UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM
(Mark One)
For the fiscal year ended
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FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM TO___________
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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 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
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The aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the Registrant as of September 30, 2022, the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $
As of May 18, 2023, there were
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the Registrant’s definitive proxy statement to be delivered to stockholders in connection with the 2023 annual meeting of stockholders are incorporated by reference in response to Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K to the extent stated herein. The 2023 Proxy Statement will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to which this report relates.
23ANDME HOLDING CO.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I |
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Item 1. |
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Item 1A. |
28 |
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Item 1B. |
63 |
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Item 2. |
63 |
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Item 3. |
63 |
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Item 4. |
64 |
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PART II |
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Item 5. |
64 |
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Item 6. |
65 |
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Item 7. |
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations |
65 |
Item 7A. |
80 |
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Item 8. |
81 |
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Item 9. |
Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure |
122 |
Item 9A. |
122 |
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Item 9B. |
123 |
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Item 9C. |
Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections |
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PART III |
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Item 10. |
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Item 11. |
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Item 12. |
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters |
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Item 13. |
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence |
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Item 14. |
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PART IV |
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Item 15. |
124 |
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Item 16. |
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CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023 (this “Form 10-K”), including, without limitation, statements under the headings “Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, (the “Securities Act”) and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, (the “Exchange Act”). Generally, statements that are not historical facts, including statements concerning 23andMe Holding Co.’s (the “Company,” “23andMe,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) possible or assumed future actions, business strategies, events, or results of operations, are forward-looking statements. In some instances, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including, without limitation, words like “believes,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “may,” “will,” “potential,” “projects,” “predicts,” “continue,” or “should,” or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparable terminology. There can be no assurance that actual results will not materially differ from expectations.
The forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K are based on our current expectations and beliefs, which we believe to be reasonable, concerning future developments and their potential effects on us. Future developments affecting us may not be those that we have anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control), and other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, those factors described under Part I, Item 1A: “Risk Factors” of this Form 10-K and our subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. These risks described under Part I, Item 1A: “Risk Factors” may not be exhaustive.
By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. We caution you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that our actual results of operations, financial condition, and liquidity, and developments in the industry in which we operate may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K. In addition, even if our results of operations, financial condition, and liquidity, and developments in the industry in which we operate are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K, those results or developments may not be indicative of results or developments in subsequent periods.
You should read this Form 10-K and the documents that we reference in this Form 10-K and have filed with the SEC as exhibits to this Form 10-K with the understanding that our actual future results, levels of activity, performance, and events and circumstances may be materially different from what we expect.
EXPLANATORY NOTE
As previously disclosed, VG Acquisition Corp. (“VGAC” and, after the Domestication as described below, “23andMe Holding Co.”), a Cayman Islands exempted company, entered into that certain Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated February 4, 2021, as amended on February 13, 2021 and March 25, 2021 (the “Merger Agreement”), by and among VGAC, Chrome Merger Sub, Inc., a Delaware corporation and wholly owned direct subsidiary of VGAC (the “Merger Sub”), and 23andMe, Inc., a Delaware corporation.
On June 16, 2021 (the “Closing Date”), as contemplated by the Merger Agreement, VGAC filed a notice of deregistration with the Cayman Islands Registrar of Companies, together with the necessary accompanying documents, and filed a certificate of incorporation and a certificate of corporate domestication with the Secretary of State of the State of Delaware, under which VGAC was domesticated and continued as a Delaware corporation, changing its name to 23andMe Holding Co. (the “Domestication”). As a result of and upon the effective time of the Domestication, among other things, each of the then issued and outstanding Class A and Class B ordinary shares of VGAC automatically converted, on a one-for-one basis, into shares of our Class A common stock, par value $0.0001 per share (the “Class A common stock”). On the Closing Date, VGAC consummated the merger transaction contemplated by the Merger Agreement, whereby the Merger Sub merged with and into 23andMe, Inc., the separate corporate existence of the Merger Sub ceasing and 23andMe, Inc. being the surviving corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of VGAC, now known as 23andMe Holding Co. (the “Merger”). Prior to the Merger, VGAC’s units, public shares, and public warrants were listed on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the symbols “VGAC.U,” “VGAC,” and “VGAC WS,” respectively. On June 17, 2021, the Company's Class A common stock and public warrants began trading on The Nasdaq Global Select Market (“Nasdaq”), under the symbols “ME” and “MEUSW,” respectively. On December 28, 2021, the Company announced the completion of its redemption (the “Redemption”) of all of its outstanding warrants. In connection with the Redemption, the public warrants stopped trading on the Nasdaq and were delisted.
PART I
Item 1. Business
Overview
Our mission is to help people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome. To achieve this, we are building the leading direct-to-consumer precision medicine platform that powers our genetics driven therapeutics and research business.
We are dedicated to empowering customers to live healthier lives by providing consumers direct access to their genetic information, and digital access to affordable personalized healthcare through our Lemonaid Health (as defined below) telehealth platform.
We pioneered direct-to-consumer genetic testing, giving consumers unique, personalized information about their genetic health risks, ancestry, and traits. We were the first company to obtain Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) authorization for a direct-to-consumer genetic test, and we are the only company to have FDA authorization, clearance, or an exemption from premarket notification for all of the carrier status, genetic health risk, cancer predisposition, and pharmacogenetics reports that we offer to customers. As of March 31, 2023, we had over 60 health and carrier status reports that were available to customers in the U.S.
Through our Lemonaid Health telehealth platform, we connect patients to licensed healthcare professionals to provide affordable and direct online access to medical care, from consultation through treatment, for a number of common conditions, using evidence-based guidelines and up-to-date clinical protocols. When medications are prescribed by Lemonaid Health’s affiliated healthcare professionals, patients can use Lemonaid Health’s online pharmacy for fulfillment. Patients also can access telehealth consultations for certain 23andMe genetic reports through Lemonaid.
We believe that we can revolutionize research through our premier database of genetic and phenotypic information crowdsourced from our millions of engaged customers. We have built the world’s largest crowdsourced platform for genetic research, with over 80% of our customers electing to participate in our research program. We believe that this platform allows us to accelerate research at an unprecedented scale, enabling us to discover insights into the origins of diseases and to speed the discovery and development of novel therapies.
We are developing a broad portfolio of genetically validated therapeutic candidates for a variety of diseases across different therapeutic areas with high unmet medical need. We have a diversified and differentiated portfolio, including one product candidate in clinical development, as well as more than twenty preclinical therapeutic programs. Each of our programs has been validated through our human genetics drug discovery platform. We believe the combination of a genetically validated discovery platform, to increase the probability of technical success, and a maturing therapeutic portfolio will position us for long-term success in our goal to advance next-generation, targeted medicines for people living with serious and life-threatening diseases.
Operating Segments
We operate in two reporting segments: Consumer & Research Services and Therapeutics.
Consumer & Research Services
Our Consumer & Research Services business segment comprises our Personal Genome Service® (“PGS”), our telehealth business, and research services.
PGS
Our PGS services provide customers with a broad suite of genetic reports, including information on customers’ genetic ancestral origins, personal genetic health risks, and chances of passing on certain rare carrier conditions to their children, as well as reports on how genetics can impact responses to medications. We believe that by providing customers with direct access to their genetic information, we can empower them to make better decisions by arming them with information about their risks of developing certain diseases or conditions and by highlighting opportunities for prevention and mitigation of disease.
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In the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom (the “U.K.”), we offer two PGS services, and also offer a premium subscription service called 23andMe+. Ancestry Service is our base service and provides customers information about their genetic ancestral origins and how genetics may influence over 30 traits, such as physical features, sense perceptions, reactions to external stimuli and other traits. The service also includes a tool that enables customers who choose to opt in to connect with genetic relatives that are also customers of the Company. Our Health + Ancestry Service builds upon our Ancestry Service to also provide reports relating to a customer's health predisposition (including certain cancers and other genetic health risks such as late-onset Alzheimer’s disease), carrier status (including for cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and hereditary hearing loss), and wellness (including for deep sleep, lactose intolerance and genetic weight). Ancestry Service customers can upgrade to the Health + Ancestry Service for a fee. Additionally, in the U.S., we offer a third PGS service, Health Service, which is FSA-eligible and comes with health predisposition, carrier status, and wellness reports.
Our 23andMe+ premium subscription service offers customers the Health + Ancestry Service plus pharmacogenetic reports, a hereditary prostate cancer genetic health risk report (HOXB13-related), over 30 personalized genetic health predisposition reports based on our research, such as migraine, depression, asthma, coronary artery disease, and lupus, and advanced ancestry and health features. The personalized genetic health predisposition reports included in 23andMe+ include a hereditary prostate cancer genetic health risk report (HOXB13-related) and over 30 health reports developed by our scientists based upon data and insights gathered from customers who participate in 23andMe research, regarding conditions such as migraine, coronary artery disease, depression, lupus and uterine fibroids.
Our PGS services provide customers with an engaging experience, including access to updates on their genetic health and ancestry reports and new product features and the ability to connect with genetic relatives. Our Ancestry Service and Health + Ancestry Service are available for purchase on our website, 23andMe.com, and mobile app and, in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada, through Amazon. Our Health Service is available for purchase through Amazon and fsastore.com. Substantially all of the Company’s revenues are derived from the Consumer & Research Services segment, with revenue from PGS representing approximately 68%, 75% and 81% of our total revenues for the fiscal years ended March 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.
Customers have the option to participate in our research programs and over 80% of our customers have chosen to do so. We analyze consenting customers’ genotypic data together with phenotypic data they provide to us concerning their health, physical characteristics, family origins, lifestyle, and other habits. We analyze this data using our proprietary machine learning and other analytic techniques in order to discover insights into whether and how particular genetic variants affect the likelihood of individuals developing specific diseases. These insights may highlight opportunities to develop a drug to treat or cure a specific disease. They may also provide information that customers can use to enhance their health wellness and medical care, including care accessed through our Lemonaid telehealth platform.
Telehealth
Our Lemonaid telehealth platform, which we acquired in connection with the Lemonaid Acquisition (as defined below) in November 2021, provides us with telehealth capabilities and enhances our ability to bring better healthcare and wellness offerings to patients. Through our Lemonaid telehealth platform, patients can access one of our affiliated licensed healthcare professionals for medical consultation and treatment for a number of common conditions, and telehealth consultations for certain 23andMe genetic reports. If a prescription is warranted, the patient can access our pharmacy services for delivery. Our pharmacy offers non-controlled medications for prevention and treatment of acute and chronic conditions. We make telehealth services available in the U.S. and, under a third-party brand, in the U.K.
Affiliated Professional Medical Corporations. Because many states limit the ownership of medical practices to licensed professionals and prohibit corporate ownership of medical practices, we offer medical services through affiliated professional medical corporations (“PMCs”) that are owned by a licensed medical provider in the applicable jurisdiction. All of the physicians and nurse practitioners who provide medical services to our patients are employees of the PMCs. Lemonaid, our wholly owned subsidiary, has a management services agreement (“MSA”) with each PMC pursuant to which Lemonaid provides business, administrative and non-clinical services to the PMC in exchange for a fixed fee. These services include IT, billing, insurance, tax, accounting and other administrative services, and do not include any clinical, diagnostic or treatment decisions, which are made solely by licensed practitioners based on evidence-based guidelines and clinical protocols. The MSAs are exclusive arrangements, and the PMCs were established specifically to provide medical services through our telehealth platform.
Affiliated Pharmacies. Our patients may choose to fill prescriptions provided to them by our affiliated healthcare professionals by using our pharmacy services. We facilitate the delivery of pharmacy services by our affiliated mail order pharmacy, offering patients delivery throughout the U.S. Our pharmacy services are provided on a self-pay basis and are not covered by third-party payors. We also provide a small number of compounded medications that are fulfilled by a third-party service provider that is not affiliated with us. We manage our affiliated pharmacies under MSAs pursuant to which we provide all administrative services as well as licensed pharmacists, support staff and infrastructure. Our MSAs with our affiliated pharmacies are exclusive arrangements, and the affiliated pharmacies
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were established specifically to provide prescription medications when patients choose to use our platform to fill prescriptions written by our affiliated healthcare professionals.
Research Services
Through our research services, we use our vast database of genetic and phenotypic information provided by consenting customers to discover insights into the genetic origins of disease and to identify targets for drug development. These services are performed under agreements with universities, research institutions and pharmaceutical companies, including our multi-year collaboration agreement with an affiliate of GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”), which was signed in July 2018 (the “GSK Agreement”) to leverage genetic insights to validate, rapidly progress development, and commercialize useful new drugs to market. The exclusive target discovery term of the GSK Agreement will expire in July 2023. After July 2023, we will be able to pursue new target discovery collaborations with other parties that leverage our extensive database, maturing capabilities and successful drug discovery track record through our work with GSK.
Therapeutics
Our Therapeutics business segment focuses on the use of genetic insights from our vast database of genetic and phenotypic information to develop novel therapies to improve patients’ lives. The Therapeutics segment consists of revenues from the out-licensing of intellectual property associated with identified drug targets and expenses related to therapeutic product candidates, either our own proprietary or collaboration programs, under clinical development. While our exclusive target discovery term with GSK will expire in July 2023, we have a number of ongoing programs that we will continue to collaborate with GSK under the GSK Agreement.
As of March 31, 2023, two of our programs had entered the clinic for testing in human patients. The Phase 2 portion of our wholly-owned Phase 1/2a Study of 23ME-00610 (P006) is currently underway in patients with advanced solid malignancies. 23ME-00610 is a high-affinity humanized monoclonal antibody that is designed to interfere with the ability of CD200R1 to interact with CD200 found on cancer cells. The other is an immuno-oncology program, GSK6097608, led by GSK, an antibody that targets CD96. CD96 sequesters a shared ligand (CD155) away from the costimulatory receptor (CD226), effectively attenuating T and NK cell anti-tumor immune responses. By blocking CD96, GSK6097608 may allow activation of CD226 and enhance anti-tumor immunity through T and NK cells. If a successful therapy were to be developed and commercialized by GSK using this target, we would be entitled to a royalty under the GSK Agreement.
Business Strategy
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Acquisitions
VGAC Business Combination
On June 16, 2021, the Company consummated the Merger contemplated by the Merger Agreement. In connection with the Merger, VGAC completed the Domestication, whereby it changed its jurisdiction of incorporation from the Cayman Islands to the State of Delaware and changed its name to 23andMe Holding Co. On the closing date, the Merger Sub merged with and into 23andMe, Inc., with 23andMe, Inc. being the surviving corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company (together with the Merger and the Domestication, the “Business Combination”).
Lemonaid Acquisition
We completed our acquisition of Lemonaid Health, Inc. (“Lemonaid” or “Lemonaid Health”) on November 1, 2021 (the “Lemonaid Acquisition”). Lemonaid, an on-demand platform for accessing medical care and pharmacy services online, offers telemedicine, lab, and pharmacy services to patients in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.K. We believe that the addition of Lemonaid’s telehealth services to our consumer business will enable us to bring better healthcare to individuals in an affordable and accessible way and offer access to personalized healthcare, based on a patient’s wellness, choices, and genetics.
Market Opportunity
Consumer - PGS
We believe that our ability to analyze genetic information and provide personalized reports on genetic variations that are known to be associated with important health conditions empowers our customers. Armed with this personalized information, our customers have the ability to make informed, proactive decisions about their health and their lives. As of March 31, 2023, we had approximately 14.1 million customers.
We expect to continue to develop and provide our customers with new reports, including reports on cancer risks, autoimmune conditions, mental health, and pharmacogenetics. Additionally, we believe that direct-to-consumer genetic health testing is gaining wider acceptance by physicians in the U.S., and that we will be able to drive further acceptance through our telehealth platform.
We expect to continue to invest in expanding our PGS offerings and marketing our PGS to customers. As we attract more customers, we expect that we will benefit from the network effect created by an increasing cohort of customers who recommend our PGS to their families and friends, and who reap health benefits by using their genetic information to help them and their medical providers make better decisions about their care and lifestyle choices.
23andMe+® Subscription Service
The 23andMe+ service is an annual subscription that provides customers with exclusive reports and features not available in the basic Health + Ancestry Service. This subscription is an add-on to our Health + Ancestry Service. 23andMe+ provides customers with additional health reports, including multiple FDA-authorized pharmacogenetics reports, as well as personalized risk score reports based on 23andMe research. These new risk scores can help customers understand certain genetic health predispositions, such as atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease, high LDL cholesterol, hypertension and migraine, and provide them with information on preventing and managing these conditions. The 23andMe+ subscription also provides customers with advanced ancestry-related features, such as enhanced tools and filters for finding genetic relatives. We are continually investing in new reports and features to provide to subscribers, and expect to add new reports for subscribers based on genetic insights from our research. We believe the 23andMe+ subscription will
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enhance customer engagement as subscribers receive new content with discoveries about themselves throughout the subscription period and meaningful and customized information to help them lead healthier lives. As of March 31, 2023 and 2022, our 23andMe+ membership base had approximately 640,000 and 425,000 subscribers, respectively.
Consumer – Telehealth
Telehealth enables consumers to access healthcare conveniently, from their homes, and to obtain fast and affordable consultation, diagnosis and treatment without the difficulties of scheduling and traveling to physical appointments. By accessing medical consultation and treatment through our telehealth platform, patients are able to take ownership of their health. Support and demand for telehealth services have been increasing due to deregulation and broad societal shifts. We believe that we have the innovative, patient-first care model, the technical platform, the nationwide provider network, and the extensive pharmacy capabilities to be a leading provider of healthcare. Patients can interact with our affiliated healthcare professionals through either synchronous or asynchronous consultations, depending on the patient's need and applicable regulatory requirements. Patients also can consult with one of our affiliated healthcare professionals about certain 23andMe genetic reports. We plan to offer patients additional opportunities to integrate genetic information into their healthcare, which we believe will enhance the ability of medical providers to offer diagnoses and treatment tailored to patients’ individual needs.
Therapeutics
We believe that our research platform can transform the process of drug development. Genetic data can significantly improve our understanding of diseases, their pathways and mechanisms, leading to the design and development of more targeted medicines. Use of genetic data in selecting drug targets can increase both the probability of success in a particular indication and avoid unwanted safety risks. The scale of our database provides us with a unique opportunity to pursue genetically targeted drug discovery by enabling us to:
Competition
Consumer (PGS and Telehealth)
We believe that our time, resources and history with the FDA is unmatched within the industry. We are the only direct-to-consumer genetic testing company that has gone through the rigorous analytical and clinical validation resulting in eight FDA authorizations and clearances to date. We face competition from other companies attempting to capitalize on the same, or similar, opportunities as we are, including from existing diagnostic, laboratory services and other companies entering the personal genetics market with new offerings such as direct access and/or consumer self-pay tests and genetic interpretation services and including services that may not currently comply with FDA regulations. Some of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories and greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources than we do. These factors may allow our competitors to respond more quickly or efficiently than we can to new or emerging technologies. These competitors may engage in more extensive research and development efforts, undertake more far-reaching marketing campaigns and adopt more aggressive pricing and regulatory policies, which may allow them to build larger customer bases than we have. Our competitors may develop products or services that are similar to our products and services or that achieve greater market acceptance than our products and services. This could attract customers away from our services and reduce our market share. We believe that our ability to compete successfully will depend on the following factors:
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Similarly, the markets for healthcare are intensely competitive, subject to rapid change, and significantly affected by new product and technological introductions and other market activities of industry participants. The number of companies entering the telehealth market with offerings similar to ours continues to increase. We compete directly not only with these new entrants and other established telehealth providers but also traditional healthcare providers and pharmacies. Our current competitors include traditional healthcare providers that have expanded or are expanding into the telehealth market, incumbent telehealth providers, as well as new entrants into our market that are focused on direct-to-consumer healthcare. Our competitors include enterprise-focused companies that may enter the direct-to-consumer healthcare industry, as well as direct-to-consumer healthcare providers. Many of our current and potential competitors may have greater name and brand recognition, longer operating histories, significantly greater resources than we do, and may be able to offer products and services similar to those offered on our platform at more attractive prices than we can.
Additionally, we believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many new users to telehealth and further reinforced its benefits to potential competitors. We believe that this may drive additional industry consolidation or collaboration involving competitors that may create competitors with greater resources and access to potential patients. The COVID-19 pandemic, and resulting changes in consumer behavior and expectations, may also cause various traditional healthcare providers to evaluate and pursue telehealth options that can be paired with their in-person capabilities. These industry changes could better position our competitors to serve certain segments of our current or future markets, which could create additional price pressure. In light of these factors, even if our offerings are more effective than those of our competitors, current or potential patients may accept competitive solutions in lieu of purchasing from us.
Therapeutics
Our therapeutics business faces substantial competition from larger, more established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with marketed products that have been accepted by the medical community, patients, and third-party payors, as well as smaller companies in our industry that have successfully identified and developed drugs. Our ability to compete in this industry may be affected by the previous adoption of such products by the medical community, patients, and third-party payors.
We recognize that other companies, including larger pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, may be developing or have plans to develop drugs that may compete with ours. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, and human resources than we have. In addition, many of our competitors have significantly greater experience than we have in undertaking preclinical studies and human clinical trials of drugs, obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of drugs for use in healthcare and manufacturing, and marketing and selling approved drugs. Our competitors may discover, develop or commercialize products or other novel technologies that are more effective, safer or less costly than any that we are developing. Our competitors may also obtain FDA or other regulatory approval for their drugs more rapidly than we may obtain approval for any drug that we develop.
We anticipate that the competition with our drugs will be based on a number of factors, including product efficacy, safety, availability, and price. The timing of market introduction of any successful drug and competitive drugs will also affect competition among products. We expect the relative speed with which we can develop drugs, complete the clinical trials and approval processes, and supply commercial quantities of such drugs to the market to be important competitive factors. Our competitive position will also depend upon our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, to obtain patent protection or otherwise develop proprietary products or processes, protect our intellectual property, and to secure sufficient capital resources for the period between target identification and commercial sales of the resulting drug.
In the future we could potentially face increasing competition from companies utilizing artificial intelligence, or AI, and other computational approaches for consumer product development, and drug discovery and development. As we consider the future usage of AI in our business, we will carefully monitor emerging technologies, the market and potential competitors.
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Seasonality
Historically, our PGS business has been seasonal, with our kit sales being dependent on seasonal holiday demand, variability in our advertising expenditures by season, and the timing of larger promotional events such as the Amazon Prime Day, which can vary each year. We generate a significant amount of our PGS revenue during the fourth quarter of our fiscal year, due to seasonal holiday demand and our increased advertising expenditures during the holiday period, which occurs during the third quarter of our fiscal year. Kit orders are recognized as revenue when the customer sends in their kit to the laboratory to be processed and genetic reports are delivered to the customer, which typically for seasonal holiday purchases tends to occur in our fourth fiscal quarter. For more information on the potential impacts of seasonality, see “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1A of this Form 10-K.
Manufacture/Supply
For our PGS, we do not have in-house manufacturing capabilities and do not plan to develop such capacity in the foreseeable future. We do have a quality system that is in compliance with 21 C.F.R. Part 820 and ISO 13485 for the regulated activities that are performed by us. We rely on third-party suppliers, which we have qualified in accordance with our quality system to provide materials (such as our saliva collection kits, bead chips, reagents or other materials and equipment used in our laboratory operations) and services. Currently, we rely on a sole supplier to manufacture our saliva collection kits. If we were to change the design of certain materials which we rely on, such as our bead chip or our saliva collection kit, we may be required to seek additional authorization or clearance from the FDA. Should we seek to utilize additional laboratories, prior to utilizing their services for our U.S. customers, the laboratories would need to obtain appropriate Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (“CLIA”) certification and state licensure (if required) including the validation of our testing services in accordance with FDA and CLIA regulations and expectations.
For our telehealth services, we operate an affiliated mail order pharmacy licensed in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. We rely on multiple third-party suppliers for our pharmaceuticals and there is a risk that we may experience supply chain issues that will impact our ability to fulfill prescriptions which would have a material impact on our business.
For Therapeutics, we do not have capability nor do we plan to develop current good manufacturing practices (“cGMP”) capacity for the manufacture, or supply of clinical therapeutics for our clinical trials nor for commercialization. We oversee the development of, and rely on third-party suppliers to provide, cGMP material for our planned clinical studies and will continue to work with contract manufacturers to improve process requirements to enable continued progress through clinical development to commercial medicines.
COVID-19
In March 2020, the World Health Organization designated the outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus (“COVID-19”) as a global pandemic. COVID-19 has disrupted the Company’s general business operations since March 2020, and we have taken measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including closing our offices and implementing a work-from-home policy for a period of time across most of our workforce, and amplifying monitoring of our inventory levels and supply chain. Notwithstanding these measures, the spread of COVID-19 has at certain times impacted our business and operations. We may take further actions that alter our business operations that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, and stockholders or as may be required by federal, state, or local authorities. On May 5, 2023, the World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency.
Intellectual Property
Since inception, we have considered our intellectual property (“IP”) as a critical part of our mission. We make every effort to protect our IP, and as of March 31, 2023, have built an extensive patent estate owned by 23andMe, as summarized below:
Consumer (PGS) Patent Estate
Our PGS patent estate consists of 113 granted U.S. patents, which include 93 utility and 20 design patents that cover technologies that include graphical user interfaces, aspects of algorithms for processing genetic data, computer implemented inventions, bioinformatics, and genotyping.
Included in these are patents that relate to the following PGS services: (i) 14 design and 55 utility patents relate to our Ancestry Service, (ii) 16 design and 55 utility patents relate to our Health + Ancestry Service, and (iii) 17 utility patents relate to our 23andMe+ service. The PGS patent estate also includes 53 pending patent applications, which include two design applications, 37 U.S. utility applications, three Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”) applications, five Canadian patent applications, and six European patent applications. Included in these are applications that relate to the following PGS services: (i) two design and 27 U.S. utility applications, six European patent applications, five Canadian patent applications, and one PCT applications relate to our Ancestry Service, (ii) two
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design, 28 U.S. utility applications, six European patent applications, five Canadian patent applications, and one PCT application relate to our Health + Ancestry Service, and (iii) three U.S. utility applications, one European patent application, and one Canadian patent application relate to our 23andMe+ service.
Our PGS patent portfolio has expected expiration dates ranging from about 2027 to about 2043.
Therapeutics Patent Estate
Our therapeutics patent estate consists of two granted U.S. patents, one granted Nigerian patent and one South African patent that cover key areas of our past and current therapeutic development candidates. The therapeutics patent estate also includes 67 pending U.S. utility and foreign utility patent applications, which include eight U.S. utility applications and 59 foreign utility patent applications, covering key areas of our past and current therapeutic development candidates. These applications include those in the following jurisdictions: the PCT, Gulf Cooperation Council, Argentina, Taiwan, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Eurasia, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam and South Africa. The subject matter of the therapeutics patent portfolio relates to our immuno-oncology and inflammatory disease and other therapeutic areas. Our therapeutics patent portfolio has expected expiration dates ranging from about 2039 to about 2043.
Please note that we cannot be sure that patents will be granted with respect to any patent applications we have filed or may file in the future, and we cannot be sure that any patents that have been granted or may be granted to us in the future will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented or that such patents will be commercially useful in protecting our technology.
We also appropriately guard our company trade secrets and know-how to maintain our business advantage and seek to identify and obtain third-party licenses where useful. In circumstances where we rely on trade secrets or proprietary know-how to protect our technology, we seek to protect such IP, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements with those who have access to our confidential information, including our employees, contractors, consultants, collaborators, partners and advisors. We also internally designate levels of sensitive information with certain groups within the Company. We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our trade secrets or proprietary know-how by maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems. Although we have confidence in these individuals, organizations, and systems, agreements or security measures may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breaches. In addition, our trade secrets or proprietary know-how may otherwise become known or may be independently discovered by competitors. To the extent that our employees, contractors, consultants, collaborators, and advisors use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. For this and more comprehensive risks related to our proprietary technology, inventions, improvements and product candidates, please see the section titled “Risk Factors—Risks related to our intellectual property” in Part I, Item 1A of this Form 10-K.
Government Regulation
Consumer (PGS) Business
Our genetic health risk, carrier status, and pharmacogenetic reports are subject to regulatory oversight by the FDA under provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”) and regulations thereunder, including regulations governing the development, marketing, labeling, promotion, manufacturing, distribution, and export of diagnostic products. The third-party laboratories that we contract with to perform the laboratory portions of our service are subject to oversight by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) pursuant to CLIA, as well as agencies in various states, including New York. We are subject to many other federal, state and foreign laws, including anti-fraud and abuse, anti-kickback and patient privacy. Failure to comply with applicable requirements can lead to sanctions, including withdrawal of products from the market, recalls, refusal to authorize government contracts, product seizures, exclusion from participation in federal and state healthcare programs, civil money penalties, injunctions, and criminal prosecution.
Regulation of In Vitro (“IVD”) Diagnostics and Medical Devices
IVDs are regulated by the FDA in the U.S. as medical devices in accordance with the FDCA and its implementing regulations. The FDCA and its implementing regulations govern the development, testing, manufacturing, labeling, advertising, marketing and distribution, and market surveillance of our medical devices.
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Medical devices must undergo premarket review prior to commercialization unless the device is exempt from such review or was in commercial distribution prior to May 28, 1976 (referred to as a “pre-amendment” device).
Should a company need clinical data to support a premarket application, the FDA regulates clinical investigations through its Investigational Device Exemption (“IDE”) regulations 21 C.F.R. Part 812. Clinical investigations of devices that are of a significant risk require pre-approval from the FDA. Investigations of devices that are of a non-significant risk do not require FDA pre-approval; however, an Institutional Review Board (“IRB”) must agree that the study is of a non-significant risk. In addition, certain clinical investigations are exempted from IDE regulations including investigations of IVDs so long as certain criteria are met. The IDE regulations place specific requirements on sponsors and investigators of clinical studies including reporting to the FDA certain adverse events and record-keeping to demonstrate compliance with the regulations. The FDA can conduct periodic, unannounced inspections of sponsors and investigators to evaluate compliance with the IDE regulations. Failure to comply with the IDE regulations can subject the sponsor and investigator to administrative enforcement proceedings, civil penalties, and/or criminal penalties.
We utilized the De Novo and 510(k) pathways to seek authorization from the FDA for those aspects of the PGS products that are medical devices. Specifically, the FDA granted our first De Novo authorization to market our PGS product for Over-the-Counter Carrier testing for Bloom Syndrome in February 2015. Since 2015, we received three additional FDA De Novo Authorizations for Over-the-Counter Genetic Health Risks, BRCA1/BRCA2 Selected Variants and Pharmacogenetic Metabolism Information as well as two FDA 510(k) Clearances for MUTYH and Pharmacogenetic Drug Response Information. The regulations governing our authorizations and clearances place substantial restrictions on how our PGS service is marketed and sold, specifically, requirements on pre-purchase information we must provide to consumers and special controls we must comply with due to the over-the-counter nature of our PGS service. We may develop new diagnostic products and services that are regulated by the FDA as medical devices, or make changes to our medical devices that trigger a premarket submission which may require clinical data. The regulatory review and approval process for medical devices can be costly, timely, and uncertain. This process may involve, among other things, successfully completing additional clinical trials and submitting a premarket 510(k) submission, De Novo submission, or filing a premarket approval application with the FDA. If premarket review is required by the FDA, there can be no assurance that our tests will be cleared, authorized, or
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approved on a timely basis, if at all. In addition, there can be no assurance that the claims we propose to the FDA for clearance, authorization, or approval will be cleared, authorized, or approved by the FDA.
We consider our Wellness reports and Polygenic Risk Score (“PRS”) reports to be either non-medical devices under the FDCA or to be low risk medical devices subject to FDA enforcement discretion from compliance with the requirements of the FDCA in accordance with FDA’s General Wellness: Policy for Low Risk Devices (issued July 29, 2016 and revised September 27, 2019). It is possible in the future that the FDA may disagree and conclude that some or all of our Wellness reports or Polygenic Risk Score reports are medical devices and not subject to enforcement discretion. As a result, we could be subject to enforcement action and penalties. We consider our COVID-19 Severity Calculator to be a medical device that is subject to FDA enforcement discretion in accordance with FDA’s Policy for Device Software Functions and Mobile Medical Applications (issued September 27, 2019). Using a risk-based approach, FDA’s policy established a group of software that meets the definition of a medical device but is subject to enforcement discretion from compliance with the requirements of the FDCA. It’s possible that the FDA may disagree that our COVID-19 Severity Calculator is subject to enforcement discretion and could thus subject us to an enforcement action and penalties. If this were to occur, we would likely have to utilize the premarket pathways described above.
Before and after a medical device is commercially released, we have ongoing responsibilities under FDA regulations which can increase the cost of conducting our business. The FDA reviews design and manufacturing practices, labeling and record-keeping, and manufacturers’ required reports of adverse experiences and other information to identify potential problems with marketed medical devices through periodic inspections. Specifically, these inspections evaluate our compliance with its QSR, among other FDA requirements. The QSR includes requirements related to the methods used in, and the facilities and controls used for, designing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, storing, installing, and servicing of medical devices intended for human use. Our manufacturing operations, and those of our third-party finished device manufacturers, are required to comply with the QSR. QSR compliance is required for medical devices that are FDA approved and cleared, and generally required for medical devices exempt from FDA premarket notification. The FDA conducts announced and unannounced periodic and on-going inspections of medical device manufacturers to determine compliance with the QSR. If in connection with these inspections the FDA believes the manufacturer has failed to comply with applicable regulations and/or procedures, it may issue inspectional observations on a Form FDA-483 (“Form 483”) that would necessitate prompt corrective action. If the FDA determines that our response to the Form 483 is not adequate (e.g., the corrective action plan and/or objective evidence is insufficient), the FDA may issue a public or non-public warning letter (which would similarly necessitate prompt corrective action) and/or proceed directly to other forms of enforcement action, including the imposition of operating restrictions, a ceasing of operations at one or more facilities, enjoining and restraining certain violations of applicable law pertaining to products, seizure of products, and assessing civil or criminal penalties against our officers, employees or us. The FDA could also require the entry of a consent decree of permanent injunction with us. The FDA may also recommend prosecution to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). Any adverse regulatory action, depending on its magnitude, may restrict us from effectively manufacturing, marketing and selling our products and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Corruption
In situations involving healthcare providers or researchers employed by foreign state-funded institutions or national healthcare agencies, violation of the local anti-kickback or other anti-bribery laws may also constitute a violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). The FCPA prohibits any U.S. individual, business entity or employee of a U.S. business entity from offering or providing, directly or through a third party, including the distributors we rely on in certain markets, anything of value to a foreign government official with corrupt intent to influence an award or continuation of business or to gain an unfair advantage, whether or not such conduct violates local laws. In addition, it is illegal for a company that reports to the SEC to have false or inaccurate books or records or to fail to maintain a system of internal accounting controls. We are also required to maintain accurate information and control over sales and distributors’ activities that may fall within the purview of the FCPA, its books and records provisions and its anti-bribery provisions.
Laboratory Certification, Accreditation and Licensing
We and our third-party laboratories are also subject to U.S. and state laws and regulations regarding the operation of clinical laboratories. Virtually all clinical laboratories operating in the U.S. must be certified by the federal government (generally delegated to the states to implement) or by a federally approved accreditation agency. Federal CLIA requirements regulated by the CMS and laws of certain states, including those of California, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Florida, impose certification requirements for clinical laboratories, and establish standards for quality assurance and quality control, among other things. State laws may require that laboratory personnel meet certain qualifications, specify certain quality controls, or require maintenance of certain records. CLIA provides that a state may adopt different or more stringent regulations than federal law and permits states to apply for exemption from CLIA if the state’s laboratory laws are equivalent to, or more stringent than, CLIA. For example, the State of New York’s clinical laboratory regulations, which have received an exemption from CLIA, contain provisions that are in certain respects more stringent than federal law. Therefore, as long as New York maintains a licensure program that is CLIA-exempt, we will need to
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comply with New York’s clinical laboratory regulations in order to offer our clinical laboratory products and services in New York. Standards for testing under CLIA are based on the complexity of the tests performed by the laboratory, with tests classified as “high complexity,” “moderate complexity,” or “waived.” Laboratories performing high-complexity testing are required to meet more stringent requirements than moderate-complexity laboratories. Laboratories performing only waived tests, which are tests determined by the FDA to have a low potential for error and requiring little oversight, may apply for a certificate of waiver exempting them from most CLIA requirements.
We have current certificates to perform clinical laboratory testing to offer our PGS in all 50 states. Clinical laboratories are subject to inspection by regulators and to sanctions for failing to comply with applicable requirements. The sanctions for failure to comply with CLIA requirements include suspension, revocation or limitation of a laboratory’s CLIA certificate, which is necessary to conduct business; cancellation or suspension of the laboratory’s approval to receive Medicare and/or Medicaid reimbursement; as well as significant fines and/or criminal penalties. States also have licensure requirements and may impose additional sanctions on us. The loss or suspension of a CLIA certification, state license, imposition of a fine or other penalties, or future changes in CLIA and state law/regulations (or interpretation of the law or regulations) could have a material adverse effect on us.
Regulation of Consumer Products
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) also have jurisdiction over products offered by PGS (especially those aspects of our products that are not regulated by the FDA). The FTC requires that advertising claims be truthful, non-deceptive, fair, and adequately supported. The CPSC protects the American public from products that may present safety hazards, with labeling requirements, as well as reporting and remedial actions required if certain hazards or events are identified. Failure to comply with FTC and/or CPSC laws and implementing regulations or discovery of product hazards or noncompliance could subject us to enforcement proceedings, including mandatory recalls and penalties that could have a material adverse effect on us.
International
When marketing our PGS health reports outside of the U.S., we are subject to foreign regulatory requirements governing human clinical testing, export of biological or tissue samples, marketing approval for our products and performance and reporting of tests on a local basis. These requirements vary by jurisdiction, differ from those in the U.S. and may require us to perform additional preclinical or clinical testing. Marketing in Europe subjects us to European Union (“EU”) medical device oversight. Accordingly, we and certain of our contract manufacturers would be subject to ongoing compliance with various International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) standards and ongoing regulatory oversight and review. These include routine inspections by EU Notified Bodies, which are entities accredited by an EU Member State to assess whether a product to be placed on the market meets certain preordained standards, of our manufacturing facilities and our records for compliance with requirements such as ISO 13485 and ISO 27001, which establish extensive requirements for quality assurance and control as well as manufacturing and change control procedures. Additionally, the EU adopted the IVD Regulation (“IVDR”) which increases the regulatory requirements applicable to IVDs in the EU and would require that we classify and obtain pre-approval for our PGS software, which would be subject to the IVDR as of May 26, 2026 (for Class C IVDs). At this time, our health reports are not considered IVDs and therefore not subject to pre-approval. If we are not able to obtain and maintain regulatory compliance, we may not be permitted to market our PGS health service and/or may be subject to enforcement by EU Competent Authorities, bodies with authority to act on behalf of the government of the applicable EU Member State to ensure that the requirements of the directive or regulation are met.
As of January 1, 2021, due to the U.K. leaving the EU, the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) began implementation of new requirements for medical devices, including our health reports, marketed in Great Britain. The new regulations required that on or before January 1, 2022, we designate a U.K. Responsible Person and register our PGS software which is self-certified IVD. The U.K. will continue to allow marketing of our health reports pursuant to our existing CE mark while they develop and implement their own regulations.
In situations involving healthcare providers employed by state-funded institutions or national healthcare agencies, violation of the local anti-kickback law may also constitute a violation of the FCPA. The FCPA prohibits any U.S. individual, business entity or employee of a U.S. business entity from offering or providing, directly or through a third party, including the distributors we rely on in certain markets, anything of value to a foreign government official with corrupt intent to influence an award or continuation of business or to gain an unfair advantage, whether or not such conduct violates local laws. In addition, it is illegal for a company that reports to the SEC to have false or inaccurate books or records or to fail to maintain a system of internal accounting controls. We are also required to
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maintain accurate information and control over sales and distributors’ activities that may fall within the purview of the FCPA, its books and records provisions and its anti-bribery provisions.
Consumer (Telehealth) Business
The practice of medicine is subject to various federal, state, and local certification and licensing laws, regulations, approvals and standards, relating to, among other things, the qualifications of the provider, the practice of medicine (including specific requirements relating to online or telephone consultations and the provision of remote care), the continuity and adequacy of medical care, the maintenance of medical records, the supervision of personnel, and the prerequisites for the prescription of medication and ordering of tests. Because the practice of telehealth is relatively new and rapidly developing, regulation of telehealth is evolving and the application, interpretation and enforcement of these laws, regulations and standards can be uncertain or uneven. As a result, we must continually monitor legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments regarding the practice of medicine and telehealth in order to support our PMCs.
Physicians, mid-level providers (e.g., physician assistants, nurse practitioners), and behavioral health providers who provide professional clinical services via telehealth must, in most instances, hold a valid license to provide the applicable professional services in the state in which the patient is located. We have established systems to assist the PMCs in ensuring that their providers are appropriately licensed under applicable state law and that their provision of telehealth to our customers occurs in each instance in compliance with applicable rules governing telehealth.
In certain jurisdictions, the corporate practice of medicine doctrine generally prohibits non-physicians from practicing medicine, including by employing physicians to provide clinical services, directing the clinical practice of physicians, or holding an ownership interest in an entity that employs physicians. Other practices, such as professionals splitting their professional fees with non-professional persons or entities, is also prohibited in some jurisdictions. These laws are intended to prevent unlicensed persons from interfering with or unduly influencing a physician’s professional judgment. State laws and enforcement activities related to the corporate practice of medicine and fee-splitting vary dramatically. In some states, even activities not directly related to the delivery of clinical services may be considered an element of the practice of medicine. For example, in some states the corporate practice of medicine restrictions may be implicated by non-clinical activities such as scheduling, contracting, setting rates, and the hiring and management of non-clinical personnel.
Because of the restrictions on the corporate practice of medicine doctrine and fee-splitting in various jurisdictions, we do not employ the healthcare providers who provide clinical services on our telehealth platform. Instead, the PMCs provide services on the platform, and we contract with but do not own the PMCs. We provide administrative, non-clinical services to the PMCs and bill them a fixed amount for those services, based on what we believe to be the fair market value of the services, pursuant to our contracts. The PMCs and their providers maintain exclusive authority regarding the provision of healthcare services (including consultations that may lead to the writing of prescriptions) and remain responsible for retaining and compensating their providers, credentialing decisions regarding their providers, maintaining professional standards, maintaining clinical documentation within medical records, establishing their own fee schedule, and submitting accurate information to us so that we can bill customers. Despite our care in structuring arrangements with the PMCs, it is possible that a regulatory authority or another party, including providers affiliated with PMCs, could assert that we (or other organizations with similar business models) are engaged in the corporate practice of medicine or that the contractual arrangements with PMCs violate a state’s fee-splitting prohibition. Failure to comply with these state laws could lead to materially adverse consequences for the Company.
Regulation of Pharmacy Services
Our pharmacy services are subject to laws of various state and federal agencies. Our affiliated pharmacies face regulation on a number of issues that vary from state-to-state, including pharmacist-to-technician supervision ratios, practice of pharmacy, quality, sufficiency of facilities and equipment, prescription requirements, patient-friendly medication labeling, controlled substances, scheduled listed chemical, and listed chemical regulation, and ensuring a patient’s freedom of choice in selecting their pharmacy, among a number of other requirements. On the federal level, pharmacies must comply with FDA’s requirements under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act which are intended to preserve the integrity of the U.S. drug supply chain. The Drug Supply Chain Security Act requires pharmacies and others in the U.S. drug supply chain to comply with requirements for product tracking and tracing, information and pedigree exchange, reporting, investigations, and product quarantine and disposition. Further federal regulations apply to those pharmacies that dispense controlled substances scheduled listed chemicals, and listed chemicals under the Controlled Substance Act, which is implemented by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Furthermore, each pharmacist and technician must also obtain appropriate professional licensure and are subject to upholding state professional standards of conduct and patient privacy laws.
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Privacy and Security Regulation
We are engaged in ongoing privacy compliance and oversight efforts, including in connection with the requirements of numerous local, state, federal and international laws, rules, and regulations relating to the privacy and security of directly or indirectly identifiable personal information (collectively, “Data Protection Laws”). Such Data Protection Laws regulate the collection, storage, sharing, use, disclosure, processing, transferring, and protection of personal information, including genetic information, and evolve frequently in scope and enforcement. There can also be uncertainty, differing interpretations, and potentially contradictory requirements across the privacy and security legal and regulatory landscape. In the U.S., some of the notable Data Protection Laws we are subject to include the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, the “CCPA”), the California Genetic Information Privacy Act (“GIPA”), California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (“CMIA”), Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (“TCPA”) and, in the event of a data breach, various data breach laws across the 50 states and territories. Outside of the U.S., numerous countries have their own Data Protection Laws, including, but not limited to, the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), now also enacted in the U.K. (“UK GDPR”). 23andMe also expects additional Data Protection Laws to be proposed and enacted in the future, particularly in the U.S., and current Data Protection Laws to evolve frequently through new legislation and amendments to existing legislation and changes in enforcement approach. The effects of such changes may be inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another, and potentially far-reaching and may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and incur substantial compliance-related costs and expenses. These new or modified Data Protection Laws, and other changes in laws or regulations relating to privacy, data protection and information security, particularly any new or modified laws or regulations that require enhanced protection of certain types of data or new obligations or restrictions with regard to data retention, transfer or disclosure and the use of data for research purposes, could greatly increase the cost of providing our offerings, require significant changes to our operations or even prevent us from providing certain offerings in jurisdictions in which we currently operate and in which we may operate in the future. Additionally, many of the Data Protection Laws give rights to control how data is used to the user and this is a potential significant business cost for us.
Data Protection Laws are enforced by the FTC, government authorities and agencies, including state attorneys general and national or state data protection authorities. Data Protection Laws require us to publish statements or notices to our customers that describe how we handle personal information and provide details of the choices that customers have about the way we handle their personal information and of their rights. If such information that we publish is considered untrue or inaccurate, we may be subject to claims of unfair or deceptive trade practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act or similar laws, which could lead to significant liabilities and consequences.
In the U.S., the CCPA creates additional obligations relating to consumer data, with enforcement of certain new provisions added by the California Privacy Rights Act beginning on July 1, 2023. The CCPA provides for fines of up to $7,500 for intentional violations and a private right of action with respect to data breaches. Interpretation and enforcement of CCPA, including its current and forthcoming regulatory guidance, remain uncertain. Other states have enacted similar comprehensive privacy laws, which vary from the CCPA in certain aspects. For example, new consumer health privacy laws in Colorado, Virginia, Connecticut and Utah become effective in 2023, and a new consumer health privacy law in Washington, including a private right of action, becomes effective in 2024. The CMIA, among other state medical privacy laws, imposes additional requirements with respect to medical information, and provides for fines of between $2,500 and $250,000 per violation and a private right of action in the event medical information has been used or disclosed in violation of the CMIA.
Internationally, we are subject to, among other Data Protection Laws, the GDPR, UK GDPR, and PIPEDA which regulate collection, storage, sharing, use, disclosure, and protection of personal information, and impose stringent requirements with significant penalties and litigation risks for noncompliance. Like the U.S., international Data Protection Laws include national, state or provincial, and local laws, meaning compliance costs increase with every state, province, or locale we ship to. Failure to comply with the GDPR (and the UK GDPR) may result in fines of up to €20 million/£17.5 million or up to 4% of the annual global revenue of the infringer, whichever is greater. It may also lead to civil litigation, with the risks of damages or injunctive relief, or regulatory orders adversely impacting the ways in which our business can use personal information. While Canada’s PIPEDA does not have as stringent requirements and fines as the GDPR at this time, Canadian legislators are actively working on reforms to PIPEDA to align it with the GDPR. We anticipate that any reforms to PIPEDA will further increase our compliance costs and liabilities.
Where applicable, we rely on data transfer mechanisms to be able to transfer data between countries freely. We previously relied on the Privacy Shield certification for the purposes of transferring personal information out of the EU. In light of the invalidation of Privacy Shield in July 2020, we continue to rely on standard contractual clauses to transfer EU/UK personal information outside of the EU/UK, or where applicable derogations provided for by law. These clauses have been being revised, and the process and the implementation of new requirements related to the clauses, such as conducting additional risk assessments and implementing additional safeguards, will increase our costs. On March 25, 2022, the EU and U.S. announced that they had reached an agreement in principle on a new Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework (the “Framework”), which will be translated into legal documents to be adopted in the
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EU and U.S. to provide a renewed basis for transatlantic data transfers. However, if a new Framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on the standard contractual clauses or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from the EU/UK to the U.S. (such as consent), we will likely be unable to offer a number of services in the EU/UK, which would materially and adversely affect our business. Additionally, in the U.S. and internationally, businesses are required to provide notice to affected customers whose personal information has been disclosed as a result of a data breach. Many countries and/or states require businesses to maintain safeguards and take certain actions in response to a data breach and may be required to also notify applicable regulatory authorities. Recently, some states, such as California, have explicitly added genetic information to their breach notification laws, which presents additional liabilities and costs to our business. Some U.S. states go beyond data breach notification and general security safeguards by requiring businesses to maintain specific security safeguards; for example, Massachusetts establishes minimum standards to be met in connection with the safeguarding of personal information contained in both paper and electronic records including maintaining security policies and procedures, security training for employees, regular audits. While many Data Protection Laws rely on regulatory enforcement for non-compliance with security safeguards or data breaches, there may be an increase in legislation like CCPA providing a private right of action for consumers in the event of a data breach. Civil litigation and security compliance present liabilities and costs with respect to maintaining and continually refining security safeguards and incident response processes.
We anticipate changes with Data Protection Laws as countries and states continue to propose comprehensive privacy laws and regulations addressing consumer data protection rights, transparency and cybersecurity. In certain states, these laws are directed specifically to genetic information or genetic testing companies, or more specifically direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies. Data Protection Laws specific to genetic information have recently been enacted in a number of states, including, but not limited to, California, Utah, Florida, and Arizona. Many other states are considering similar laws regulating genetic information, some of which include private rights of action for consumers. Such private rights of action present liabilities and costs to our business with respect to implementing and maintaining compliance with such laws, and potentially responding to civil litigation. We have incurred, and expect to continue to incur, significant expenses in an effort to comply with privacy, data protection and information security standards and protocols imposed by Data Protection Laws. With substantial uncertainty over the interpretation and application of these and other laws and regulations (such as CCPA, CMIA, and genetic privacy laws), we may face challenges in addressing their requirements and making necessary changes to our policies and practices, and may incur significant costs and expenses in an effort to do so.
Regulation of our Therapeutics Products and Programs
Government authorities in the U.S. at the federal, state and local level and in other countries regulate, among other things, the research, development, manufacture, testing, quality control, approval, labeling, packaging, storage, record-keeping, promotion, advertising, distribution, post-approval monitoring and reporting, marketing and export and import of drug and biological products. Generally, before a new drug or, biologic can be marketed, considerable data demonstrating its quality, safety and efficacy must be obtained, organized into a format specific for each regulatory authority, submitted for review and approved, authorized, or cleared by the applicable regulatory authority. The process of obtaining regulatory approvals and the subsequent compliance with appropriate regional, federal, state, territorial and local statutes and regulations requires the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources. Failure to comply with the applicable requirements at any time during the product development process, approval process or following approval may subject an applicant to administrative actions or judicial sanctions. These actions and sanctions could include, among other actions, a regulatory agency’s refusal to approve pending applications, withdrawal of an approval, license revocation, a clinical hold, untitled or warning letters, voluntary or mandatory product recalls or market withdrawals, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, refusals of or debarment from government contracts, FDA debarment, exclusion from federal healthcare programs, restitution, disgorgement and civil or criminal fines or penalties. Any agency or judicial enforcement action could have a material adverse effect on our business, the market acceptance of our products and our reputation. Our drugs must be approved by the FDA through either a New Drug Application (“NDA”), or a Biologics License Application (“BLA”), process before they may be legally marketed in the U.S., and by similar processes for other regulatory regions. Moreover, the regulatory requirements governing our business are also evolving and will likely continue to evolve. By example, FDA has issued a growing number of guidance documents that provide its interpretation of regulatory requirements, including, with respect to pharmacogenomic data and information.
Preclinical Studies and Submission of an IND
Before testing any drug, biological, or gene therapy candidate in humans, the drug must undergo rigorous preclinical testing. Preclinical studies include laboratory evaluation of product chemistry and formulation, toxicity, stability, and purity, among other attributes. They also include in vitro and animal studies to assess safety and, in some cases, to establish a rationale for therapeutic use. The conduct of preclinical studies is subject to federal and state regulations and requirements, including Good Laboratory Practice (“GLP”) regulations and requirements relating to animal testing. The sponsor submits the results of the preclinical tests, together with manufacturing information, analytical data, any available clinical data or literature and plans for clinical trials, among other things, to the FDA or other regulatory or oversight committee as part of an IND or Clinical Trial Application (“CTA”). In the U.S., an IND is a request for authorization from the FDA to administer an investigational drug to humans, and must become effective before human
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clinical trials may begin. An IND will automatically become effective 30 days after receipt by the FDA, unless before that time the FDA raises concerns or questions and places the study on clinical hold. In that case, the IND sponsor and the FDA must resolve any outstanding FDA concerns or questions before clinical trials can proceed. Clinical holds may also be imposed by the FDA during the conduct of trials due to safety or compliance concerns. Some long-term preclinical testing, such as animal tests of reproductive adverse effects and carcinogenicity, may continue after the IND is submitted.
Human Clinical Trials
The clinical stage of development involves the administration of the investigational product to healthy volunteers or patients under the supervision of qualified investigators, generally physicians not employed by or under the trial sponsor’s control, in accordance with good clinical practice (“GCP”) requirements, which include the requirement that all research subjects provide their informed consent in writing for their participation in any clinical trial. Clinical trials are conducted under protocols detailing, among other things, the objectives of the clinical trial, dosing procedures, subject selection and exclusion criteria and the parameters to be used to monitor subject safety and assess efficacy. A protocol for each clinical trial and subsequent protocol amendments must be filed with the FDA as part of the IND. Sponsors will also be required to provide the FDA with diversity action plans. Furthermore, each clinical trial must be reviewed and approved by an IRB/ethics committee for each institution at which the clinical trial will be conducted to ensure that the risks to individuals participating in the clinical trials are minimized and are reasonable in relation to anticipated benefits. The IRB also approves the informed consent form that must be provided to each clinical trial subject or his or her legal representative as well as other subject communications and must monitor the clinical trial until completed. Special clinical trial ethical considerations also must be taken into account if a study involves children. In the case of certain gene therapy studies, an Institutional Biosafety Committee (“IBC”) at the local level may also review and maintain oversight over the particular study, in addition to the IRB.
There also are requirements governing the reporting of ongoing clinical trials and completed clinical trial results to public registries. Information about certain clinical trials, including clinical trial results, must be submitted within specific timeframes for publication on the www.clinicaltrials.gov website or other comparable public trial registries. Sponsors of investigational products for the diagnosis, monitoring, or treatment of one or more serious disease or conditions must also have a publicly available policy on evaluating and responding to requests for expanded access. Investigators must further provide certain information to clinical trial sponsors to allow the sponsors to make financial disclosures to the FDA.
A sponsor who wishes to conduct a clinical trial outside of the U.S. may, but need not, obtain FDA authorization to conduct the clinical trial under an IND. If a foreign clinical trial is not conducted under an IND, the sponsor may submit data from the clinical trial to the FDA in support of an NDA or BLA. The FDA will accept a well-designed and well-conducted foreign clinical study not conducted under an IND if the study was conducted in accordance with GCP requirements, and the FDA is able to validate the data through an onsite inspection if deemed necessary. The data from the foreign clinical study must also be deemed by the FDA to be meaningful to the U.S. population.
Clinical trials generally are conducted in three sequential phases, known as Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, which may overlap, be divided, or be combined.
Additional kinds of data may also help support a BLA or NDA, such as patient experience data and real-world evidence. Real world evidence may also be used to assist in clinical trial design or support an NDA for already approved products. For genetically targeted populations and variant protein targeted products intended to address an unmet medical need in one or more patient subgroups with a serious or life threatening rare disease or condition, the FDA may allow a sponsor to rely upon data and information previously developed by the sponsor or for which the sponsor has a right of reference, that was submitted previously to support an approved application for a product that incorporates or utilizes the same or similar genetically targeted technology or a product that is the same or utilizes the same variant protein targeted drug as the product that is the subject of the application. More recently, a program was
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established whereby a platform technology that is incorporated within or utilized by an approved drug or biologic product may be designated as a platform technology, provided that certain conditions are met, in which case development and approval of subsequent products using such technology may be expedited.
The FDA may require an applicant to conduct additional clinical trials after NDA or BLA approval to further evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the product. These post-approval trials, sometimes referred to as Phase 4 clinical trials, may be conducted after initial marketing approval. These trials are used to gain additional experience from the treatment of patients in the intended therapeutic indication and are commonly intended to generate additional safety data regarding use of the product in a clinical setting. In certain instances, the FDA may mandate the performance of Phase 4 clinical trials as a condition of approval of an NDA or BLA.
Progress reports detailing the results of the clinical trials, among other information, must be submitted at least annually to the relevant health authorities and IRBs. The sponsor must also notify relevant health authorities and the IRBs of adverse events or other significant safety information within specified timeframes. Certain reports may also be required to be submitted to the IBC. Changes to the enrollment of clinical trials, for example halting enrollment for a clinical safety signal, or completing expected clinical trial accrual may be reported on a clinical trial registration site such as clinicaltrials.gov and may provide publicly available information about the status of an ongoing clinical trial.
Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and other types of clinical trials may not be completed successfully within any specified period, if at all. The health authority or the sponsor may suspend or terminate a clinical trial at any time on various grounds, including a finding that the research subjects or patients are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk. Similarly, an IRB or ethics committee can suspend or terminate approval of a clinical trial at institutions under its jurisdiction if the clinical trial is not being conducted in accordance with their requirements or if the drug or biologic has been associated with unexpected serious harm to patients. IBCs can also require that research activities be ceased if applicable requirements are not being met. Additionally, some clinical trials are overseen by an independent group of qualified experts organized by the clinical trial sponsor, known as a data safety monitoring board or committee. This group may monitor the continued safety of the study, provide recommendations on study continuation, and/or provide authorization for whether a trial may move forward at designated check points based on access to certain data from the trial.
The manufacture of investigational drugs and biologics for the conduct of human clinical trials is subject to cGMP requirements. Investigational drugs and biologics and active ingredients and therapeutic substances imported into the U.S. are also subject to regulation by the FDA. Further, the export of investigational products outside the U.S. is subject to regulatory requirements of the receiving country as well as U.S. export requirements.
Concurrent with clinical trials, companies usually complete additional preclinical studies and also must develop additional information about the chemistry and physical characteristics of the drug or biologic as well as finalize a process for manufacturing the product in commercial quantities in accordance with cGMP requirements. The manufacturing process must be capable of consistently producing quality batches of the product and, among other things, companies must develop methods for testing the identity, strength, quality and purity of the final product. Additionally, appropriate packaging must be selected and tested, and stability studies must be conducted to demonstrate that the drugs do not undergo unacceptable deterioration over their shelf life.
FDA Review Process
Following completion of the clinical trials, data are analyzed to assess whether the investigational drug is safe and effective for the proposed indicated use or uses. The results of preclinical studies and clinical trials are then submitted to the FDA as part of an NDA or BLA, along with proposed labeling, chemistry and manufacturing information to ensure product quality and other relevant data. The NDA or BLA is a request for approval to market the drug or biologic for one or more specified indications and must contain proof of safety and efficacy for a drug or safety, purity and potency for a biologic. The application may include both negative and ambiguous results of preclinical studies and clinical trials, as well as positive findings. Data may come from company-sponsored clinical trials intended to test the safety and efficacy of a drug’s use or from a number of alternative sources, including studies initiated by investigators. To support marketing approval, the data submitted must be sufficient in quality and quantity to establish the safety and efficacy of the investigational drug to the satisfaction of the FDA. FDA approval of an NDA or BLA must be obtained before a drug or biologic may be marketed in the U.S.
Under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (“PDUFA”), as amended, each NDA or BLA subject to certain exceptions, must be accompanied by a user fee. The FDA adjusts the PDUFA user fees on an annual basis. The FDA reviews all submitted NDAs and BLAs before it accepts them for filing and may request additional information rather than accepting the NDA or BLA for filing. The FDA must make a decision on accepting an NDA or BLA for filing within 60 days of receipt, and such decision could include a refusal to file by the FDA. If additional information is requested by the FDA, the application must be resubmitted with the requested information and is subject to further review before being accepted for filing. Once accepted, the FDA begins an in-depth substantive review of the submission. Once the submission is accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth review of the NDA or BLA. Under the goals and
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policies agreed to by the FDA under PDUFA, the FDA targets ten months, from the filing date, in which to complete its initial review of a new molecular entity NDA or original BLA and respond to the applicant, and six months from the filing date of a new molecular entity NDA or original BLA designated for priority review, which are products that, if approved, would present significant improvements in the safety or effectiveness of the treatment, diagnosis, or prevention of a serious condition. The FDA does not always meet its PDUFA goal dates for standard and priority NDAs or BLAs, and the review process is often extended by FDA requests for or a sponsor’s submission of additional information or clarification. The FDA also may audit data from or conduct remote regulatory assessments of clinical trials and clinical trial sites to ensure compliance with GCP requirements. The FDA will also inspect or conduct remote regulatory assessments of the facilities that manufacture the product candidate and will not approve a marketing application unless the agency confirms the manufacturer’s compliance with GMP requirements. Additionally, the FDA may refer applications for novel products or products which present difficult questions of safety or efficacy to an advisory committee, a panel that includes clinicians and other experts, for review, evaluation and a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions, if any. For product candidates for which no active ingredient has previously been approved, such a referral is mandatory unless the FDA issues an action letter summarizing the reasons why it did not require an advisory committee review.
The FDA is not bound by recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations when making decisions on approval. The FDA likely will reanalyze the clinical trial data, which could result in extensive discussions between the FDA and the applicant during the review process. After the FDA evaluates an NDA or BLA, it will issue an approval letter or a Complete Response Letter. An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the drug or biologic with specific prescribing information for specific indications. A Complete Response Letter indicates that the review cycle of the application is complete and the application will not be approved in its present form. If a Complete Response Letter is issued, the applicant may either resubmit the NDA or BLA, addressing all of the deficiencies identified in the letter, or withdraw the application or request an opportunity for a hearing. Even if such data and information are submitted, the FDA may decide that the NDA or BLA does not satisfy the criteria for approval. Data obtained from clinical trials are not always conclusive and the FDA may interpret data differently than we interpret the same data. Even if approval is granted, the FDA may limit the approved product’s indications for use, require labeling with significant warnings, limitations, or contraindications, or place other conditions on the approval that restricts the ability to market the product. For instance, the FDA may require post-approval testing or surveillance, or impose other restrictions on the product, including distribution restrictions or risk evaluation and mitigation strategies. The FDA may also not approve label statements that are necessary for successful commercialization and marketing.
European Medicines Agency (EMA) Review Process
In the European Economic Area (“EEA”), which is comprised of the 27 Member States of the European Union (including Norway and excluding Croatia), Iceland and Liechtenstein, drugs can only be commercialized after obtaining a marketing authorization (“MA”). Before granting the MA, the EMA or the competent authorities of the Member States of the EEA make an assessment of the risk-benefit balance of the product on the basis of scientific criteria concerning its quality, safety and efficacy. There are two types of marketing authorizations:
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Orphan Drug Designation and Exclusivity
Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may grant orphan designation to a drug or biological product intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which is generally a disease or condition that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the U.S., or more than 200,000 individuals in the U.S. and for which there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making the product available in the U.S. for this type of disease or condition will be recovered from sales of the product. Orphan drug designation must be requested before submitting an NDA or BLA. If there is another product approved by FDA for the same orphan indication, which FDA deems to be the same as the investigational product, the sponsor of the investigational product must also present a plausible hypothesis of clinical superiority for FDA to grant an orphan drug designation. This hypothesis must be demonstrated to obtain orphan drug exclusivity. After the FDA grants orphan drug designation, the identity of the therapeutic agent and its potential orphan use are disclosed publicly by the FDA. Orphan drug designation does not convey any advantage in or shorten the duration of the regulatory review and approval process. If a product that has orphan drug designation subsequently receives the first FDA approval for the disease or condition for which it has such designation, the product is entitled to orphan drug exclusivity, which means that the FDA may not approve any other applications to market the same drug for the same indication for seven years from the date of such approval, except in limited circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority to the product with orphan exclusivity by means of greater effectiveness, greater safety or providing a major contribution to patient care, or in instances of drug supply issues. Competitors, however, may receive approval of either a different product for the same indication or the same product for a different indication. In such cases, the second in time product could be used off-label in the orphan indication. Orphan drug exclusivity also could block the approval of one of our products for seven years if a competitor obtains approval before we do for the same product, as defined by the FDA, for the same indication we are seeking approval, or if our product is determined to be contained within the scope of the competitor’s product for the same indication or disease. If we pursue marketing approval for an indication broader than any orphan drug designation we have received, we may not be entitled to orphan drug exclusivity.
Notably, the scope of orphan drug exclusivity may be an evolving area. A 2021 judicial decision, Catalyst Pharms., Inc. v. Becerra, challenged and reversed an FDA decision on the scope of orphan product exclusivity for the drug, Firdapse. Under this decision, orphan drug exclusivity for Firdapse blocked approval of another company’s application for the same drug for the entire disease or condition for which orphan drug designation was granted, not just the disease or condition for which approval was received. In a January 2023 Federal Register notice, however, the FDA stated that it intends to continue to apply its regulations tying the scope of orphan-drug exclusivity to the uses or indications for which a drug is approved. The exact scope of orphan drug exclusivity will likely be an evolving area.
Whether a gene therapy product qualifies for orphan designation is also an evolving area. The FDA issued a final guidance document on how the agency will determine gene therapy product “sameness.” Pursuant to the guidance, “sameness” will depend on the product’s transgene expression, viral vectors groups and variants, and other product features that may have a therapeutic effect. Generally, minor differences between gene therapy products will not result in a finding that two products are different. Any FDA sameness determinations could impact our ability to receive approval and obtain or maintain orphan exclusivity.
In the European Union, the EMA’s Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products grants orphan drug designation to promote the development of products that are intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of life-threatening or chronically debilitating conditions affecting not more than five in 10,000 persons in the European Union community (or where it is unlikely that the development of the medicine would generate sufficient return to justify the investment) and for which no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention or treatment has been authorized (or, if a method exists, the product would be a significant benefit to those affected). In the EU, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as reduction of fees or fee waivers and ten years of market exclusivity is granted following drug approval. This period may be reduced to six years if the orphan drug designation criteria are no longer met, including where it is shown that the product is sufficiently profitable not to justify maintenance of market exclusivity. Orphan drug designation must be requested before submitting an application for marketing approval. Orphan drug designation does not convey any advantage in, or shorten the duration of, the regulatory review and approval process.
Expedited Development and Review Programs
A sponsor may seek to develop and obtain approval of its drugs under programs designed to accelerate the development, FDA review and approval of new drugs and biologics that meet certain criteria. For example, the FDA has a fast track program that is intended to expedite review of or facilitate development of new drugs and biologics that are intended to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and demonstrate the potential to address unmet medical needs for the condition. Fast track designation applies to both the product and the specific indication for which it is being studied. If fast track designation is obtained, sponsors may be eligible for more frequent development meetings and correspondence with the FDA. For a fast track-designated product, the FDA may consider sections
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of the NDA or BLA for review on a rolling basis before the complete application is submitted, if the sponsor provides a schedule for the submission of the sections of the application, the FDA agrees to accept sections of the application and determines that the schedule is acceptable and the sponsor pays any required user fees upon submission of the first section of the application. The sponsor can request the FDA to designate the product for fast track status any time before receiving NDA or BLA approval, but ideally no later than the pre-NDA or pre-BLA meeting. A product submitted to the FDA for marketing, including under a fast track program, may be eligible for other types of FDA programs intended to expedite development or review, such as priority review and accelerated approval. The FDA’s goal for reviewing a fast-track application only begins once the final section of the marketing application has been submitted. If data emerging during the clinical trial process no longer supports the fast-track designation, the FDA may withdraw it.
Priority review means that, for a new molecular entity or original BLA, the FDA sets a target date for FDA action on the marketing application at six months after accepting the application for filing as opposed to ten months. A drug is eligible for priority review if it is designed to treat a serious or life-threatening disease condition and, if approved, would provide a significant improvement in safety and effectiveness compared to available therapies. If criteria are not met for priority review, the application for a new molecular entity or original BLA is subject to the standard FDA review period of ten months after the FDA accepts the application for filing. Priority review designation does not change the scientific/medical standard for approval or the quality of evidence necessary to support approval.
A product may also be eligible for accelerated approval if it is designed to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition and demonstrates an effect on either a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit or on a clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than irreversible morbidity or mortality that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on irreversible morbidity or mortality or other clinical benefit, taking into account the severity, rarity, or prevalence of the disease or condition and the availability or lack of alternative treatments. The product must also provide a meaningful therapeutic benefit to patients over existing treatments. As a condition of approval, the FDA requires that a sponsor of a drug or biologic receiving accelerated approval perform adequate and well-controlled post-approval confirmatory clinical trials. By the date of approval of an accelerated approval product, the FDA must specify the conditions for the required post approval studies, including enrollment targets, the study protocol, milestones, and target completion dates. The FDA may also require that the confirmatory Phase 4 studies be commenced prior to FDA granting a product accelerated approval. Progress reports on these studies must be submitted to the FDA every 180 days after approval. In addition, the FDA requires as a condition for accelerated approval pre-review of promotional materials, which could adversely impact the timing of the commercial launch of the product. The FDA may withdraw approval of a drug or indication approved under accelerated approval using a statutorily defined streamlined process if, for example, the confirmatory trial fails to verify the predicted clinical benefit of the product. Failure to conduct the required Phase 4 confirmatory studies or to conduct such studies with due diligence, as well as failure to submit the required update reports can subject a sponsor to penalties. In recent years, the accelerated approval pathway has come under significant FDA and public scrutiny. Accordingly, the FDA may become reluctant in granting accelerated approval or, if granted, may withdraw approval if clinical benefit is not confirmed.
Additionally, a drug or biologic may be eligible for designation as a breakthrough therapy if the product is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs or biologics, to treat a serious or life-threatening condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product may demonstrate substantial improvement over currently approved drugs on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. If the FDA designates a breakthrough therapy, it may take actions appropriate to expedite the development and review of the application, which may include holding meetings with the sponsor and the review team throughout the development of the therapy; providing timely advice to, and interactive communication with, the sponsor regarding the development of the drug to help the sponsor design a development program to gather the nonclinical and clinical data necessary for approval as efficient as practicable; involving senior managers and experienced review staff, as appropriate, in a collaborative, cross-disciplinary review; assigning a cross-disciplinary project lead for the FDA review team to facilitate an efficient review of the development program and to serve as a scientific liaison between the review team and the sponsor; and considering alternative clinical trial designs when scientifically appropriate, which may result in smaller trials or more efficient trials that require less time to complete and may minimize the number of patients exposed to a potentially less efficacious treatment. The FDA may revoke breakthrough therapy designation if the Agency determines that the product no longer qualifies for this status, for example, if subsequent data does not confirm the clinical efficacy, or if another product addresses the previously serious condition.
Another expedited pathway is the Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (“RMAT”) designation. Qualifying products must be a cell therapy, therapeutic tissue engineering product, human cell and tissue product, or a combination of such products, and not a product solely regulated as a human cell and tissue product. The product must be intended to treat, modify, reverse, or cure a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence must indicate that the product has the potential to address an unmet need for such disease or condition. Advantages of the RMAT designation include all the benefits of the Fast Track and breakthrough therapy designation programs, including early interactions with the FDA. These early interactions may be used to discuss potential surrogate or intermediate endpoints to support accelerated approval.
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Even if a product qualifies for one or more of these programs, the FDA may later decide that the product no longer meets the conditions for qualification or the time period for FDA review or approval may not be shortened. Furthermore, fast track designation, priority review, accelerated approval and breakthrough therapy designation do not change the standards for full approval.
Pediatric Information and Pediatric Exclusivity
In the U.S., under the Pediatric Research Equity Act (“PREA”), certain NDAs and BLAs and certain supplements to an NDA or BLA must contain data to assess the safety and efficacy of the drug for the claimed indications in all relevant pediatric subpopulations and to support dosing and administration for each pediatric subpopulation for which the product is safe and effective. The FDA may grant deferrals for submission of pediatric data or full or partial waivers. PREA does not apply to products that have been granted orphan designation. However, PREA does apply if approval is sought for indications that are broader than or not covered by the orphan designation.
The FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 introduced an additional provision regarding required pediatric studies. Under this statute, for product candidates intended for the treatment of adult cancer which are directed at molecular targets that the FDA determines to be substantially relevant to the growth or progression of pediatric cancer, original application sponsors must submit, with the marketing application, reports from molecularly targeted pediatric cancer investigations designed to yield clinically meaningful pediatric study data, gathered using appropriate formulations for each applicable age group, to inform potential pediatric labeling. The FDA may, on its own initiative or at the request of the applicant, grant deferrals or waivers of some or all of this data, as above. Unlike PREA, orphan products are not exempt from this requirement.
A drug or biologic product can also obtain pediatric market exclusivity in the U.S. that, if granted, adds six months to existing exclusivity periods and, for drug products (as opposed to biologic products) any patent terms listed in FDA’s list of Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, which is commonly known as the Orange Book. This six-month exclusivity, which runs from the end of the applicable exclusivity protection or patent term, may be granted based on the voluntary completion of a pediatric study in accordance with an FDA-issued “Written Request” for such a study. To qualify for this exclusivity, the study must be completed in accordance with the Written Request and within specified timeframes prior to the expiration of the underlying patents or market exclusivity periods that would be extended. The study is not required, however, to show that the product is safe or efficacious in pediatric populations.
In the EEA, MAAs for new drugs must include the results of studies conducted in the pediatric population, in compliance with a pediatric investigation plan, or PIP, agreed with the EMA’s Pediatric Committee (“PDCO”). The PIP sets out the timing and measures proposed to generate data to support a pediatric indication of the drug for which marketing authorization is being sought. The PDCO can grant a deferral of the obligation to implement some or all of the measures of the PIP until there are sufficient data to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the product in adults. Further, the obligation to provide pediatric clinical trial data can be waived by the PDCO when this data is not needed or appropriate because the product is likely to be ineffective or unsafe in children, the disease or condition for which the product is intended occurs only in adult populations, or when the product does not represent a significant therapeutic benefit over existing treatments for pediatric patients. Once the marketing authorization is obtained in all Member States of the European Union and trial results are included in the product information, even when negative, the product is eligible for six months’ supplementary protection certificate extension.
Post-Approval Requirements
Following approval of a new product, the manufacturer and the approved product are subject to continuing regulation by the FDA, including, among other things, monitoring and record-keeping activities, reporting of adverse events, product tracking and tracing, suspect and illegitimate product investigations and reporting, complying with promotion and advertising requirements, which include restrictions on promoting products for unapproved uses or patient populations (known as “off-label use”) and limitations on industry sponsored scientific and educational activities. Although physicians may prescribe legally available products for off-label uses, manufacturers may not market or promote such uses. The FDA and other agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses, and a company that is found to have improperly promoted off-label uses may be subject to significant liability, including investigation by federal and state authorities. Prescription drug promotional materials must be submitted to the FDA in conjunction with their first use or first publication. Further, if there are any modifications to the drug or biologic, including changes in indications, labeling or manufacturing processes or facilities, the applicant may be required to submit the change and/or obtain additional regulatory approval, for example, of a new supplementary NDA or BLA, which may require the development of additional data or preclinical studies and clinical trials.
Health authorities may also place other conditions on approvals, either at the time of approval or after, including the requirement for a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (“REMS”), to assure the safe use of the product. If the FDA concludes a REMS is needed, the sponsor of the NDA or BLA must submit a proposed REMS. The FDA will not approve the NDA or BLA without an approved
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REMS, if required. A REMS could include medication guides, physician communication plans, restricted physician prescribing, or other elements to assure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. Any of these limitations on approval or marketing could restrict the commercial promotion, distribution, prescribing or dispensing of products. Product approvals may be withdrawn for non-compliance with regulatory standards or if problems occur following initial marketing.
FDA regulations require that products be manufactured in specific approved facilities and in accordance with cGMP regulations. We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties for the production of clinical and commercial quantities of our products in accordance with cGMP regulations. These manufacturers must comply with cGMP regulations that require, among other things, quality control and quality assurance, the maintenance of records and documentation and the obligation to investigate and correct any deviations from cGMP. Certain GMP deviations also require reporting to the FDA. Manufacturers and other entities involved in the manufacture and distribution of approved drugs or biologics are required to register their establishments with the FDA and certain state agencies, and list the products produced at the facility. There are also continuing program user fees that product sponsors must pay. Recently, the information that must be submitted to the FDA regarding manufactured products was expanded through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, or CARES, Act to include the volume of drugs produced during the prior year. These facilities are also subject to periodic unannounced inspections and remote regulatory assessments by the FDA and certain state agencies for compliance with cGMP requirements and other laws. Accordingly, manufacturers must continue to expend time, money and effort in the area of production and quality control to maintain cGMP compliance. The discovery of violative conditions, including failure to conform to cGMP regulations, could result in enforcement actions, and the discovery of problems with a product after approval may result in restrictions on a product, manufacturer or holder of an approved NDA or BLA, including recall. Once an approval is granted, the FDA may issue enforcement letters or withdraw the approval of the product if compliance with regulatory requirements and standards is not maintained or if problems occur after the drug or biologic reaches the market. Corrective action could delay drug or biologic distribution and require significant time and financial expenditures. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with a drug or biologic, including AEs of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information; revisions to promotional material; the provision of corrective information; adverse publicity; imposition of post-market studies or clinical trials to assess new safety risks; or imposition of distribution or other restrictions under a REMS program. Other potential consequences include, among other things:
New or modified laws, regulations, and requirements may also be passed that could delay or prevent FDA approval of our product candidates or otherwise negatively impact our commercial prospects. For example, in March 2020, the U.S. Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, which includes various provisions regarding FDA drug shortage and manufacturing volume reporting requirements, as well as provisions regarding supply chain security, such as risk management plan requirements, and the promotion of supply chain redundancy and domestic manufacturing. As part of the CARES Act implementation, the FDA issued a guidance on the reporting of the volume of drugs produced, which reporting will require additional administrative efforts by drug manufacturers.
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Additional Biological and Gene Therapy Requirements
To help reduce the increased risk of the introduction of adventitious agents, the FDA statutes emphasize the importance of manufacturing controls for products whose attributes cannot be precisely defined and provides the FDA with the authority to immediately suspend licenses in situations where there exists a danger to public health, to prepare or procure products in the event of shortages and critical public health needs, and to authorize the creation and enforcement of regulations to prevent the introduction or spread of communicable diseases in the U.S. and between states.
After a BLA is approved, the product may also be subject to official lot release as a condition of approval. As part of the manufacturing process, the manufacturer is required to perform certain tests on each lot of the product before it is released for distribution. If the product is subject to official release by the FDA, the manufacturer submits samples of each lot of product to the FDA together with a release protocol showing the results of all of the manufacturer’s tests performed on the lot. The FDA may also perform certain confirmatory tests on lots of some products before releasing the lots for distribution by the manufacturer.
In addition, the FDA conducts laboratory research related to the regulatory standards on the safety, purity, potency, and effectiveness of biological products.
In addition to the requirements discussed above, there are a number of additional standards that apply to clinical trials involving the use of gene therapy. Certain gene therapy studies are subject to the National Institutes of Health’s Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules. The FDA has also issued various guidance documents regarding gene therapies, which outline additional factors that the FDA will consider during product development. These include guidance regarding preclinical and clinical studies; chemistry, manufacturing, and controls; the measurement of product potency; how the FDA will determine whether a gene therapy product is the same as another product for the purpose of the agency’s orphan drug regulations; and long-term patient and clinical study subject follow up and regulatory reporting.
Biosimilars and Exclusivity
Certain of our drugs may be regulated as biologics. An abbreviated approval pathway for biological products shown to be similar to, or interchangeable with, an FDA-licensed reference biological product was created by the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (“BPCI Act”) as part of the ACA. This amendment to the PHSA, in part, attempts to minimize duplicative testing. The FDA has also issued a number of guidance documents outlining its approach to the review and approval of biosimilars, including guidance documents on the demonstration of interchangeability and the licensure of biosimilar and interchangeable products for fewer than all of the reference product’s licensed conditions of use.
Biosimilarity, which requires that the biological product be highly similar to the reference product notwithstanding minor differences in clinically inactive components and that there be no clinically meaningful differences between the product and the reference product in terms of safety, purity and potency, must be shown through analytical studies, animal studies and a clinical trial or trials, absent a waiver from the FDA. There further must be no difference between the reference product and a biosimilar in terms of mechanism of action, conditions of use, route of administration, dosage form, and strength. Interchangeability requires that a biological product be biosimilar to the reference product and that the product can be expected to produce the same clinical results as the reference product in any given patient and, for products administered multiple times to an individual, that the product and the reference product may be alternated or switched after one has been previously administered without increasing safety risks or risks of diminished efficacy relative to exclusive use of the reference biological product without such alternation or switch.
A reference biological product is granted twelve years of exclusivity from the time of first licensure of the product, during which time the FDA will not approve a biosimilar product. Moreover, the FDA will not accept an application for a biosimilar or interchangeable product based on the reference biological product until four years after the date of first licensure of the reference product. “First licensure” typically means the initial date the particular product at issue was licensed in the U.S. Date of first licensure does not include the date of licensure of (and a new period of exclusivity is not available for) a biological product if the licensure is for a supplement for the biological product or for a subsequent application by the same sponsor or manufacturer of the biological product (or licensor, predecessor in interest, or other related entity) for a change (not including a modification to the structure of the biological product) that results in a new indication, route of administration, dosing schedule, dosage form, delivery system, delivery device or strength, or for a modification to the structure of the biological product that does not result in a change in safety, purity, or potency. Therefore, one must determine whether a new product includes a modification to the structure of a previously licensed product that results in a change in safety, purity, or potency to assess whether the licensure of the new product is a first licensure that triggers its own period of exclusivity. Whether a subsequent application, if approved, warrants exclusivity as the “first licensure” of a biological product is determined on a
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case-by-case basis with data submitted by the sponsor. The BPCI Act also created certain exclusivity periods for biosimilars approved as interchangeable products.
In addition to the above exclusivity periods, the BPCI Act also includes provisions to enable the settlement of potential patent disputes. The biosimilar product sponsor and reference product sponsor may exchange patent and product information to determine whether there should be a patent challenge. The reference product sponsor may be able to bring a patent infringement suit and injunction proceedings against the biosimilar product sponsor. The biosimilar applicant may also be able to bring an action for declaratory judgment concerning the patent.
The FDA maintains a publicly available online database of licensed biological products, which is commonly referred to as the “Purple Book.” The Purple Book lists product names, dates of licensure, and applicable periods of exclusivity. Further, pursuant to an enacted statute to enable biological product patent transparency, the reference product sponsor must provide patent information and patent expiry dates to the FDA following the exchange of patent information between biosimilar and reference product sponsors. This information is then published in the Purple Book.
The Hatch-Waxman Act
Section 505 of the FDCA describes three types of marketing applications that may be submitted to the FDA to request marketing authorization for a new drug. A Section 505(b)(1) NDA is an application that contains full reports of investigations of safety and efficacy. A 505(b)(2) NDA is an application that contains full reports of investigations of safety and efficacy but where at least some of the information required for approval comes from investigations that were not conducted by or for the applicant and for which the applicant has not obtained a right of reference or use from the person by or for whom the investigations were conducted. This regulatory pathway enables the applicant to rely, in part, on the FDA’s prior findings of safety and efficacy for an existing product, or published literature, in support of its application. Section 505(j) establishes an abbreviated approval process for a generic version of approved drug products through the submission of an Abbreviated New Drug Application (“ANDA”). An ANDA provides for marketing of a generic drug product that has the same active ingredients, dosage form, strength, route of administration, labeling, performance characteristics and intended use to a previously approved product. ANDAs are termed “abbreviated” because they are generally not required to include preclinical (animal) and clinical (human) data to establish safety and efficacy. Instead, generic applicants must scientifically demonstrate that their product is bioequivalent to, or performs in the same manner as, the innovator drug through in vitro, in vivo, or other testing. The generic version must deliver the same amount of active ingredients to the site of action in the same amount of time as the innovator drug and can often be substituted by pharmacists under prescriptions written for the reference listed drug. In seeking approval for a drug through an NDA, applicants are required to list with the FDA each patent with claims that cover the applicant’s drug or a method of using the drug. Upon approval of a drug, each of the patents listed in the application for the drug is then published in the FDA’s Orange Book. Drugs listed in the Orange Book can, in turn, be cited by potential competitors in support of approval of an ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA. In an effort to clarify which patents must be listed in the Orange Book, in January 2021, Congress passed the Orange Book Transparency Act of 2020, which largely codifies FDA’s existing practices into the FDCA.
Upon submission of an ANDA or a 505(b)(2) NDA, an applicant must certify to the FDA that (1) no patent information has been submitted to the FDA; (2) such patent has expired; (3) the date on which such patent expires; or (4) such patent is invalid or will not be infringed upon by the manufacture, use or sale of the drug product for which the application is submitted. The applicant may also elect to submit a “section viii” statement certifying that its proposed label does not contain (or carves out) any language regarding the patented method-of-use rather than certify to a listed method-of-use patent. Generally, the ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA cannot be approved until all listed patents have expired, except where the ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA applicant challenges a listed patent through the last type of certification, also known as a paragraph IV certification. If the applicant does not challenge the listed patents or does not indicate that it is not seeking approval of a patented method of use, the ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA application approval will not be made effective until all of the listed patents claiming the referenced product have expired.
If the ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA applicant has provided a paragraph IV certification to the FDA, the applicant must send notice of the certification to the NDA and patent holders. The NDA and patent holders may then initiate a patent infringement lawsuit in response to the notice of the paragraph IV certification, in which case the FDA may not make an approval effective until the earlier of 30 months from the patent or application owner’s receipt of the notice of the paragraph IV certification, the expiration of the patent, when the infringement case concerning each such patent is favorably decided in the applicant’s favor or settled, or such shorter or longer period as may be ordered by a court. This prohibition is generally referred to as the 30-month stay. In instances where an ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA applicant files a paragraph IV certification, the NDA holder or patent owner(s) regularly take action to trigger the 30-month stay. Thus, approval of an ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA could be delayed for a significant period of time depending on the patent certification the applicant makes and the reference drug sponsor’s decision to initiate patent litigation.
The Hatch-Waxman Act establishes periods of regulatory exclusivity for certain approved drug products, during which the FDA cannot accept an ANDA or 505(b)(2) application. The holder of an NDA, including a 505(b)(2) NDA, may obtain five years of
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exclusivity upon approval of a new drug containing new chemical entities (“NCEs”). A drug is a new chemical entity if the FDA has not previously approved any other new drug containing the same active moiety, which is the molecule or ion responsible for the therapeutic activity of the drug substance. During the exclusivity period, the FDA may not accept for review an ANDA or a 505(b)(2) NDA submitted by another company that contains the previously approved active moiety. However, an ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA may be submitted after four years if it contains a certification of patent invalidity or non-infringement.
The Hatch-Waxman Act also provides three years of marketing exclusivity to the holder of an NDA (including a 505(b)(2) NDA) for a particular condition of approval, or change to a marketed product, such as a new indication or formulation for a previously approved product, if one or more new clinical studies (other than bioavailability or bioequivalence studies) was essential to the approval of the application and was conducted/sponsored by the applicant. This three-year exclusivity period protects against the FDA making an ANDA and 505(b)(2) NDA approval effective for the condition of the new drug’s approval. As a general matter, the three-year exclusivity does not prohibit the FDA from approving ANDAs or 505(b)(2) NDAs for generic or modified versions of the original, unmodified drug product. Five-year and three-year exclusivity will not delay the submission or approval of a full NDA; however, an applicant submitting a full NDA would be required to conduct or obtain a right of reference to all of the preclinical studies and adequate and well-controlled clinical trials necessary to demonstrate safety and efficacy.
Recently, Congress, the Administration, and administrative agencies have taken certain measures to increase drug and biologic competition by facilitating the entry of generic and biosimilar products to the market. For example, measures have been proposed and implemented to facilitate product importation. Congress also passed a bill requiring sponsors of NDA and BLA approved products to provide sufficient quantities of drug product on commercially reasonable market-based terms to entities developing generic, biosimilar, and 505(b)(2) products. This bill also included provisions on shared and individual REMS for generic drug products.
Patent Term Restoration
If approved, drug and biologic products may also be eligible for periods of U.S. patent term restoration. If granted, patent term restoration extends the patent life of a single unexpired patent that has not previously been extended, for a maximum of five years. The total patent life of the product with the extension also cannot exceed fourteen years from the product’s approval date. Subject to the prior limitations, the period of the extension is calculated by adding half of the time from the effective date of an IND to the initial submission of a marketing application, and all of the time between the submission of the marketing application and its approval. This period may also be reduced by any time that the applicant did not act with due diligence.
Coverage and Reimbursement
Successful commercialization of new drug products depends in part on the extent to which reimbursement for those drug products will be available from federal and state health care programs, private health insurers, and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which drug products they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. The availability and extent of insurance reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford a drug product. Sales of drug products depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of drugs products are paid for by health maintenance, managed care, pharmacy benefit and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by federal and state health care programs, private health coverage insurers and other third-party payors.
A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry and elsewhere is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party payors have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular drug products and requiring payment of manufacturer rebates. In many countries, the prices of drug products are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. In general, the prices of drug products under such systems are substantially lower than in the U.S. Certain countries allow companies to fix their own prices for drug products initially, but either assess cost-benefit subsequently or monitor and control company profits. Accordingly, in markets outside the U.S., the reimbursement for drug products may be reduced compared with the U.S.
In the U.S., the principal decisions about reimbursement for new drug products under federal healthcare plans are typically made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. Based in part on existing reimbursement methodologies tracking drug manufacturing costs, CMS decides whether and to what extent a new drug product will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare, and private payors tend to follow CMS to a substantial degree. However, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for drug products exists among third-party payors. New products may not be covered, and coverage and reimbursement levels for drug products can differ significantly from payor to payor.
The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (“MMA”) established the Medicare Part D program to provide a voluntary prescription drug benefit to Medicare beneficiaries. Under Part D, Medicare beneficiaries may enroll in
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prescription drug plans offered by private entities that provide coverage of outpatient prescription drugs. Unlike Medicare Parts A and B, Part D coverage is not standardized. While all Medicare drug plans must give at least a standard level of coverage set by Medicare, Part D prescription drug plan sponsors are not required to pay for all covered Part D drugs, and each drug plan can develop its own drug formulary that identifies which drugs it will cover and at what tier or level. However, Part D prescription drug formularies must include drugs within each therapeutic category and class of covered Part D drugs, though not necessarily all the drugs in each category or class. Any formulary used by a Part D prescription drug plan must be developed and reviewed by a pharmacy and therapeutic committee. Government payment for some of the costs of prescription drugs may increase demand for drugs for which we obtain marketing approval. Any negotiated prices for any of our products covered by a Part D prescription drug plan will likely be lower than the prices we might otherwise obtain, and, in addition, we may be required to pay significant Part D coverage gap discounts on certain Part D utilization. Moreover, while the MMA applies only to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private payors often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own payment rates. Any reduction in payment that results from the MMA may result in a similar reduction in payments from non-governmental payors.
For a drug product to receive federal reimbursement under Medicaid or Medicare Part B programs or to be sold directly to U.S. government agencies, the manufacturer must extend discounts to entities eligible to participate in the 340B drug pricing program. The required 340B discount on a given product is calculated based on the average manufacturer price (“AMP”) and Medicaid unit rebate amounts reported by the manufacturer. As of 2010, the ACA expanded the types of entities eligible to receive discounted 340B pricing, although under the current state of the law these newly eligible entities (with the exception of children’s hospitals) are not eligible to receive discounted 340B pricing on orphan drugs. As 340B drug pricing is determined based on AMP and Medicaid unit rebate data, revisions to the Medicaid rebate formula and AMP definition described above could cause the required 340B discount to increase. Moreover, multiple federal enactments have established initiatives to compare the effectiveness of different treatments for the same illness. Although the results of the comparative effectiveness studies are not intended to mandate coverage policies for public or private payors, it is not clear what effect, if any, the research will have on the sales of our drug candidates, if any such drug or the condition that they are intended to treat are the subject of a trial. It is also possible that comparative effectiveness research demonstrating benefits in a competitor’s drug could adversely affect the sales of our drug candidate. If third-party payors do not consider our drugs to be cost-effective compared to other available therapies, they may not cover our drugs after approval as a benefit under their plans or, if they do, the level of payment may not be sufficient to allow us to sell our drugs on a profitable basis.
For a drug product to receive federal reimbursement under the Medicaid program, the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992 requires, as a condition of payment by certain federal agencies and the Medicaid program, that manufacturers of “covered drugs” (including all drugs approved under an NDA) enter into a Master Agreement and Federal Supply Schedule contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs through which their covered drugs must be offered for sale at a mandatory ceiling price calculated at a statutory discount to certain federal agencies, including the VA and Department of Defense.
In August 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes prescription drug provisions that could have significant implications for our future drug development and sales. These laws, and future state and federal healthcare reform measures may be adopted in the future, any of which may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding and otherwise affect the prices we may obtain for any drugs for which we may obtain regulatory approval or the frequency with which any such drug is prescribed or used.
Outside of the U.S., the pricing of pharmaceutical products and medical devices is subject to governmental control in many countries. For example, in the European Union, pricing and reimbursement schemes vary widely from country to country. Some countries provide that products may be marketed only after a reimbursement price has been agreed. Some countries may require the completion of additional studies that compare the cost effectiveness of a particular drug to currently available drugs or so-called health technology assessments, in order to obtain reimbursement or pricing approval. Other countries may allow companies to fix their own prices for products, but monitor and control product volumes and issue guidance to physicians to limit prescriptions. Efforts to control prices and utilization of pharmaceutical products and medical devices will likely continue as countries attempt to manage healthcare expenditures.
Regulation of Companion Diagnostics/Delivery Devices
We believe that the success of certain of our drug candidates may depend, in part, on the development and commercialization of a companion diagnostic. Companion diagnostics are in vitro diagnostic devices that provide information that is essential for the safe and effective use of a corresponding therapeutic. The use of a companion diagnostic is stipulated in the labeling of both the diagnostic device and the corresponding therapeutic. Companion diagnostics may identify patients who are most likely to benefit from a particular therapeutic product; identify patients likely to be at increased risk for serious side effects as a result of treatment with a particular therapeutic product; or monitor response to treatment with a particular therapeutic product for the purpose of adjusting treatment to achieve improved safety or effectiveness. Companion diagnostics are regulated as medical devices by the FDA. As noted in the “Regulation of In Vitro (“IVD”) Diagnostics and Medical Devices” section above, the FDCA and its implementing regulations govern
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the development, testing, manufacturing, labeling, advertising, marketing and distribution, and market surveillance of medical devices which includes companion diagnostics. Unless exempt, companion diagnostics are subject to FDA premarket review before commercialization. Companion diagnostics are generally subject to the 510(k) or PMA regulatory pathways but where appropriate, can be authorized through the De Novo process.
On August 6, 2014, the FDA issued a final guidance document addressing the development and approval process for “In Vitro Companion Diagnostic Devices.” According to the guidance document, for therapeutic products that depend on the use of a diagnostic test and where the diagnostic device is essential for the safe and effective use of the corresponding therapeutic product, the premarket application for the companion diagnostic device should be developed and approved or cleared via a medical device regulatory pathway contemporaneously with the therapeutic, although the FDA recognizes that there may be cases when contemporaneous development may not be possible. However, in cases where a drug cannot be used safely or effectively without the companion diagnostic, the FDA’s guidance indicates it will generally not approve the drug without the approval or clearance of the diagnostic device. The FDA also issued a draft guidance in July 2016 setting forth the principles for co-development of an in vitro companion diagnostic device with a therapeutic product. The draft guidance describes principles to guide the development and contemporaneous marketing authorization for the therapeutic product and its corresponding in vitro companion diagnostic. As noted in the “Regulation of In Vitro (“IVD”) Diagnostics and Medical Devices” section above, the companion diagnostic device is subject to FDA’s general controls including the QSR, facility registration, device listing, reporting of, adverse events, and reporting of corrections and removals. As a device manufacturer, companion diagnostic makers are subject to periodic FDA inspections. As noted in the “Regulation of In Vitro (“IVD”) Diagnostics and Medical Devices” section above, noncompliance with the FDCA and its implementing regulation can subject a manufacturer to enforcement including administrative actions, civil penalties, and criminal penalties.
To the extent a therapeutic drug or biologic product requires a delivery device (e.g., syringe), the delivery device will also be regulated as a medical device. Unless exempt, delivery devices are subject to FDA premarket review before commercialization as outlined in the “Regulation of In Vitro (“IVD”) Diagnostics and Medical Devices” section above. In addition to the traditional medical device regulatory pathway, the delivery device could also be authorized as a combination product with the therapeutic drug or biologic product. When authorized as a combination product, medical device quality system and adverse event reporting requirements still apply to the device portion of the combination product. However, the combination product manufacturer may be able to streamline some of these obligations in accordance with 21 C.F.R. Part 4.
Other Laws—Environmental, Occupational Safety and Health
We may be subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. From time to time and in the future, our operations may involve the use of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological materials, and may also produce hazardous waste products. Even if we contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and waste products, we cannot completely eliminate the risk of contamination or injury resulting from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from the use or disposal of our hazardous materials, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We also could incur significant costs associated with civil or criminal fines and penalties for failure to comply with such laws and regulations. We maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees, but this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. However, we do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us. In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. Current or future environmental laws and regulations may impair our research, development or production efforts. In addition, failure to comply with these laws and regulations may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions.
Human Capital Resources
We believe that our talent is our competitive edge in the global marketplace. We strive to attract and retain a uniquely talented and high performing workforce across all aspects of diversity and aim to foster a team-first culture of innovation.
Workforce
As of March 31, 2023, we employed approximately 816 employees worldwide, of which approximately 769 were full-time employees and approximately 90% were U.S.-based employees.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)
We strive to provide opportunity for all: our employees, our community, and our customers. We believe in welcoming and embracing various cultures and backgrounds, as we recognize the value of employing a workforce of unique and varying viewpoints
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and experiences. Currently, 53% of our U.S. workforce are women. Of the nine members of our Board of Directors, four identify as people of color and three identify as female.
Our DE&I strategy is focused on advancing product inclusivity and employee experience. Our products, content, and experiences are designed to ensure the inclusivity of our customers’ diverse identities and needs. We also seek to foster a safe space for individuals to discuss issues that impact their shared community through employee affinity groups. In addition, in fiscal year 2023, we continued our focus on supplier diversity by developing and implementing a supplier diversity survey to be utilized when sourcing new vendors for the organization.
We aim to grow, learn, and shape our approach to DE&I for the betterment of our workforce and the communities we serve. To that end, we will continue to ensure we are creating an environment that welcomes uncomfortable conversations about issues that impact our workforce, customers and the broader community.
Competitive Compensation and Benefits
We provide all benefit-eligible employees working at least 20 hours per week with a comprehensive benefit and compensation package, which includes:
As a company, we offer postpartum and return-to-work assistance which includes on-site lactation rooms and flexible work hours. For nursing moms who travel for work, we provide reimbursement for the shipment of breast milk back to their homes. We also offer back-up child and elder care. We offer one week of company paid family leave for employees who need to care for a family member who has a serious health condition and provide additional 80 hours of sick leave for COVID-related illness.
We believe in investing into the health, well-being, and wellness of our employees. We provide complimentary health and fitness classes and host individual and team wellness challenges that incorporate mental, emotional, physical, and nutritional elements of a healthy lifestyle. We provide an online navigation and advocacy service to find the right care and deal with medical bills questions.
Talent Development
Employee development is considered to be a strategic priority. We support employee growth and development by offering a variety of benefits. Our focus areas at this time are on leadership development, career development, DE&I and supporting hybrid teams/leadership. Our flagship leadership program is for leaders at all levels (program, project, people, and/or team leaders), which provides employees to be able to lead from any seat. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, over 15% of all employees participated in this 4-month cohort-based leadership program. We plan to continue to offer this program and support more employees through their leadership journey.
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Other talent development benefits we offer are tuition reimbursement, department learning budgets and internal mentorship programs. Our company-wide BestYou@23andMe framework is a performance management framework designed to support and foster career advancement. BestYou@23andMe encompasses three areas:
Our objective is having a clear approach towards career development, programs/benefits allowing employees with healthier lives, and an ability to participate in the community celebrating individuality. Our talent development programs are designed to support a work environment where employees are empowered to promote their unique perspectives.
Available Information
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished to the SEC pursuant to Sections 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 are available, free of charge, on the SEC website at www.sec.gov and our Investor Relations website at https://investors.23andme.com as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such materials with, or furnish them to, the SEC. We use our Investor Relations website as a means of disclosing material non-public information. Accordingly, investors should monitor our Investor Relations website, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts.
Our corporate governance materials, including our corporate governance guidelines, the charters of our audit and compensation committees, and our code of business conduct and ethics may also be found under the Investor Relations section of our website at https://investors.23andme.com. A copy of the corporate governance materials is also available upon written request. Additionally, our investor presentations are available under the Investor Relations section of our website at https://investors.23andme.com. These materials are available no later than the time they are presented at investor conferences. Except to the extent expressly stated otherwise, information contained on or accessible from our web site or any other web site is not incorporated by reference into this annual report on Form 10-K and should not be considered part of this report.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
Investing in our securities involves risks. Before you make a decision to buy our securities, in addition to the risks and uncertainties discussed above under “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” you should carefully consider the specific risks set forth herein. If any of these risks actually occur, it may materially harm our business, financial condition, liquidity, and results of operations. As a result, the market price of our securities could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment. Additionally, the risks and uncertainties described in this Form 10-K are not the only risks and uncertainties that we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe to be immaterial may become material and adversely affect our business.
Unless the context indicates otherwise, references in this “Risk Factors” section to the “Company,” “we,” “us,” “our,” and similar terms refer to 23andMe Holding Co., a Delaware corporation formerly known as VG Acquisition Corp., and its consolidated subsidiaries.
Summary of Principal Risk Factors
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Risks Related to Our Business
Consumer and Research Services Business Risks
The market for personal genetics products and services has experienced a recent overall decline, which corresponds with the recent and significant decreases in our revenues. If this trend continues or worsens, it could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Our revenue model has historically been derived principally from customers who purchase our PGS services. For the fiscal years ended March 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021, PGS revenue accounted for 68%, 75%, and 81% of revenues, respectively. There is no assurance that our business model will be successful or that it will generate increased revenues or become profitable as a result of marketing our current PGS services or any future products or services. We may be forced to make significant changes to our anticipated pricing, sales and revenue model to compete with our competitors’ offerings, and even if such changes are implemented, there is no guarantee that they will be successful. If the current market trend continues or worsens, or we are unable to adjust our approach to meet market demands, our revenues and results of operations will be adversely affected.
We operate in highly competitive markets, and competition in the personal genetics and telehealth markets present an ongoing threat to the success of our business.
With respect to our PGS business, the market continues to see new entrants with offerings similar to our PGS services. We believe that our ability to compete depends upon many factors both within and beyond our control, including the following:
We also face competition from other companies attempting to capitalize on the same, or similar, opportunities as it is, including from existing diagnostic, laboratory services and other companies entering the personal genetics market with new offerings such as direct access and/or consumer self-pay tests and genetic interpretation services. Some of our current and potential competitors have
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longer operating histories and greater financial, technical, marketing, and other resources than we do. These factors may allow our competitors to respond more quickly or efficiently than it can to new or emerging technologies. These competitors may engage in more extensive research and development efforts, undertake more far-reaching marketing campaigns and adopt more aggressive pricing policies, which may allow them to build larger customer bases than we have. Our competitors may develop products or services that are similar to our products and services or that achieve greater market acceptance than our products and services. This could attract customers away from our services and reduce our market share.
Similarly, the markets for healthcare are intensely competitive, subject to rapid change, and significantly affected by new product and technological introductions and other market activities of industry participants. We compete directly not only with other established telehealth providers but also traditional healthcare providers and pharmacies. Our current competitors include traditional healthcare providers expanding into the telehealth market and incumbent telehealth providers, as well as new entrants into our market that are focused on direct-to-consumer healthcare. Our competitors include enterprise-focused companies that may enter the direct-to-consumer healthcare industry, as well as direct-to-consumer healthcare providers. Many of our current and potential competitors may have greater name and brand recognition, longer operating histories, and significantly greater resources than we do, and may be able to offer products and services similar to those offered on our platform at more attractive prices than we can.
Additionally, we believe that the COVID-19 pandemic introduced many new users to telehealth and further reinforced its benefits to potential competitors. We believe that this may drive additional industry consolidation or collaboration involving competitors that may create competitors with greater resources and access to potential patients. The COVID-19 pandemic has also caused various traditional healthcare providers to pursue telehealth options that can be paired with their in-person capabilities. These industry changes could better position our competitors to serve certain segments of our current or future markets, which could create additional price pressure. In light of these factors, even if our offerings are more effective than those of our competitors, current or potential patients may accept competitive solutions in lieu of purchasing from us.
If our competitors receive further FDA marketing approval for in vitro diagnostic products, our business could be adversely affected.
We were the first direct-to-consumer genetic testing company to include FDA-authorized genetic health risk, carrier status and pharmacogenetic reports. Our competitors had previously released products that were not cleared or approved by the FDA and required partnership with independent physicians, but in August 2020, one of our competitors received premarket notification, also called 510(k) clearance, for their saliva collection kit and one of their genetic health risk reports, and in December 2020 another competitor received a 510(k) clearance for one of their health risk reports. Following these FDA clearances, our competitors can now market those cleared reports directly to consumers rather than relying on clinician network partners. If our competitors receive further FDA clearance or approval, our business could be adversely affected.
The sizes of the markets and forecasts of market growth for the demand of our products and services, including our research services and other key potential success factors are based on a number of complex assumptions and estimates, and may be inaccurate.
We estimate annual total addressable markets and forecasts of market growth for our products and services. We have also developed a standard set of key performance indicators in order to enable us to assess the performance of our business in and across multiple markets, and to forecast future revenue. These estimates, forecasts and key performance indicators are based on a number of complex assumptions, internal and third-party estimates and other business data, including assumptions and estimates relating to our ability to generate revenue from the development of new workflows. While we believe that our assumptions and the data underlying our estimates and key performance indicators are reasonable, there are inherent challenges in measuring or forecasting such information. As a result, these assumptions and estimates may not be correct and the conditions supporting our assumptions or estimates may change at any time, thereby reducing the predictive accuracy of these underlying factors and indicators. Consequently, our estimates of the annual total addressable market and our forecasts of market growth and future revenue from our products and services, including our research services, may prove to be incorrect, and our key business metrics may not reflect our actual performance. For example, if the annual total addressable market or the potential market growth for our products and services is smaller than we have estimated or if the key business metrics we utilize to forecast revenue are inaccurate, it may impair our sales growth and have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
The telehealth market is immature and volatile, and if it does not develop, if it encounters negative publicity, or if the use of telehealth solutions does not continue to increase, then the growth of our business and our results of operation could be adversely affected.
The telehealth market is relatively new and unproven, and it is uncertain whether it will achieve and sustain high levels of demand, consumer acceptance, and market adoption. The COVID-19 pandemic increased utilization of telehealth services, but it is uncertain
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whether such increase in demand will continue. The success of our telehealth business will depend to a substantial extent on the willingness of our patients to use, and to increase the frequency and extent of their utilization of, our solution, as well as on our ability to demonstrate the value of telehealth to patients. Negative publicity concerning our telehealth services, or the telehealth market as a whole, could limit market acceptance of our solution. If our patients do not perceive the benefits of our services, then our market may develop more slowly than we expect or not at all. Similarly, individual and healthcare industry concerns or negative publicity regarding quality, efficacy, or patient confidentiality and privacy in the context of telehealth could limit market acceptance of our healthcare services. Further, to the extent our telehealth services or related medication prescription services involve or may in the future involve controlled substances, the Drug Enforcement Administration is considering rulemaking that may negatively impact our clinicians’ ability to prescribe such controlled substances to patients. If any of these events occurs, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We rely on key sole suppliers to manufacture and perform services used by customers who purchase our PGS. Our reliance on limited contracted manufacturing and supply chain capacity could adversely affect our ability to meet customer demand.
We do not have manufacturing capabilities and do not plan to develop such capacity in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, we rely on third-party suppliers to provide materials (such as our saliva collection kits, bead chips, reagents or other materials and equipment used in our laboratory operations) and services (such as our laboratory processing services). Currently, we rely on a sole supplier to manufacture our saliva collection kits used by customers who purchase our PGS. Change in the supplier or design of certain of the materials which we rely on, in particular the bead chip and saliva collection kit, could result in a requirement that we seek additional premarket review from the FDA before making such a change. We also are required to validate any new laboratory or laboratories in accordance with FDA standards prior to utilizing their services for our U.S. customers. We cannot be certain that we will be able to secure alternative laboratory processing services, materials and equipment, and bring such alternative materials and equipment on line and revalidate them without experiencing interruptions in our workflow, or that any alternative materials will meet our quality control and performance requirements of our contracted laboratory.
Although we maintain relationships with suppliers with the objective of ensuring that we have adequate supply for the delivery of our services, increases in demand for such items can result in shortages and higher costs. Our suppliers may not be able to meet our delivery schedules, we may lose a significant or sole supplier, a supplier may not be able to meet performance and quality specifications and we may not be able to purchase such items at a competitive cost. Further, we may experience shortages in certain items as a result of limited availability, increased demand, pandemics or other outbreaks of contagious diseases, weather conditions and natural disasters, as well as other factors outside of our control. Our freight costs may increase due to factors such as limited carrier availability, increased fuel costs, increased compliance costs associated with new or changing government regulations, pandemics or other outbreaks of contagious diseases and inflation. Higher prices for natural gas, propane, electricity and fuel also may increase our production and delivery costs. The prices charged for our products may not reflect changes in our packaging material, freight, tariff and energy costs at the time they occur, or at all.
In order for other parties to perform manufacturing and participate in our supply chain, we sometimes must transfer technology to the other party, which can be time consuming and may not be successfully accomplished without considerable cost and expense, or at all. We will have to depend on these other parties to perform effectively on a timely basis and to comply with regulatory requirements. If for any reason they are unable to do so, and as a result we are unable to manufacture and supply sufficient quantities of our products on acceptable terms, or if we should encounter delays or other difficulties with the third parties on which we rely for our supply chain, our business, prospects, operating results, and financial condition may be materially harmed.
Our business significantly depends upon the strength of our brands, and if we are not able to maintain and enhance our brand, our ability to expand our customer base may be impaired and our business and operating results may be harmed.
We believe that the brand identity that we have developed has significantly contributed to the success of our business. We also believe that maintaining and enhancing the “23andMe” and “Lemonaid” brands are a significant factor in expanding our customer base and current and future business opportunities. Maintaining and enhancing our brands may require us to make substantial investments and these investments may not be successful. If we fail to promote and maintain the “23andMe” and “Lemonaid” brands, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our business, operating results and financial condition may be materially and adversely affected. We anticipate that, as our market becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining and enhancing our brands may become increasingly difficult and expensive.
We have a limited history introducing new products and services to our customers and patients. If our efforts to attract new customers and patients and engage existing customers and patients with enhanced products and services are unsuccessful or if such efforts are more costly than we expect, our business may be harmed.
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Our success depends on our ability to attract new customers and patients and engage existing customers and patients in a cost-effective manner. To acquire and engage customers and patients, we must, among other things, promote and sustain our platform and provide high-quality products, user experiences, and service. If customers do not perceive our PGS to be reliable and of high quality, if we fail to introduce new and improved products and services, or if we introduce new products or services that are not favorably received by the market, we may not be able to attract or retain customers and patients.
For example, the increased growth of our subscription service, 23andMe+, depends upon how compelling this offering is to our customers. Many of our 23andMe+ subscribers may initially access the subscription service for a discount. While we strive to demonstrate the value of our subscription service to our customers, and encourage eligible customers to become paid subscribers of 23andMe+, these customers may not convert to a fully paid subscription to 23andMe+ after they take advantage of our promotions. Moreover, if we are unable to keep existing customers engaged, including by their participation in research and responses to questionnaires, our ability to grow our database and discover new insights about the relationship between genetics and disease will be compromised. If we are unable to attract new customers or engage existing customers, including as subscribers of 23andMe+, our revenue and our operating results may grow slower than expected or decline.
Our telehealth business provides patients with access to telehealth-based consultations with healthcare providers and prescription medication services. In order to attract new telehealth patients and members and grow our telehealth business, we need to continue expanding the scope of our products and services and enter into new categories that will provide access to consultation and treatment of additional conditions. It is uncertain whether any such offerings will achieve and sustain high levels of demand and market adoption. Unless we are able to attract new telehealth patients and members and retain existing patients, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be harmed.
Our marketing efforts currently include various initiatives and consist primarily of digital marketing on a variety of social media channels, such as Facebook, search engine optimization on websites, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, various branding strategies, and mobile “push” notifications and email. During the fiscal years ended March 31, 2023, 2022, and 2021, we incurred $120.0 million, $100.3 million, and $43.2 million of sales and marketing expenses, representing 40%, 37%, and 18% of our revenue, respectively. We anticipate that sales and marketing expenses will continue to represent a significant percentage of our overall operating costs for the foreseeable future. We have historically acquired a significant number of our users through digital advertising on platforms and websites owned by Facebook and Google, which may terminate their agreements with us at any time. Our investments in sales and marketing may not effectively reach potential customers and/or patients, potential customers and/or patients may decide not to buy our products or services, or customer or patient spend for our products and services may not yield the intended return on investment, any of which could negatively affect our financial results.
Many factors, some of which are beyond our control, may reduce our ability to acquire, maintain and further engage with customers and patients, including those described in this “Risk Factors” section and the following:
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In addition, we believe that many of our new customers and patients originate from word-of-mouth and other non-paid referrals from existing customers and patients, including purchases of kits for gift-giving, so we must ensure that our existing customers and patients remain loyal and continue to derive value from our service in order to continue receiving those referrals. If our efforts to satisfy our existing customers and patients are not successful, we may not be able to attract new customers and patients. Further, if our customer base does not continue to grow, we may be required to incur significantly higher marketing expenses than we currently anticipate in order to attract new customers and patients. A significant decline in our customer base would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Revenue derived from our kit sales is dependent on seasonal holiday demand and the timing of Amazon Prime Day, which could lead to significant quarterly fluctuations in revenue and results of operations.
Our kit sales are dependent on seasonal holiday demand, as well as the timing of Amazon Prime Day, which has varied in recent years. We generate a significant amount of our PGS revenue during the fourth quarter of our fiscal year, due to seasonal holiday demand and to the fact that kits that are ordered during the holiday season (which occurs during the third quarter of our fiscal year) are recognized as revenue when the customer sends in their kit to the laboratory to be processed and genetic reports are delivered to the customer, which typically for holiday purchases tends to occur in the fourth fiscal quarter. For example, in fiscal 2023, 2022, and 2021, fourth quarter PGS revenue represented 35%, 36%, and 39% of our total PGS revenue, respectively. Our promotional activity is also higher in the third fiscal quarter, which may reduce gross margin during this period. Purchasing patterns of kit sales are also aligned with other gift-giving and family-oriented holidays such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
This seasonality causes our operating results to vary considerably from quarter to quarter. Additionally, any decrease in sales or profitability during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year could have a disproportionately adverse effect on our results of operations, which could, in turn, cause the value of our Class A common stock to fluctuate or decrease. This seasonality also could become more pronounced and may cause our operating results to fluctuate more widely.
We also may experience an increase in lab processing times and costs associated with shipping orders due to freight surcharges due to peak capacity constraints and additional long-zone shipments necessary to ensure timely delivery for the holiday season. Such delays could lead to an inability to meet advertised estimated lab processing times, resulting in customer dissatisfaction or reputational damage. If too many customers access our website within a short period of time, we may experience system interruptions that make our website unavailable or prevent us from efficiently fulfilling orders, which may reduce the volume of kits sold. Also, third-party delivery and direct ship vendors may be unable to deliver merchandise on a timely basis.
Our ability to meet demand in the Amazon retail channel is dependent upon Amazon’s stocking policies.
We offer for sale both the Health + Ancestry Service kit and the Ancestry Service kit through Amazon in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Demand for our PGS kits through Amazon varies considerably based upon seasonal holiday and other gift-giving and family-oriented holiday demand, as well as the timing of Amazon Prime Day.
Amazon’s stocking policies restrict the total number of PGS kits available for shipment to Amazon customers. These policies, including the inventory cap, change frequently, and as a result, our inventory available for shipment through Amazon fluctuates. We may not be able to accurately predict the mix of Health + Ancestry Service kits and Ancestry Service kits to effectively meet demand for each service type by Amazon customers. We also may experience an increase in costs associated with expedited shipping or use of intermediaries to enable additional stock being made available through Amazon.
We have limited operating experience abroad and may be subject to increased business and economic risks that could impact our financial results.
Our PGS is available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and in certain other markets globally, and our telehealth services are available in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.K. We plan to continue to pursue international expansion of our business operations and we may expand our offering in existing international markets or enter new international markets where we have limited or no experience in marketing, selling and deploying our product and services. If we fail to deploy or manage our operations in these countries successfully, our business and operations may suffer. In addition, we are subject to a variety of risks inherent in doing business internationally, including:
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If we are unable to manage the complexity of global operations successfully, our financial performance and operating results could suffer.
Our pricing strategies may not meet customers’ price expectations or may adversely affect our revenues.
Our pricing strategies have had, and may continue to have, a significant impact on our revenue. From time to time, we offer discounted prices as a means of attracting customers. Such offers and discounts, however, may reduce our revenue and margins. In addition, our competitors’ pricing and marketing strategies are beyond our control and can significantly affect the results of our pricing strategies. If our pricing strategies, which may evolve over time, fail to meet our customers’ price expectations or fail to result in increased margins, or if we are unable to compete effectively with our competitors if they engage in aggressive pricing strategies or other competitive activities, it could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We depend on our relationships with the PMCs, which we do not own, to provide telehealth consultation services, and our business could be adversely affected if those relationships were disrupted.
In certain jurisdictions, the corporate practice of medicine doctrine generally prohibits non-physicians from practicing medicine, including by employing physicians to provide clinical services, directing the clinical practice of physicians, or holding an ownership interest in an entity that employs or contracts with physicians. Some states have similar doctrines with respect to other professional licensure categories, including behavioral health services and providers. Other practices, such as professionals splitting their professional fees with a non-professional, are also prohibited in some jurisdictions. Many states also limit the extent to which nurse practitioners can practice independently and require that they practice under the supervision of or in collaboration with a supervising physician.
Through our platform, our patients gain access to one or more licensed healthcare providers for telehealth consultations. These providers are employed by or contracted with PMCs, which are independent professional entities owned by licensed physicians and that engage licensed healthcare professionals to provide telehealth consultations and related services, including applicable physician supervision of nurse practitioners. We enter into certain contractual arrangements with the PMCs and their provider owners, including an administrative services agreement, with each PMC for the exclusive provision by us of non-clinical services and support for the PMCs. While we expect that these relationships with the PMCs will continue, we cannot guarantee that they will. We believe that our arrangements with the PMCs have been structured to comply with applicable law and allow the healthcare providers the ability to maintain exclusive authority regarding the provision of clinical healthcare services (including consults that may lead to the writing of prescriptions), but there can be no assurance that government entities or courts would find our approach to be consistent with their interpretation of, and enforcement activities or initiatives related to, these laws and the corporate practice of medicine doctrine or similar prohibitions. If our arrangements are deemed to be inconsistent with any applicable government entity’s interpretation of a law or regulation prohibiting the corporate practice of medicine, a fee-splitting law, or similar regulatory prohibitions, we would need to restructure the arrangements with the PMCs to create a compliant arrangement or terminate the arrangement, and we could face fines or other penalties in connection with such arrangements. A material change in our relationships with the PMCs, whether resulting from a dispute, a change in government regulation, or enforcement patterns, a determination of non-compliance, or the loss of these agreements or business relationships, could impair our ability to provide products and services to our patients and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Violations of the prohibition on corporate practice of medicine doctrine, fee-splitting, or similar laws may impose penalties (e.g., fines or license suspension) on healthcare providers, which could discourage professionals from entering into arrangements with the PMCs and using our platform and could result in lawsuits by providers
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against the PMCs and us. These laws and regulations are subject to change and enforcement based upon political, regulatory, and other influences. More restrictive treatment of healthcare professionals’ relationships with non-professionals, such as our Company, in the healthcare services delivery context could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We depend on a number of other companies to perform functions critical to our ability to operate our platform and generate revenue from patients.
We depend on the PMCs and their providers and our Affiliated Pharmacies to deliver quality healthcare consultations and pharmacy services through our platform. Any interruption in the availability of a sufficient number of providers or supply from our Affiliated Pharmacies could materially and adversely affect our ability to satisfy our patients and ensure they receive consultation services and prescription medication. If we were to lose our relationship with one or more of the PMCs, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to ensure access to a sufficient network of providers. Similarly, if we were to lose our relationship with one or more of our Affiliated Pharmacies, or are unable to obtain access for patients to pharmaceutical products through such pharmacies, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to find, perform due diligence on, and engage with one or more replacement partners in a timely manner. Our ability to service the needs of our customers could be materially impaired or interrupted in the event that our relationship with a PMC or Affiliated Pharmacy is terminated or otherwise impaired, which can happen due to a variety of circumstances, including, but not limited to, noncompliance on the part of the third-party entity. We also depend on cloud infrastructure providers, payment processors, and various others that allow our platform to function effectively and serve the needs of our patients. Difficulties with our significant partners and suppliers, regardless of the reason, could have a material adverse effect on our business.
If we are unable to attract and retain high quality healthcare providers for our patients, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.
Our success is dependent upon our continued ability to maintain and expand a network of qualified telehealth providers. If we are unable to recruit and retain board-certified and other qualified physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals, it would adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations and ability to grow. In any particular market, providers could demand higher payments or take other actions that could result in higher medical costs, less attractive service for our patients, or difficulty meeting regulatory or accreditation requirements. The failure to maintain or to secure new cost-effective provider contracts may result in a loss of or inability to grow our membership base, higher costs, less attractive service for our patients, and/or difficulty in meeting regulatory or accreditation requirements, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Any significant disruption in service on our website, mobile applications, or in our computer or logistics systems, whether due to a failure with our information technology systems or that of a third-party vendor, could harm our reputation and may result in a loss of customers.
Customers purchase our PGS and access its services through our website or our mobile applications. We also provide our telehealth services to patients and members through our website and mobile applications. Our reputation and ability to attract, retain and serve our customers, patients, and members is dependent upon the reliable performance of our website, mobile applications, network infrastructure and content delivery processes. Interruptions in any of these systems, whether due to system failures, computer viruses or physical or electronic break-ins, could affect the security or availability of our website or mobile applications, including our databases, and prevent our customers, patients, and members from accessing and using our services.
Our systems and operations are also vulnerable to damage or interruption from fire, flood, power loss, telecommunications failure, terrorist attacks, acts of war, electronic and physical break-ins, earthquake and similar events. For example, our headquarters are located in the San Francisco Bay Area which over the past several years has been subject to planned power outages to reduce the risk of wildfire, and these power outages can last for several days, which may limit or curtail certain operations. In the event of any catastrophic failure involving our website, we may be unable to serve our web traffic. In addition, our Lemonaid pharmacy fulfillment business is processed from a single location, which operations would be materially disrupted in the event any of these events were to occur at such facility. The occurrence of any of the foregoing risks could result in damage to our systems or could cause them to fail completely, and our insurance may not cover such risks or may be insufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur.
Additionally, our PGS business model is dependent on our ability to deliver kits to customers and have kits processed and returned to us. This requires coordination between our logistics providers and third-party shipping services. Operational disruptions may be caused by factors outside of our control such as hostilities, political unrest, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics and public health emergencies, affecting the geographies where our operations and customers are located. We may not be effective at preventing or mitigating the effects of such disruptions, particularly in the case of a catastrophic event. In addition, operational disruptions may occur during the holiday season, causing delays or failures in deliveries of PGS kits. Any such disruption may result in lost revenues, a
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loss of customers and reputational damage, which would have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
If we are unable to deliver a rewarding experience on mobile devices, whether through our mobile website or our mobile application, we may be unable to attract and retain customers and patients.
We believe that current and prospective customers and patients are increasingly interested in accessing our PGS and telehealth offerings through mobile devices. We maintain mobile websites and mobile applications for our PGS and telehealth offerings. Developing and supporting a mobile website and mobile application across multiple operating systems and devices requires substantial time and resources. Notwithstanding our efforts to develop mobile solutions, our mobile solutions may fail to meet the needs of our customers and patients or consistently provide rewarding customer and patient experiences. As a result, our ability to attract new customers and patients could be impaired and customers and patients we meet through our mobile websites or mobile applications may not choose to use our offerings at the same rate as customers and patients we meet through our websites.
As new mobile devices and mobile operating systems are released, we may encounter problems in developing or supporting our mobile websites or mobile applications for them. Our ability to offer commercially successful mobile websites and mobile applications could also be harmed by factors outside of our control, such as:
If our customers or patients experience difficulty accessing or using, or if they elect not to use, our mobile websites or mobile applications, our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.
Use of social media and email may adversely affect our reputation or subject us to fines or other penalties.
We use social media and email as part of our approach to marketing. As laws and regulations rapidly evolve to govern the use of these channels, the failure by us, our employees or third parties acting on our behalf or at our direction to abide by applicable laws and regulations in the use of these channels could adversely affect our reputation or subject us to fines, other penalties, or lawsuits. Although we continue to update our practices as these laws change over time, we may be subject to lawsuits or investigations alleging our failure to comply with such laws. In addition, our employees or third parties acting on our behalf or at our direction may knowingly or inadvertently use social media, including through advertisements, in ways that could lead to the loss or infringement of IP, as well as the public disclosure of proprietary, confidential, or sensitive personal information of our business, employees, customers, patients, members, or others. Any such inappropriate use of social media and emails could also cause reputational damage.
Our customers may engage with us online through social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, by providing feedback and public commentary about all aspects of our business. Information concerning us, whether accurate or not, may be posted on social media platforms at any time and may have a disproportionately adverse impact on our brand, reputation, or business. The harm may be immediate without affording us an opportunity for redress or correction and could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects.
Our success depends, in large part, on our ability to extend our presence in the personal genetics market, provide customers with a high level of service at a competitive price, achieve sufficient sales volume to realize economies of scale, and create innovative new features, products, and services to offer to our customers. Our failure to achieve any of these outcomes would adversely affect our business.
Our success depends, in large part, on our ability to extend our presence in the personal genetics market, provide customers with a high level of service at a competitive price, achieve sufficient sales volume to realize economies of scale, and create innovative new features, products and services to offer to our customers. The growth and expansion of our business and service offerings places a continuous significant strain on our management, operational, and financial resources. We are required to manage multiple relationships with various strategic suppliers, customers, and other third parties, and regulatory agencies and advisors. To effectively manage our growth, we must continue to implement and improve our operational, financial, and management information systems and to expand, train and manage our employee base. We further must continue to work to scale our own operations and our supplier operations to meet increases in demand for our services. In the event of further growth of our operations or in the number of our third-party relationships,
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our supply, systems, procedures, or internal controls may not be adequate to support our operations and our management may not be able to manage any such growth effectively.
Our current and future expense levels are, to a large extent, fixed and are largely based on our investment plans and our estimates of future revenue. Because the timing and amount of revenue from our PGS is difficult to forecast when revenue does not meet our expectations, we may not be able to adjust our spending promptly or reduce our spending to levels commensurate with our revenue.
Even if we are able to successfully scale our infrastructure and operations, we cannot ensure that demand for our services will increase at levels consistent with the growth of our infrastructure. If we fail to generate demand commensurate with this growth or if we fail to scale our infrastructure sufficiently in advance to meet such demand, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected, which may affect our ability to attract personnel or retain or motivate existing personnel.
Our Consumer and Research Services business relies on the continual growth of our database of information provided by customers who consent to participate in our research. If the number of our customers consenting to participate in our research programs declines or fails to grow, our research services revenue may be adversely affected, and our database may become less effective in facilitating our ability to identify new drug targets and to create new features, products, and services to offer to our customers.
Our Consumer and Research Services business is based on our ongoing analysis of the continually growing quantity of data in our proprietary database of genotypic and phenotypic information provided by customers who have consented to participate in our research programs. Over 80% of our customers have consented to participate in our research programs. If this percentage were to decline, or if consenting customers were to decide to opt out of our research programs, such that we cannot continue to grow our research database, the utility and value of our database would be adversely affected.
Our Consumer and Research Services business requires us to continue to improve and develop new data mining technologies and innovations in the use of genotypic and phenotypic data.
Our research services business uses our database and data mining tools and technologies to analyze the impacts of genetics on the sources and risks of disease, and to identify promising drug targets. If we do not continue to improve and develop new data mining technologies and innovations in our use of genotypic and phenotypic data, and to attract and retain skilled scientists to analyze our data, our business would be adversely affected.
Although we believe that our genetics-powered target discovery platform has the potential to identify more promising drugs than traditional methods, our focus on using our genetics-powered platform to discover targets with therapeutic potential may not result in the discovery of commercially viable drug targets for us or our collaborators.
Our scientific approach focuses on using our proprietary genotypic and phenotypic database to identify promising drug targets and predict their key properties without conducting time-consuming and expensive physical experiments. Our proprietary data mining techniques underpin, our target identification collaborations and our own internal target identification programs. While we believe that our research platform has been successful to date in identifying promising drug targets, we have no assurance that our early success will continue or lead to future success in identifying such targets.
Media reports have reported on consumer data privacy and security concerns and the use of genetic information accessed from other genetic databases by law enforcement and governmental agencies. These reports may decrease the overall consumer demand for personal genetic products and services, including ours.
We receive a high degree of media coverage. Unfavorable publicity or consumer perception of our product and service offerings, or the use of other genetic databases by third parties, including law enforcement, could adversely affect our reputation, resulting in a negative impact on the size of our customer base, the loyalty of our customers, the percentage of our customers that consent to participate in our research program, and our ability to attract new customers.
Therapeutics Business Risks
We expect to make significant investments in our continued efforts to develop new therapies as part of our Therapeutics business; these efforts may not be successful. We do not have any experience in successful drug development or commercialization and our failure to execute on successful drug development or commercialization would adversely affect our business and results of operations.
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Drug development is expensive, takes years to complete, and can have uncertain outcomes. Failure can occur at any stage of development. We expect to incur significant expenses to advance our therapeutic development efforts, which may be unsuccessful. Developing new drugs is a speculative, risky, and highly competitive endeavor. Drugs which may initially show promise may fail to achieve the desired results in development and clinical studies and may ultimately not prove to be safe and effective or meet expectations for clinical utility. We may need to alter our offerings in development and repeat clinical studies before we develop a potentially successful drug. If, after development, a drug appears successful, we or our collaborators will still need to obtain FDA and other regulatory approvals before we can market it. The FDA’s approval pathways are likely to involve significant time, as well as additional research, development, and clinical study expenditures. The FDA may not approve any drug we develop. Even if we develop a drug that receives regulatory approval, we or our collaborators would need to commit substantial resources to commercialize, sell and market it before it could be profitable, and the drug may never be commercially successful. The effectiveness and safety of a prospective product do not guarantee its market acceptance once it is launched. Educating patients, the medical community, and third-party payers about our product candidates could be a challenging task and may not yield desired results, despite significant investment of resources. Compared to conventional methods used by our competitors, our approach to educating the market may require more extensive resources. Any products that we ultimately bring to the market, if they receive marketing approval, may not gain market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors, or others in the medical community. Additionally, development of any product or service may be disrupted or made less viable by the development of competing products or services. Because of the numerous risks and uncertainties associated with developing drugs, we are unable to predict whether or when our Therapeutics business may successfully commercialize a drug target.
New potential products and services may fail at any stage of development or commercialization and if we determine that any of our current or future products or services are unlikely to succeed, we may abandon them without any return on our investment. If we are unsuccessful in developing additional products or services, our potential for growth may be impaired.
Even if we or our drug discovery collaborators are able to develop drugs that demonstrate potential in preclinical or early-stage clinical studies, we or they may not succeed in demonstrating safety and efficacy of drugs in human clinical trials.
Even if we or our drug discovery collaborators are able to develop drugs that demonstrate potential in preclinical or early-stage clinical studies, we or they may not succeed in demonstrating safety and efficacy of drug product candidates in human clinical trials. Moreover, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that believed their drugs performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their drug product candidates.
If we fail to succeed in our drug development efforts, or to develop and commercialize additional products and services, our ability to expand our business and achieve our strategic objectives would be impaired.
Our Therapeutics business is focused on leveraging our proprietary genotypic and phenotypic database in order to speed the development of successful new drugs. However, we may never succeed in developing a viable drug target. There are many lengthy and complex processes that all must yield successful results in order for us to ultimately succeed in developing and commercializing a drug. There are numerous stages of the drug development process, from initial target identification and validation, through various stages of rigorous preclinical research, to the selection of a lead drug product candidate that is suitable for human clinical testing. Once a drug product candidate is selected, there are several stages of clinical testing it must undergo, each dependent upon success in the prior stage. This is a long and costly process that will require significant time and resources and, if not successful, for any number of reasons that we cannot anticipate, would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, external competition by other therapeutic companies can adversely affect our expected market share and revenues of our drugs.
Developing new products and services requires substantial technical, financial and human resources, whether or not any products or services are ultimately commercialized. We may pursue what we believe is a promising opportunity only to discover that certain of our risk or resource allocation decisions were incorrect or insufficient, or that individual products, services or our science in general has technology or biology risks that were previously unknown or underappreciated. In the event material decisions in any of these areas turn out to be incorrect or sub-optimal, we may experience a material adverse impact on our business and ability to fund our operations.
There are numerous risks associated with the development of our product candidate. These risks include the possibility that the compounds may be found ineffective or cause harmful side effects, may be difficult to manufacture in sufficient quantities for our development efforts and on a commercial scale, may be uneconomical to produce, and may not show the potential to compete effectively with existing or future alternatives. Additionally, political, judicial, and legislative changes, including those described elsewhere in this annual report, may make product development and marketing authorization more difficult.
Our Therapeutics business faces substantial competition, which may result in others discovering, developing, or commercializing drugs before or more successfully than we can.
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We have not yet developed and commercialized, and may never successfully develop or commercialize, a drug target. Our Therapeutics business faces substantial competition from larger, more established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with marketed products that have been accepted by the medical community, patients, and third-party payors, as well as smaller companies in our industry that have successfully identified and developed drugs. Our ability to compete in this industry may be affected by the previous adoption of such products by the medical community, patients, and third-party payors.
We recognize that other companies, including larger pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, may be developing or have plans to develop drugs and therapies that may compete with ours. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, and human resources than we have. In addition, many of our competitors have significantly greater experience than we have in undertaking preclinical studies and human clinical trials of drugs, obtaining FDA and other regulatory approvals of drugs for use in healthcare and manufacturing, and marketing and selling approved drugs. Our competitors may discover, develop, or commercialize drugs or other novel technologies that are more effective, safer, or less costly than any that we are developing. Our competitors may also obtain FDA or other regulatory approval for their drugs more rapidly than we may obtain approval for any drug that we develop.
We anticipate that the competition with our drugs and therapies will be based on a number of factors, including product efficacy, safety, availability, and price. The timing of market introduction of any successful drug and competitive drugs will also affect competition among products. We expect the relative speed with which we can develop drugs, complete the clinical trials and approval processes, and supply commercial quantities of such drugs to the market to be important competitive factors. Our competitive position will also depend upon our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel, to obtain patent protection or otherwise develop proprietary products or processes, and protect our IP, and to secure sufficient capital resources for the period between target identification and commercial sales of the resulting drug product.
Our long-term success will depend, in part, upon our ability to develop, receive regulatory approval for, and commercialize our drugs.
In the U.S., our drugs and the activities associated with their development, including testing, manufacture, record-keeping, storage, and approval, are subject to comprehensive regulation by the FDA. Failure to obtain regulatory approval for a drug product candidate will prevent us from commercializing such target. We have limited resources for use in preparing, filing, and supporting the applications necessary to gain regulatory approvals and expect to rely on third-party contract research organizations and consultants to assist us in this process. The FDA and other comparable regulatory agencies in foreign countries impose substantial and rigorous requirements for the development, production, marketing authorization, and commercial introduction of drugs. These requirements include pre-clinical, laboratory, and clinical testing procedures, sampling activities, manufacturing development, clinical trials, and other costly and time-consuming procedures. In addition, regulation is not static, and regulatory authorities, including the FDA evolve in their interpretations and practices and may impose more stringent or different requirements than currently in effect, which may adversely affect our planned and ongoing development and/or our sales and marketing efforts.
Developing and obtaining regulatory approval for drugs is a lengthy process, often taking many years, is uncertain and is expensive. All of the drugs that we are developing, or may develop in the future, require research and development, pre-clinical studies, nonclinical testing, manufacturing development, and clinical trials prior to seeking regulatory approval and commencing commercial sales. In addition, we may need to address a number of technological challenges in order to complete development of our drugs. As a result, the development of drugs may take longer than anticipated or not be successful at all. There can be no assurance that the FDA will ever permit us to market any new drug that we develop. Even if regulatory approval is granted, such approval may include significant limitations on indicated uses, which could materially and adversely affect the prospects of any new therapeutic. In addition, new regulations could potentially negatively impact our therapeutic development and commercialization. For example, in August 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes prescription drug provisions that could have significant implications on our future drug development and sales.
To market any drugs outside of the U.S., we must establish and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements of other countries regarding safety and effectiveness. Clinical trials conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries, and regulatory approval in one country does not mean that regulatory approval will be obtained in any other country. Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional drug testing and validation and additional or different administrative review periods from those in the U.S., including additional preclinical studies or clinical trials, as clinical trials conducted in one jurisdiction may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions.
Seeking foreign regulatory approval could result in difficulties and costs and require additional nonclinical studies or clinical trials, which could be costly and time-consuming. Regulatory requirements can vary widely from country to country and could delay or prevent the introduction of our drugs in those countries. The foreign regulatory approval process may include all the risks associated with obtaining FDA approval. We do not have any drugs approved for sale in any jurisdiction, including international markets, and we do not have experience in obtaining regulatory approval in international markets. If we fail to comply with regulatory requirements in
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international markets or to obtain and maintain required approvals, or if regulatory approval in international markets is delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of our drugs will be harmed.
Our drugs are in preclinical or clinical development, which is a lengthy and expensive process with uncertain outcomes and the potential for substantial delays. We cannot give any assurance that any of our drugs will receive regulatory approval, which is necessary before they can be commercialized.
Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our drugs, we must conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the drugs in humans. We have focused our collaborative efforts and significant financial resources on developing new drugs. We cannot be certain that any clinical trials will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. Our inability to successfully complete preclinical and clinical development could result in additional costs to us and negatively impact our ability to generate revenue. Our future success is dependent on our ability to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approval for, and then successfully commercialize drugs. We currently have no drugs approved for sale and have not generated any revenue from sales of drugs, and we may never be able to develop or successfully commercialize a marketable drug. The results of early-stage clinical trials and preclinical studies may not be predictive of future results. Initial data in clinical trials may not be indicative of results obtained when these trials are completed or in later stage trials.
All our identified drugs require additional development, management of preclinical, clinical, and manufacturing activities, and regulatory approval. In addition, we will need to obtain adequate manufacturing supply, build a commercial organization, commence marketing efforts, and obtain reimbursement before we generate any significant revenue from commercial product sales, if ever. Many of our drugs are in early-stage research or translational phases of development, and the risk of failure for these programs is high. We cannot be certain that any of our drugs will be successful in clinical trials or receive regulatory approval. Further, our drugs may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in clinical trials. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for our drugs, we and our subsidiaries may not be able to continue operations.
If we encounter difficulties enrolling patients in clinical trials, our clinical development activities could be delayed or otherwise adversely affected.
Our ability to identify and qualify clinical trial participants in an expeditious manner is critical to the success of our clinical development activities. The timing of our clinical studies depends on the speed at which we can recruit trial participants to participate in testing our drugs. Delays in enrollment may result in increased costs or may affect the timing or outcome of the planned clinical trials, which could prevent completion of these trials and adversely affect our ability to advance the development of our drugs. If trial participants are unwilling to participate in our studies or drop out of our trials at unexpected rates, the timeline for recruiting trial participants, conducting studies, and obtaining regulatory approval of potential drugs may be delayed. We also may face delays in enrolling patients and conducting clinical studies, and may need to make adjustments to our development programs as a result of unforeseen global circumstances. Any delays could result in increased costs, delays in advancing our drug development, delays in testing the effectiveness of our drugs, or termination of the clinical studies altogether.
Use of our therapeutic drugs could be associated with side effects, adverse events, or other properties or safety risks, which could delay or halt their clinical development, prevent their regulatory approval, cause us to suspend or discontinue clinical trials, abandon a drug, limit their commercial potential, if approved, or result in other significant negative consequences that could severely harm our business, prospects, financial condition, and results of operations.
Undesirable or unacceptable side effects caused by our drugs, including drugs that are part of our collaboration with GSK, could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or other comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Results of clinical trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of side effects or unexpected characteristics. Even if any of our current or future therapeutic drugs receive regulatory approval, it may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success, in which case we may not generate significant revenues or become profitable.
Our use of third parties to manufacture and develop our drugs for preclinical studies and clinical trials may increase the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our drugs, products, or necessary quantities of such materials on time or at an acceptable cost or quality.
We have no experience in drug formulation or manufacturing and we lack the resources and expertise to formulate or manufacture our own therapeutic drugs internally. Therefore, we rely on third-party expertise to support us in this area. We entered into a contract with a third-party manufacturer to manufacture our drugs, and we intend to enter into contracts with third-party manufacturers to supply, store, and distribute supplies of our drugs for our clinical trials. If any of our drugs receives FDA approval, we expect to rely on
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third-party contractors to manufacture our drugs. We have no current plans to build internal manufacturing capacity for any drug, and we have no long-term supply arrangements.
Our reliance on third-party manufacturers exposes us to potential risks, such as the following:
If our contract manufacturers or other third parties fail to deliver our drugs for clinical investigation and, if approved, for commercial sale on a timely basis, with sufficient quality, and at commercially reasonable prices, we may be required to delay or suspend development and commercialization of our drugs. For example, our clinical trials must be conducted with product that complies with cGMP. Failure to comply may require us to repeat or conduct additional preclinical and/or clinical trials, which would increase our development costs and delay the regulatory approval process and our ability to generate and grow revenues. The FDA or other regulatory authorities may also determine that our third-party manufacturers do not maintain quality systems sufficient for product approval and/or may find that the manufacturing data and development does not meet FDA’s approval standards.
In addition, any significant disruption in our supplier relationships could harm our business. If, for any reason, we need to replace any of our suppliers and manufacturers, we may not be able to do so on commercially favorable terms or may not be able to at all. We source key materials from third parties, either directly through agreements with suppliers or indirectly through our manufacturers who have agreements with suppliers. There are a small number of suppliers for certain capital equipment and key materials that are used to manufacture our drugs. Such suppliers may not sell these key materials to our manufacturers at the times we need them or on commercially reasonable terms. We do not have any control over the process or timing of the acquisition of these key materials by our manufacturers. Moreover, we currently do not have agreements for the commercial production of a number of these key materials which are used in the manufacture of our drugs. Any significant delay in the supply of a drug or its key materials for an ongoing clinical study could considerably delay completion of our clinical studies, drug testing and potential regulatory approval of our drugs. If our manufacturers or we are unable to purchase these key materials for our drugs after regulatory approval, the commercial launch of our drugs could be delayed or there could be a shortage in supply, which would impair our ability to generate revenues from the sale of our drugs, if approved.
Each of these risks, if realized, could delay or have other adverse impacts on our clinical trials and the approval and commercialization of our drugs, potentially resulting in higher costs, reduced revenues or both.
As an organization, we have limited experience designing or implementing clinical trials. Failure to adequately design a trial, or incorrect assumptions about the design of the trial, could adversely affect our ability to initiate the trial, enroll patients,
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complete the trial, or obtain regulatory approval on the basis of the trial results, as well as lead to increased or unexpected costs.
The design and implementation of clinical trials is a complex process. We have limited experience designing or implementing clinical trials, and we may not successfully or cost-effectively design and implement clinical trials that achieve our desired clinical endpoints efficiently, or at all. A clinical trial that is not well-designed, planned, or conducted, including with respect to the FDA’s GCP requirements, may delay or even prevent initiation of the trial, can lead to increased difficulty in enrolling patients, may make it more difficult to obtain regulatory approval for the drug on the basis of the study results, or, even if a drug is approved, could make it more difficult to commercialize the product successfully or obtain reimbursement from third-party payors. Additionally, a trial that is not well-designed, planned, or conducted could be inefficient or more expensive than it otherwise would have been, or we may incorrectly estimate the costs to implement the clinical trial, which could lead to a shortfall in funding. Failure to comply with the FDA’s regulatory requirements for clinical trials can also result in enforcement actions.
If third parties on whom we rely for clinical and preclinical trials do not perform as contractually required or as we expect, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our product candidates and our business may suffer.
Our ability to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates is dependent on conducting clinical and preclinical trials, which we do not have the ability to independently conduct. We rely on third-party service providers, such as independent investigators and contract research organizations (CROs), to conduct these trials on our behalf. While we expect to contract with these parties for future trials, there is no guarantee that we will be able to do so on favorable terms or at all. We have limited control over the activities of these third-party service providers and are responsible for ensuring that our trials are conducted in accordance with applicable regulations and protocols. If these third-party service providers fail to meet their obligations or conduct trials in accordance with regulatory requirements or our protocols, we may need to enter into new arrangements with alternative service providers, which could be difficult, costly, or impossible, and consequently could delay or terminate our trials. If we choose to conduct these activities ourselves, we will need to recruit trained personnel and add to our research, clinical, quality, and corporate infrastructure. The failure of these third-party service providers to comply with regulatory requirements could result in enforcement actions as well as extended, delayed, terminated, or repeated trials, which could prevent us from obtaining regulatory approval in a timely manner or at all, and may prevent us from commercializing the applicable product candidate being tested in such trials. In the event that we need to replace these third-party service providers, we may not be able to do so on commercially reasonable terms or in a timely fashion.]
If, in the future, we are unable to establish sales and marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to sell and market any approved drug by a regulatory agency, we may not be successful in commercializing those drugs if and when they are approved.
We currently have no sales, marketing, or distribution capabilities and have no experience in marketing drugs. We do not currently have an in-house marketing organization or sales force but may develop such organization and sales force in the future, which will require significant capital expenditures, management resources, and time. We will have to compete with other healthcare companies to recruit, hire, train, and retain marketing and sales personnel.
In addition to establishing internal sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities, we intend to pursue collaborative arrangements regarding the sales and marketing of our products, however, there can be no assurance that we will be able to establish or maintain such collaborative arrangements, or if we are able to do so, that we will have effective sales forces. Any revenue we receive will depend upon the efforts of such third parties, which may not be successful. We may have little or no control over the marketing and sales efforts of such third parties and our revenue from product sales may be lower than if we had commercialized our drug ourselves. We also face competition in our search for third parties to assist us with the sales and marketing efforts of our drugs.
There can be no assurance that we will be able to develop in-house sales, marketing, and distribution capabilities or establish or maintain relationships with third-party collaborators to commercialize any product in the U.S. or overseas.
The commercial success of any product candidates that we may develop will depend upon the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors, and others in the medical community.
We may not achieve market acceptance of our products even if they receive marketing approval. If our products fail to gain market acceptance, we may not be able to generate product revenue or achieve profitability. The market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale, depends on several factors, including but not limited to:
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Although a product may display a favorable efficacy and safety profile, its market acceptance will only be known after it is launched. Our efforts to educate patients, the medical community, and third-party payors about our product candidates may require significant resources and may not be successful. Such efforts may require more resources than conventional methods used by our competitors.
General Business Risks
We may be subject to legal proceedings and litigation, which are costly to defend and could materially harm our business and results of operations.
We may be party to lawsuits and legal proceedings in the normal course of business. These matters are often expensive and disruptive to normal business operations. We may face allegations, lawsuits, and regulatory inquiries, audits, and investigations regarding data privacy, security, product liability, compliance with regulatory requirements, labor and employment, consumer protection, practice of medicine, and IP infringement, including claims related to privacy, patents, publicity, trademarks, copyrights, open-source software, and other rights. A portion of the technologies we use incorporates open-source software, and we may face claims claiming ownership of open-source software or patents related to that software, rights to our IP or breach of open-source license terms, including a demand to release material portions of our source code or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open-source license. We may also face allegations or litigation related to our acquisitions, securities issuances, or business practices, including public disclosures about our business. Litigation and regulatory proceedings, and particularly the healthcare regulatory and class action matters we could face, may be protracted and expensive, and the results are difficult to predict. Certain of these matters may include speculative claims for substantial or indeterminate amounts of damages and include claims for injunctive relief. Additionally, our litigation costs could be significant. Adverse outcomes with respect to litigation or any of these legal proceedings may result in significant settlement costs or judgments, penalties and fines, or require us to modify our activities or solution or require us to stop offering certain features, all of which could negatively impact our acquisition of customers and revenue growth. Litigation or other proceedings can also have an adverse impact on our therapeutic development program. We may also become subject to periodic audits, which could likely increase our regulatory compliance costs and may require us to change our business practices, which could negatively impact our revenue growth. Managing legal proceedings, litigation and audits, even if we achieve favorable outcomes, is time-consuming and diverts management’s attention from our business.
The results of regulatory proceedings, litigation, claims, and audits cannot be predicted with certainty, and determining reserves for pending litigation and other legal, regulatory and audit matters require significant judgment. There can be no assurance that our expectations will prove correct, and even if these matters are resolved in our favor or without significant cash settlements, these matters, and the time and resources necessary to litigate or resolve them, could harm our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our business and future operating results may be adversely affected by catastrophic or other events outside of our control.
We conduct our research and development in our facilities located in South San Francisco, California. Any damage to our facilities or the servers we rely on for our database would be costly and could require substantial lead-time to repair or replace. In addition, many of our employees work remotely and would be significantly impacted by any disruption to our servers. Our business and operating results may be harmed due to interruption of our research and development by events outside of our control, including earthquakes and fires. Other possible disruptions may include power loss and telecommunications failures. In the event of a prolonged disruption, we may lose customers and we may be unable to regain those customers thereafter. Our insurance may not be sufficient to cover all our potential losses and may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all.
We will need additional capital, and we cannot be sure that additional financing will be available on acceptable terms or at all.
As of March 31, 2023, our principal source of liquidity was cash and cash equivalents of $386.8 million, which was held for working capital purposes. Since our inception, we have generated significant operating losses as reflected in our accumulated deficit and negative cash flows from operations. We had an accumulated deficit of $1.5 billion as of March 31, 2023.
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Although we currently anticipate that our available funds and cash flows from operations will be sufficient to meet our near-term cash needs, we will require additional financing for our longer-term cash needs. Our ability to obtain financing may depend on, among other things, our development efforts, business plans, operating performance, and condition of the capital markets at the time we seek financing. We are seeking and expect to continue to seek additional funding through financings of equity, including with respect to our at-the-market equity program pursuant to the Sales Agreement with Cowen (as defined below). There is no assurance that additional financing will be available to us on favorable terms when required, or at all. If we raise additional funds through the issuance of equity, equity-linked, or debt securities, those securities may have rights, preferences, or privileges senior to the rights of Class A common stock, and our stockholders may experience dilution.
We depend on the continued services and performance of our highly qualified key personnel, and our business and research and development initiatives depend on our ability to attract and retain additional qualified personnel, including highly-skilled scientists and other specialized individuals. We may not be able to attract or retain qualified scientists and other specialized individuals in the future due to the competition for qualified personnel among life science and technology businesses.
We currently depend on the continued services and performance of our highly qualified key personnel, and, in particular, Anne Wojcicki, our Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. The loss of Ms. Wojcicki or other key personnel, including key members of management as well as our research, therapeutics, regulatory, product development, engineering, legal, finance, and other personnel, could disrupt our operations and may significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our business objectives. To retain our key personnel, we use various measures, including an equity incentive program for key executive officers and other employees. These measures may not be enough to retain the personnel we require to operate our business effectively. In addition, volatility in the price of our stock may adversely affect our ability to attract or retain our key personnel, as the fluctuating value of equity-based awards may limit their effectiveness as an employee incentive and retention tool.
The market for qualified personnel in our industry is intensely competitive. Inability to meet the ever-increasing expenses, including salaries, benefits, perks, and technology costs, of attracting and retaining talent may threaten our ability to provide the human resources needed to execute our growth strategy. Many of the companies with which we compete for a relatively limited pool of experienced personnel have greater resources than we have. An inability to attract, retain, and motivate additional highly skilled employees required for the planned expansion of our business could harm our results of operations and impair our ability to grow.
Specifically, our research and development initiatives and Therapeutics business depend on our ability to attract and retain highly-skilled scientists and other specialized individuals and competition for these resources is especially intense. We may not be able to attract or retain qualified scientists and other specialized individuals in the future due to the competition for qualified personnel among life science and technology businesses, particularly near our therapeutics laboratory facilities located in South San Francisco, California. We also face competition from universities and public and private research institutions in recruiting and retaining highly qualified scientific personnel. Recruiting, training and retention difficulties can limit our ability to support our research and development and commercialization efforts. All our employees are at-will, which means that either we or the employee may terminate their employment at any time. In addition, we rely on consultants, contractors, and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist it in formulating our research and development, regulatory and commercialization strategy. Our consultants and advisors may provide services to other organizations and may have commitments under consulting or advisory contracts with other entities that may limit their availability to us. The loss of the services of one or more of our current consultants or advisors could impede the achievement of our research, development, regulatory, and commercialization objectives.
Certain other areas of our operations require employing highly specialized individuals, which makes our recruiting efforts more challenging. If we do not succeed in attracting excellent personnel or retaining or motivating existing personnel, we may be unable to achieve our business objectives or grow effectively.
Economic uncertainty or downturns, particularly affecting the markets and industries in which we operate, and on discretionary consumer spending could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
In recent years, the United States and global economy has been volatile, and worldwide economic conditions remain uncertain. Economic uncertainty and associated macroeconomic conditions, including market volatility, inflation, and supply chain issues, make it extremely difficult for us, as well as for our collaborators, sales channel partners, and suppliers, to accurately forecast and plan future business activities. Supply chain issues could limit the ability of our affiliated pharmacies to purchase sufficient quantities of pharmaceutical products from suppliers, which could adversely affect our ability to fulfill patient orders.
In addition, global economic conditions and the effect of economic pressures on discretionary consumer spending could continue to have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Macroeconomic pressures in the U.S. and the global economy, such as rising interest rates, inflation, and recession fears may reduce discretionary spending. Specifically, economic uncertainty could cause our customers and patients to slow spending on our PGS and telehealth offerings. To the extent
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purchases of our PGS and telehealth offerings are perceived by customers and patients and potential customers and patients as discretionary, our revenue may be disproportionately affected by delays or reductions in Kit purchases and general healthcare spending. Also, competitors may respond to challenging market conditions by lowering prices and attempting to lure away our customers and patients.
If global economic and financial market conditions deteriorate, the following factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition:
Adverse developments affecting financial institutions, companies in the financial services industry, or the financial services industry generally, such as actual events or concerns involving liquidity, defaults, or non-performance, could adversely affect our operations and liquidity.
Actual events involving limited liquidity, defaults, non-performance, or other adverse developments that affect financial institutions or other companies in the financial services industry or the financial services industry generally, or concerns or rumors about any events of these kinds, have in the past and may in the future lead to market-wide liquidity problems. For example, on March 10, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank, (“SVB”), was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), as receiver. As of March 10, 2023, we did not hold any accounts at SVB and were thus not impacted by the closure.
Although a statement by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC stated that all depositors of SVB would have access to all of their money after only one business day following the date of closure and depositors with SVB received such access on March 13, 2023, uncertainty and liquidity concerns in the broader financial services industry remain. There is no guarantee that the U.S. Department of Treasury, FDIC, and Federal Reserve Board will provide access to uninsured funds in the future in the event of the closure of other banks or financial institutions in a timely fashion or at all.
We may enter new business areas, such as additional primary care services, including diagnostics/behavior modification, where we do not have any experience. If we were to enter new business areas, we would likely face competition from entities more familiar with those businesses, and our efforts may not succeed.
In the future, we may expand our operations into business areas, such as additional primary care services, including diagnostics/behavior modification, where we do not have any experience. These areas would be new to our product development and marketing personnel, and we cannot be assured that the markets for these products and services will develop or that we will be able to compete effectively or will generate significant revenues in these new areas making our success in this area difficult to predict. Many companies of all sizes, including major pharmaceutical companies, specialized biotechnology companies, and traditional healthcare providers, are engaged in redesigning approaches to medical care and diagnostic medicine. Competitors operating in these potential new business areas may have substantially greater financial and other resources, larger research and development staff, and more experience in these business areas. There can be no assurances that if we undertake new business areas, that the market will accept our offerings, or that such offerings will generate significant revenues for us.
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We may make acquisitions to expand our business, and if any of those acquisitions are unsuccessful, our business may be harmed.
We may choose to expand our current business through the acquisition of other businesses, products, or technologies, or through strategic alliances.
Acquisitions involve numerous risks, including the following:
Risks Related to Our Collaborations
Our Therapeutics business is substantially dependent on our collaboration with GSK for the development and commercialization of any drugs discovered during the “discovery term” of the GSK Agreement, and such term is set to expire in July 2023. If we, GSK and any future collaborators are unable to successfully complete clinical development, obtain regulatory approval for, or commercialize any drugs, or experience delays in doing so, our business may be materially harmed. We may engage and depend on other third parties for the development and commercialization of drugs and therapeutic programs discovered following the expiration of the GSK Agreement or outside its scope. If those collaborations are not successful, we may not be able to capitalize on our investment in our Therapeutic business.
In July 2018, we entered into a collaboration agreement with GSK focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of drugs that are identified utilizing our proprietary databases and data mining technologies (the “GSK Agreement”). Under the GSK Agreement, GSK is our exclusive collaborator for drug discovery programs for a four-year period, which was extended for a fifth year by GSK, pursuant to the terms of the GSK Agreement. Accordingly, the exclusive collaboration provisions of the GSK Agreement are set to expire in July 2023.
Under the GSK Agreement, we and GSK jointly research potential drug targets based on reports generated from our proprietary databases and using our proprietary data mining technologies. Once promising drug targets are identified through these joint efforts, we and GSK share equally in the costs of discovery, development, and commercialization of any resultant drugs. Both parties have the right to opt out or reduce their share of the funding upon the occurrence of certain specified development milestones, in which case such party would no longer be entitled to share equally in the results of a successful collaboration, but instead would receive certain royalty payments on sales of the resultant drugs, depending on the timing and extent to which such party has reduced its funding or opted out. If GSK were to exercise any of the rights described in the prior sentence, and we elected to continue development, we would be required to supply any necessary funding to continue the development of the applicable drug. In addition, if we were to opt out of a program, GSK has the right to unilaterally decide to terminate the program or fail to develop a drug product, in which case we would not receive any royalty payments. In addition, substantially all our research services revenue is derived from the required payments for research services under the GSK Agreement.
Our Therapeutics business has historically been substantially dependent on our collaboration with GSK for the development and commercialization of any drugs discovered during the discovery term of the GSK Agreement. When the discovery term of the GSK Agreement expires in July 2023, there can be no assurance that we will be able to generate research services revenue from other sources. If we are unable to successfully partner with future collaborators or develop drugs independently, our revenues, operating results, and our ability to fund and advance drug programs and conduct our Therapeutics business will be adversely affected.
We cannot provide any assurance with respect to the success of any research, development, or commercialization efforts pursuant to the GSK Agreement.
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Our current collaboration with GSK, and potential future collaborations involving drug development activities outside of the GSK Agreement, pose the following risks to us:
GSK and any other potential drug discovery collaborators will have significant discretion in determining when to make announcements, if any, about the status of our collaborations, including results from clinical trials, and timelines for advancing collaborative programs. As a consequence, the price of our Class A common stock may decline as a result of announcements of unexpected clinical trial results or data relative to our research and development programs.
Our drug discovery collaborators have significant discretion in determining when to make announcements about the status of our collaborations, including about preclinical and clinical developments and timelines for advancing the collaborative programs. While as a general matter we intend to periodically report on the status of our collaborations, our drug discovery collaborators, and in particular, our privately-held collaborators, may wish to report such information more or less frequently than we intend to or may not wish to report such information at all. The price of our Class A common stock may decline as a result of the public announcement of unexpected results or developments in our collaborations, or as a result of our collaborators withholding such information.
Following the expiration of the discovery term under the GSK Agreement in July 2023, we intend to establish other collaborations, and, if we are not able to obtain new collaboration partners, or to negotiate commercially reasonable terms, we may be required to modify our therapeutics development strategies and goals.
Our Therapeutics business and the potential commercialization of any drugs will require substantial additional cash to fund expenses. Following the expiration of the discovery term of the GSK Agreement in July 2023, we may decide to collaborate with other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for drug discovery, development, manufacture, and commercialization activities. These collaborations may not be successful, which would adversely impact our business and results of operations.
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Under the GSK Agreement, we have granted exclusive rights to GSK with respect to the identification, development, and commercialization of drugs until July 2023, subject to certain limited exceptions. During the discovery term of the GSK Agreement, we are restricted from granting similar rights to other parties. This exclusivity will continue to limit our ability to enter into strategic drug discovery collaborations with other third parties until July 2023. To the extent we seek additional collaboration opportunities after the expiration of the discovery term of the GSK Agreement in July 2023, we will face significant competition. Collaborations are complex and time-consuming to negotiate and document. In addition, there have been a significant number of business combinations among large pharmaceutical companies that have resulted in a reduced number of potential future collaborators. Whether we reach a definitive agreement for a collaboration will depend, among other things, upon our assessment of the collaborator’s resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and the proposed collaborator’s evaluation of a number of factors. We may not be able to negotiate collaborations on a timely basis, on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to successfully enter into collaborations in the future, we may have to curtail our drug discovery and development activities including reducing or delaying individual development programs, potential commercialization plans, or any sales or marketing activities for a drug. We may also have to increase our expenditures and undertake development or commercialization activities at our own expense. If we elect to increase our expenditures to fund development or commercialization activities on our own, we may need to obtain additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all. If we do not have sufficient funds, we may not be able to further develop our drugs or bring them to market and generate product revenue.
Our collaborators may not achieve projected discovery and development milestones and other anticipated key events in the expected timelines or at all, which could have an adverse impact on our business.
Our current drug discovery collaborators, from whom we are entitled to receive milestone payments upon achievement of various development, regulatory, and commercial milestones as well as royalties on commercial sales, if any, under the collaboration agreements that we have entered into with them, face numerous risks in the development of drugs, including the conduct of preclinical and clinical testing, obtaining regulatory approval, and achieving product sales. In addition, the amounts we are entitled to receive upon the achievement of such milestones tend to be smaller for near-term development milestones and increase if and as a collaborative drug advances through regulatory development to commercialization and will vary depending on the level of commercial success achieved, if any. We do not anticipate receiving significant milestone payments from many of our drug discovery collaborators for several years, if at all, and our drug discovery collaborators may never achieve milestones that result in significant cash payments to us. Accordingly, our business could be adversely affected if projected discovery and development milestones are not achieved.
Risks Related to Governmental Regulation
Our products and services are subject to extensive regulation by various U.S. federal and state agencies and equivalent foreign agencies and compliance with existing or future regulations could result in unanticipated sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm, expenses, or limit our ability to offer our products and services.
We have no prior experience in obtaining regulatory approval or commercializing a drug product. It is possible that the FDA and equivalent foreign agencies may reject any or all of our planned marketing applications for substantive review, or after reviewing our data, may conclude that our applications are insufficient to obtain regulatory approval for any of our drug product candidates. The FDA or equivalent foreign agencies may also mandate that we conduct additional clinical or manufacturing validation studies, which could be time-consuming and expensive, and require us to submit the data before reconsidering our applications. Depending on the scope of these or any other FDA-required or other studies, the approval of any marketing application we submit may be significantly delayed, potentially for years, or require us to allocate more resources than we have available or can acquire.
On November 22, 2013, we received a warning letter from the FDA to discontinue marketing our health-related genetic test in the U.S. until we received FDA marketing authorization for the device. We were allowed to continue to offer genetic ancestry services in the U.S.
In June 2014, we submitted a 510(k) seeking premarket clearance for our Bloom Syndrome carrier test. On February 19, 2015, FDA granted marketing authorization pursuant to its de novo review standard for our Bloom Syndrome carrier test. The FDA also determined that certain of our other similar autosomal recessive carrier reports were exempt moderate risk reports, which subject to special controls, could be marketed by us without further premarket review. In October 2015, we began marketing our new Personal Genome Service in the U.S., which includes detailed reports on carrier status, pursuant to our FDA authorization and exemption, as well as research reports and reports on wellness, traits and ancestry, which we believe do not require premarket authorization.
We continued to submit additional requests to the FDA seeking authorization to market certain Genetic Health Risk (“GHR”) reports. On April 6, 2017, the FDA granted marketing authorization pursuant to its de novo review standard for our GHR reports for ten disease conditions. The FDA also determined that certain of our other similar genetic health risk reports were exempt low-to-moderate
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risk reports, which subject to certain special controls, could be marketed by us without further premarket review. On March 6, 2018, the FDA granted marketing authorization pursuant to its de novo review standard for our Genetic Health Risk report for BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants). On January 22, 2019, we received FDA clearance for a Genetic Health Risk report for MUTYH-associated polyposis (MAP), a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome. On October 31, 2018, the FDA granted marketing authorization pursuant to its de novo review standard for our Pharmacogenetic reports, including our Pharmacogenetics report for CYP2C19. On August 17, 2020, the FDA granted a 510(k) clearance for our Pharmacogenetics report for CYP2C19, modifying the labeling of the report authorized in 2018 to remove the need for confirmatory testing, allowing us to report interpretive drug information for two medications. On January 10, 2022, the FDA granted a 510(k) clearance for our Genetic Health Risk report for Hereditary Prostate Cancer (HOXB13-Related).
We may be required to seek FDA-premarket review of other products and services, including reports that we do not currently believe require premarket authorization but could be subject to additional regulation including premarket review. In addition, it’s possible that new laws may be passed which seeks to regulate laboratory testing and to modernize FDA regulations of diagnostic products (see, for example, the Verifying Accurate Leading-edge IVCT Development Act of 2021 (the “VALID Act of 2021,” the “VALID Act” or the “Act”) which was not passed in the 117th U.S. Congress). These laws could result in additional regulatory burdens that could be costly and time-consuming. We and/or our finished device contract manufacturers may be inspected by the FDA which may result in the issuance of inspectional observations that suggest noncompliance with the FDCA and its implementing regulations (including the QSR). If the FDA determines that we and/or our finished device contract manufacturers are not in compliance with the FDCA, we may have to recall product and/or be subject to an FDA enforcement action. The process for resolving the inspectional observations and/or potential enforcement action could be costly and time-consuming.
Any product candidates for which we or our future collaborators receive marketing approval in the future could be subjected to post-approval restrictions or market withdrawal. We, and our future collaborators, may be liable to significant penalties if we, or they, fail to meet regulatory requirements or experience unforeseen problems with our products after receiving approval.
Any of our product candidates for which we, or our future collaborators, obtain marketing approval in the future, may face continuous requirements and reviews from regulatory authorities, including the FDA. These requirements include submission of post-marketing information and reports, registration and listing requirements, manufacturing requirements, quality control, quality assurance, and record-keeping requirements, and requirements for distribution of samples to physicians. The FDA may impose limitations on the indicated uses for which the product may be marketed, or on the conditions of approval, including the implementation of a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, which could include a restricted distribution system. The FDA may also require post-marketing studies or clinical trials to monitor the safety or efficacy of a product, which could be costly.
We currently are and, in the future, will be subject to a number of different FDA and regulatory authority requirements with respect to development stage drug product candidates and any products for which we may receive approval. Any previously unknown adverse events or problems with our products or their manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements before or after product approval, may have various consequences. These may include litigation involving patients taking our products, restrictions on products, manufacturers, or manufacturing processes, restrictions on labeling or marketing, restrictions on product distribution or use, requirements to conduct post-marketing studies or clinical trials, warning or untitled letters, as well as other enforcement and adverse actions, product withdrawal from the market, refusal to approve pending applications or supplements, product recall, fines, restitution or disgorgement of profits or revenues, suspension or withdrawal of marketing approvals, damage to relationships with potential collaborators, unfavorable press coverage and damage to our reputation, refusal to permit import or export of products, product seizure, or injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties, any one of which could materially harm our business.
We will face legal, reputational, and financial risks if we fail to protect our customer data from security breaches or cyberattacks. Changes in laws or regulations relating to privacy or the protection or transfer of data relating to individuals, or any actual or perceived failure by us to comply with such laws and regulations or any other obligations relating to privacy or the protection or transfer of data relating to individuals, could adversely affect our business.
We receive and store a large volume of personally identifiable information (“PII”), genetic and health information, and other data relating to our customers and patients, as well as other PII and other data relating to individuals such as our employees. Security breaches, employee malfeasance, or human or technological error could lead to potential unauthorized disclosure of our customers’ and patients’ personal information. Even the perception that the privacy of personal information is not satisfactorily protected or does not meet regulatory requirements could inhibit sales of our solutions and any failure to comply with such laws and regulations could lead to significant fines, penalties or other liabilities.
Increased global IT security threats and more sophisticated and targeted computer crime pose a risk to the security of our systems and networks and the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of our data. There have been several recent, highly publicized cases in which organizations of various types and sizes have reported the unauthorized disclosure of customer or other confidential information, as well as cyberattacks involving the dissemination, theft, and destruction of corporate information, IP, cash, or other valuable assets.
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There have also been several highly publicized cases in which hackers have requested “ransom” payments in exchange for not disclosing customer or other confidential information or for not disabling the target company’s computer or other systems. A security breach or privacy violation that leads to unauthorized disclosure or loss of unauthorized use or modification of, or that prevents access to or otherwise impacts the confidentiality, security, or integrity of, sensitive, confidential, or proprietary information we or our third-party service providers maintain or otherwise process, could require us to comply with breach notification laws, and cause us to incur significant costs for remediation, fines, penalties, notification to individuals, media and governmental authorities, implementation of measures intended to repair or replace systems or technology, and to prevent future occurrences, potential increases in insurance premiums, and forensic security audits or investigations. Additionally, a security compromise of our information systems or of those of businesses with whom we interact that results in confidential information being accessed by unauthorized or improper persons could harm our reputation and expose us to customer and patient attrition, and claims brought by our customers, patients, or others for breaching contractual confidentiality and security provisions or data protection laws. Significant monetary damages imposed on us could be significant and not covered by our liability insurance. As a result, a security breach or privacy violation could result in increased costs or loss of revenue.
Techniques used by bad actors to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems evolve frequently and may not immediately produce signs of intrusion, and we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures.
We believe that, because of our operating processes, we are not a covered entity or a business associate under HIPAA, which establishes a set of national privacy and security standards for the protection of protected health information by health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and certain healthcare providers, referred to as covered entities, and the business associates with whom such covered entities contract for services. However, if the laws change, or to the extent we begin engaging in certain electronic transactions in connection with accepting payment from third parties or insurance providers in our telehealth business generally, we may become subject to HIPAA and could face penalties and fines if we fail to comply with applicable requirements of HIPAA and its implementing regulations. Regardless of whether or not we meet the definition of a covered entity or business associate under HIPAA, we voluntarily adhere to certain HIPAA-related requirements.
We have developed and maintain policies and procedures with respect to health information and personal information that we use or disclose in connection with our operations, including the adoption of administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the privacy and security of such information. As our business operations continue to develop, including through the launch of new product offerings or the development of new services, we may collect additional sensitive health and personal information from our customers and patients that could create additional compliance obligations and may increase our exposure to compliance and regulatory risks regarding the protection, use and dissemination of such information.
In addition to HIPAA, numerous other local, municipal, state, federal, and international laws and regulations address privacy and the collection, storing, sharing, use, disclosure, and protection of certain types of data, including the California Online Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, or the TCPA, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (“the CCPA”). Privacy laws similar to the CCPA have been passed in Virginia, Colorado, Utah and Connecticut, all of which will be effective by the end of 2023. These laws, rules, and regulations evolve frequently, and their scope may continually change, through new legislation, amendments to existing legislation, and changes in enforcement, and may be inconsistent from one jurisdiction to another. For example, the CCPA, which went into effect on January 1, 2020, among other things, requires new disclosures to California consumers and affords such consumers new abilities to opt out of certain sales of personal information. The CCPA provides for fines of up to $7,500 per violation. Aspects of the CCPA and its interpretation and enforcement remain uncertain. The effects of this legislation are potentially far-reaching and may require us to modify our data processing practices and policies and incur substantial compliance-related costs and expenses. Additionally, many laws and regulations relating to privacy and the collection, storing, sharing, use, disclosure, and protection of certain types of data are subject to varying degrees of enforcement and new and changing interpretations by courts. The CCPA and other changes in laws or regulations relating to privacy, data protection, breach notifications, and information security, particularly any new or modified laws or regulations, or changes to the interpretation or enforcement of such laws or regulations, that require enhanced protection of certain types of data or new obligations with regard to data retention, transfer, or disclosure, could greatly increase the cost of providing our platform, require significant changes to our operations, or even prevent us from providing our platform in jurisdictions in which we currently operate and in which we may operate in the future.
We also are required to comply with increasingly complex and changing data security and privacy regulations in the U.K., the EU and in other jurisdictions in which we conduct business that regulate the collection, use and transfer of personal data, including the transfer of personal data between or among countries. For example, the European Union’s GDPR, now also enacted in the U.K. (“U.K. GDPR”), has imposed stringent compliance obligations regarding the handling of personal data and has resulted in the issuance of significant financial penalties for noncompliance. Further, in July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union released a decision in the Schrems II case (Data Protection Commission v. Facebook Ireland, Schrems), declaring the EU-US Privacy Shield invalid and
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calling into question data transfers carried out under the old versions of the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. As a result of the decision, we may face additional scrutiny from EU regulators in relation to the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US. Noncompliance with the GDPR can trigger fines of up to the greater of €20 million or 4% of global annual revenues. Since 2021, laws specific to genetic testing companies have passed in California, Utah, Arizona, Maryland, Kentucky, and Wyoming and legislation has been proposed in other states. Other countries have enacted or are considering enacting data localization laws that require certain data to stay within their borders. We may also face audits or investigations by one or more domestic or foreign government agencies or our customers or patients pursuant to our contractual obligations relating to our compliance with these regulations. Complying with changing regulatory requirements requires us to incur substantial costs, exposes us to potential regulatory action or litigation, and may require changes to our business practices in certain jurisdictions, any of which could materially adversely affect our business operations and operating results.
Despite our efforts to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other obligations relating to privacy, data protection, and information security, it is possible that our interpretations of the law, practices, or platform could be inconsistent with, or fail or be alleged to fail to meet all requirements of, such laws, regulations, or obligations. Our failure, or the failure by our third-party providers on our platform, to comply with applicable laws or regulations or any other obligations relating to privacy, data protection, or information security, or any compromise of security that results in unauthorized access to, or use or release of PII or other data relating to our customers and patients, or other individuals, or the perception that any of the foregoing types of failure or compromise have occurred, could damage our reputation, discourage new and existing customers and patients from using our platform, or result in fines, investigations, or proceedings by governmental agencies and private claims and litigation, any of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Even if not subject to legal challenge, the perception of privacy concerns, whether or not valid, may harm our reputation and brand and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We plan to continue to expand operations abroad where we have limited operating experience and we may be subject to increased regulatory risks and local competition. If we are unsuccessful in efforts to expand internationally, our business may be harmed.
Regulations exist or are under consideration in countries outside the U.S., which limit or prevent the sale of direct-to-consumer genetic tests. Some countries, including Australia, require premarket review by their regulatory body similar to that required in the U.S. by FDA. Some countries, including Australia, Germany, France, and Switzerland require a physician prescription for genetic tests providing health information, thus limiting our offering in those countries to an ancestry-only test. Other countries require mandatory genetic counseling prior to genetic testing. These regulations limit the available market for our products and services and increase the costs associated with marketing the products and services where we are able to offer our products. Legal developments in the EU have created a range of new compliance obligations regarding transfers of personal data from the European Union to the U.S., including GDPR and U.K. GDPR, which applies to certain of our activities related to services that we offer or may offer to individuals located in the EU. Significant effort and expense will continue to be required to ensure compliance with the GDPR and U.K. GDPR, and could cause us to change our business practices. Moreover, requirements under the GDPR and U.K. GDPR may change periodically or may be modified by the EU/U.K. and/or national law. The GDPR and U.K. GDPR impose stringent compliance obligations regarding the handling of personal data and have resulted in the issuance of significant financial penalties for noncompliance, including possible fines of up to 4% of global annual turnover for the preceding financial year or €20 million/£17.5 million (whichever is higher) for the most serious violations.
The EU adopted the In Vitro Diagnostic Devices Regulation (IVDR) replacing the In Vitro Diagnostics Directive (IVDD) which increased the regulatory requirements applicable to IVDs in the EU and requires that in most cases we need to obtain pre-market approval from an independent certified notified body for our PGS health reports, which became subject to the IVDR as of May 25, 2022. We must also achieve and maintain International Standards Organization (ISO) certification of our Quality Management Systems. If we are not able to achieve or maintain regulatory compliance, we may not be permitted to market our health reports and/or may be subject to enforcement by EU Competent Authorities, bodies with authority to act on behalf of the government of the applicable EU Member State, or other nations which adopt IVDR standards, to ensure that the requirements of the IVDR or IVDD are met. On December 2, 2022, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a delay in the implementation of certain requirements of the IVDR due to a shortage of independent notified bodies to provide certification for the volume of products requiring it. The proposal will not be effective unless and until the European Parliament approves the measure.
Additionally, in September 2020 the United Kingdom Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) originally announced regulations requiring a new United Kingdom Conformity Assessed mark (“UKCA”) applicable to medical devices, including testing products and services like our PGS health reports, to be placed on the market beginning January 1, 2021 or for products already on the market, to be maintained on the market after June 30, 2023 which requires that a Declaration of Conformity be obtained based on technical files for all products to which the UKCA applies. Aspects of the UKCA took effect January 1, 2021 and require that medical devices be registered with MHRA. In addition to registration requirements, manufacturers of medical devices based outside of the U.K., including us, must designate a United Kingdom Responsible Person to maintain documents supporting the UKCA and
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Declaration of Conformity and respond to inquiries from MHRA. However, the planned June 30, 2023 deadline has now been delayed by twelve months to June 30, 2024. From July 2024, the transitional arrangements will apply for CE and UKCA marked devices placed on the Great Britain market. If we are not able to achieve or maintain regulatory compliance, we may not be permitted to market our health reports and/or may be subject to enforcement action by MHRA.
If we fail to comply with any of these regulations, we could become subject to enforcement actions or the imposition of significant monetary fines, other penalties, or claims, which could harm our operating results or our ability to conduct our business.
Government regulation of healthcare creates risks and challenges with respect to our compliance efforts and our business strategies, and if we fail to comply with applicable healthcare and other governmental regulations, we could face substantial penalties, our business, financial condition, and results of operations could be adversely affected, and we may be required to restructure our operations.
The healthcare industry is subject to changing political, economic, and regulatory influences that may affect our telehealth business. During the past several years, the healthcare industry has been subject to an increase in governmental regulation and subject to potential disruption due to legislative initiatives and government regulation, as well as judicial interpretations thereof. While these regulations may not directly impact us or our offerings in every instance, they will affect the healthcare industry as a whole and may impact patient use of our services. We currently accept payments only from our patients—not any third-party payors, such as government healthcare programs or health insurers. Because of this approach, we are not subject to many of the laws and regulations that impact many other participants in the healthcare industry.