellation of or amendment to our patents in such a way that they no longer cover our vaccine candidates or VLP technology. The outcome following legal assertions of invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable. With respect to the validity question, for example, we cannot be certain that there is no invalidating prior art, of which we or our licensing partners and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution. If a third party were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on our vaccine candidates. Such a loss of patent protection would have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Patent terms may be inadequate to protect the competitive position of our vaccine candidates for an adequate amount of time.

Patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States, if all maintenance fees are timely paid, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional or international patent application filing date. Various extensions may be available, including by patent term adjustment (PTA) due to delays at the USPTO. Conversely, patent terms may be reduced by a terminal disclaimer that is necessary to overcome a double patenting rejection during patent prosecution. Such a terminal disclaimer could obviate any extension or adjustment that may be available. Irrespective of whether extensions are available, the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Even if patents covering our vaccine candidates are obtained, once the patent has expired, we may be vulnerable to competition from competitive products, including generics or biosimilars. Given the amount of time

 

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required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new vaccine candidates, patents protecting such vaccine candidates might expire before or shortly after such vaccine candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.

If we do not obtain patent term extension for our vaccine candidates, our business may be materially harmed.

Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of any FDA marketing approval of any vaccine candidate we have or may develop, one or more of our patents issuing from our U.S. patent applications may be eligible for limited patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Amendments. The Hatch-Waxman Amendments permit a patent extension term of up to five years as compensation for patent term lost during the FDA regulatory review process. A patent term extension cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of product approval, only one patent may be extended, and only those claims covering the approved drug, a method for using it or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. Similar patent term restoration provisions to compensate for commercialization delay caused by regulatory review are also available in certain foreign jurisdictions, such as in Europe under Supplemental Protection Certificate. However, we may not be granted an extension for various reasons, including failing to exercise due diligence during the testing phase or regulatory review process, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents, or failing to satisfy other applicable requirements. Moreover, the applicable time period or the scope of patent protection afforded could be less than we request. If we are unable to obtain patent term extension or term of any such extension is less than we request, our competitors may obtain approval of competing products following our patent expiration, and our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed.

We may be subject to claims challenging the inventorship of our patents and other intellectual property.

We may be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators or other third parties have an interest in our patent rights, trade secrets, or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. For example, we may have inventorship disputes arise from conflicting obligations of consultants or others who are involved in developing our vaccine candidates and other proprietary technologies we may develop. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging inventorship or our patent rights, trade secrets or other intellectual property. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, intellectual property that is important to our vaccine candidates and other proprietary technologies we may develop. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to our management and other employees. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.

In addition to seeking patent protection for our vaccine candidates and proprietary technologies, we also rely on trade secrets and confidentiality agreements to protect our unpatented know-how, technology, and other proprietary information and to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect these trade secrets and other proprietary technology, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, third-party collaborators, CROs, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We also enter into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants. We cannot guarantee that we have entered into such agreements with each party that may have or have had access to our trade secrets or proprietary technology and processes. Despite these efforts, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose our proprietary information, including our trade secrets, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor or other third party, we would have no right to prevent them from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to or independently developed by a competitor or other third party, our competitive position would be materially and adversely harmed.

 

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We may be subject to claims that third parties have an ownership interest in our trade secrets. For example, we may have disputes arise from conflicting obligations of our employees, consultants or others who are involved in developing our vaccine candidate. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging ownership of our trade secrets. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable trade secret rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, trade secrets that are important to our therapeutic programs and other proprietary technologies we may develop. Such an outcome could have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to our management and other employees. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may not identify relevant third-party patents or may incorrectly interpret the relevance, scope or expiration of a third-party patent, which might adversely affect our ability to develop and market our products and vaccine candidates.

We cannot guarantee that any of our patent searches or analyses, including the identification of relevant patents, the scope of patent claims or the expiration of relevant patents, are complete or thorough, nor can we be certain that we have identified each and every third-party patent and pending patent application in the United States and abroad that is relevant to or necessary for the commercialization of our current and future products and vaccine candidates in any jurisdiction. The scope of a patent claim is determined by an interpretation of the law, the written disclosure in a patent and the patent’s prosecution history. Our interpretation of the relevance or the scope of a patent or a pending patent application may be incorrect, which may negatively impact our ability to market our products. We may incorrectly determine that our products or vaccine candidates are not covered by a third-party patent or may incorrectly predict whether a third party’s pending patent application will issue with claims of relevant scope. Our determination of the expiration date of any patent in the United States or abroad that we consider relevant may be incorrect, and our failure to identify and correctly interpret relevant patents may negatively impact our ability to develop and market our products. Further, we may need to share our proprietary information, including trade secrets, with our current and future business partners, collaborators, contractors and others located in countries at heightened risk of theft of trade secrets, including through direct intrusion by private parties or foreign actors, and those affiliated with or controlled by state actors. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants or advisors have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their current or former employers or claims asserting ownership of what we regard as our own intellectual property.

Some of our employees, consultants and advisors are currently or were previously employed at universities, including UW, or other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants and advisors do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these individuals have used or disclosed intellectual property, including trade secrets or other proprietary information, of any such individual’s current or former employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to our management.

In addition, while it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the conception or development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who, in fact, conceives or develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. The assignment of intellectual property rights may not be self-executing, or the assignment agreements may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property. Such claims could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

 

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Third-party claims of intellectual property infringement, misappropriation or other violations against us or our potential future collaborators could be expensive and time consuming and may prevent or delay the development and commercialization of our vaccine candidates and other proprietary technologies.

Our commercial success depends in part on our ability to avoid infringing, misappropriating and otherwise violating the patents and other intellectual property rights of third parties. There is a substantial amount of complex litigation involving patents and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as administrative proceedings for challenging patents, including interference, derivation and reexamination proceedings before the USPTO or oppositions and other comparable proceedings in foreign jurisdictions. As discussed above, recently, due to changes in U.S. law referred to as patent reform, new procedures including inter partes review and post-grant review have also been implemented. As stated above, this reform adds uncertainty to the possibility of challenge to our patents in the future.

Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications owned by third parties exist in the fields in which we are commercializing or plan to commercialize our vaccine candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued, and as we gain greater visibility and market exposure as a public company, the risk increases that our vaccine candidates, proprietary technologies and commercializing activities may give rise to claims of infringement of the patent rights of others. We cannot assure you that our vaccine candidates or proprietary technologies will not infringe existing or future patents owned by third parties. We may not be aware of patents that have already been issued for which a third party, such as a competitor in the fields in which we are developing our vaccine candidates, might accuse us of infringing. It is also possible that patents owned by third parties of which we are aware, but which we do not believe we infringe or that we believe we have valid defenses to any claims of patent infringement, could be found to be infringed by us. It is not unusual that corresponding patents issued in different countries have different scopes of coverage, such that in one country a third-party patent does not pose a material risk, but in another country, the corresponding third-party patent may pose a material risk to our vaccine candidates. As such, we monitor third-party patents in the relevant pharmaceutical markets. In addition, because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications that may later result in issued patents that we may infringe.

Defense of infringement claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of management and other employee resources from our business, and may impact our reputation. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may be enjoined from further developing or commercializing the infringing products or technologies. In addition, we may be required to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, obtain one or more licenses from third parties, pay royalties and/or redesign our infringing products or technologies, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure. Further, we cannot predict whether any required license would be available at all or whether it would be available on commercially reasonable terms. Even if we are able to obtain a license, the license would likely obligate us to pay license fees or royalties or both, and the rights granted to us might be nonexclusive, which could result in our competitors gaining access to the same intellectual property. Ultimately, we could be prevented from commercializing a product or be forced to cease some aspect of our business operations as a result of actual or threatened patent infringement claims.

Even if resolved in our favor, the foregoing proceedings could be very expensive, particularly for a company of our size, and time-consuming. Such proceedings could substantially increase our operating losses and reduce the resources available for development activities or any future sales, marketing or distribution activities. We may not have sufficient financial or other resources to conduct such proceedings adequately. Further, some of our competitors may be able to sustain the costs of litigation or administrative proceedings more effectively than we can because of greater financial resources. Patent litigation and other proceedings may also absorb significant management time. Uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of patent litigation or other proceedings could impair our ability to compete in the marketplace. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments and if securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the price of our common stock. The occurrence of any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

 

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If our trademarks and trade names are not adequately protected, then we may not be able to build name recognition in our markets of interest and our business may be adversely affected.

Our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names may be opposed, challenged, infringed, circumvented, invalidated, cancelled, or declared generic or determined to be infringing on other marks. During trademark registration proceedings, we may receive rejections of our applications by the USPTO or in other foreign jurisdictions. Although we are given an opportunity to respond to such rejections, we may be unable to overcome them. In addition, in the USPTO and in comparable agencies in many foreign jurisdictions, third parties are given an opportunity to oppose pending trademark applications and to seek to cancel registered trademarks. Opposition or cancellation proceedings may be filed against our trademarks, which may not survive such proceedings. Moreover, any name we may propose to use with our vaccine candidate in the United States must be approved by the FDA, regardless of whether we have registered it, or applied to register it, as a trademark. Similar requirements exist in Europe. The FDA typically conducts a review of proposed product names, including an evaluation of potential for confusion with other product names. If the FDA or an equivalent administrative body in a foreign jurisdiction objects to any of our proposed proprietary product names, we may be required to expend significant additional resources in an effort to identify a suitable substitute name that would qualify under applicable trademark laws, not infringe the existing rights of third parties and be acceptable to the FDA. Furthermore, in many countries, owning and maintaining a trademark registration may not provide an adequate defense against a subsequent infringement claim asserted by the owner of a senior trademark.

We may not be able to protect our rights to these trademarks and trade names, which we need to build name recognition among potential partners or customers in our markets of interest. At times, competitors or other third parties may adopt trade names or trademarks similar to ours, thereby impeding our ability to build brand identity and possibly leading to market confusion. In addition, there could be potential trade name or trademark infringement claims brought by owners of other registered trademarks or trademarks that incorporate variations of our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names. Over the long term, if we are unable to establish name recognition based on our trademarks and trade names, then we may not be able to compete effectively and our business may be adversely affected. Our efforts to enforce or protect our proprietary rights related to trademarks, trade names, domain name or other intellectual property may be ineffective and could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Intellectual property rights do not necessarily address all potential threats.

The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations and may not adequately protect our business or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage. For example:

 

   

others may be able to make products that are similar to our vaccine candidates or utilize similar technology but that are not covered by the claims of the patents that we license or may own;

 

   

we might not have been the first to make the inventions covered by our current or future patent applications;

 

   

we might not have been the first to file patent applications covering our inventions;

 

   

others may independently develop similar or alternative technologies or duplicate any of our technologies without infringing our intellectual property rights;

 

   

it is possible that our current or future patent applications will not lead to issued patents;

 

   

any patent issuing from our current or future patent applications may be held invalid or unenforceable, including as a result of legal challenges by our competitors or other third parties;

 

   

our competitors or other third parties might conduct research and development activities in countries where we do not have patent rights and then use the information learned from such activities to develop competitive products for sale in our major commercial markets;

 

   

we may not develop additional proprietary technologies that are patentable;

 

   

the patents of others may harm our business; and

 

   

we may choose not to file for patent protection in order to maintain certain trade secrets or know-how, and a third party may subsequently file a patent application covering such intellectual property.

 

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Should any of the foregoing occur, it could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining necessary rights to product components and processes for our development pipeline through acquisitions and in-licenses.

The growth of our business may depend in part on our ability to acquire, in-license or use third-party proprietary rights. For example, our vaccine candidates may require specific formulations to work effectively and efficiently, we may develop vaccine candidates containing our compounds and pre-existing pharmaceutical compounds, which could require us to obtain rights to use intellectual property held by third parties. For example, we may find from our preclinical or clinical trials that our vaccine candidates achieve improved efficacy through combination with proprietary adjuvants. We may not be able to achieve long-term access to these adjuvants or may be only able to do so under unfavorable terms. This could limit the effectiveness of our vaccine candidates if we are unable to obtain access to these adjuvants or could impact our potential profitability if we can only obtain access under unfavorable terms. In addition, with respect to any patents we may co-own with third parties, we may require licenses to such co-owners interest to such patents. We may be unable to acquire or in-license any compositions, methods of use, processes or other third-party intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify as necessary or important to our business operations. In addition, we may fail to obtain any of these licenses at a reasonable cost or on reasonable terms, if at all. Were that to happen, we may need to cease use of the compositions or methods covered by those third-party intellectual property rights, and may need to seek to develop alternative approaches that do not infringe on those intellectual property rights, which may entail additional costs and development delays, even if we were able to develop such alternatives, which may not be feasible. Even if we are able to obtain a license, it may be non-exclusive, which means that our competitors may also receive access to the same technologies licensed to us. In that event, we may be required to expend significant time and resources to develop or license replacement technology.

Additionally, we may collaborate with academic institutions to accelerate our preclinical research or development under written agreements with these institutions. In certain cases, these institutions provide us with an option to negotiate a license to any of the institution’s rights in technology resulting from the collaboration. Even if we hold such an option, we may be unable to negotiate a license from the institution within the specified timeframe or under terms that are acceptable to us. If we are unable to do so, the institution may offer the intellectual property rights to others, potentially blocking our ability to pursue our program.

The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and companies that may be more established or have greater resources than we do may also be pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider necessary or attractive in order to commercialize our vaccine candidates. More established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully complete these types of negotiations and ultimately acquire the rights to the intellectual property surrounding the additional vaccine candidates that we may seek to develop or market. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third-party intellectual property or to maintain the existing intellectual property rights we have, we may have to abandon development of certain programs and our business financial condition, results of operations and prospects could suffer.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock, This Offering and Being a Public Company

There has been no public market for our common stock and an active, liquid and orderly market for our common stock may not develop, and you may not be able to resell your common stock at or above the public offering price.

Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for our common stock. Although we have applied to list our common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (Nasdaq), an active trading market for our common stock may never develop or be sustained following this offering. We and the representatives of the underwriters will determine the initial public offering price of our common stock through negotiation. This price will not necessarily reflect the price at which investors in the market will be willing to buy and sell our shares following this offering. In addition, an active trading market may not develop following the consummation of this offering or, if it is developed, may not be sustained. The lack of an active market may impair your ability to sell your shares at the time you wish to sell them

 

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or at a price that you consider reasonable. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other businesses or technologies using our shares as consideration, which, in turn, could materially adversely affect our business.

The trading price of the shares of our common stock could be highly volatile, and purchasers of our common stock could incur substantial losses.

Our stock price is likely to be volatile. The stock market in general and the market for stock of biopharmaceutical companies in particular have experienced extreme volatility that has often been unrelated to the operating performance of particular companies. As a result of this volatility, investors may not be able to sell their common stock at or above the initial public offering price. The market price for our common stock may be influenced by those factors discussed in this “Risk Factors” section and many others, including:

 

   

results of our preclinical studies and clinical trials, and the results of trials of our competitors or those of other companies in our market sector;

 

   

our ability to enroll subjects in our future clinical trials;

 

   

regulatory approval of our vaccine candidates, or limitations to specific label indications or target populations for its use, or changes or delays in the regulatory review process;

 

   

regulatory developments in the United States and foreign countries;

 

   

changes in the structure of healthcare payment systems;

 

   

the success or failure of our efforts to develop, acquire or license additional vaccine candidates;

 

   

innovations, clinical trial results, product approvals and other developments regarding our competitors;

 

   

announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital commitments;

 

   

manufacturing, supply or distribution delays or shortages;

 

   

any changes to our relationship with any manufacturers, suppliers, collaborators or other strategic partners;

 

   

achievement of expected product sales and profitability;

 

   

variations in our financial results or those of companies that are perceived to be similar to us;

 

   

market conditions in the biopharmaceutical sector and issuance of securities analysts’ reports or recommendations;

 

   

trading volume of our common stock;

 

   

an inability to obtain additional funding;

 

   

sales of our stock by insiders and stockholders;

 

   

general economic, industry and market conditions other events or factors, many of which are beyond our control;

 

   

additions or departures of key personnel;

 

   

intellectual property, product liability or other litigation against us;

 

   

changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities and the incurrence of additional debt; and

 

   

changes in accounting standards, policies, guidelines, interpretations or principles.

In addition, in the past, stockholders have initiated class action lawsuits against biopharmaceutical companies following periods of volatility in the market prices of these companies’ stock. Such litigation, if instituted against us, could cause us to incur substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may allocate the net proceeds from this offering in ways that you and other stockholders may not approve.

Our management will have broad discretion in the application of the net proceeds from this offering, including for any of the purposes described in “Use of Proceeds.” Because of the number and variability of factors that will determine our use of the net proceeds from this offering, their ultimate use may vary substantially from their currently intended use. Our management might not apply our net proceeds in ways that ultimately increase the value of your investment, and the failure by our management to apply these funds effectively could harm our business. Pending their use, we may invest the net proceeds from this offering in short-and intermediate-term, interest-bearing

 

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obligations, investment-grade instruments, certificates of deposit or direct or guaranteed obligations of the U.S. government. These investments may not yield a favorable return to our stockholders. If we do not invest or apply the net proceeds from this offering in ways that enhance stockholder value, we may fail to achieve expected results, which could cause our stock price to decline.

You will suffer immediate and substantial dilution in the net tangible book value of the common stock you purchase.

The initial public offering price of our common stock is substantially higher than the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of our outstanding common stock immediately after the completion of this offering. Purchasers of common stock in this offering will experience immediate dilution of approximately $                 per share, assuming an initial public offering price of $                 per share, which is the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover of this prospectus. In the past, we issued options to acquire common stock at prices significantly below the initial public offering price. To the extent these outstanding options are ultimately exercised, investors purchasing common stock in this offering will sustain further dilution. For a further description of the dilution that you will experience immediately after this offering, see “Dilution.”

After this offering, our executive officers, directors and principal stockholders, if they choose to act together, will continue to have the ability to significantly influence all matters submitted to stockholders for approval.

Following the completion of this offering, our executive officers, directors and greater than 5% stockholders, in the aggregate, will own approximately     % of our outstanding common stock (assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares and no exercise of outstanding options or warrants and without giving effect to any potential purchases by such persons in this offering, including pursuant to the directed share program relating to this offering). As a result, such persons, acting together, will have the ability to significantly influence all matters submitted to our board of directors or stockholders for approval, including the appointment of our management, the election and removal of directors and approval of any significant transaction, as well as our management and business affairs. This concentration of ownership may have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control, impeding a merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination involving us, or discouraging a potential acquiror from making a tender offer or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our business, even if such a transaction would benefit other stockholders.

We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock, and, consequently, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation, if any, in the price of our common stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividend on our common stock. We currently anticipate that we will retain future earnings for the development, operation and expansion of our business and do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. Any return to stockholders will therefore be limited to the appreciation of their stock. There is no guarantee that shares of our common stock will appreciate in value or even maintain the price at which stockholders have purchased their shares.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock by our existing stockholders in the public market could cause our stock price to fall.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market or the perception that these sales might occur could significantly reduce the market price of our common stock and impair our ability to raise adequate capital through the sale of additional equity securities.

Based on shares of common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2021, upon the closing of this offering, we will have outstanding a total of                  shares of common stock, assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares and no exercise of outstanding options. Of these shares, only the                  shares of common stock sold in this offering by us, plus any shares sold upon exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares, will be freely tradable, without restriction, in the public market immediately following this offering, unless they are purchased by one of our affiliates.

Our directors and executive officers and holders of substantially all of our outstanding securities have entered into lock-up agreements with the underwriters pursuant to which they may not, with limited exceptions, for a period of 180 days from the date of this prospectus, offer, sell or otherwise transfer or dispose of any of our securities, without the prior written consent of Jefferies LLC, Cowen and Company LLC and Evercore Group L.L.C. The underwriters may permit our officers, directors and other securityholders who are subject to the lock-up agreements to sell shares prior to the expiration of the lock-up agreements at any time in their sole discretion. See “Underwriting.” Sales of these shares, or perceptions that they will be sold, could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline.

 

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After the lock-up agreements expire, up to an additional                  shares of common stock will be eligible for sale in the public market, of which                  shares are held by directors, executive officers and other affiliates and will be subject to volume limitations under Rule 144 under the Securities Act in each case based on shares of common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2021 and without giving effect to any potential purchases by such persons in this offering, including pursuant to the directed share program relating to this offering.

In addition, promptly following this offering, we intend to file one or more registration statements on Form S-8 under the Securities Act registering the issuance of approximately                  shares of common stock subject to options or other equity awards issued or reserved for future issuance under our equity incentive plans. Shares registered under these registration statements on Form S-8 will be available for sale in the public market subject to vesting arrangements and exercise of options, the lock-up agreements described above and the restrictions of Rule 144 in the case of our affiliates. If these additional shares of common stock are sold, or if it is perceived that they will be sold, in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline.

After this offering, the holders of                  shares of our outstanding common stock, or approximately     % of our total outstanding common stock based on shares outstanding as of March 31, 2021, will be entitled to rights with respect to the registration of their shares under the Securities Act, subject to vesting and the 180-day lock-up agreements described above. See “Description of Capital Stock—Registration Rights.” Registration of these shares under the Securities Act would result in the shares becoming freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act, except for shares held by affiliates, as defined in Rule 144 under the Securities Act. Any sales of securities by these stockholders could have a material adverse effect on the trading price of our common stock.

We are an emerging growth company and a smaller reporting company, and the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies and smaller reporting companies may make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are an emerging growth company, as defined in the JOBS Act, and may remain an emerging growth company until the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the completion of this offering. However, if certain events occur prior to the end of such five-year period, including if we become a “large accelerated filer”, as defined under the Exchange Act, our annual gross revenues exceed $1.07 billion or we issue more than $1.0 billion of non-convertible debt in any three-year period, we will cease to be an emerging growth company prior to the end of such five-year period. For so long as we remain an emerging growth company, we are permitted and intend to rely on exemptions from certain disclosure requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. These exemptions include:

 

   

being permitted to provide only two years of audited financial statements, in addition to any required unaudited interim financial statements, with correspondingly reduced “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” disclosure;

 

   

not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements in the assessment of our internal control over financial reporting pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Sarbanes-Oxley);

 

   

not being required to comply with any requirement that may be adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regarding mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor’s report providing additional information about the audit and the financial statements, unless the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) determines the new rules are necessary for protecting the public;

 

   

reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation; and

 

   

exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved.

We have taken advantage of reduced reporting burdens in this prospectus. In particular, in this prospectus, we have provided only two years of audited financial statements and have not included all of the executive compensation related information that would be required if we were not an emerging growth company. We cannot predict whether investors will find our common stock less attractive if we rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be reduced or more volatile. In addition, the JOBS Act provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. This allows an emerging growth company to delay the adoption of these accounting standards until they would otherwise

 

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apply to private companies. We have elected to avail ourselves of this exemption and, therefore, we will not be subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies.

We are also a smaller reporting company as defined in the Exchange Act. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company even after we are no longer an emerging growth company. We may take advantage of certain of the scaled disclosures available to smaller reporting companies and will be able to take advantage of these scaled disclosures for so long as our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $250.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter, or our annual revenue is less than $100.0 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $700.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter.

Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could discourage a takeover that stockholders may consider favorable and may lead to entrenchment of management.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws that will be in effect immediately prior to the consummation of this offering will contain provisions that could significantly reduce the value of our shares to a potential acquiror or delay or prevent changes in control or changes in our management without the consent of our board of directors. The provisions in our charter documents will include the following:

 

   

a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which may delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our board of directors;

 

   

no cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;

 

   

the exclusive right of our board of directors, unless the board of directors grants such right to the stockholders, to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of the board of directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;

 

   

the required approval of at least 66-2/3% of the shares entitled to vote to remove a director for cause, and the prohibition on removal of directors without cause;

 

   

the ability of our board of directors to authorize the issuance of shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquiror;

 

   

the ability of our board of directors to alter our amended and restated bylaws without obtaining stockholder approval;

 

   

the required approval of at least 66-2/3% of the shares entitled to vote to adopt, amend or repeal our amended and restated bylaws or repeal the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation regarding the election and removal of directors;

 

   

a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;

 

   

an exclusive forum provision providing that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be the exclusive forum for certain actions and proceedings;

 

   

the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by the board of directors, which may delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors; and

 

   

advance notice procedures that stockholders must comply with in order to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquiror from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquiror’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.

We are also subject to the anti-takeover provisions contained in Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. Under Section 203, a corporation may not, in general, engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its capital stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other exceptions, the board of directors has approved the transaction.

 

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Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws will provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware will be the exclusive forum for substantially all disputes between us and our stockholders, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws will provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the exclusive forum for any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, any action asserting a breach of fiduciary duty, any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to the Delaware General Corporation Law, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws, or any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine; provided, that, this provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act. Furthermore, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will also provide that unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. These choice of forum provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers or other employees, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and other employees. By agreeing to this provision, however, stockholders will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with the federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. Furthermore, the enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that a court could find these types of provisions to be inapplicable or unenforceable. If a court were to find the choice of forum provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

General Risk Factors

We will incur significant increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management will be required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives.

As a public company, we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. We will be subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, which will require, among other things, that we file with the SEC annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and financial condition. In addition, Sarbanes-Oxley, as well as rules subsequently adopted by the SEC and Nasdaq to implement provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley, impose significant requirements on public companies, including requiring establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls and changes in corporate governance practices. Further, pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the SEC has adopted additional rules and regulations in these areas, such as mandatory “say on pay” voting requirements that will apply to us when we cease to be an emerging growth company. Stockholder activism, the current political environment and the current high level of government intervention and regulatory reform may lead to substantial new regulations and disclosure obligations, which may lead to additional compliance costs and impact the manner in which we operate our business in ways we cannot currently anticipate.

We expect the rules and regulations applicable to public companies to substantially increase our legal and financial compliance costs and to make some activities more time consuming and costly. If these requirements divert the attention of our management and personnel from other business concerns, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. The increased costs will decrease our net income or increase our net loss, and may require us to reduce costs in other areas of our business or increase the prices of our products or services. For example, we expect these rules and regulations to make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to incur substantial costs to maintain the same or similar coverage. We cannot predict or estimate the amount or timing of additional costs we may incur to respond to these requirements. The impact of these requirements could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, our board committees or as executive officers.

 

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We are subject to U.S. and certain foreign export and import controls, sanctions, embargoes, anti-corruption laws and anti-money laundering laws and regulations. Compliance with these legal standards could impair our ability to compete in domestic and international markets. We could face criminal liability and other serious consequences for violations, which could harm our business.

We are subject to export control and import laws and regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations, U.S. Customs regulations, and various economic and trade sanctions regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls and anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws and regulations, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C. § 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and other state and national anti-bribery and anti-money laundering laws in the countries in which we conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees, agents, CROs, contractors and other collaborators and partners from authorizing, promising, offering, providing, soliciting or receiving, directly or indirectly, improper payments or anything else of value to recipients in the public or private sector. We may engage third parties for clinical trials outside of the United States, to sell our products abroad once we enter a commercialization phase, and/or to obtain necessary permits, licenses, patent registrations and other regulatory approvals. We have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or government-affiliated hospitals, universities and other organizations. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees, agents, CROs, contractors and other collaborators and partners, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual knowledge of such activities. Any violations of the laws and regulations described above may result in substantial civil and criminal fines and penalties, imprisonment, the loss of export or import privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational harm and other consequences.

Business disruptions could seriously harm our future revenue and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.

Our operations could be subject to earthquakes, power shortages, telecommunications failures, water shortages, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, fires, extreme weather conditions, medical epidemics and other natural or manmade disasters or business interruptions, for which we are predominantly self-insured. We rely on third-party manufacturers to produce our vaccine candidates. Our ability to obtain clinical supplies of our vaccine candidates could be disrupted if the operations of these suppliers were affected by a man-made or natural disaster or other business interruption. In addition, our corporate headquarters is located in Seattle, Washington, near earthquake faults and fire zones, and the ultimate impact on us of being located near earthquake faults and fire zones and being consolidated in a certain geographical area is unknown. The occurrence of any of these business disruptions could seriously harm our operations and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.

We and any of our third-party manufacturers or suppliers may use potent chemical agents and hazardous materials, and any claims relating to improper handling, storage or disposal of these materials could be time consuming or costly.

We and any of our third-party manufacturers or suppliers and current or potential future collaborators will use biological materials, potent chemical agents and may use hazardous materials, including chemicals and biological agents and compounds that could be dangerous to human health and safety of the environment. Our operations and the operations of our third-party manufacturers and suppliers also produce hazardous waste products. Federal, state and local laws and regulations govern the use, generation, manufacture, storage, handling and disposal of these materials and wastes. Compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations may be expensive, and current or future environmental laws and regulations may impair our product development efforts. In addition, we cannot eliminate the risk of accidental injury or contamination from these materials or wastes. We do not carry specific biological or hazardous waste insurance coverage, and our property, casualty and general liability insurance policies specifically exclude coverage for damages and fines arising from biological or hazardous waste exposure or contamination. In the event of contamination or injury, we could be held liable for damages or be penalized with fines in an amount exceeding our resources, and our clinical trials or regulatory approvals could be suspended. Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance for certain costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials or other work-related injuries, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of biologic, hazardous or radioactive materials.

 

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In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, which have tended to become more stringent over time. These current or future laws and regulations may impair our research, development or production efforts. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations also may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions or liabilities, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Unstable market and economic conditions may have serious adverse consequences on our business, financial condition and stock price.

The global credit and financial markets have recently experienced extreme volatility and disruptions, including severely diminished liquidity and credit availability, declines in consumer confidence, declines in economic growth, increases in unemployment rates and uncertainty about economic stability. There can be no assurance that further deterioration in credit and financial markets and confidence in economic conditions will not occur. Our general business strategy may be adversely affected by any such economic downturn, volatile business environment or continued unpredictable and unstable market conditions. If the current equity and credit markets deteriorate, it may make any necessary debt or equity financing more difficult, more costly and more dilutive. Failure to secure any necessary financing in a timely manner and on favorable terms could have a material adverse effect on our growth strategy, financial performance and stock price and could require us to delay or abandon clinical development plans. In addition, there is a risk that one or more of our current service providers, manufacturers and other partners may not survive an economic downturn, which could directly affect our ability to attain our operating goals on schedule and on budget.

Our ability to use net operating loss carryforwards and other tax attributes may be limited in connection with this offering or other ownership changes.

We have incurred substantial losses during our history, do not expect to become profitable in the near future and may never achieve profitability. To the extent that we continue to generate taxable losses, unused losses will carry forward to offset future taxable income, if any, until such unused losses expire (if at all). At December 31, 2020, we had federal and state net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards of approximately $21.0 million and $2.2 million, respectively.

Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the Tax Act), federal NOL carryforwards generated in periods after December 31, 2017, may be carried forward indefinitely. The deductibility of federal NOL carryforwards, particularly for tax years beginning after December 31, 2020, may be limited. It is uncertain if and to what extent various states will conform to the Tax Act or the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the CARES Act). In addition, our NOL carryforwards are subject to review and possible adjustment by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and state tax authorities. Under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code), our federal NOL carryforwards may be or become subject to an annual limitation in the event we have had or have in the future certain cumulative changes in the ownership of our company. An “ownership change” pursuant to Section 382 of the Code generally occurs if one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders who own at least 5% of a company’s stock increase their ownership by more than 50 percentage points over their lowest ownership percentage within a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. We have not yet determined the amount of the cumulative change in our ownership resulting from this offering or other transactions, or any resulting limitations on our ability to utilize our NOL carryforwards and other tax attributes. However, we believe that our ability to utilize our NOL carryforwards and other tax attributes to offset future taxable income or tax liabilities may be limited as a result of ownership changes, including potential changes in connection with this offering. If we earn taxable income, such limitations could result in increased future income tax liability to us and our future cash flows could be adversely affected. We have recorded a full valuation allowance related to our NOL carryforwards and other deferred tax assets due to the uncertainty of the ultimate realization of the future benefits of those assets.

Changes in U.S. tax law may materially adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

On March 27, 2020, the CARES Act was signed into law to address the COVID-19 crisis. The CARES Act is an approximately $2 trillion emergency economic stimulus package that includes numerous U.S. federal income tax provisions, including the modification of: (i) NOL rules (as discussed above), (ii) the alternative minimum tax refund and (iii) business interest deduction limitations under Section 163(j) of the Code.

The Tax Act also significantly changed the U.S. federal income taxation of U.S. corporations. The Tax Act remains unclear in many respects and has been, and may continue to be, the subject of amendments and technical

 

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corrections, as well as interpretations and implementing regulations by the IRS, which have lessened or increased certain adverse impacts of the Tax Act and may continue to do so in the future. In addition, it is unclear how these U.S. federal income tax changes will affect state and local taxation, which often uses federal taxable income as a starting point for computing state and local tax liabilities. We continue to work with our tax advisors and auditors to determine the full impact the Tax Act and the CARES Act will have on us.

Congress may enact additional legislation in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a result of changes in the U.S. presidential administration and control of the U.S. Senate, additional tax legislation may also be enacted, which could have an impact on our company. We urge our investors to consult with their legal and tax advisors with respect to the Tax Act, the CARES Act, and possible changes in U.S. tax law and the potential tax consequences of investing in our common stock.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports or publish unfavorable research or reports about our business, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our common stock will depend in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us, our business, our market or our competitors. We do not currently have and may never obtain research coverage by securities and industry analysts. If no securities or industry analysts commence coverage of our company, the trading price for our stock would be negatively impacted. In the event we obtain securities or industry analyst coverage, if one or more of the analysts who covers us downgrades our stock, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases to cover us or fails to regularly publish reports on us, interest in our stock could decrease, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.

If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce accurate and timely financial statements could be impaired, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and the trading price of our common stock may decline.

Pursuant to Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley, our management will be required to report upon the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting beginning with the annual report for our fiscal year ending December 31, 2022. When we lose our status as an “emerging growth company” and do not otherwise qualify as a “smaller reporting company” with less than $100 million in annual revenue, our independent registered public accounting firm will be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. The rules governing the standards that must be met for our management to assess our internal control over financial reporting are complex and require significant documentation, testing and possible remediation. To comply with the requirements of being a reporting company under the Exchange Act, we may need to upgrade our information technology systems; implement additional financial and management controls, reporting systems and procedures; and hire additional accounting and finance staff. If we or, if required, our auditors are unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and the trading price of our common stock may decline.

We cannot assure you that there will not be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting in the future. Any failure to maintain internal control over financial reporting could severely inhibit our ability to accurately report our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. If we are unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm determines we have a material weakness or significant deficiency in our internal control over financial reporting once that firm begin its Section 404 reviews, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our common stock could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by Nasdaq, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.

We could be subject to securities class action litigation.

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 biotechnology and biopharmaceutical 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 our management’s attention and resources, which could harm our business.

 

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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This prospectus contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this prospectus, including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, business strategy, research and development plans, the anticipated timing, costs, design and conduct of our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and planned clinical trials for our vaccine candidates, the timing and likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals for our vaccine candidates, our ability to commercialize our vaccine candidates, if approved, the impact of COVID-19 on our business, the pricing and reimbursement of our vaccine candidates, if approved, the potential to develop future vaccine candidates, the potential benefits of strategic collaborations and our intent to enter into any strategic arrangements, the timing and likelihood of success, plans and objectives of management for future operations, and future results of anticipated product development efforts, are forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. The forward-looking statements in this prospectus are only predictions. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this prospectus and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions described under the sections titled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and elsewhere in this prospectus. Because forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, some of which cannot be predicted or quantified and some of which are beyond our control, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The events and circumstances reflected in our forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Moreover, we operate in an evolving environment. New risk factors and uncertainties may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all risk factors and uncertainties. Except as required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise. You should, however, review the factors and risks we describe in the reports we will file from time to time with the SEC after the date of this prospectus. See the section titled “Where You Can Find More Information.”

In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this prospectus, and while we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted an exhaustive inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and you are cautioned not to rely unduly upon them.

 

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MARKET AND INDUSTRY DATA

We obtained the industry, market and competitive position data used throughout this prospectus from our own internal estimates and research, as well as from independent market research, industry and general publications and surveys, governmental agencies and publicly available information in addition to research, surveys and studies conducted by third parties. Internal estimates are derived from publicly available information released by industry analysts and third-party sources, our internal research and our industry experience, and are based on assumptions made by us based on such data and our knowledge of our industry and market, which we believe to be reasonable. In some cases, we do not expressly refer to the sources from which this data is derived. In that regard, when we refer to one or more sources of this type of data in any paragraph, you should assume that other data of this type appearing in the same paragraph is derived from the same sources, unless otherwise expressly stated or the context otherwise requires. In addition, while we believe the industry, market and competitive position data included in this prospectus is reliable and based on reasonable assumptions, such data involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change based on various factors, including those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors.” These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent parties or by us.

 

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USE OF PROCEEDS

We estimate that the net proceeds to us from this offering will be approximately $                 million (or approximately $                 million if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full) from the sale of the shares of common stock offered by us in this offering, assuming an initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) the net proceeds to us from this offering by approximately $                 million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. A one million share increase (decrease) in the number of shares offered by us would increase (decrease) the net proceeds to us from this offering by approximately $                 million, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We do not expect that a change in the initial public offering price or the number of shares by these amounts would have a material effect on our intended uses of the net proceeds from this offering, although it may accelerate the time at which we will need to seek additional capital.

The principal purposes of this offering are to obtain additional capital to support our operations, to create a public market for our common stock and to facilitate our future access to the public equity markets. We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, as follows:

 

   

approximately $                to fund the continued development of IVX-A12, including completion of nonclinical studies, chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) development and clinical development through a Phase 2b clinical trial, as well as manufacturing scale-up activities;

 

   

approximately $                 to fund ongoing development of our other vaccine candidates, including completion of Phase 1/2 and Phase 2 clinical trials of IVX-411 and potential expansion of our research pipeline; and

 

   

the remainder for working capital and other general corporate purposes, including cross-program research and development activities.

We may also use a portion of the remaining net proceeds to in-license, acquire or invest in complementary businesses, technologies, products or assets, although we have no current agreements, commitments or understandings to do so.

Based on our current operating plan, we believe our existing cash and restricted cash, together with the estimated net proceeds from this offering, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash requirements through at least the next                  months. We have based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could use our available capital resources sooner than we expect. The net proceeds of this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, will not be sufficient to complete development of IVX-A12, IVX-411, or any other vaccine candidate, and after this offering, we will require substantial capital in order to advance our current and future vaccine candidates through clinical trials, regulatory approval and commercialization.

Our expected use of existing cash and restricted cash and our net proceeds from this offering represent our intentions based upon our current plans and business conditions, which could change in the future as our plans and business conditions evolve. Predicting the costs necessary to develop vaccine candidates can be difficult and we will need substantial additional capital to complete our clinical development of any of our vaccine candidates. The amounts and timing of our actual expenditures may vary significantly depending on numerous factors, including the progress and costs of our development activities, the status of and results from clinical trials, as well as the status and results from our current and any future collaborations with third parties for our vaccine candidates, and any unforeseen cash needs.

 

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Our management will have broad discretion in the application of the net proceeds from this offering, and investors will be relying on the judgment of our management regarding the application of those net proceeds. The timing and amount of our actual expenditures will be based on many factors, including cash flows from operations and the anticipated growth of our business. Pending these uses, we plan to invest these net proceeds in short-term, interest bearing obligations, investment-grade instruments, certificates of deposit or direct or guaranteed obligations of the United States.

 

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DIVIDEND POLICY

We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying, in the foreseeable future, any cash dividends on our capital stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to support our operations and finance the growth and development of our business. Any future determination related to our dividend policy will be made at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon, among other factors, our results of operations, financial condition, capital requirements, contractual restrictions, business prospects and other factors our board of directors may deem relevant.

 

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CAPITALIZATION

The following table sets forth our cash and restricted cash and capitalization as of March 31, 2021:

 

   

on an actual basis;

 

   

on a pro forma basis, giving effect to (i) the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of convertible preferred stock into an aggregate of 89,908,215 shares of our common stock and the related reclassification of the convertible preferred stock to permanent equity in connection with the closing of this offering and (ii) the filing and effectiveness of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, which will occur immediately prior to the closing of this offering; and

 

   

on a pro forma as adjusted basis to reflect (i) the pro forma adjustments set forth above and (ii) our sale of                  shares of common stock in this offering at an assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

You should read the information in this table together with our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus and the sections titled “Selected Financial Data” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

 

 

 

     AS OF MARCH 31, 2021  
     ACTUAL     PRO
FORMA
    PRO FORMA
AS ADJUSTED (1)
 
     (unaudited, in thousands, except share and per
share data)
 

Cash and restricted cash

   $ 124,961     $ 124,961     $                
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Convertible preferred stock, par value $0.0001 per share, 89,908,215 shares authorized, 89,908,215 shares issued and outstanding, actual; no shares authorized, issued or outstanding, pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

     151,638       —      

Stockholders’ (deficit) equity:

      

Preferred stock, par value $0.0001 per share; no shares authorized, issued and outstanding, actual;                  shares authorized and no shares issued or outstanding pro forma and pro forma as adjusted

     —         —      

Common stock, par value $0.0001 per share; 134,329,408 shares authorized, 15,549,293 shares issued and 12,017,397 shares outstanding, actual; 134,329,408 shares authorized pro forma and pro forma as adjusted; 105,457,508 shares issued and 101,925,612 outstanding, pro forma; and                 shares issued and outstanding, pro forma as adjusted

     2       11    

Additional paid-in capital

     761       152,390    

Accumulated deficit

     (32,949     (32,949  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total stockholders’ (deficit) equity

     (32,186     119,452    
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total capitalization

   $ 119,452     $ 119,452     $    
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

(1)    The pro forma as adjusted information set forth above is illustrative only and will change based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing. Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) the pro forma as adjusted amount of each of cash and restricted cash, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders’ equity and total capitalization by approximately $                 million, assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. A one million share increase (decrease) in the number of shares offered by us at the assumed initial public offering price per share of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) the pro forma as adjusted amount of each of cash and restricted cash, additional paid-in capital, total stockholders’ equity and total capitalization by approximately $                 million, after deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

 

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The table above is based on the number of shares of common stock outstanding as of March 31, 2021, which excludes:

 

   

7,137,239 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of outstanding stock options as of March 31, 2021, at a weighted-average exercise price of $0.24 per share;

 

   

14,187,099 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options granted after March 31, 2021, at a weighted-average exercise price of $1.48 per share;

 

   

                shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under the 2021 Plan, which will become effective in connection with this offering (which number does not include any potential evergreen increases pursuant to the terms of the 2021 Plan); and

 

   

                shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under the ESPP, which will become effective in connection with this offering (which number does not include any potential evergreen increases pursuant to the terms of the ESPP).

 

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DILUTION

If you invest in our common stock in this offering, your ownership interest will be immediately diluted to the extent of the difference between the initial public offering price per share of our common stock and the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of our common stock after this offering.

As of March 31, 2021, our historical net tangible book value (deficit) was $(32.2) million, or $(2.68) per share of our common stock, based on 12,017,397 shares of common stock outstanding as of such date. Our historical net tangible book value (deficit) per share represents the amount of our total tangible assets less total liabilities and convertible preferred stock, which is not included in our stockholders deficit, divided by the total number of shares of common stock outstanding at March 31, 2021.

After giving effect to the automatic conversion of all outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock into 89,908,215 shares of our common stock and the related reclassification of the carrying value of our convertible preferred stock to permanent equity, in connection with the closing of this offering, and assuming the occurrence of such conversion on March 31, 2021, our pro forma net tangible book value as of March 31, 2021 would have been approximately $119.5 million, or approximately $1.17 per share of our common stock.

Net tangible book value dilution per share to new investors represents the difference between the amount per share paid by purchasers of shares of common stock in this offering and the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of common stock immediately after closing of this offering. After giving further effect to the sale of                 shares of our common stock that we are offering at the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us, our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value as of March 31, 2021 would have been $                million, or approximately $                per share. This amount represents an immediate increase in pro forma net tangible book value of $                per share to our existing stockholders and an immediate dilution in pro forma net tangible book value of approximately $                per share to new investors participating in this offering.

Dilution per share to new investors is determined by subtracting pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering from the assumed initial public offering price per share paid by new investors. The following table illustrates this dilution:

 

 

 

Assumed initial public offering price per share

     $              
    

 

 

 

Historical net tangible book value (deficit) per share at March 31, 2021

   $ (2.68  

Pro forma increase in historical net tangible book value (deficit) per share as of March 31, 2021 attributable to conversion of all outstanding shares of convertible preferred stock

     3.85    
  

 

 

   

Pro forma net tangible book value per share as of March 31, 2021, before giving effect to this offering

   $ 1.17    

Increase in pro forma net tangible book value per share attributable to investors participating in this offering

    
  

 

 

   

Pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering

    
  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Dilution per share to new investors participating in this offering

     $    
    

 

 

 

 

 

Each $1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering by approximately $                , and dilution in pro forma net tangible book value per share to new investors by approximately $                , assuming that the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and the estimated offering expenses payable by us. We may also increase or decrease the number of shares we are offering. An increase of one million shares in the number of shares offered

 

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by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering by approximately $                and decrease the dilution to investors participating in this offering by approximately $                per share, assuming that the assumed initial public offering price remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and the estimated offering expenses payable by us. Similarly, a decrease of one million shares in the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would decrease the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share after this offering by approximately $                and increase the dilution to investors participating in this offering by approximately $                per share, assuming the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and the estimated offering expenses payable by us.

If the underwriters exercise their option to purchase up to                 additional shares of our common stock in full in this offering, the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value after the offering would be $                per share, the increase in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share to existing stockholders would be $                per share and the dilution per share to new investors would be $                per share, in each case assuming an initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus.

To the extent that outstanding options with an exercise price per share that is less than the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share are exercised, new investors will experience further dilution. In addition, we may choose to raise additional capital due to market conditions or strategic considerations even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the issuance of these securities could result in further dilution to our stockholders.

The following table summarizes, on a pro forma as adjusted basis as of March 31, 2021, the number of shares of common stock purchased or to be purchased from us, the total consideration paid or to be paid to us in cash and the average price per share paid by existing stockholders for shares issued prior to this offering and the price to be paid by new investors in this offering. The calculation below is based on the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, before deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. As the table below shows, investors participating in this offering will pay an average price per share substantially higher than our existing stockholders paid.

 

 

 

     SHARES
PURCHASED
    TOTAL CONSIDERATION     WEIGHTED-
AVERAGE
PRICE

PER
SHARE
 
     NUMBER      PERCENT     AMOUNT      PERCENT  

Existing stockholders

               $                             $                

Investors participating in this offering

                              $    
  

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total

                         100.0     $                    100.0  
  

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

    

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Each $1.00 increase in the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase total consideration paid by new investors, total consideration paid by all stockholders and the average price per share paid by all stockholders by $                 million, $                 million and $                , respectively, while each $1.00 decrease in the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would decrease total consideration paid by new investors, total consideration paid by all stockholders and the average price per share paid by all stockholders by $                 million, $                 million and $                , respectively, and assuming the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same and before deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

 

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Similarly, a one million share increase (decrease) in the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) the total consideration paid by investors participating in this offering, total consideration paid by all stockholders and the average price per share paid by all stockholders by approximately $                 million, $                 million and $                , respectively, assuming the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same, and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

The foregoing tables and calculations exclude:

 

   

7,137,239 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of outstanding stock options as of March 31, 2021, at a weighted-average exercise price of $0.24 per share;

 

   

14,187,099 shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options granted after March 31, 2021, at a weighted-average exercise price of $1.48 per share;

 

   

                shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under the 2021 Plan, which will become effective in connection with this offering (which number does not include any potential evergreen increases pursuant to the terms of the 2021 Plan); and

 

   

                shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under the ESPP, which will become effective in connection with this offering (which number does not include any potential evergreen increases pursuant to the terms of the ESPP).

 

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SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA

The following tables set forth our selected historical financial data as of, and for the periods ended on, the dates indicated. We have derived the selected statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020 and the selected balance sheet data as of December 31, 2019 and 2020 from our audited financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have derived the selected statements of operations and comprehensive loss data for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021 and the selected balance sheet data as of March 31, 2021 from our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our unaudited interim condensed financial statements have been prepared on a basis consistent with our audited financial statements and, in the opinion of management, reflect all adjustments, consisting solely of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for the fair presentation of the financial information in those statements.

You should read these data together with our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus and the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” Our historical results for any prior period are not necessarily indicative of our future results.

 

 

 

    YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31,     THREE MONTHS ENDED
MARCH 31,
 
    2019     2020         2020             2021      
                (unaudited)  
    (in thousands, except
share and per share data)
 

Statement of Operations and Comprehensive Loss Data:

       

Grant revenue

  $     $ 1,616     $     $ 2,001  

Operating expenses:

       

Research and development

  $ 4,157     $ 17,667     $ 2,920     $ 5,553  

General and administrative

    1,241       2,659       612       1,091  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

    5,398       20,326       3,532       6,644  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss from operations

    (5,398     (18,710     (3,532     (4,643

Other income (expense):

       

Change in fair value of derivative liability

          187             (205

Loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note

                      (754

Interest and other income (expense)

    101       (331     61       (249
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total other income (expense)

    101       (144     61       (1,208
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss and comprehensive loss

  $ (5,297   $ (18,854   $ (3,471     (5,851

Series 1 preferred stock dividends

    (272                  

Series 1 preferred stock extinguishment

    (400                  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss attributable to common stockholders

  $ (5,969     (18,854   $ (3,471   $ (5,851
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (1)

  $ (0.90   $ (2.02   $ (0.42   $ (0.51
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Weighted-average shares of common stock outstanding, basic and diluted (1)

    6,600,083       9,331,305       8,213,516       11,512,118  
 

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted (unaudited) (2)

    $ (0.44     $ (0.09
   

 

 

     

 

 

 

Pro forma weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted (unaudited) (2)

      42,557,462         63,225,300  
   

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

(1)    See Note 2 to our audited financial statements and Note 2 to our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for an explanation of the method used to calculate the basic and diluted net loss per share attributable to common stockholders and the number of shares used in the computation of the per share amounts.

 

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(2)    The calculations for the unaudited pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted, for the year ended December 31, 2020, exclude the $187,000 change in fair value of the derivative liability and $417,000 of interest expense from the convertible notes, resulting in pro forma net loss attributable to common stockholders of $18.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The unaudited pro forma weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted, assume the conversion of all our outstanding shares of preferred stock into 32,198,879 shares of our common stock, as if the conversion had occurred at the beginning of the period presented, or the issuance date, if later, and the conversion of our convertible notes into shares of our common stock, resulting in an additional 1,027,278 weighted average shares of our common stock.

The calculations for the unaudited pro forma net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted, for the three months ended March 31, 2021, exclude the $205,000 change in fair value of the derivative liability and $264,000 of interest expense from the convertible notes, resulting in pro forma net loss attributable to common stockholders of $5.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. The unaudited pro forma weighted average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted, assume the conversion of all our outstanding shares of preferred stock into 49,312,622 shares of our common stock, as if the conversion had occurred at the beginning of the period presented, or the issuance date, if later, and the conversion of our convertible notes into shares of our common stock, resulting in an additional 2,400,561 weighted average shares of our common stock.

 

 

 

     AS OF DECEMBER 31,     AS OF MARCH 31,
2021
 
     2019     2020  
                 (unaudited)  
     (in thousands)  

Balance Sheet Data:

      

Cash and restricted cash

   $ 23,079     $ 15,498     $ 124,961  

Working capital (1)

     22,065       10,326       119,539  

Total assets

     23,288       16,170       125,411  

Long-term convertible promissory note

           4,947        

Derivative liability

           1,604        

Total liabilities

     1,469       12,811       5,959  

Convertible preferred stock

     30,062       30,062       151,638  

Total stockholders’ deficit

     (8,243     (26,703     (32,186

 

 

(1)    Working capital is defined as current assets less current liabilities. See our financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus for further details regarding our current assets and current liabilities.

 

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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion and analysis should be read in conjunction with our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. This discussion and analysis and other parts of this prospectus contain forward-looking statements based upon current beliefs, plans and expectations that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions, such as statements regarding our plans, objectives, expectations, intentions and projections. Our actual results and the timing of selected events could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, including those set forth in the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus. You should carefully read the “Risk Factors” section of this prospectus to gain an understanding of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Please also see the section titled “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.”

Overview

We are a biopharmaceutical company leveraging our innovative VLP platform technology to develop vaccines against infectious diseases, with an initial focus on life-threatening respiratory diseases. Our VLP platform technology is designed to enable multivalent, particle-based display of complex viral antigens, which we believe will induce broad, robust, and durable protection against the specific virus targeted. Our pipeline includes vaccine candidates targeting some of the most prevalent viral causes of pneumonia. We are developing these candidates for older adults, a patient population with high unmet need. Our vaccine candidate IVX-A12 is a bivalent candidate, or a mixture of two different VLP candidates. IVX-A12 combines IVX-121, a vaccine candidate designed to target RSV, and IVX-241, a vaccine candidate designed to target hMPV. There are currently no vaccines approved for either RSV or hMPV, which are two common causes of pneumonia in older adults. We filed a CTA for IVX-121 and plan to initiate a clinical trial of IVX-121 in Belgium in the second half of 2021, with interim topline data expected in the first half of 2022. Assuming favorable results from the IVX-121 clinical trial and favorable preclinical data for IVX-241, we plan to submit an IND to the FDA in the first half of 2022 and, thereafter, initiate a clinical trial for our combination vaccine candidate, IVX-A12, in the second half 2022. Additionally, we are developing two SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, IVX-411 and IVX-421, and initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of IVX-411 in Australia in June 2021, with proof-of-concept data expected in the first half of 2022.

We commenced our operations in 2017 and have devoted substantially all of our resources to date to organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, in-licensing intellectual property rights, developing vaccine candidates, scaling up manufacturing of vaccine candidates, and preparing for our ongoing and planned preclinical studies and clinical trials. Our operations to date have been funded primarily through the sale and issuance of convertible promissory notes and our convertible preferred stock. From our inception through March 31, 2021, we had raised a total of $150.3 million to fund our operations, comprised of gross proceeds from the sale and issuance of convertible promissory notes and our convertible preferred stock. As of March 31, 2021, we had cash of $121.9 million and restricted cash of $3.1 million.

We have incurred significant operating losses since inception. Our net losses for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020 were $5.3 million and $18.9 million, respectively, and for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021, were $3.5 million and $5.9 million, respectively. As of March 31, 2021, we had an accumulated deficit of $32.9 million. Our net losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year, depending on the timing of our clinical development activities, other research and development activities and capital expenditures. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for the foreseeable future. We anticipate our expenses will increase substantially as we seek to advance our vaccine candidates through preclinical and clinical development, expand our research and development activities, develop new vaccine candidates, complete clinical trials, seek regulatory approval and, if we receive regulatory approval, commercialize our products, as well as hire additional personnel, protect our intellectual property, and, following this offering, incur additional costs associated with being a public company.

Based on our current operating plan, we believe that the estimated net proceeds from this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, will be sufficient to fund our operations through at least the next                months. We have never generated any revenue from product sales and do not expect to generate any revenues from product sales unless and until we successfully complete development of and obtain regulatory approval for our vaccine candidates, which will not be for several years, if ever. As a result, we will need substantial additional funding to

 

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support our continuing operations and pursue our growth strategy. Until such time as we can generate significant revenue from sales of our vaccine candidates, if ever, we expect to finance our cash needs through equity offerings, or debt financings or other capital sources, including potential collaborations, licenses, and other similar arrangements. However, we may not be able to raise additional funds or enter into such other arrangements when needed or on favorable terms, or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital or enter into such arrangements when needed, we could be forced to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our research and development programs or future commercialization efforts, or grant rights to develop and market our vaccine candidates to third parties where we might otherwise prefer to develop and market such vaccine candidates ourselves.

The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, and we will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation closely. The extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, operations and clinical development timelines and plans remains uncertain, and will depend on certain developments, including its impact on our clinical trial enrollment, trial sites, manufacturers, CROs and other third parties with whom we do business, as well as its impact on regulatory authorities and our key scientific and management personnel. The ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the impact of new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19, or a similar health epidemic is highly uncertain and subject to change. To the extent possible, we are conducting business as usual, with necessary or advisable modifications to employee travel and most of our non-lab-based employees working remotely. We will continue to actively monitor the evolving situation related to COVID-19 and may take further actions that alter our operations, including those that may be required by federal, state or local authorities, or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees and other third parties with whom we do business. At this point, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may affect our business, operations and development timelines and plans, including the resulting impact on our expenditures and capital needs, remains uncertain and is subject to change.

Components of Results of Operations

Grant Revenue

To date, we have not generated any revenues from the commercial sale of approved products, and we do not expect to generate revenues from the commercial sale of our vaccine candidates for at least the foreseeable future, if ever. For the year ended December 31, 2020 and the three months ended March 31, 2021, revenue was derived from the Grant Agreement we entered into in September 2020 with BMGF, under which we were awarded a grant totaling up to $10.0 million, in support of our development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Unless terminated earlier by BMGF, the Grant Agreement will continue in effect until March 31, 2022. We do not currently expect future grant revenues to be a material source of funding. No revenue was recognized for the year ended December 31, 2019 and the three months ended March 31, 2020.

Operating Expenses

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of external and internal costs related to the development of vaccine candidates. Research and development expenses are recognized as incurred and payments made prior to the receipt of goods or services to be used in research and development are capitalized until the goods or services are received.

External costs include:

 

   

expenses incurred in connection with research, laboratory consumables and preclinical studies;

 

   

expenses incurred in connection with conducting clinical trials and site payments for time and pass-through expenses and expenses incurred under agreements with CROs, other vendors, or service providers engaged to conduct our trials;

 

   

expenses incurred in connection with manufacturing of our vaccine candidates and related intermediates under agreements with contract development and manufacturing organizations or other service providers;

 

   

the cost of consultants engaged in research and development related services and the cost to manufacture vaccine candidates for use in our preclinical studies and clinical trials;

 

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costs related to regulatory compliance; and

 

   

the cost of annual license fees and milestone payments under our license agreements.

Internal costs include:

 

   

employee-related expenses, including salaries, related benefits, travel and stock-based compensation expenses for employees engaged in research and development functions; and

 

   

facilities, depreciation and other expenses, which include allocated expenses for rent and maintenance of facilities, insurance and supplies.

Research and development activities are central to our business model. There are numerous factors associated with the successful development and regulatory approval of any of our vaccine candidates, including future trial design and various regulatory requirements, as well as the safety and efficacy of our vaccine candidates, which cannot be determined with accuracy at this time. We may never succeed in obtaining regulatory approval for any of our vaccine candidates. Vaccine candidates in later stages of clinical development generally have higher development costs than those in earlier stages of clinical development, primarily due to the increased size and duration of later-stage clinical trials. At this time, we cannot reasonably estimate or know the nature, timing and costs of the efforts that will be necessary to complete the preclinical and clinical development of any of our vaccine candidates. In addition, we cannot forecast which vaccine candidates may be subject to future collaborations, when such arrangements will be secured, if at all, and to what degree such arrangements would affect our development plans and capital requirements. However, we expect that our research and development expenses will increase substantially in connection with our planned preclinical and clinical development activities in the near term and in the future.

Our future development costs may vary significantly based on factors such as:

 

   

the number and scope of preclinical and regulatory filing-enabling studies;

 

   

the number of trials required for approval;

 

   

the number of sites included in the trials;

 

   

the countries in which the trials are conducted;

 

   

the length of time required to enroll eligible patients;

 

   

the number of patients that participate in the trials;

 

   

the number of doses evaluated in the trials;

 

   

the costs and timing of manufacturing our vaccine candidates;

 

   

the drop-out or discontinuation rates of clinical trial subjects;

 

   

potential additional safety monitoring requested by regulatory agencies;

 

   

the duration of subject participation in the trials and follow-up;

 

   

the phase of development of the vaccine candidate;

 

   

the impact of any interruptions to our operations or to those of the third parties with whom we work due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; and

 

   

the efficacy and safety profile of the vaccine candidate.

General and Administrative

General and administrative expenses consist of personnel-related costs, including salaries, payroll taxes, employee benefits, and stock-based compensation charges for personnel in executive, finance and other administrative functions. Other significant costs include facility-related costs, legal fees relating to intellectual property and corporate matters, professional fees for accounting and consulting services, and insurance costs. We anticipate that our general and administrative expenses will increase substantially for the foreseeable future to support our continued research and development activities, pre-commercial preparation activities for our vaccine candidates, and, if any vaccine candidate receives marketing approval, commercialization activities. Following the completion of this offering, we also anticipate increased expenses related to audit, legal, regulatory, and tax-related services associated with maintaining compliance with exchange listing and SEC requirements, director and officer insurance premiums, and investor relations costs associated with operating as a public company.

 

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Change in Fair Value of Derivative Liability

We issued a convertible promissory note in August 2020. We bifurcated certain embedded features that were required to be accounted for separately as a single derivative liability. The initial recognition of the fair value of the derivative resulted in a reduction to the carrying value of the convertible promissory note, a discount which is then amortized to interest expense over the term of the note. We adjusted the carrying value of the derivative liability to its estimated fair value at each reporting date, with any related changes in fair value recorded as change in fair value of derivative liability in our statements of operations and comprehensive loss. The convertible promissory note converted into 2,805,850 shares of our Series B-2 convertible preferred stock in March 2021.

Prior to the conversion of the convertible promissory note into our Series B-2 convertible preferred stock in March 2021, the fair value of the derivative liability was estimated using a scenario-based analysis comparing the probability-weighted present value of the convertible promissory note payoff at maturity with and without the bifurcated features, considering possible outcomes available to the noteholders, including various financing dissolution scenarios.

Loss on Extinguishment of Convertible Promissory Note

We recorded a loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note of $0.8 million during the three months ended March 31, 2021 in connection with the conversion of our convertible promissory note issued in August 2020. See Note 7 to the unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for more information on this transaction.

Interest Income

Interest income consists of interest income earned on interest bearing demand accounts.

Interest Expense

Interest expense consisted of interest on our outstanding convertible promissory note at a per annum interest rate of 6.0% and non-cash interest expense related to discount amortization prior to its conversion into shares of our Series B-2 convertible preferred stock in March 2021.

Results of Operations

Comparison of the Three Months Ended March 31, 2020 and 2021

The following table summarizes our results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021 (in thousands):

 

 

 

     THREE MONTHS
ENDED MARCH 31,
       
     2020     2021     CHANGE  
     (Unaudited)        

Grant Revenue

   $     $ 2,001     $ 2,001  

Operating expenses:

      

Research and development

     2,920       5,553       2,633  

General and administrative

     612       1,091       479  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

     3,532       6,644       3,112  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss from operations

     (3,532     (4,643     (1,111

Other income (expense):

      

Change in fair value of derivative liability

           (205     (205

Loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note

           (754     (754

Interest and other income (expense)

     61       (249     (310
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss and comprehensive loss

   $ (3,471   $ (5,851   $ (2,380
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Grant Revenue

There was no grant revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to $2.0 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. For the three months ended March 31, 2021, revenue was derived from the Grant Agreement we entered into in September 2020 with BMGF, under which we were awarded a grant totaling up to $10.0 million, in support of our development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses were $2.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $5.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. The increase of $2.7 million was primarily due to a $2.3 million increase in direct costs related to non-clinical development and manufacturing, a $0.3 million increase in personnel related expenses due to increased headcount to support our development activities, and a $0.1 million increase related to stock-based compensation expense. The $2.3 million increase for direct costs primarily related to development of IVX-241 and IVX-411, including completion of nonclinical immunogenicity studies and GLP toxicology studies, bioanalytical assay development, as well as process development and cGMP manufacturing of drug substance intermediates, drug substance, and drug product to support upcoming clinical trials.

We track outsourced development, outsourced personnel costs and other external research and development costs of specific programs. We do not track our internal research and development costs on a program-by-program basis.

Research and development expenses are summarized by program in the table below (in thousands):

 

 

 

     THREE MONTHS
ENDED MARCH 31,
 
     2020      2021  
     (Unaudited)  

IVX-121

   $ 2,092      $ 2,105  

IVX-241

            513  

IVX-411

            1,992  

Unallocated research and development expense

     828        943  
  

 

 

    

 

 

 

Total research and development expense

   $ 2,920      $ 5,553  
  

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses were $0.6 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $1.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. The increase of $0.5 million consisted of increased personnel-related expenses of $0.2 million, increased legal fees of $0.1 million related to corporate and intellectual property matters, increased professional services of $0.1 million, and increased stock-based compensation expense of $0.1 million.

Other Income (Expense)

Other income (expense) was income of $0.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to expense of $1.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. The increase of $1.3 million in expense for the three months ended March 31, 2021 was the result of an increase in interest expense of $0.3 million, an increase in expense recognized on the change in fair value of derivative liability of $0.2 million, and a loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note of $0.8 million recorded during the three months ended March 31, 2021.

 

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Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2019 and 2020

The following table summarizes our results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020 (in thousands):

 

 

 

     YEAR ENDED
DECEMBER 31,
    CHANGE  
     2019     2020        

Grant Revenue

   $     $ 1,616     $ 1,616  

Operating expenses:

      

Research and development

   $ 4,157     $ 17,667     $ 13,510  

General and administrative

     1,241       2,659       1,418  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Total operating expenses

     5,398       20,326       14,928  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Loss from operations

     (5,398     (18,710     (13,312

Other income (expense):

      

Change in fair value of derivative liability

           187       187  

Interest and other income (expense)

     101       (331     (432
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net loss and comprehensive loss

   $ (5,297   $ (18,854   $ (13,557
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Grant Revenue

There was no grant revenue for the year ended December 31, 2019 compared to $1.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. For the year ended December 31, 2020, revenue was derived from the Grant Agreement we entered into in September 2020 with BMGF, under which we were awarded a grant totaling up to $10.0 million, in support of our development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses were $4.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to $17.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase of $13.5 million was primarily due to a $11.3 million increase in direct costs related to non-clinical development and manufacturing, a $2.1 million increase in personnel related expenses due to increased headcount to support our development activities, and a $0.1 million increase related to stock-based compensation expense. The $11.3 million increase for direct costs primarily related to development of IVX-121 and IVX-411, including completion of nonclinical immunogenicity studies and GLP toxicology studies, bioanalytical assay development, as well as process development and cGMP manufacturing of drug substance intermediates, drug substance, and drug product to support upcoming clinical trials.

We track outsourced development, outsourced personnel costs and other external research and development costs of specific programs. We do not track our internal research and development costs on a program-by-program basis. Research and development expenses are summarized by program in the table below (in thousands):

 

 

 

     YEAR ENDED
DECEMBER 31,
 
     2019      2020  

IVX-121

   $ 2,132      $ 12,242  

IVX-241

            588  

IVX-411

            1,415  

Unallocated research and development expense

     2,025        3,422  
  

 

 

    

 

 

 

Total research and development expense

   $ 4,157      $ 17,667  
  

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

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General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses were $1.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to $2.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase of $1.4 million consisted of increased personnel-related expenses of $0.9 million, increased legal fees of $0.2 million related to corporate and intellectual property matters, increased other operating expenses including expenses for facility- and employee-related costs of $0.2 million, and increased stock-based compensation expense of $0.1 million.

Other Income (Expense)

Other income (expense) was income of $0.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to expense of $0.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase of $0.2 million in expense for the year ended December 31, 2020 was the result of an increase in interest expense of $0.4 million, partially offset by $0.2 million of income recognized on the change in fair value of derivative liability in 2020.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

We have incurred significant operating losses since our inception and anticipate we will continue to incur significant operating losses for the foreseeable future as we continue to develop our current and future vaccine candidates and may never become profitable. As of March 31, 2021, we had been financed primarily through net proceeds of approximately $149.5 million from the sale of our equity securities and convertible promissory notes. Additionally, we may receive up to $10.0 million under the Grant Agreement. As of March 31, 2021, we had cash of $121.9 million, restricted cash of $3.1 million and an accumulated deficit of $32.9 million.

Funding Requirements

Based on our current operating plan, without giving effect to the anticipated net proceeds from this offering, we believe that our existing cash and restricted cash will be sufficient to meet our anticipated operating expenses and capital expenditures through at least 12 months following the date of this prospectus. Further, based on our current operating plan, we believe that our existing cash and restricted cash, together with the estimated net proceeds from this offering, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated operating expenses and capital expenditures through at least                . In particular, we expect the net proceeds from this offering will allow us to complete                . However, our forecast of the period of time through which our financial resources will be adequate to support our operations is a forward-looking statement that involves risks and uncertainties, and actual results could vary materially. We have based this estimate on assumptions that may prove to be wrong, and we could deplete our capital resources sooner than we expect. Additionally, the process of testing vaccine candidates in clinical trials is costly, and the timing of progress and expenses in these trials is uncertain.

Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including:

 

   

the initiation, type, number, scope, results, costs and timing of, our ongoing and planned clinical trials and preclinical studies or clinical trials of other potential vaccine candidates we may choose to pursue in the future, including feedback received from regulatory authorities;

 

   

the costs and timing of manufacturing for current or future vaccine candidates, including commercial scale manufacturing if any vaccine candidate is approved;

 

   

the costs, timing and outcome of regulatory review of current or future vaccine candidates;

 

   

any delays and cost increases that may result from the COVID-19 pandemic;

 

   

the costs of obtaining, maintaining and enforcing our patents and other intellectual property rights;

 

   

our efforts to enhance operational systems and hire additional personnel to satisfy our obligations as a public company, including enhanced internal controls over financial reporting;

 

   

the costs associated with hiring additional personnel and consultants as our business grows, including additional executive officers and clinical development personnel;

 

   

the terms and timing of establishing and maintaining collaborations, licenses and other similar arrangements;

 

   

the timing and amount of the milestone or other payments we must make to current and future licensors;

 

   

the costs and timing of establishing or securing sales and marketing capabilities if current or future vaccine candidate is approved;

 

   

our ability to achieve sufficient market acceptance, coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors and adequate market share and revenue for any approved products;

 

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patients’ willingness to pay out-of-pocket for any approved products in the absence of coverage and/or adequate reimbursement from third-party payors; and

 

   

costs associated with any products or technologies that we may in-license or acquire.

The net proceeds of this offering, together with our existing cash and restricted cash, will not be sufficient to complete development of IVX-A12, IVX-411, IVX-421 or any other vaccine candidate. Accordingly, we will be required to obtain further funding to achieve our business objectives.

Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial product revenues to support our cost structure, we expect to finance our cash needs through equity offerings, debt financings or other capital sources, including potential collaborations, licenses, and other similar arrangements. However, we may be unable to raise additional funds or enter into such other arrangements when needed on favorable terms or at all. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interest of our stockholders could be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect the rights of our common stockholders. Debt financing and equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends. If we raise funds through collaborations, or other similar arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our technologies, future revenue streams, research programs or vaccine candidates or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us and/or may reduce the value of our common stock. If we are unable to raise additional funds through equity or debt financings when needed, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and market our vaccine candidates to third parties where we might otherwise prefer to develop and market such vaccine candidates ourselves.

Cash Flows

The following table sets forth a summary of the net cash flow activity for each of the periods set forth below (in thousands):

 

 

 

     YEAR ENDED
DECEMBER 31,
    THREE MONTHS
ENDED MARCH 31,
 
     2019     2020     2020     2021  
                 (Unaudited)  

Net cash provided by (used in):

        

Operating activities

   $ (4,569   $ (14,208   $ (3,543   $ (4,182

Investing activities

           (11     (5     (134

Financing activities

     26,742       6,638       66       113,779  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

Net increase in cash

   $ 22,173     $ (7,581   $ (3,482   $ 109,463  
  

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Operating Activities

We have incurred significant operating losses since inception. Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2019 was $4.6 million consisting primarily of our net loss incurred during the period of $5.3 million adjusted for $0.1 million of non-cash charges and $0.6 million for net changes in operating assets and liabilities. Non-cash charges consisted of $0.1 million in stock-based compensation expense. The net change in operating assets and liabilities related to a $0.7 million increase in accounts payable and accrued and other current liabilities, partially offset by a $0.1 million increase in prepaid and other current assets in support of the growth in our operating activities.

Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 31, 2020 was $14.2 million, consisting primarily of our net loss incurred during the period of $18.8 million adjusted for $0.5 million of non-cash charges, and $4.1 million for net changes in operating assets and liabilities. Non-cash charges consisted primarily of $0.4 million non-cash interest expense and $0.3 million in stock-based compensation, which were partially offset by $0.2 million of non-cash income recognized related to the change in fair value of the derivative liability. The net

 

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change in operating assets and liabilities consisted of a $2.2 million increase in accounts payable and accrued and other current liabilities and $2.4 million increase in deferred revenue, partially offset by a $0.5 million increase in prepaid and other current assets in support of the growth in our operating activities.

Net cash used in operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2020 was $3.5 million, consisting primarily of our net loss incurred during the period of $3.5 million.

Net cash used in operating activities for the three months ended March 31, 2021 was $4.2 million, consisting primarily of our net loss incurred during the period of $5.9 million adjusted for $1.5 million of non-cash charges, and $0.2 million for net changes in operating assets and liabilities. Non-cash charges consisted primarily of $0.2 million non-cash interest expense, $0.2 million of non-cash expense recognized related to the change in fair value of the derivative liability, $0.3 million in stock-based compensation, and $0.8 million loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note. The net change in operating assets and liabilities consisted of a $0.7 million increase in deferred revenue and $0.4 million decrease in prepaid and other current assets, partially offset by a $0.9 million decrease in accounts payable and accrued and other current liabilities.

Investing Activities

We did not use cash in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2019. Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 31, 2020 was less than $0.1 million, for purchases of property and equipment.

Net cash used in investing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021 was less than $0.1 million and $0.1 million, respectively, for purchases of property and equipment.

Financing Activities

Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2019 was $26.7 million consisting of $0.6 million in proceeds related to the issuance of Series 1 convertible preferred stock in January 2019, $25.9 million in proceeds related to the issuance of Series A-1 convertible preferred stock in August 2019 and $0.2 million proceeds from early exercises of stock options.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 31, 2020 was $6.6 million, consisting of $6.4 million related to issuance of a convertible promissory note in August 2020, and $0.2 million proceeds from early exercises of stock options.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2020 was less than $0.1 million for the proceeds from early exercises of stock options.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the three months ended March 31, 2021 was $113.8 million consisting of $21.0 million in proceeds related to the issuance of Series A-1 convertible preferred stock in February 2021, $92.7 million in proceeds related to the issuance of Series B-1 convertible preferred stock in March 2021, and $0.1 million proceeds from exercises of stock options, including early exercises.

Contractual Obligations and Commitments

We had no contractual obligations and commitments as of December 31, 2020 and March 31, 2021.

Under our license agreements, we have milestone payment obligations that are contingent upon the achievement of specified development, regulatory, and commercial sales milestones and are required to make certain royalty payments in connection with the sale of products developed under the agreements. As of December 31, 2020 and March 31, 2021, we are unable to estimate the timing or likelihood of achieving the milestones or making future product sales and, therefore, any related payments are not reflected as contractual obligations herein. See the descriptions of these agreements provided below and in the section of this prospectus titled “Business—Material Agreements” for additional information on these license agreements.

We enter into contracts in the normal course of business for contract research services, contract manufacturing services, professional services and other services and products for operating purposes. These contracts generally provide for termination after a notice period, and, therefore, are cancelable contracts and not included as contractual obligations herein.

 

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License Agreement with the National Institutes of Health

On June 28, 2018, we entered into a non-exclusive patent license agreement (NIH Agreement) with the National Institutes of Health, represented by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). The NIH Agreement was amended in September 2018 and September 2020. Under the NIH Agreement, we obtained a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing, sublicensable license under certain NIAID patent rights, and transfer of know-how and biological materials for use in adjuvanted or non-adjuvanted vaccines for the prevention, cure, or treatment of RSV and metapneumovirus infection in humans.

Under the NIH Agreement, we are required to use commercially reasonable efforts to meet certain specified development, sales and regulatory milestones related to the licensed products within specified time periods. In consideration of the rights granted to us under the NIH Agreement, we paid a licensing fee upon execution of the NIH Agreement in the low six figures, amendment issue fees in the high five figures, and will pay annual minimum royalty payments starting in the second year after the initial sale of each licensed product which can be credited against any earned royalties due for sales made in the year. There are milestone payments due upon the completion of certain development, regulatory, and commercial milestones for the licensed products in the future. We are obligated to pay aggregate potential milestone payments of up to $2.1 million with respect to future development and regulatory based milestones, and up to $6.5 million with respect to future sales milestones following commercialization. Additionally, we have agreed to pay a tiered royalty of a low single digit percentage on net sales of all products applicable to the license. Additional royalties would be due in connection with sublicenses. Our royalty obligations continue for each licensed product for so long as licensed patent rights exist and have not expired, been revoked, lapsed, or held unenforceable.

The NIH Agreement will terminate upon the last expiration of the patent rights or we may terminate the entirety of the agreement upon discontinuation of development or sales of licensed products and provision of written notice thereof to NIH.

During the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, we paid $37,500 and $50,000, respectively, in fees associated with the license, which were recorded as research and development expenses.

During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021, we paid $0 and $25,000, respectively, in fees associated with the license, which were recorded as research and development expenses.

License Agreements with University of Washington

On June 29, 2018, we entered into an exclusive license agreement with UW (the UW License Agreement) for an exclusive license to covered intellectual property, a non-exclusive, worldwide license to use licensed know-how, and rights to sublicense for computationally designed nanoparticles and vaccines. The UW License Agreement was amended in July 2019 and again in November 2020. Our rights and obligations under the UW License Agreement are subject to certain U.S. government rights, certain global access commitment rights for humanitarian purposes to BMGF, certain rights to Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and certain other limited rights retained by UW.

We issued 799,045 shares of common stock on August 1, 2018 in exchange for the UW License Agreement’s exclusive license. The shares issued were recorded at their estimated fair value, which is de minimis, with the related expense classified as research and development in 2018.

Under the UW License Agreement, we are required to use commercially reasonable efforts to meet certain specified development, sales and regulatory milestones related to the licensed products within specified time periods. In consideration of the rights granted to us under the UW License Agreement, we are required to pay an annual maintenance fee in the mid four figures. Additionally, we are required to pay minimum annual royalties following the first year after commercial sale of each licensed product. There are milestone payments due upon the completion of certain development, regulatory, and commercial milestones for licensed products in the future. The aggregate potential milestone payments for future development, regulatory, and sales-based milestones are $1.35 million per indication, up to a maximum of $6.75 million in total milestone payments. Additionally, we have agreed to pay a royalty of a low single digit percentage on net sales of all licensed products. Additional royalties would be due in connection with sublicenses and additional sales milestones. Our royalty obligations continue for each licensed product for so long as licensed patent rights exist and have not expired, been revoked, lapsed, or held unenforceable.

 

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The UW License Agreement will terminate when all licensed rights have been terminated and all obligations due to UW have been fulfilled, or we may terminate the entirety of the agreement upon written notice thereof to UW.

During the year ended December 31, 2019, we paid $78,000 in fees associated with the license, which were expensed as incurred.

During the year ended December 31, 2020, we paid $5,000 in fees associated with the license, which were expensed as incurred.

During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021, we did not make any payments associated with the license.

On July 2, 2020, we entered into a non-exclusive license agreement with respect to specified intellectual property with options for exclusivity in North America and Europe subject to the performance of certain development milestones, with UW (the Option and License Agreement). Under the Option and License Agreement we also received a non-exclusive, worldwide (excluding South Korea) license to use specific know-how, and rights to sublicense for computationally designed nanoparticles and vaccines. The Option and License Agreement was amended in August 2020 and in May 2021. Our rights and obligations under the Option and License Agreement are subject to certain U.S. government rights, certain global access commitment rights for humanitarian purposes to BMGF, certain rights to Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and certain other limited rights retained by the UW.

Under the Option and License Agreement, we are required to use commercially reasonable efforts to meet certain specified development, sales and regulatory milestones related to the licensed products within specified time periods. We have agreed to pay a royalty of a low single digit percentage on net sales of all products applicable to the license. However, we will not be required to pay royalties on net sales of any licensed product under the Option and License Agreement if we are required to pay royalties on net sales under the UW License Agreement. Additional royalties would be due in connection with sublicenses and milestones. Our royalty obligations continue for each licensed product for so long as licensed patent rights exist and have not expired, been revoked, lapsed, or held unenforceable.

The Option and License Agreement will terminate when all licensed rights have been terminated and all obligations due to the UW have been fulfilled, or we may terminate the entirety of the agreement upon written notice thereof to the UW.

During the year ended December 31, 2020, we reimbursed the UW for patent expenses under the UW License Agreement and the Option and License Agreement of $139,000, which were expensed as incurred.

During the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, we did not incur any other fees or make any payments associated with the Option and License Agreement.

During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021, we reimbursed the University of Washington for patent expenses under the UW 2018 Agreement and UW 2020 Agreement as amended of $43,000 and $27,000, respectively, which were expensed as incurred. During the three months ended March 31, 2020 and 2021, we did not incur any other fees or make any payments associated with the UW 2020 Agreement as amended.

License Agreement with the University of Texas

In June 2021, we entered into an exclusive patent license agreement with an academic entity, the University of Texas at Austin (the “UT Agreement”). Under the UT Agreement, we obtained an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing, sublicensable license under certain patent rights, to use licensed know-how for prevention, cure, amelioration or treatment of respiratory disease caused by metapneumovirus infection in all vaccine fields, excluding mRNA-based vaccines.

There are milestone payments due upon the completion of certain development, regulatory, and commercial milestones for licensed products in the future. We are obligated to pay aggregate potential milestone payments of up to $775,000 with respect to future development and regulatory based milestones, and up to $3.75 million with respect to future sales milestones following commercialization for each licensed product for so long as licensed patent rights exist and have not expired, been revoked, lapsed, or held unenforceable.

 

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The UT Agreement will terminate upon the last expiration of the patent rights or we may terminate the entirety of the agreement upon written notice thereof to the University of Texas at Austin.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

Our financial statements are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP). The preparation of our financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, costs, and expenses and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities in our financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates and assumptions on historical experience and other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. We evaluate our estimates and judgments on an ongoing basis. We base our estimates on historical experience, known trends and events, and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our actual results may differ materially from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

While our significant accounting policies are more fully described in Note 2 to our audited financial statements and Note 2 to our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus, we believe that the following accounting policies are the most critical for fully understanding and evaluating our financial condition and results of operations.

Grant Revenue

Our current revenue consists of revenue under the Grant Agreement with BMGF. We are reimbursed for certain costs that support development activities, including our regulatory filing preparations for and planned first-in-human Phase 1/2 clinical trial of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate. The Grant Agreement does not provide a direct economic benefit to BMGF. Rather, we entered into an agreement with BMGF to make a certain amount of any resulting vaccine available and accessible at affordable pricing to people in certain low- and middle-income countries. We assessed this cost reimbursement agreement to determine if the agreement should be accounted for as an exchange transaction or a contribution. Such an agreement is accounted for as a contribution if the resource provider does not receive commensurate value in return for the assets transferred. Contributions are recognized as grant revenue when all donor-imposed conditions have been met.

Accrued Research and Development Expenses

We are required to estimate our obligations for expenses incurred under contracts with vendors, consultants and CROs, in connection with conducting research and development activities. The financial terms of these contracts are subject to negotiations, which vary from contract to contract and may result in payment flows that do not match the periods over which materials or services are provided under such contracts. We reflect research and development expenses in our financial statements by recognizing those expenses in the periods in which services and efforts are expended. We account for these expenses according to the progress of the preclinical study or clinical trial as measured by the timing of various aspects of the study, trial or related activities. We determine accrual estimates through review of the underlying contracts along with preparation of financial models taking into account discussions with research and other key personnel as to the progress of studies or trials, or other services being conducted. During the course of a study or trial, we adjust our rate of expense recognition if actual results differ from our estimates.

Although we do not expect our estimates to be materially different from amounts actually incurred, if our estimates of the status and timing of services performed differ from the actual status and timing of services performed, it could result in us reporting amounts that are too high or too low in any particular period. To date, there have been no material differences between our estimates of such expenses and the amounts actually incurred.

Deferred Offering Costs

We have deferred offering costs consisting of legal, accounting and other fees and costs directly attributable to our planned IPO. The deferred offering costs will be offset against the proceeds received upon the completion of the planned IPO. In the event the planned IPO is terminated, all of the deferred offering costs will be expensed within our statements of operations and comprehensive loss.

 

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Fair Value of Derivative Liability and Convertible Promissory Note

We adjusted the carrying value of the derivative liability that was bifurcated from our convertible promissory note to the estimated fair value at each reporting date, with any related increases or decreases in the fair value recorded as change in fair value of derivative liability in the statements of operations. There were significant judgments and estimates inherent in the determination of the fair value of these liabilities. If we had made different assumptions including, among others, those related to the timing and probability of various financing scenarios, discount rates, volatilities and exit valuations, the carrying values of our derivative liability and convertible promissory note, and our net loss and net loss per share of common stock could have been significantly different. The derivative liability was settled in March 2021 upon conversion of the underlying convertible note into Series B convertible preferred stock, resulting in a loss on extinguishment of convertible promissory note.

Stock-Based Compensation Expense

Stock-based compensation expense represents the cost of the grant date fair value of employee, officer, director and non-employee stock options. We estimate the fair value of stock options on the date of grant using the Black-Scholes option pricing model and recognize the expense over the requisite service period of the awards, which is generally the vesting period, on a straight-line basis. We account for forfeitures when they occur and reverse any compensation cost previously recognized for awards for which the requisite service has not been completed, in the period that the award is forfeited.

The Black-Scholes option pricing model uses inputs which are highly subjective assumptions, including the fair value of the underlying common stock, expected term of the option before exercise, expected volatility of our common stock, risk-free interest rate and expected dividend.

See Note 8 to our audited financial statements and Note 8 to our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for more information concerning certain of the specific assumptions we used in applying the Black-Scholes option pricing model to determine the estimated fair value of our stock options. Certain of such assumptions involve inherent uncertainties and the application of significant judgment. As a result, if factors or expected outcomes change and we use significantly different assumptions or estimates, our stock-based compensation could be materially different.

We recorded stock-based compensation expense of $0.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to $0.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. We recorded stock-based compensation expense of $0.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to $0.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2021. As of March 31, 2021, there was $5.2 million of total unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to unvested stock options which we expect to recognize over a remaining weighted-average period of 3.5 years. We expect to continue to grant stock options and other equity-based awards in the future, and to the extent that we do, our stock-based compensation expense recognized in future periods will likely increase.

The intrinsic value of all outstanding options as of March 31, 2021 was $                million, based on the assumed initial public offering price of $                per share (the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus), of which approximately $                million was related to vested options and approximately $                million was related to unvested options.

Common Stock Valuation

We are required to estimate the fair value of the common stock underlying our stock-based awards when performing fair value calculations using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. Because our common stock is not currently publicly traded, the fair value of the common stock underlying our stock-based awards has been determined on each grant date by our board of directors, with input from management, considering our most recently available third-party valuation of common shares. All options to purchase shares of our common stock are intended to be granted with an exercise price per share no less than the fair value per share of our common stock underlying those options on the date of grant, based on the information known to us on the date of grant.

Our determination of the value of our common stock was performed using methodologies, approaches and assumptions consistent with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Audit and Accounting Practice Aid Series: Valuation of Privately Held Company Equity Securities Issued as Compensation (AICPA Practice

 

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Aid). In addition, our board of directors considered various objective and subjective factors to determine the fair value of our common stock, including:

 

   

valuations of our common stock performed by independent third-party valuation specialists;

 

   

the anticipated capital structure that will directly impact the value of the currently outstanding securities;

 

   

our results of operations and our financial position;

 

   

the status of our research and development efforts;

 

   

the composition of, and changes to, our management team and board of directors;

 

   

the lack of liquidity of our common stock as a private company;

 

   

our stage of development and business strategy and the material risks related to our business and industry;

 

   

external market conditions affecting the life sciences and biotechnology industry sectors;

 

   

U.S. and global economic conditions;

 

   

the likelihood of achieving a liquidity event for the holders of our common stock, such as an IPO or a sale of our company, given prevailing market conditions; and

 

   

the market value and volatility of comparable companies.

The AICPA Practice Aid prescribes several valuation approaches for setting the value of an enterprise, such as the cost, income and market approaches and the back-solve method, and various methodologies for allocating the value of an enterprise to its common stock. The cost approach establishes the value of an enterprise based on the cost of reproducing or replacing the property less depreciation and functional or economic obsolescence, if present. The income approach establishes the value of an enterprise based on the present value of future cash flows that are reasonably reflective of our future operations, discounting to the present value with an appropriate risk adjusted discount rate or capitalization rate. The market approach is based on the assumption that the value of an asset is equal to the value of a substitute asset with the same characteristics. The back-solve method assigns an implied enterprise value based on the most recent round of funding or investment and allows for the incorporation of the implied future benefits and risks of the investment decision assigned by an outside investor. In determining a fair value for our common stock, we estimated the enterprise value of our business using either the market approach or back-solve method.

In accordance with the AICPA Practice Aid, we considered the various methods for allocating the enterprise value to determine the fair value of our common stock at the valuation date. Under the option pricing method (OPM), shares are valued by creating a series of call options with exercise prices based on the liquidation preferences and conversion terms of each equity class. The value of the common stock is inferred by analyzing these options. The probability weighted expected return method (PWERM) is a scenario-based analysis that estimates the value per share based on the probability-weighted present value of expected future investment returns, considering each of the possible outcomes available to us, as well as the economic and control rights of each share class.

Based on our early stage of development and other relevant factors, we determined that an OPM was the most appropriate method for allocating our enterprise value to determine the estimated fair value of our common stock for valuations performed prior to April 30, 2021. For valuations performed after this date, we used the PWERM method to determine the estimated fair value of our common stock. In determining the estimated fair value of our common stock, our board of directors also considered the fact that our stockholders could not freely trade our common stock in the public markets. Accordingly, we applied discounts to reflect the lack of marketability of our common stock based on the weighted-average expected time to liquidity.

There are significant judgments and estimates inherent in the determination of the fair value of our common stock. These judgments and estimates include assumptions regarding our future operating performance, the time to completing an IPO or other liquidity event and the determination of the appropriate valuation methods. If we had made different assumptions, our stock-based compensation expense, net loss and net loss per share of common stock could have been significantly different.

Following the closing of this offering, the fair value of our common stock will be equal to the closing price of our common stock as reported on the date of the grant.

 

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Income Taxes

We are subject to corporate U.S. federal and state income taxation. As of December 31, 2019 and 2020, we had federal net operating loss carryforwards of $7.0 million and $21.0 million, respectively, and state net operating loss carryforwards of $0.5 million, and $2.2 million, respectively. As a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, for U.S. income tax purposes, net operating losses generated after January 1, 2018 will be carried forward indefinitely. As of December 31, 2020, we had research and development tax credit carryforwards of approximately $1.0 million, which begin to expire in 2037. Additionally, as of December 31, 2020, we had state research and development credit carryforwards of approximately $45,000, which carryforward indefinitely.

Utilization of the net operating loss carryforwards may be subject to a substantial annual limitation due to the ownership change limitations provided by the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and similar state provisions. This annual limitation may result in the expiration of net operating losses and credits before utilization. We have not performed an analysis to determine the limitation of our net operating loss carryforwards.

We estimate our income tax provision, including deferred tax assets and liabilities, based on management’s judgment. We record a valuation allowance to reduce our deferred tax assets to the amounts that are more likely than not to be realized. We consider future taxable income, ongoing tax planning strategies and our historical financial performance in assessing the need for a valuation allowance. If we expect to realize deferred tax assets for which we have previously recorded a valuation allowance, we will reduce the valuation allowance in the period in which such determination is first made.

We record liabilities related to uncertain tax positions in accordance with the guidance that clarifies the accounting for uncertainty in income taxes recognized in an enterprise’s financial statements by prescribing a minimum recognition threshold and measurement attribute for the financial statement recognition and measurement of a tax position taken or expected to be taken in a tax return.

JOBS Act and Smaller Reporting Company

As an emerging growth company under the JOBS Act, we can take advantage of an extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards. This allows an emerging growth company to delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have irrevocably elected not to avail ourselves of this exemption from new or revised accounting standards and, therefore, will be subject to the same new or revised accounting standards as other public companies that are not emerging growth companies. We intend to rely on other exemptions provided by the JOBS Act, including without limitation, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley.

We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the last day of the fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the consummation of this offering, (ii) the last day of the fiscal year in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1.07 billion, (iii) the first day of the fiscal year in which we are deemed to be a “large accelerated filer” as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act, which would occur if the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates exceeded $700.0 million as of the last business day of the second fiscal quarter of the prior year, or (iv) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities during the prior three-year period.

We are also a smaller reporting company as defined in the Exchange Act. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company even after we are no longer an emerging growth company. We may take advantage of certain of the scaled disclosures available to smaller reporting companies and will be able to take advantage of these scaled disclosures for so long as our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $250.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter, or our annual revenue is less than $100.0 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and our voting and non-voting common stock held by non-affiliates is less than $700.0 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

See Note 2 to our audited financial statements and Note 2 to our unaudited interim condensed financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for recent accounting pronouncements.

 

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Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

During the periods presented we did not have, nor do we currently have, any off-balance sheet arrangements as defined under SEC rules.

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

Interest Rate Risk

Our cash and restricted cash consist of cash in readily available checking accounts and money market funds. As a result, the fair value of our portfolio is relatively insensitive to interest rate changes.

Effects of Inflation

Inflation generally affects us by increasing our cost of labor and research and development contract costs. We do not believe inflation has had a material effect on our results of operations during the periods presented in our financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus.

 

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BUSINESS

Overview

We are a biopharmaceutical company leveraging our innovative virus-like particle (VLP) platform technology to develop vaccines against infectious diseases, with an initial focus on life-threatening respiratory diseases. Our VLP platform technology is designed to enable multivalent, particle-based display of complex viral antigens, which we believe will induce broad, robust, and durable protection against the specific viruses targeted. Our pipeline includes vaccine candidates targeting some of the most prevalent viral causes of pneumonia. We are developing these candidates for older adults, a patient population with high unmet need. Our vaccine candidate IVX-A12 is a bivalent candidate, or a mixture of two different VLP candidates. IVX-A12 combines IVX-121, a vaccine candidate designed to target respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and IVX-241, a vaccine candidate designed to target human metapneumovirus (hMPV). There are currently no vaccines approved for either RSV or hMPV, which are two common causes of pneumonia in older adults. We filed a clinical trial application (CTA) for IVX-121 with the regulatory authority in Belgium (FAMHP) in June 2021 and plan to initiate a clinical trial of IVX-121 in the second half of 2021, with topline data expected in the first half of 2022. Assuming favorable results from the IVX-121 clinical trial and favorable preclinical data for IVX-241, we plan to submit an investigational new drug application (IND) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the first half of 2022 and, thereafter, initiate a clinical trial of our combination vaccine candidate, IVX-A12, in the second half of 2022. Additionally, we are developing two severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine candidates, IVX-411 and IVX-421, and initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of IVX-411 in Australia in June 2021, with proof-of-concept data expected in the first half of 2022.

Global Vaccine Market Opportunity

The global market for vaccines was over $50 billion in 2020, of which over $12.5 billion was from vaccines for influenza and pneumococcus, two of the leading causes of pneumonia. Lower respiratory infection, including pneumonia, is the leading cause of death and hospitalization from infections and the fourth highest cause of death globally. Older adults are particularly susceptible to respiratory pathogens and it is estimated that prior to COVID-19, lower respiratory infection caused over one million deaths globally in people over the age of 70 every year. The world adult population over the age of 60 is expected to double by 2050, so prevention of respiratory disease in older adults is a growing commercial opportunity. Many of the viral causes of pneumonia have no approved vaccines, limited treatment options, and result in high morbidity and mortality in the older adult population.

RSV is estimated to cause 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths in adults 65 years of age or older annually in the United States alone. Costs per hospitalization for RSV in older adults are estimated to be at least as great as those of influenza due to longer hospital stays and greater pulmonary complications. The U.S. economic burden for RSV-related hospitalizations alone is estimated to be greater than $2.5 billion per year. Rates of hospitalization and severity of disease for hMPV have been shown to be similar to that seen with RSV and influenza. There are currently no marketed vaccines for RSV or hMPV, two common causes of pneumonia.

VLP Technology

Our technology platform is based on the VLP approach to vaccine development, which we believe has been validated through the regulatory approvals and commercial success of third-party VLP vaccines and has several benefits. Naturally occurring VLPs have shown the ability to induce high and sustained levels (titers) of neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) in both older and younger adults, which have generally been associated with protective immunity. In addition, we believe VLPs can be used in combination vaccines as VLPs enable multivalent display of antigens in a manner that closely resembles viruses but contain no genetic material. However, VLPs engineered to display complex viral antigens have in general been difficult to develop or successfully manufacture at scale, limiting the pathogens that can be addressed by this approach.

Our vaccine technology was licensed from the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington (UW IPD) and is designed to enable the application of VLP-based vaccines against a broader array of pathogens than has been possible with naturally occurring VLPs and to overcome the manufacturing challenges experienced with these VLPs as well as other VLP technologies. Our licensed VLP technology utilizes a two-component computationally designed protein structure that self-assembles without interfering with the structure of the displayed antigens. The individual protein components are expressed and purified using traditional recombinant protein techniques, which we believe will allow us to manufacture our VLP vaccine candidates more efficiently at scale.

 

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Our initial focus is on the development of vaccines to prevent respiratory disease and pneumonia caused by viral pathogens in older adults. We believe there is a need for effective vaccines to combat infections in older adults, who are generally less able to mount an immune response against pathogens compared to other age groups due to the gradual deterioration of the immune system as adults age, also called immunosenescence. Immunosenescence causes older adults to be more susceptible to severe symptoms and death from infections and results in a weaker response to vaccination with conventional vaccines. For RSV, hMPV, and SARS-CoV-2 there is a strong correlation between nAb levels and increased protection against disease. For this reason, vaccines able to induce the highest nAb titers will likely be the most protective against infection, particularly in older adults. We believe that VLP vaccines may provide an optimal approach for driving this robust antibody response. In addition, we believe our platform has the potential to address the global need for thermostable, low-cost, and readily manufacturable vaccines. We are working on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates to help meet this need in the near term, and plan to evaluate the potential to combine this vaccine candidate with others to develop a combination vaccine candidate in the medium-to-long term.

Our Programs

Our initial focus is on developing vaccine candidate for viral causes of pneumonia in older adults. The following chart summarizes our current programs.

 

LOGO

 

*^   VLP technology underlying all candidates is licensed from the University of Washington
  Icosavax does not plan to pursue the IVX-121 RSV monovalent candidate as a standalone candidate for RSV in older adults, and plans to transition development to the IVX-A12 bivalent RSV/hMPV candidate following Phase 1. The RSV antigen incorporated into IVX-121 is licensed from the National Institutes of Health; key mutations in the hMPV antigen incorporated into IVX-A12 are licensed from the National Institute of Health and the University of Texas at Austin
  Icosavax has worldwide nonexclusive rights with exception of South Korea, along with an option to convert to exclusive rights in North America and Europe

IVX-A12 (RSV-hMPV vaccine candidate), a bivalent combination of IVX-121 (RSV vaccine candidate) and IVX-241 (hMPV vaccine candidate)

IVX-A12 is a bivalent combination of IVX-121, which is designed to target RSV, and IVX-241, which is designed to target hMPV. Both IVX-121 and IVX-241 have been designed to display prefusion stabilized F antigens of RSV and hMPV, respectively. The F (fusion) proteins of these viruses are critical for viral entry. F proteins are also one of the main targets for nAbs and are a focus of most vaccine efforts for respiratory viruses such as RSV and hMPV. We have licensed a prefusion stabilized form of the RSV F antigen, DS-Cav1, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that has been demonstrated in clinical trials conducted by the NIH to be a robust immunogen. An initial clinical trial with DS-Cav1 showed an induction of nAb titers much higher than had previously been seen with other vaccine approaches to RSV. We have incorporated DS-Cav1 into our VLP candidate IVX-121. Preclinical data with hMPV antigens provide support for the F antigen as a potential target for protective immunity, and we have incorporated a prefusion F antigen into our VLP candidate IVX-241. The prefusion F antigen in IVX-241 incorporates key mutations that we have licensed from the NIH and the University of Texas at Austin (UT). We plan to assess different ratios of IVX-121 and IVX-241 in preclinical studies in an effort to identify the ratio least likely to induce immunologic interference between them prior to initiating clinical trials of IVX-A12. We also plan to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the optimal ratio of IVX-121 to IVX-241 in humans. We believe that multivalent display of these prefusion F antigens on the surface of our VLPs has the potential to induce a robust nAb response capable of conferring protection against infection of both viruses, which we also plan to assess in clinical trials.

 

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We plan to initiate clinical development of IVX-A12 with a clinical trial of IVX-121. We filed a CTA in Belgium for IVX-121 in June 2021 and plan to initiate a Phase 1/1b clinical trial in the second half of 2021 to assess the safety and immunogenicity of IVX-121 in adults aged 18-45 and 60-75. We expect to report topline data from this trial in the first half of 2022. Assuming favorable results, we plan to submit an IND to the FDA and, thereafter, initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial of IVX-A12 in the second half of 2022 to assess its safety and immunogenicity in adults aged 18-45 and 60-85, though we have not yet discussed this development plan with the FDA. We believe that a bivalent VLP vaccine targeting RSV and hMPV is the optimal approach to prevent these two common causes of pneumonia, neither of which has an approved vaccine to date.

SARS-CoV-2

In addition to RSV and hMPV, we are developing two SARS-CoV-2 VLP vaccine candidates, IVX-411 and IVX-421. IVX-411 is designed to present 60 copies of the receptor binding domain (RBD) protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain first identified in China (original viral strain). IVX-421 has been designed with a similar structure and incorporates the key B.1.351 RBD mutations found in the variant strain first identified in South Africa (beta variant strain). For our SARS-CoV-2 candidates, we have a license from the University of Washington (UW) that is nonexclusive with an option for an exclusive license in the United States and EU. SK Biosciences (SK) has also licensed the technology for use in SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. SK has initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in South Korea for a product candidate similar to IVX-411 and is also pursuing variant vaccine candidates.

The SARS-CoV-2 vaccine landscape is currently very crowded, with several vaccines having received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA and similar authorizations from other regulatory authorities, as well as additional vaccine candidates in development. However, we believe that given the global demand for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, our vaccine candidates, if successfully developed and approved, may help address specific gaps in access, either as primary vaccines or as boosters to already authorized vaccines. In October 2020, we announced a grant for $10 million, awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a global non-profit dedicated to improving global health. We are using this grant to evaluate IVX-411 in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial that we initiated in Australia in June 2021 where we plan to assess its safety and potential to induce a robust functional immune response against the original viral strain as well as emerging viral variants. In this clinical trial, we will also be evaluating the potential of IVX-411 to stimulate increased nAb titers in previously vaccinated individuals for its potential use as a booster vaccine. We are also planning to conduct a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the potential of IVX-411 to stimulate increased nAb titers in previously infected individuals. We will evaluate our plans for the clinical development of IVX-421 based on the initial results from these trials as well as the results of additional preclinical studies planned to evaluate IVX-421.

Our Team and Investors

We were formed in 2017 to advance the breakthrough VLP technology from the UW IPD with the goal to discover, develop, and commercialize vaccines against infectious diseases. We have assembled an experienced management team, board of directors, and scientific advisory board, who bring extensive industry experience to our company. Our scientific co-founders, Neil King and David Baker, are world leaders in protein design. The Chair of our Board of Directors, Tachi Yamada, is a leader in vaccine development, as the previous head of Global Health at BMGF as well as the previous Chief Medical and Scientific Officer at Takeda responsible for expanding their vaccine business unit. Our CEO, Adam Simpson, has over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, and previously served as CEO of PvP Biologics, a company based on IPD recombinant protein technology, which was acquired by Takeda. Other members of our executive team have deep experience in discovering, developing, manufacturing, and commercializing pharmaceuticals, including vaccines. This includes having worked at major pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Takeda, Gilead and Merck.

Since our inception we have raised over $150 million from leading investors in the life science and biotechnology industry. Investors with 5% or greater ownership are Qiming Venture Partners USA, Adams Street Partners, RA Capital Management, Sanofi Ventures and ND Capital.

 

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Our Strategy

Our goal is to utilize our VLP platform technology to develop vaccines against infectious diseases with an initial focus on life-threatening respiratory diseases. Key elements of our strategy include:

 

   

Advancing our combination RSV-hMPV VLP vaccine candidate, IVX-A12, through clinical development and regulatory approval for the prevention of respiratory disease and pneumonia in older adults. We have filed a CTA in Belgium for our RSV VLP vaccine candidate, IVX-121, and plan to initiate a Phase 1/1b clinical trial in the second half of 2021 to assess the safety and immunogenicity of IVX-121 in adults aged 18-45 and 60-75. We expect to report topline data from this trial in the first half of 2022. Assuming favorable results, we plan to combine IVX-121 with our hMPV VLP vaccine candidate, IVX-241, to produce our bivalent vaccine candidate, IVX-A12, and to advance this combination vaccine candidate into clinical development. We plan to submit an IND to the FDA for IVX-A12 in the first half of 2022 and, thereafter, initiate a Phase 1 clinical trial of IVX-A12 to assess the safety and immunogenicity of IVX-A12 in adults aged 18-45 and 60-85. We believe that a bivalent RSV and hMPV targeted VLP vaccine has the potential to provide an optimal approach to preventing these two common causes of pneumonia, neither of which has an approved vaccine.

 

   

Leveraging our VLP platform technology to pursue additional vaccine candidates in indications with high unmet need. We believe our VLP vaccine technology has broad applicability beyond RSV and hMPV. We initiated a Phase 1/2 clinical trial evaluating IVX-411 in healthy adults aged 18-69 in June 2021. In addition, we plan to evaluate other VLP candidates for indications with high unmet need.

 

   

Building manufacturing scale-up capability early in the development process: For all of our programs, we plan to identify and contract with large-scale commercial contract development and manufacturing organizations early in the development process. We plan to initiate scale-up of manufacturing process development activities immediately following commencement of clinical trials to enable incorporation of manufacturing process changes early in development. We believe that this will lower manufacturing risk for our programs as well as accelerate our timelines to regulatory approval.

 

   

Further optimizing our VLP platform technology. We intend to invest in process enhancements that we believe could enable a more rapid development of future vaccine candidates. As part of this plan, we intend to evaluate alternative manufacturing processes that we believe could reduce time from candidate selection to availability of clinical trial material.

 

   

Maximizing the value of our vaccine candidates through selective partnerships. As we continue to build and advance our vaccine candidate pipeline, we may explore on a candidate-by-candidate basis partnerships or strategic collaborations to accelerate development or commercialization in key regions with third parties who have complementary capabilities that allow us to enhance the value of our pipeline.

Vaccine Market Overview

The global vaccine market was estimated to be over $50 billion in 2020 and was anticipated to grow to over $100 billion by 2027. Recombinant, conjugate and subunit vaccines, which include VLP-based vaccines, make up over 50% of this market. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the global vaccine market was expected to grow rapidly at a compound annual growth rate of 10% between 2019 and 2027. The increased awareness of infectious diseases and importance of vaccines driven by the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to increase vaccine utilization further, particularly for respiratory viruses.

Pneumococcal and influenza vaccines are important vaccines in the current respiratory vaccine market. Both are recommended for immunization by healthcare policy makers in the United States and other major markets. The global pneumococcal market was estimated to be around $8 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to around $13.5 billion in 2030. The influenza market size is challenging to estimate due to the number of marketed vaccines worldwide but was estimated to be around $4.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to around $8 billion by 2027. Older adults make up a significant proportion of these sales. Uptake of both influenza and pneumococcal vaccines in adults over the age of 65 is about 70% in the United States, and it is estimated that approximately 20% of the flu doses administered in the United States are to people over the age of 65. Pneumovax23, a pneumococcal vaccine with uptake primarily in the older adult population, had 2020 sales of $1.1 billion. We believe that sales of vaccines for older adults will grow substantially in the future, as the world adult population over the age of 60 is expected to double by 2050.

 

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Vaccines are designed to prevent disease by providing a safe exposure to key components of pathogens capable of inducing protective immunity. Infants and young children have typically not been exposed to many pathogens and have limited immunity following the disappearance of maternal antibodies. As infants grow into adults the immune system becomes stronger and more capable of fighting off several pathogens that cause disease, owing to both vaccines and natural exposure to infections as children. However, as adults age their immune system becomes weaker and less capable of mounting an effective immune response. This phenomenon is called immunosenescence, and it leaves older adults more susceptible to disease than younger adults. Recently, several vaccines have been approved or recommended specifically for use in older adults and we believe that novel approaches to vaccine development will continue to drive the market for prevention of disease in this population.

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Benefit of Combination Vaccines

We plan to utilize our innovative VLP platform technology to develop and deliver combination vaccine products, initially targeting respiratory pathogens in older adults. Combination vaccines have had commercial success in both pediatric and young adult populations with significant patient access and market penetration. This is because combination vaccines can be developed to protect against diverse pathogens or multiple strains or variants of the same pathogen with a single product while having the potential to reduce the number of injections and simplifying the immunization schedule.

We predict that as more vaccines targeting the older adult community are developed, combination vaccines will become the preferred approach for older adults, similar to what has occurred with pediatric and young adult vaccines. We believe an early focus on combination vaccine candidates against respiratory viruses in older adults will give us a competitive advantage over monovalent vaccine candidates in development.

Potential Benefits of VLP Vaccines

There are a number of highly effective vaccines on the market (e.g., Gardasil, Cervarix) and vaccines in development (e.g., TAK-214) that are based on VLPs. In these instances, the vaccines contain proteins from the target pathogen that naturally self-assemble into VLPs and are capable of inducing a protective immune response. Data from third-party preclinical studies and clinical trials suggest that VLPs are capable of inducing a robust and durable immune response, that, in some cases, was superior to soluble antigens.

The robust response to VLPs is due to their interaction with a number of aspects of both the innate and adaptive arms of the immune system, which are responsible for driving immediate and lasting immune responses, respectively. The innate immune system involves a diverse set of cells, including dendritic cells, mast cells, eosinophils, basophils, neutrophils and macrophages, all of which generate a rapid response to pathogens or other foreign bodies. The adaptive immune system is a second line of defense that is specific to a pathogen or antigen and is triggered when antigen presenting cells (APCs) from the innate immune system activate and recruit cells from the

 

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adaptive immune system. The adaptive immune system is composed of T cells and B cells which can form immunologic memory and therefore be activated upon reintroduction of the initial antigen or pathogen.

As illustrated in the figure below, VLPs induce robust immune responses through (1) improved uptake and presentation of VLP-based antigens by APCs that “instruct” T cells on pathogenic threats, (2) efficient trafficking of VLPs to the lymph nodes, a critical site for adaptive immune responses, (3) enhanced cellular crosstalk between APCs, T cells and B cells and (4) the potential of multivalent, VLP-based antigens to effectively cross-link and stimulate antigen receptors on B cells, which mature into short-lived plasma cells, long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells following exposure to antigens. Compared to soluble antigens, the observed strength of B cell receptor cross-linking by multivalent, VLP-based vaccines are thought to increase the induction of long-lived plasma cells, which provide a durable antibody response. As an example, marketed HPV vaccines have demonstrated high levels of immunogenicity and efficacy for 9-10 years following vaccination while 80% people vaccinated with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) VLP vaccine showed protective titers at least 10 years after their primary immunization.

 

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We believe there are a number of other potential advantages to VLP-based vaccines. VLPs are non-replicating and non-infectious, which we believe has the potential to make them safer to use in all populations. Both approved VLPs as well as VLPs currently in development have shown low reactogenicity when tested without adjuvant (e.g., Gardasil and TAK-214). In addition, since they do not replicate, VLPs have the potential to stimulate immune responses even in the presence of pre-existing immunity (through previous infection or vaccination), which has limited the utility of some viral vector-based vaccine platforms. VLPs have also been observed to induce robust nAb levels in older adults, despite immunosenescence. VLPs have also been effective in the development of combination vaccines. For example, the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines for use against HPV, among others, incorporate combinations of VLPs targeting different viral strains. For Gardasil, the initial formulation contained four VLPs, and serotype coverage was expanded through the inclusion of five additional HPV type VLPs in a second-generation product, showing the feasibility of expanding VLP formulations. Gardasil/Gardasil-9 generated $4 billion in 2020 worldwide sales. In addition, the Takeda norovirus VLP candidate TAK-214, a combination of two VLPs targeting different norovirus genotypes, has successfully completed Phase 2 clinical trials. Evaluation of nAb titers induced by TAK-214 showed no difference between the response seen in adults aged 22-48 and adults aged 60 and over.

VLP-based vaccines have also induced cross-protective immune responses against related virus strains not included in the vaccine. This result was believed to be due to antibody responses against subdominant epitopes that only provoke an immune response when presented to the immune system in a multivalent form. Cross-protective immune responses have been seen in clinical and post-marketing surveillance data from approved HPV vaccines, Phase 2 data from TAK-214, as well as nonclinical data with influenza vaccines using our two-component VLP platform.

 

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Limitations of Current VLP Technologies

The major drawback of naturally occurring VLPs is that they often cannot be engineered to display other complex antigen targets or manufactured at commercially relevant scale. Since not all pathogens have protective antigens that naturally form VLPs, this limits the specific pathogens that can be targeted with this approach. Several developers have, and are currently, utilizing various other approaches to develop and manufacture VLP-based vaccines. One approach is to use antigens from viruses that naturally form VLPs (e.g., tobacco mosaic virus and HBV) as scaffolds for viral antigens that fail to form VLPs on their own. There are also naturally occurring proteins that self-assemble into particles (e.g., bacterial protein ferritin or lumazine synthase) that can be used as scaffolds for presenting heterologous antigens. The main limitation of the natural scaffold-based approaches is that the structure is fixed resulting in limitations on the size and nature of the antigens that can be incorporated into these particles, as well as the valency and geometry of the antigens presented. Another approach is to use an enveloped VLP that buds from the host cell and contains cellular lipids that make up the lipoprotein envelope. Although this allows for incorporation of complex heterologous antigens, enveloped VLPs can be challenging to purify, with concerns about viral contamination as well as host-cell proteins being carried through to the enveloped VLP, particularly when mammalian expression systems are used. In addition, enveloped VLPs have historically had poor yields, scalability, and stability challenges. To date, none of these alternative VLP technologies have reached the market.

Our Solution—Two-Component Computationally Designed VLP Technology

We believe that our two-component VLP platform technology, licensed from the UW, retains the benefits of the naturally occurring VLPs while potentially overcoming the constraints and limitations seen in other VLP technologies to date. Our platform stems from technology developed by researchers at the UW IPD, who pioneered a computationally designed VLP system with potential to address a wide range of vaccine targets. The UW IPD used computational design and empirical testing to develop hundreds of self-assembling two-component protein-based VLP scaffolds.

Our licensed VLP technology encompasses VLPs formed from two protein components that are separately produced using traditional recombinant protein manufacturing techniques. The antigenic Component A consists of a trimeric protein that is genetically fused to the target antigen of interest and produced in eukaryotic cells. The trimeric component A assembly domain is derived from a thermophilic bacteria and has shown stability at above 90 degrees Celsius, which we believe has the potential to confer stability to the assembled VLP. The second protein, Component B, is a pentameric structural protein that is produced by bacterial fermentation.

We are focusing our current development efforts on a single VLP scaffold, which allows for the same Component B to be shared across multiple vaccine candidates featuring different antigens presented on Component A, as illustrated in the graphic below.

 

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Component A and Component B are expressed and purified separately prior to assembly. Upon mixture, the two protein components self-assemble into an icosahedral VLP displaying 20 copies of a trimeric antigen, such as RSV or hMPV, or 60 copies of a monomeric antigen, such as the RBD antigen in the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, as illustrated below.

 

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Using our VLP platform technology we engineer vaccine candidates comprised of self-assembling proteins that are designed to have the following potential benefits:

 

   

Robust, durable, and broad immune responses. The icosahedral symmetry of our VLPs mimics viral geometry and is designed to allow for increased antigen density, which is known to trigger robust B cell responses. We believe that preclinical data support the potential of our platform to generate VLPs that induce high nAb levels, durable immunogenicity and cross-protection against related viral strains.

 

   

Potential to display complex heterologous antigens. Our approach allows for the multivalent display of complex antigens that would not normally form into VLPs.

 

   

Highly scalable manufacturing and ease of purification. Our two-component technology facilitates the use of standard, scalable recombinant protein methods for vaccine manufacturing and purification with well-established cell line and fermentation technologies.

 

   

Increased antigen stability. Our VLPs are designed to confer increased stability to our vaccine candidates, which we believe will allow for improved storage and distribution.

Our Programs

Our current development efforts are focused on addressing the unmet need for safe and effective vaccines against leading causes of lower respiratory infections (LRIs), including pneumonia, in older adults. LRIs are the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, with morbidity and mortality increasing with age and pre-existing conditions. LRIs lead to over one million deaths worldwide per year in people over 70 years of age and pneumonia is the most common LRI. Many of the viruses found to be associated with pneumonia and LRIs have no approved vaccines, including RSV and hMPV.

We have developed each of our vaccine candidates using a robust selection process to identify what we believe is the best antigen. Our selection process includes screening for expression, protein conformation, stability, VLP assembly competence, and evaluation of immunogenicity in multiple animal models, including those that have been previously infected with the pathogen (i.e., primed). We in-license antigens where we believe that others’ discoveries may be optimally suited for our technology. We also develop our own antigens in-house.

IVX-A12—Our Combination RSV-hMPV VLP Vaccine Development Program

Our IVX-A12 development program combines two VLP vaccine candidates, IVX-121 and IVX-241, into a single combination vaccine. IVX-121 is an RSV vaccine candidate for which we have filed a CTA and plan to commence a Phase 1 clinical trial in Belgium in the second half of 2021. IVX-241 is an hMPV vaccine candidate in preclinical development, which we plan to combine with IVX-121 to form IVX-A12, for which we plan to submit an IND to the FDA and, thereafter, advance into a Phase 1 clinical trial in the second half of 2022.

 

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IVX-A12 Market Opportunity

Marketed vaccines for pneumococcus and influenza, two major causes of pneumonia, have an estimated combined annual 2020 global revenue of $13 billion. RSV and hMPV are also highly prevalent respiratory pathogens that occur seasonally. The largest epidemiological study assessing prevalence of RSV and hMPV that compared with influenza and pneumococcal in adults was the EPIC study published in 2015. Based on this study, the two most common pathogens causing pneumonia in adults after human rhinovirus, influenza pneumococcus and influenza were RSV and hMPV, which were found in 8% and 11%, respectively, of U.S. adults hospitalized for community acquired pneumonia where any pathogen was detected, as shown below.

Top 5 Pathogens Detected in Adults Hospitalized with Community-Acquired

Pneumonia (EPIC Study*)

 

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  *   EPIC study data from supplementary information published in Jain et al., 2015

In addition, recent data show that both morbidity and mortality in U.S. adults hospitalized with viral pneumonia is higher with both RSV (16.1% likelihood of ICU admission and 5.2% likelihood of death) and hMPV (16.5% likelihood of ICU admission and 3.9% likelihood of death) than with influenza (11.5% likelihood of ICU admission and 3.3% likelihood of death). Given these data, a combined RSV-hMPV vaccine could address a substantial unmet medical need.

We recently conducted a primary and quantitative research campaign including interviews with 35 U.S. and EU payors and policy makers and a quantitative survey with 140 U.S. vaccinators (physicians and pharmacists). Data from the study suggest that once launched, an effective RSV vaccine targeting the older adult population could be included in policy (e.g., ACIP) guidelines, which drive recommendations by the CDC and equivalent organizations outside the United States, and could be included on payor formularies. This applied to both monovalent (RSV only) and combination vaccines that incorporate an RSV component. The quantitative survey results suggested that policy recommendations were likely to drive immediate vaccine utilization of an RSV vaccine. In addition, survey results suggested that vaccinators were likely to have a strong (90%) preference for a combination RSV-hMPV vaccine over an RSV monovalent vaccine, assuming equivalent efficacy against RSV. Overall, we believe that the survey results supported continued development of a bivalent RSV/hMPV vaccine candidate.

 

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IVX-121—RSV VLP Vaccine Candidate

Overview of RSV

RSV is an RNA virus that replicates in the nose and lungs and is a major viral cause of LRI worldwide. There are two major subtypes of RSV, A and B, which may co-circulate in a single RSV season. Re-infection is common, and all older adults are expected to have been exposed to RSV and have RSV-specific antibodies. The most common symptoms are cough, fatigue, dyspnea, congestion, wheezing, and fever.

High Neutralizing Antibody Titers Correlate with Reduced Risk of Infection and Disease

There is substantial data correlating high nAb titers with protection against RSV. Published preclinical data, natural history studies, human challenge studies, and clinical data all demonstrate reduced risk of infection and disease when higher nAb titers are present. Published natural history studies have demonstrated that once partial protection is achieved, every additional doubling in RSV nAb titer may be associated with an 22-25% decrease in RSV-associated hospitalization. Data from a Phase 2 clinical trial conducted by Sanofi that followed 1,180 subjects aged 65 or older with cardiopulmonary disease over two years at U.S. sites provided additional support that increasing titers correlate with a reduced risk of respiratory illness. As illustrated in the figure below, a doubling of RSV nAb titer was observed to be correlated with a reduced risk of acute respiratory infections (ARIs). Based on these and similar findings, we have designed IVX-121 to increase the magnitude, quality, and durability of the nAb response.

 

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  Graph   based on data published in Falsey et al., 2008

Prefusion RSV-F Protein-Based Vaccines May Generate Higher Neutralizing Antibody Titers than Postfusion Vaccines

RSV contains several glycoproteins that are important for different functions of the virus, including the surface fusion protein F (RSV-F). RSV-F is a highly conserved glycoprotein that contains the majority of the neutralizing epitopes, specific regions of antigens that bind protective antibodies. We believe RSV-F was validated as a target for protection by the clinical efficacy and approval of Synagis, a monoclonal antibody used to protect against serious lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in children at high risk of RSV disease, and RSV-F is the focus of most RSV vaccine development efforts. RSV-F is critical for fusion of the virus with the host cell membrane and the conformation of RSV-F changes significantly between the prefusion or postfusion state. nAbs that bind to prefusion F can block viral entry into cells, thereby reducing viral replication and the severity of RSV-related disease.

The RSV-F protein naturally shifts to the postfusion state and vaccine developers initially focused on vaccines containing the postfusion conformation. These vaccine candidates induced approximately two- to four-fold increases in nAb titers, which was not a sufficient increase in nAb titers to protect a large enough portion of the trial participants to justify continued development.

Data now show that the majority of the nAbs against RSV-F in human sera are directed against the prefusion conformation, and that prefusion directed antibodies have greater neutralizing activity than antibodies directed

 

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against the postfusion protein. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed an antigen called DS-Cav1, a prefusion stabilized form of RSV-F that has elicited high titers of nAbs against RSV in mice and nonhuman primates. The NIH conducted an initial Phase 1 trial of DS-Cav1 that showed the antigen induced high nAb titers in humans, much higher than had been seen with postfusion F antigens tested by other developers, as further described below. Although DS-Cav1 provided proof-of-concept for prefusion RSV F antigens, DS-Cav1 is not fully stabilized in the prefusion conformation and converts over time to a postfusion structure, which has limited its commercial viability.

We have in-licensed the prefusion RSV-F antigen DS-Cav1 and related technology from the NIH and have incorporated the DS-Cav1 antigen assessed in the NIH Phase 1 trial onto our VLP scaffold. IVX-121 has been designed to display 20 copies of DS-Cav1 as a novel two-component VLP, as shown on the right of the figure below.

 

 

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We believe that multivalent, particle-based display of the DS-Cav1 antigen has the potential to improve antigen presentation and B cell receptor cross-linking as has been observed with other VLPs. In addition, we have observed that the fusion of DS-Cav1 to the assembly domain of Component A of the VLP further stabilizes the prefusion structure of RSV-F so that the prefusion conformation is maintained under normal storage conditions.

Clinical Proof-of-Concept of RSV Prefusion Vaccine from the NIH

The NIH conducted a Phase 1 proof-of-concept trial of DS-Cav1 in healthy volunteers to evaluate dose, safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the stabilized RSV prefusion subunit protein vaccine alone or with aluminum hydroxide (alum), a commonly used aluminum salt adjuvant. Adjuvants can be used to induce a stronger immune response in people vaccinated. Aluminum salts are a widely used adjuvant in human vaccines and pose a low safety risk to humans based on hundreds of studies conducted to date with aluminum salt adjuvanted vaccines. In the NIH trial, 90 healthy adult subjects 18-50 years of age were vaccinated with formulations of DS-Cav1 with or without alum at dose levels of 50, 150, or 500 micrograms of prefusion antigen. Subjects received intramuscular vaccinations at day 0 and at week 12. Published interim results following dosing of the first 40 subjects with 50 or 150 micrograms with or without alum demonstrated that, as of a cutoff date of December 13, 2017, immunization resulted in a 7 to 15-fold increase in nAb titers from baseline against RSV/A, as illustrated in the figure on the right below. Although NIH’s trial did not include a head-to-head comparison against other RSV vaccine candidates, the increase in nAb titers from baseline observed in this trial was higher than the ~1.5 to 4-fold rises observed with previous RSV-F protein-based vaccine candidates. As an example, in Novavax’s Phase 1 clinical trial of an RSV-F candidate in adults aged 18-49, a 1.5 to 2.4-fold rise across non-adjuvanted or aluminum salt (Adjuphos) adjuvanted groups was observed over a similar time period, as illustrated in the figure on the left below. We believe the NIH data supported the hypothesis that stabilizing the prefusion structure has the potential to improve the functional immune response against the RSV F antigen. Neutralizing titers against the important viral subtype RSV/B were also increased ~4 to 9-fold in the NIH trial, indicating comparative increases in breadth of the humoral response. The aluminum salt adjuvants showed limited effect in both the NIH and Novavax trials.

 

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Novavax data from Glenn et al., 2013; DS-Cav1 data from Crank et al., 2019

IVX-121 Prefusion F Protein Stability

In preclinical studies, we have observed that the fusion of DS-Cav1 to Component A further stabilized the prefusion conformation and the resultant assembled VLP was very stable at two to eight degrees Celsius, which is a typical temperature range for vaccine storage. In comparison, long-term storage of DS-Cav1 at four degrees Celsius resulted in a shift away from the prefusion stabilized structure as measured by reduction of prefusion specific antibody binding, including D25 binding, by 102 days.

IVX-121 Preclinical Results

We have completed several preclinical studies of IVX-121 and precursor candidates in animal models of RSV infection. As all adults are expected to have been exposed to RSV, we believe the most relevant animal models are those that use animals that are first infected with RSV prior to vaccination. In these models, animals’ immune systems are given prior exposure to the virus (i.e., primed), similar to what would be expected in human adults.

IVX-121 Preclinical Data in RSV-Primed Models. To evaluate the ability of IVX-121 to stimulate immune responses in animals with pre-existing immunity, BALB/c mice were infected with RSV and allowed to recover over a 3-month period. To reduce experimental variability, animals were randomized into groups based on their Day 28 RSV/A neutralizing titers. Animals were evaluated for pre-boost baseline titers on Day 91 and then immunized with either IVX-121 or soluble DS-Cav1 vaccine formulations, with or without Alhydrogel, a commonly used aluminum-based adjuvant. Ten days after the immunization blood was collected for assessment of nAb titers.

To account for variability in the immune response of individual animals to RSV infection, it is necessary to evaluate the relative rise in nAb titers over baseline in each animal. Dose levels of IVX-121 were matched with dose levels of DS-Cav1 meaning a 0.1 microgram dose of IVX-121 would have 0.1 micrograms of DS-Cav1 in the VLP preparation.

As shown in the figure below, IVX-121 induced strong nAb responses that were statistically superior to DS-Cav1 at the 0.1 microgram dose (p<0.05) using both parametric (t-test) and non-parametric tests (Wilcoxon test). The maximum increase in nAb titers (>15x) for the aqueous IVX-121 formulation was seen at the 0.3 microgram dose level, which was higher than the increase observed with the equivalent dose of DS-Cav1, although the results were not statistically significant. At the 1 microgram dose IVX-121 and soluble DS-Cav1 induced similar increases in nAb titers. Use of Alhydrogel did not significantly increase the immune response to IVX-121 in RSV-primed mice (not shown).

 

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Neutralizing Antibodies Generated by IVX-121 vs. Soluble DS-Cav1 in RSV-primed Mice

 

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^SEM = standard error of log2 transformed fold rise in nAb titers

*p = 0.011 (t-test); p = 0.024 (Wilcoxon test)

A p-value is the probability that the reported result was achieved purely by chance, such that a p-value of less than or equal to 0.05 means that there is a less than or equal to 5% probability that the difference between the control group and the treatment group is purely due to chance. A p-value of 0.05 or less typically represents a statistically significant result. The FDA’s evidentiary standard of efficacy when evaluating the results of a clinical trial generally relies on a p-value of less than or equal to 0.05.

In addition, to assess the cellular immune response to IVX-121 splenocytes from individual mice were collected and analyzed in an IFN-gamma ELISpot assay following stimulation with F-specific peptide. As compared to a saline control group, IVX-121 treated mice showed an increase in IFN-gamma positive CD4+ T cells, which suggests a boosted cellular immune response induced by IVX-121.

Preclinical Data in RSV-naïve Animals. Studies performed at the UW IPD on a precursor VLP-based antigen to IVX-121, DS-Cav1-I53-50, showed superiority of the multivalent, VLP presentation of DS-Cav1 over the soluble antigen. The preclinical studies with DS-Cav1-I53-50 in both naïve (non-primed) mice and naïve non-human primates, demonstrated a ~10-fold increase in neutralizing titers over the soluble DS-Cav1 antigen. In the mouse study, DS-Cav1 and DS-Cav1-I53-50 were formulated with the oil-in-water adjuvant Addavax and a 5 mcg DS-Cav1 dose equivalent was utilized for all groups. A statistically significant difference in nAbs titers induced by DS-Cav1-I53-50 and DS-Cav1 was observed (p<0.01). In the primate study, DS-Cav1 and DS-Cav1-I53-50 were formulated with the oil-in-water adjuvant SWE and a 50 mcg DS-Cav1 equivalent dose was given to both groups. A statistically significant difference in nAbs titers induced by DS-Cav1-I53-50 and DS-Cav1 was observed (p<0.05). In a subset of the primates, bone marrow was collected to assess level of induction of antigen-specific long-lived plasma cells (LLPCs), an early marker of a potential durable immune response. Primates immunized with the DS-Cav1-I53-50 VLPs showed a non-significant, but numerical increase in antigen-specific LLPC induction in bone marrow and spleen compared with animals immunized with soluble DS-Cav1. A separate non-human primate study evaluated the potential impact of Adjuphos, an aluminum salt adjuvant different from the one we plan to use in the clinic, on the IVX-121 formulation. The formulation of IVX-121 using Adjuphos induced similar levels of nAb titers to DS-Cav1 formulated with Adjuphos. The specific aluminum salt adjuvant we plan to utilize in clinical testing is Alhydrogel. Preclinical data in naïve mice suggest this adjuvant could yield improved nAb titers in naive animals.

 

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IVX-121 Preclinical Safety Studies. We have completed a toxicology study to support regulatory submissions and entry into Phase 1 trials in Europe. The toxicology study evaluated both injection site and systemic reactions to the vaccine candidate. No adverse effects were seen following administration of the anticipated maximum human dose of IVX-121 (250ug +/- Alhydrogel), with minor injection site reactivity comparable to animals receiving saline control. The only histological finding that differed from the saline control was a modest increase in the spleens of animals receiving IVX-121, consistent with the induction of a robust immune response.

IVX-241 hMPV VLP Vaccine Candidate

Overview of hMPV

hMPV is an RNA virus that is related to the RSV virus. hMPV was first identified in 2001, though it was likely in circulation for at least 50 years prior to discovery. Infection with hMPV brings a similar symptomatic profile as RSV with the most common symptoms being cough, wheezing, dyspnea, congestion and fatigue. Similar to RSV, there are two genetic lineages of hMPV, hMPV/A and hMPV/B, which show a high degree of sequence homology and co-circulate with varying annual prevalence of each strain. The hMPV virus has several highly conserved viral proteins including a fusion protein (F). Preclinical studies have demonstrated that immunization with the F protein is capable of inducing nAbs and protecting against viral challenge in animal models. Vaccination with an F protein from one lineage has been shown to result in nAb titers capable of protection against both hMPV strains, though titers against the heterologous strain are often lower. Similar to RSV, the F protein of hMPV undergoes a conformational change from the prefusion to the postfusion structure to enable entry into the host cell. Although the data are less definitive than with RSV F, we believe the prefusion structure of hMPV F is likely needed to maintain the full complement of neutralizing epitopes in order to generate the strongest immune response.

RSV, hMPV, and influenza seasons show high seasonal overlap and hMPV is underdiagnosed and often mistaken for RSV or influenza given the similarity in clinical presentation. As diagnostic tools improve, hMPV is being increasingly recognized as a major contributor to ARI and LRI. Similar to RSV, prospective cohorts from third-party clinical trials have shown that higher baseline hMPV nAbs were associated with reduced risk of hMPV symptomatic virus infection, so the goal of vaccination is to increase hMPV nAbs. There are currently no FDA-approved antivirals or vaccines to treat or prevent hMPV.

hMPV Antigen Selection and Immunogenicity Results

Expression of the hMPV F protein has been shown to be challenging and efforts have been made to introduce modifications within the protein to improve expression and stabilize the prefusion structure. We evaluated a number of potential candidate antigens for compatibility with our two-component VLP platform and selected IVX-241 with another candidate, IVX-231, that continues to be evaluated as an alternative. IVX-241 incorporates an F antigen from hMPV/A and IVX-231 incorporates a prefusion F antigen from hMPV/B. Both were selected based on key criteria, including: high expression, prefusion conformation, monodispersity, VLP stability, and high nAb titers following VLP administration in rodent studies.

 

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We performed head-to-head testing of the immunogenicity of IVX-231 and IVX-241, formulated with the oil-in-water adjuvant Addavax, in naïve mice to evaluate the quality of the antigens based on nAb titers induced by each antigen against hMPV/A. While both IVX-231 and IVX-241 induced high nAb titers against hMPV/A, IVX-241 nAb titers against the hMPV/A strain were statistically superior to those generated by IVX-231 (p<0.01) and appeared to be higher than the single human control sera included as a positive control, as shown below.

    hMPV VLP Candidates hMPV nAb Titers

            35 days Post Immunization

                        (A strain)

 

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  **   p<0.01

 

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We selected IVX-241 as the lead candidate for inclusion in IVX-A12 based on its ability to induce high nAb titers as well as its improved thermostability and monodispersity compared to IVX-231, physical characteristics we believe are important for further development.

Preclinical Bivalent Proof of Concept Study with IVX-121 and IVX-231 in Mice

To evaluate the ability of IVX-121 and IVX-231 to stimulate immune responses in naive animals, BALB/c mice were administered IVX-121 and IVX-231 in monovalent or bivalent formulations, all adjuvanted with Addavax. The bivalent formulation had an equivalent concentration of IVX-121 and IVX-231 VLPs. All animals were administered two doses three weeks apart with vaccine formulations that included Addavax as the adjuvant. Blood was collected two weeks following the second dose and RSV/A and hMPV/A neutralizing titers were measured.

As shown in the figure below, IVX-121 induced strong RSV/A nAb responses in both the monovalent and bivalent formulations that were not meaningfully different. IVX-231 induced strong hMPV/A nAb responses in both the monovalent and bivalent formulations though the hMPV/A titers in the bivalent formulation were approximately 2 log2 lower than titers in the monovalent formulation. The bivalent formulation induced nAb titers that were on average in excess of human convalescent sera against either RSV/A or hMPV/A. Additional studies are ongoing to assess the bivalent IVX-121/IVX-241 combination.

 

 

LOGO

IVX-A12 RSV-hMPV Combination VLP Vaccine Candidate Preclinical Development Plan

We plan to conduct additional preclinical studies to evaluate a range of VLP antigen concentrations and ratios to further assess neutralizing titers from our final candidates and evaluate the optimal ratio of IVX-121 to IVX-241 for IVX-A12. We also intend to evaluate multiple adjuvant-formulations as well as non-adjuvanted formulations in preclinical studies to define the optimal formulations to move into the clinic. We have initiated preclinical studies with the IVX-A12 bivalent candidate incorporating IVX-121 and IVX-241 to evaluate immunogenicity and protection afforded by bivalent formulations against both RSV and hMPV in cotton rats. We also plan to evaluate IVX-A12 in a GLP toxicology study following receipt of pre-IND feedback from the FDA.

IVX-A12 RSV-hMPV Combination Vaccine Candidate Clinical Development Plan

We intend to pursue regulatory approval of our RSV/hMPV combination VLP candidate IVX-A12 in the older adult population. As is standard for vaccine development where correlates of protection do not exist, we plan to first evaluate the immunogenicity of our vaccine candidate in a Phase 1 first-in-human trial in healthy older adults by measuring the change in RSV and hMPV nAb levels compared to baseline antibody levels. We also plan to assess different combinations of RSV and hMPV for potential immune interference caused by the addition of hMPV VLPs to

 

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the RSV VLP vaccine candidate. If we are able to generate positive safety results, show immunogenicity and determine the optimal RSV-hMPV combination, we plan to assess the efficacy of our combination vaccine candidate. We expect that the efficacy will be assessed by measuring incidence of acute respiratory infection caused by RSV or hMPV in patients receiving IVX-A12 compared to those receiving placebo.

We plan to evaluate both unadjuvanted and Alhydrogel-adjuvanted IVX-121 formulations in our Phase 1 first-in-human trial. However, based on the NIH and our own preclinical studies, we may not see a significant enhancement in the nAb titers induced by Alhydrogel. For this reason, in parallel with the clinical assessment of IVX-121, we also plan to assess an oil-in-water adjuvant in our planned clinical trial of IVX-411 and in preclinical studies with our combination candidate IVX-A12. Based on the IVX-121 and IVX-411 clinical data as well as preclinical data to be generated with respect to IVX-121, IVX-241 and related candidates, and different formulations of IVX-A12, we will determine whether to investigate an Alhydrogel-adjuvanted formulation or an oil-in-water adjuvanted formulation, in addition to a non-adjuvanted formulation for the planned Phase 1 clinical trial of IVX-A12.

IVX-121 Phase 1/1b and IVX-121 Phase 1b Revaccination Trial

Our plan for the clinical development of IVX-A12 is to first assess safety and immunogenicity of the RSV monovalent VLP candidate IVX-121 in an initial Phase 1/1b trial, to be conducted in Belgium. We have filed a CTA with the FAMPH in Belgium and plan to initiate our Phase 1/1b clinical trial in the second half of 2021.

This first-in-human trial with IVX-121 will be a randomized, observer-blind, placebo-controlled multi-center Phase 1/1b trial designed to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of three dose levels of non-adjuvanted and Alhydrogel-adjuvanted IVX-121 in two adult cohorts: 18-45 years of age (Phase 1 first-in-human) and 60-75 years of age (Phase 1b). The maximum total number of subjects to be enrolled across the Phase 1 and Phase 1b parts of the trial is 90 adults 18-45 years of age and 217 older adults 60-75 years of age, respectively. Subjects will be evaluated for safety and persistence of antibody response for six months following a single intramuscular administration of either IVX-121 or placebo.

A schema of the planned Phase 1/1b trial is given in the table below:

 

 

 

PHASE 1/1B

STUDY

ARM

   VLP DOSE    ALHYDROGEL    PHASE 1:
ADULTS AGED
18-45
N=90
   PHASE 1B:
ADULTS AGED
60-75
N=217

A

   N/A (placebo)    -    0    31

B

   Low    -    15    31

C

   Low    +    15    31

D

   Medium    -    15    31

E

   Medium    +    15    31

F

   High    -    15    31

G

   High    +    15    31

 

 

We plan for subjects who complete the Phase 1b part of the trial to be eligible to enroll into a Phase 1b revaccination trial, which we expect will start more than six months after first dosing. We plan to follow approximately 70 eligible subjects for an additional six months to monitor serious adverse events (SAEs) and evaluate persistence of antibodies. At the end of the six-month observation period (approximately 12 months after first dosing), we plan to re-administer subjects with a single dose of IVX-121 and follow those subjects for an additional six months to evaluate safety and immune responses to the booster dose. We plan to monitor subjects for solicited adverse events, unsolicited adverse events, and SAEs throughout the 28-day treatment period following revaccination.

We expect to conduct an interim analysis of the data obtained in older adults from the Phase 1b part of the trial to inform the IVX-121 dose level and formulation to be assessed in the initial IVX-A12 combination Phase 1 trial. If

 

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there is no clear immunologic benefit of the Alhydrogel formulation over the non-adjuvanted formulation, we will not continue to develop an Alhydrogel formulation in the combination IVX-A12 program. We are also currently evaluating alternative adjuvant formulations in preclinical studies and may assess an alternative adjuvant in the initial IVX-A12 clinical trial(s) pending outcome of the IVX-121 clinical trial, our planned clinical trial of IVX-411 and preclinical evaluation of IVX-121, IVX-241 and related candidates and different formulations of IVX-A12.

IVX-A12 Phase 1 Trial

We plan to include data from the interim analysis of the IVX-121 Phase 1/1b clinical trial in an eventual IND submission to the FDA for the IVX-A12 program. This IND submission is planned for the first half of 2022.

The planned goal of the planned Phase 1 trial of IVX-A12 will be to assess safety and immunogenicity of varying doses of IVX-A12, with and without adjuvant, in approximately 100 healthy adults aged 18-45 and 60-85 years of age. The adjuvant to be assessed will depend on preclinical data on IVX-A12 as well as clinical data on IVX-121 and IVX-411. In the planned trial, IVX-A12 will be given with a fixed IVX-121 dose and one of three dose levels of IVX-241 VLP formulated with constant adjuvant content. We expect this design will enable evaluation of the immune responses to both individual components of IVX-A12 to see if the combination of VLPs increases the reactogenicity or leads to immune interference (i.e., imbalanced immune responses to component VLPs). Our plan is to proceed dosing with cohorts receiving one- and two-dose regimens as well as formulations with or without adjuvant. We expect to follow subjects for seven months from initial dosing. Our plan is to only evaluate the combination candidate IVX-A12 in this trial, with no evaluation of IVX-241 as a monovalent candidate. We plan to confirm if the FDA agrees with the acceptability of this approach through pre-IND feedback.

IVX-A12 Phase 2 Factorial and Dose-Confirmation Trial

Following completion of the IVX-A12 Phase 1 clinical trial, we plan to initiate a Phase 2 factorial and dose-confirmation clinical trial in healthy adults 60 years of age or older. We plan to select a one- or two-dose regimen for evaluation in the Phase 2 clinical trial based on data from the IVX-A12 Phase 1 trial. Our planned Phase 2 clinical trial will be a two-part trial. We expect that the planned Part 1 will evaluate different combinations of varying concentrations of hMPV and RSV VLPs in approximately 300 older adults to assess for immunologic interference between the VLPs in IVX-A12. We expect that the planned Part 2 will evaluate a subset of formulations in approximately 250 older adults pending an interim readout from Part 1, to guide final dose selection for a subsequent Phase 2b trial. In both parts of the trial, we plan to assess safety and immunogenicity for different combinations of varying concentrations of hMPV and RSV VLPs in older adults to identify a formulation to move forward into the planned Phase 2b clinical trial. In the dose-confirmation part of the trial, we plan to also evaluate concomitant administration of commercially available quadrivalent influenza vaccine.

IVX-A12 Phase 2 Long-Term Extension Trial

We plan to monitor up to approximately 250 subjects from the Phase 2 dose-finding trial for 3-5 years following comp