UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, DC 20549

 

FORM 10-Q

 

(Mark One)

For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2016

OR

For the transition period from                      to                      .

Commission File No. 001-36276

 

ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

 

(415) 483-8800

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.     YES  ☑     NO  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Website, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).     YES  ☑   NO  ☐

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

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).     YES  ☐    NO  ☑

As of November 3, 2016, the registrant had 40,859,861 shares of common stock issued and outstanding.

 

 

 

 

 

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ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

FORM 10-Q FOR THE QUARTER ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2016

INDEX

 

 

 

 

 

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CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. We make such forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “target,” “will,” “would,” or the negative of these words, or other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:

Any forward-looking statements in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q reflect our current views with respect to future events or to our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, those discussed under Part II, Item 1A. Risk Factors and discussed elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, even if new information becomes available in the future.

This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q also contains estimates, projections, and other information concerning our industry, our business, and the markets for certain diseases, including data regarding the estimated size of those markets, and the incidence and prevalence of certain medical conditions. Information that is based on estimates, forecasts, projections, market research, or similar methodologies is inherently subject to uncertainties and actual events or circumstances may differ materially from events and circumstances reflected in this information. Unless otherwise expressly stated, we obtained this industry, business, market, and other data from reports, research surveys, studies, and similar data prepared by market research firms and other third parties, industry, medical and general publications, government data, and similar sources.

 

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PART I. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Item 1. Financial Statements

 

ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(Unaudited)

(In thousands, except share amounts)

 

See accompanying notes.

 

 

 

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ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(Unaudited)

(In thousands, except share and per share amounts)

 

 

See accompanying notes.

 

 

 

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ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE LOSS

(Unaudited)

(In thousands)

 

 

See accompanying notes.

 

 

 

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ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

(Unaudited)

(In thousands)

 

 

See accompanying notes.

 

 

 

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ULTRAGENYX PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements

 

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. (the Company) is a biopharmaceutical company and was incorporated in California on April 22, 2010. The Company subsequently reincorporated in the state of Delaware in June 2011.

The Company is focused on the identification, acquisition, development, and commercialization of novel products for the treatment of rare and ultra-rare diseases, with a focus on serious, debilitating genetic diseases. The Company is currently conducting a Phase 3 study of aceneuramic acid extended-release (Ace-ER) in patients with GNE myopathy, which is also known as hereditary inclusion body myopathy, a progressive muscle-wasting disorder; a Phase 3 study of recombinant human beta-glucuronidase (rhGUS) in patients with mucopolysaccharidosis 7 (MPS 7), a rare lysosomal storage disease; a Phase 2 clinical study for UX007 in patients with glucose transporter type-1 deficiency syndrome (Glut1 DS), a brain energy deficiency; a Phase 2 clinical study of UX007 in patients severely affected by long-chain fatty acid oxidation disorders (LC-FAOD), a genetic disorder in which the body is unable to convert long chain fatty acids into energy; and Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies of KRN23, an antibody targeting fibroblast growth factor 23, or FGF23, in patients with X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) and tumor-induced osteomalacia (TIO), both rare diseases that impair bone mineralization. The Company operates as one reportable segment.

     

Basis of Presentation

The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements include the amounts of the Company and our wholly-owned subsidiaries and have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for interim financial information and in accordance with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Rule 10-01 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by GAAP for complete financial statements. The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements have been prepared on the same basis as the annual financial statements. In the opinion of management, the accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements reflect all adjustments (consisting only of normal recurring adjustments) considered necessary for a fair presentation. These financial statements should be read in conjunction with the audited financial statements and notes thereto for the preceding fiscal year contained in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on February 26, 2016 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The results of operations for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for the year ending December 31, 2016. The condensed consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2015 has been derived from audited financial statements at that date, but does not include all of the information required by GAAP for complete financial statements.

Use of Estimates

The preparation of condensed consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, disclosure of contingent liabilities, and the reported amounts of expenses in the condensed consolidated financial statements and the accompanying notes. Management bases its estimates on historical experience and on various other market-specific and relevant assumptions that management believes to be reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results could differ from those estimates.

Revenue Recognition

The Company recognizes revenue when persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred, the price is fixed or determinable, and collectability is reasonably assured. Revenue is recognized once all revenue recognition criteria are met.

During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, the Company recognized revenue from sales of rhGUS (UX003) on a “named patient” basis which are allowed in certain European countries prior to the commercial approval of the product in the territory. Due to the Company’s limited sales and collection history to date, revenue has been recognized upon receipt of payment.

Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements

In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), which requires an entity that is a lessee to recognize the assets and liabilities arising from leases on its balance sheet. This guidance also requires disclosures about the amount, timing, and uncertainty of cash flows arising from leases. This guidance is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2018, and interim periods within those annual periods, using a modified retrospective approach, and early adoption is permitted. The Company is evaluating the effect that this guidance will have on its Consolidated Financial Statements and related disclosures.

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In March 2016, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update, or ASU, No. 2016-09, Compensation — Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting, which simplifies several aspects of the accounting for employee share-based payments, including income tax consequences, application of award forfeitures to expense, classification on the statement of cash flows, and classification of awards as either equity or liabilities. This guidance is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016, and interim periods within those annual periods. The Company is evaluating the effect that this guidance will have on its Consolidated Financial Statements and related disclosures.

In May 2014, the FASB, issued ASU 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606), to supersede nearly all existing revenue recognition guidance under GAAP. The core principle of ASU 2014-09 is to recognize revenues when promised goods or services are transferred to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration that is expected to be received for those goods or services. ASU 2014-09 defines a five-step process to achieve this core principle and, in doing so, it is possible more judgment and estimates may be required within the revenue recognition process than are required under existing GAAP, including identifying performance obligations in a contract, estimating the amount of variable consideration to include in the transaction price and allocating the transaction price to each separate performance obligation. In March, April, and May 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-08, Revenue from Contracts with Customers: Principal versus Agent Considerations, ASU 2016-10, Revenue from Contracts with Customers: Identifying Performance Obligations and Licensing, and ASU 2016-12, Revenue from Contracts with Customers: Narrow-Scope Improvements and Practical Expedients to provide supplemental adoption guidance and clarification to ASU 2014-09. The effective date for these new standards is the same as the effective date and transition requirements for ASU 2014-09. The Company expects to early adopt the new revenue standard as of January 1, 2017. The Company does not expect the adoption of the new revenue standard will have a material effect on the accounting for product sales. The Company is in the process of analyzing each of its collaboration agreements to determine the impact that ASU 2014-09 will have on its Consolidated Financial Statements and related disclosures.

 

3.Fair Value Measurements

Financial assets and liabilities are recorded at fair value. The carrying amount of certain financial instruments, including cash and cash equivalents, accounts payable, and accrued liabilities approximate fair value due to their relatively short maturities. Assets and liabilities recorded at fair value on a recurring basis in the condensed consolidated balance sheets are categorized based upon the level of judgment associated with the inputs used to measure their fair values. Fair value is defined as the exchange price that would be received for an asset or the exit price that would be paid to transfer a liability in the principal or most advantageous market for the asset or liability in an orderly transaction between market participants on the measurement date. The authoritative guidance on fair value measurements establishes a three-tier fair value hierarchy for disclosure of fair value measurements as follows:

Level 1—Inputs are unadjusted, quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or liabilities at the measurement date;

Level 2—Inputs are observable, unadjusted quoted prices in active markets for similar assets or liabilities, unadjusted quoted prices for identical or similar assets or liabilities in markets that are not active, or other inputs that are observable or can be corroborated by observable market data for substantially the full term of the related assets or liabilities; and

Level 3—Unobservable inputs that are significant to the measurement of the fair value of the assets or liabilities that are supported by little or no market data.

The following tables set forth the fair value of the Company’s financial assets remeasured on a recurring basis based on the three-tier fair value hierarchy (in thousands):

 

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Cash Equivalents and Investments

The fair values of cash equivalents, short-term investments, and long-term investments classified as available-for-sale securities, consisted of the following (in thousands):

 

 

 

 

At September 30, 2016, the remaining contractual maturities of available-for-sale securities were less than two years. There have been no significant realized gains or losses on available-for-sale securities for the periods presented.

Accrued Liabilities

Accrued liabilities consist of the following (in thousands):

 

 

 

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Kyowa Hakko Kirin Collaboration and License Agreement

In August 2013, the Company entered into a collaboration and license agreement with Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd. (KHK), which was amended in August 2015. Under the terms of this collaboration and license agreement, the Company and KHK will collaborate on the development and commercialization of certain products containing KRN23, an antibody directed towards FGF23, in the field of orphan diseases in the United States and Canada, or the profit share territory, and in the European Union, Switzerland, and Turkey, or the European territory, and the Company will have the right to develop and commercialize such products in the field of orphan diseases in Mexico and Central and South America, or Latin America. In the field of orphan diseases, and except for ongoing studies being conducted by KHK, the Company will be the lead party for development activities in the profit share territory and in the European territory until the applicable transition date; the Company will also be the lead party for core development activities conducted in Japan and Korea, provided that the core development plan related to Japan and Korea shall be limited to clinical trials mutually agreed to by the Company and KHK. The Company will share the costs for development activities in the profit share territory and the European territory conducted pursuant to the development plan before the applicable transition date equally with KHK, and KHK shall be responsible for 100% of the costs for development activities in Japan and Korea. On the applicable transition date in the profit share territory and the European territory, KHK will become the lead party and be responsible for the costs of the development activities. However, the Company will continue to share the costs of the studies commenced prior to the applicable transition date equally with KHK. The Company has the primary responsibility for conducting certain research and development services. The Company is obligated to provide assistance in accordance with the agreed upon development plan as well as participate on various committees. If KRN23 is approved, the Company and KHK will share commercial responsibilities and profits in the profit share territory until the applicable transition date, KHK will commercialize KRN23 in the European territory, and the Company will develop and commercialize KRN23 in Latin America. KHK will manufacture and supply KRN23 for clinical use globally and will manufacture and supply KRN23 for commercial use in the profit share territory and Latin America.

The Company is accounting for the agreement as a collaboration arrangement as defined in ASC 808, Collaborative Agreements. The Company’s expenses were reduced by $7.2 million and $3.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, and $18.2 million and $7.1 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively, for its share of the costs as research and development. As of September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, the Company had receivables in the amount of $7.2 million and $3.8 million, respectively, for this collaboration arrangement.

Takeda License and Collaboration and Purchase Agreements

In June 2016, the Company executed a collaboration and license agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Takeda). Pursuant to the agreement, which became effective in July 2016, the Company obtained an exclusive license for a pre-clinical compound from Takeda in a pre-determined field of use, which includes an option to an additional field of use for this product with the terms to be negotiated, and an option to a specified product candidate (identified option product). The Company is responsible for the development costs for the pre-clinical compound and the identified option product pursuant to an initial development plan. Because the license to the pre-clinical compound has no alternative future use, the estimated fair value of $0.7 million was recorded as a research and development expense upon acquisition. Under the license for the pre-clinical compound, the Company may be required to make future milestone payments to Takeda of up to $7.5 million if certain development milestones are met, $75.0 million if certain regulatory milestones are met, and $150.0 million if certain commercial milestones are met, as well as royalties with respect to net sales in the high-single digits to low-teens. Any products resulting from the pre-clinical compound or the identified option product is referred to in this report as the “licensed product.”

As part of the agreement, the Company and Takeda established a five-year research collaboration whereby the parties may mutually agree to add additional option products candidates to the collaboration, in which case the Company will bear the cost of the development activities, with certain exceptions.  

In July 2016, the Company consummated a common stock purchase agreement, executed in conjunction with the collaboration and license agreement, whereby Takeda purchased 374,590 shares of the Company’s common stock for $40.0 million in cash. The fair market value of the common stock issued to Takeda was $27.3 million, based on the closing stock price of $72.95 on the date of issuance, resulting in a $12.7 million premium paid to the Company. The Company also received a put option to require Takeda to purchase an additional $25.0 million in shares of the Company’s common stock at the then-current 30-day volume-weighted average price (VWAP). The Company also received a second put option, which is contingent upon meeting certain development milestones on the identified option product, to require Takeda to purchase an additional $10.0 million in shares of the Company’s common stock at the then-current 30-day VWAP. Takeda is subject to a 180-day lock-up provision as a result of the initial purchase of common stock, is subject to a five-year standstill (subject to customary exceptions or release), and has registration rights for purchases of common stock. The Company estimated the fair value of the put options to be $0.9 million and recorded the put options in additional paid-in capital. The value of the put options was estimated as of the effective date of the agreement using Level 3 unobservable inputs. The valuation was performed using a Monte Carlo simulation approach using the term of the put options and an equity volatility of approximately 70%.

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The Company also granted Takeda an exclusive option for Asian rights, for a limited period, to any licensed products and any additional products resulting from the collaboration, as well as an option to exclusively license one of the Company’s products for development and commercialization in Japan. If Takeda exercises any of its option rights to license a product pursuant to the agreement, Takeda will pay for the development costs within the licensed territory, will share in a portion of the global development costs, and will make a milestone payment upon regulatory approval. Takeda will also owe royalties on net sales in the licensed territory for any licensed product, depending on the development stage when the product is licensed as well as sales levels. The royalties related to the option to license the Company’s product, as well as the additional product are subject to future good faith negotiations at the time that the option is exercised.

The research and license agreement and the stock purchase agreement are being accounted for as one arrangement because they were entered into at the same time. The arrangements were evaluated pursuant to ASC 605-25, Multiple-Element Arrangements because the agreements contain multiple elements and deliverables. The Company concluded that there are multiple deliverables under the collaboration agreement, including deliverables related to research and development services with respect to licensed products as well as committee participation, which were determined to represent separate units of accounting. The total arrangement consideration received from Takeda is $14.3 million and consists of the $12.7 million premium on the sale of the common stock, the $0.9 million estimated fair value of the put options, and the $0.7 million estimated fair value of the pre-clinical compound. The Company is responsible for the costs under the initial development plan, which is expected to be performed over a period of approximately one and a half years. A significant portion of this work is expected to be performed by Takeda which has an estimated cost of approximately $10.0 million to $13.0 million. The total amount of funding to be returned to Takeda for the development work is uncertain as of September 30, 2016. The total arrangement consideration of $14.3 million will be recorded as a monetary liability until the total amount of the repayment obligation is determinable. Once the repayment obligation to Takeda is determinable, then any excess of the total arrangement consideration over the repayment obligation to Takeda, if any, will be classified as deferred revenue, allocated to the deliverables on a relative fair value basis, and subsequently will be recognized as collaboration revenue as the underlying services are performed. Costs incurred by the Company associated with co-development activities performed under this collaboration are included in research and development expense in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations. As of September 30, 2016 the Company had a monetary liability in the amount of $14.3 million for this collaboration arrangement. The Company recognized $0.3 million for its portion of the research and development expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2016.

In October 2016, the Company exercised its first put option whereby Takeda received 352,530 shares of the Company’s common stock for $25.0 million in cash.

 

2014 Incentive Plan

In 2014, the Company adopted the 2014 Incentive Plan (the 2014 Plan), which became effective upon the closing of the Company’s IPO in February 2014. The 2014 Plan provides for automatic annual increases in shares available for grant, beginning on January 1, 2015 through January 1, 2024. As of September 30, 2016, there were 1,047,754 shares reserved under the 2014 Plan for the future issuance of equity awards. The Company also had 1,380,922 shares reserved for the 2014 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, for which no shares had been issued.

Stock-Based Compensation Expense

The table below sets forth the functional classification of stock-based compensation expense, net of estimated forfeitures, for the periods presented (in thousands):

 

 

Basic net loss per share has been computed by dividing the net loss by the weighted-average number of shares of common stock outstanding during the period. Diluted net loss per share is calculated by dividing net loss by the weighted-average number of shares of common stock and potential dilutive securities outstanding during the period.

 

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The following weighted-average outstanding common stock equivalents were excluded from the computation of diluted net loss per share for the periods presented because including them would have been antidilutive:

 

 

In July 2016, the Company entered into an At-The-Market, or ATM, sales agreement, with Cowen and Company, LLC (Cowen), whereby the Company may sell up to $150.0 million in aggregate proceeds of common stock from time to time, through Cowen as our sales agent. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016, the Company sold 497,815 shares of common stock, resulting in net proceeds of approximately $33.7 million, after commissions and other offering costs.

During the period of October 1, 2016 through November 7, 2016, the Company sold an additional 398,385 shares of common stock, resulting in net proceeds of approximately $26.0 million, after commissions and other offering costs.

 

 

 

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Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF

FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements and related notes in Item 1 and with the audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015.

Overview

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the identification, acquisition, development, and commercialization of novel products for the treatment of serious rare and ultra-rare diseases, with a focus on serious, debilitating genetic diseases. We target diseases for which the unmet medical need is high, the biology for treatment is clear, and for which there are no currently approved therapies. Since our inception in 2010, we have in-licensed potential treatments for multiple rare genetic disorders. Our strategy, which is predicated upon time- and cost-efficient drug development, allows us to pursue multiple programs in parallel with the goal of delivering safe and effective therapies to patients with the utmost urgency.

Our current clinical-stage pipeline consists of two product categories: biologics (including a monoclonal antibody and an enzyme replacement therapy); and small-molecule substrate replacement therapies. Enzymes are proteins that the body uses to process materials needed for normal cellular function, and substrates are the materials upon which enzymes act. When enzymes or substrates are missing, the body is unable to perform its normal cellular functions, often leading to significant clinical disease. Several of our therapies are intended to replace deficient enzymes or substrates.

Our biologics pipeline includes the following product candidates in clinical development for the treatment of three diseases:

Our substrate replacement therapy pipeline includes the following product candidates in clinical development for the treatment of three diseases:

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Clinical Product Candidates

The following table summarizes our current clinical-stage product candidate pipeline:

 

KRN23 (UX023) for the treatment of XLH

KRN23 is a fully human monoclonal antibody administered via subcutaneous injection that is designed to bind and reduce the biological activity of FGF23 to increase abnormally low phosphate levels in patients with XLH. Patients with XLH have low serum phosphate levels due to excessive phosphate loss into the urine, which is directly caused by the effect on kidney function of excess FGF23 production in bone cells. Low phosphate levels lead to poor bone mineralization and a variety of clinical manifestations, including rickets, leading to bowing and other skeletal deformities, short stature, bone pain and fractures, and muscle weakness. There is no approved drug therapy or treatment for the underlying cause of XLH. Most patients are managed using frequently dosed oral phosphate replacement and vitamin D therapy, which can lead to significant side effects. Oral phosphate/vitamin D replacement therapy requires extremely close monitoring due to the potential for excessive phosphate levels and secondary increases in calcium, which can result in severe damage to the kidneys from excess calcium phosphate deposits and other complications. Additionally, some patients are unable to tolerate the regimen due to the chalky stool that results from taking large amounts of oral phosphate or the high frequency of dosing required. The FDA has granted Fast Track Designation to the KRN23 program for the treatment of XLH, and Breakthrough Therapy Designation for pediatric patients one year of age or older.

In August 2013, we entered into a collaboration agreement with KHK, as amended in August 2015, to jointly develop and commercialize KRN23. KHK has conducted one Phase 1 study, one Phase 1/2 study, and one longer-term Phase 1/2 study of KRN23 in adults with XLH. Results from a four-month Phase 1/2 study in 28 adult XLH patients and a subsequent twelve-month Phase 1/2 study of KRN23 in 22 patients were presented at the 2014 ICE/ENDO joint meeting of The Endocrine Society and the International Congress on Endocrinology in June 2014 and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) Annual Meeting in September 2014, respectively.

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In July 2014, we announced the first patient screened and enrolled in the Phase 2 pediatric study of KRN23 in patients ages 5 to 12 years with XLH. The study consists of a 16-week individual dose-titration period followed by a 48-week treatment period, for a total of 64 weeks. Patients were divided into three cohorts of escalating starting dose levels of KRN23, and were dosed either once every four week or biweekly. At the end of the 16-week dose-titration period, patients were allowed to continue to receive dose increases in order to reach the individually optimized dose of KRN23 on a biweekly or every four-week basis for the 48-week treatment period. In late 2014, we completed enrollment of 36 patients. Based on positive 16-week data, we decided to enroll an additional 16 patient cohort with patients who had more severe disease at baseline (based on their Thacher Rickets Severity Scoring System (RSS) knee score >1.5). Patients for the Phase 2 study were enrolled at nine global centers of excellence in XLH. The primary objectives of the study are to identify a dose and dosing regimen and to establish the safety profile of treatment with KRN23 in pediatric XLH patients. We are also assessing preliminary clinical effects of KRN23 treatment on bone health and deformity as measured by radiographic assessments, growth, muscle strength, and motor function, as well as markers of bone health and patient-reported outcomes of pain, disability, and quality of life.

In September 2016, we released interim data through 64 weeks for the first 36 patients enrolled in the study, and 40 week-data for all 52 patients in the study. Forty nine of the 52 patients had previously been on standard of care (oral phosphate/active vitamin D therapy) for an average of 6.7 years. Patient demographics were well balanced between the biweekly (n=26) and every four-week (n=26) dose groups. Rickets were evaluated via two scoring systems – the RSS and the Radiographic Global Impression of Change (RGI-C). A subset of patients (n=34; 17 dosed biweekly and 17 dosed every four weeks) were pre-specified as having higher rickets severity (greater bone disease) if their baseline total RSS scores were > 1.5.

Overall, in all patients (n=52), the mean total RSS score decreased by 50% from baseline to 40 weeks (p<0.0001). In patients with higher baseline rickets (n=34), the mean total rickets score decreased by 61% from baseline to 40 weeks (p<0.0001). In patients who were dosed bi-weekly (n=26), the mean total RSS score decreased by 61% from baseline to 40 weeks (p<0.0001). In the higher severity patients who were dosed bi-weekly (n=17), the mean total rickets score decreased by 71% from baseline to 40 weeks (p<0.0001). In all patients who have reached 64 weeks of treatment (n=36), the mean total RSS score decreased by 38% (p<0.0001). In patients with higher baseline rickets who have reached 64 weeks of treatment (n=18), the mean total rickets score decreased by 51% (p<0.0001). In patients who were dosed bi-weekly and have reached 64 weeks of treatment (n=18), the mean total RSS score decreased by 51% (p<0.0001). In the higher severity patients who were dosed bi-weekly and have reached 64 weeks of treatment (n=17), the mean total rickets score decreased by 57% (p<0.0001).

Overall, patients (n=52) experienced a mean improvement in RGI-C score of +1.56 (p<0.0001), and those patients with higher baseline rickets (n=34) experienced a mean improvement of +1.91 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 40 weeks. Patients who were dosed bi-weekly (n=26) experienced a mean improvement in RGI-C score of +1.72 (p<0.0001), and those patients with higher baseline rickets (n=17) experienced a mean improvement of +2.04 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 40 weeks. Patients who have completed 64 weeks of treatment (n=36) experienced a mean improvement in RGI-C score of +1.35(p<0.0001), and those patients with higher baseline rickets (n=18) experienced a mean improvement of +1.91 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 64 weeks. Patients who were dosed bi-weekly (n=18) experienced a mean improvement in RGI-C score of +1.35 (p<0.0001), and those patients with higher baseline rickets (n=9) experienced a mean improvement of +1.96 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 64 weeks. Substantial healing (RGI-C score > 2) was observed in all but one patient with higher baseline rickets who received bi-weekly dosing.

Overall, patients (n=52) experienced a mean improvement in growth velocity of +0.68 (p=0.0321) and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.13 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 40 weeks. Those patients with higher baseline rickets (n=34) experienced a mean improvement in growth velocity of +1.23 (p=0.0046) and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.18 (p=0.0003) from baseline to 40 weeks. Patients who were dosed bi-weekly (n=26) experienced a mean improvement in growth velocity of +0.96 (p=0.0088) and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.17 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 40 weeks. Those patients with higher baseline rickets who were dosed bi-weekly (n=17) experienced a mean improvement of +1.69 (p<0.0001) in growth velocity and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.22 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 40 weeks. Patients who have completed 64 weeks of treatment (n=36) experienced a mean improvement in growth velocity of +0.27 (N.S.) and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.16 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 64 weeks. Those patients with higher baseline rickets (n=18) experienced a mean improvement in growth velocity of +0.58 (p=0.023) and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.19 (p=0.0002) from baseline to 64 weeks. Patients who were dosed bi-weekly (n=18) experienced a mean improvement in growth velocity of +0.35 (N.S.) and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.21 (p<0.0001) from baseline to 64 weeks. Those patients with higher baseline rickets who were dosed bi-weekly (n=9) experienced a mean improvement of +0.74 (p=0.0173) in growth velocity and a mean improvement in height z-score of 0.21 (p=0.0056) from baseline to 64 weeks.

Patients with walking impairment at baseline (defined by < 80% predicted normal walk distance in the six minute walk test, or 6MWT) in the bi-weekly dosing group achieved a mean increase of 84 meters (p<0.001) at 40 weeks (n=14), and 97 meters (p<0.001) at 64 weeks (n=7). Functional disability scores were measured with the Pediatric Orthopedic Society North America/Pediatric Outcome Data Collection Instrument (POSNA/PODCI). When evaluating the Global score of all five domains in those patients with substantial impairment at baseline (n=28, defined as baseline scores < 40 or one standard deviation below the normalized score of 50), a mean improvement of +17.5 (p< 0.0001) was observed at 40 weeks. Though the magnitude of these changes in functional measurements are substantial, any conclusions must be tempered by the fact that these data are from an uncontrolled, open-label study.

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The most common treatment-related adverse events reported by preferred term was injection site reaction in 33% of patients. All of these reactions were considered mild. All other treatment-related adverse events were also considered mild. There was one serious adverse event considered possibly treatment-related. This was a previously reported patient with fever and muscle pain who improved without complication and is still in the trial. There have been no deaths or discontinuations from the study for any reason. No clinically meaningful changes were observed in mean serum calcium, urinary calcium and in serum intact parathyroid hormone. None of the patients had serum phosphorus levels above the upper limit of normal at any time point. No clinically significant changes were observed in renal ultrasounds pre- and post-treatment.

In October 2016, we initiated a Phase 3 randomized open-label clinical study comparing the efficacy and safety of KRN23 to oral phosphate and active vitamin D therapy in approximately 60 pediatric patients with XLH. The study will evaluate changes in rickets, growth velocity and height, pharmacodynamic assessments, walking ability, patient reported outcomes assessing pain, fatigue and physical function, and safety.  

We are also continuing to develop KRN23 in adults with XLH. In September 2016, we announced interim 24-week results (n=20) from the open-label Phase 2b extension study of KRN23 in adult XLH patients who had previously participated in the studies conducted by KHK. Patients demonstrated significant improvements in serum phosphorus levels and pain, stiffness and physical function domain scores at 24 weeks of treatment. The safety profile observed to date in the study is consistent with other XLH studies. In July 2016, we completed enrollment of 134 patients in a Phase 3 study of KRN23 for the treatment of adults with XLH. The Phase 3 study is an international, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study assessing the efficacy and safety of monthly KRN23 in adult XLH patients. The primary endpoint of the study is serum phosphorus levels through 24 weeks, and the key secondary endpoint is the Brief Pain Inventory Question 3 (pain at its worst in the last 24 hours) at Week 24. Other secondary endpoints include patient reported outcomes assessing skeletal pain, stiffness, fatigue, motor function, and quality of life in these patients. A 48-week open-label bone quality study in approximately 14 adult XLH patients evaluating the potential impact of KRN23 on the underlying osteomalacia via bone biopsy is currently enrolling patients.

We and our partner, KHK, plan to file for conditional marketing authorization in the European Union near the end of 2016 based on the Phase 2 data. We plan to submit a biologics license application (BLA) to the FDA for KRN23 in the second half of 2017, which is earlier than previously expected. Based on discussions with the FDA, our understanding is that the pediatric Phase 3 study is currently not expected to be required for a U.S. filing. The Company continues to discuss the details of the planned submission with FDA.

KRN23 (UX023) for the treatment of TIO

We are also developing KRN23 for the treatment of TIO. TIO results from typically benign tumors that produce excess levels of FGF23, which can lead to severe hypophosphatemia, osteomalacia, bone fractures, fatigue, bone and muscle pain, and muscle weakness. There are cases in which resection of the tumor is not feasible or recurrence of the tumor occurs after resection. In patients for whom the tumor is inoperable, the current standard of care consists of oral phosphate and/or vitamin D replacement. The efficacy of this treatment is often limited, as it does not treat the underlying disease and its benefits must be balanced with monitoring for potential risks such as nephrocalcinosis, hypercalciuria, and hyperparathyroidism.

This Phase 2 study is evaluating KRN23 safety and efficacy in 17 adult inoperable patients. The primary objectives of the study are to establish the dose and assess the safety profile of treatment with KRN23 in adults with TIO. Patients receive subcutaneous injections of KRN23 once every four weeks for 48 weeks. All patients begin treatment with KRN23 at a starting dose of 0.3 mg/kg. Doses are then titrated in an effort to achieve a target fasting serum phosphorus range of 2.5 to 4.0 mg/dL. After completing the initial 48-week treatment period of the study, patients may continue into a planned treatment extension period in which they would receive KRN23 treatment for up to an additional 96 weeks. The co-primary endpoints include: the proportion of patients achieving mean peak serum phosphorus levels above the lower limit of normal (LLN; 2.5 mg/dL), as averaged between baseline and week 24; and the percent change from baseline in excess osteoid after 48 weeks of treatment.

In September 2016, we released 24-week interim data from the first eight patients in this study. Mean serum phosphorus, renal phosphate reabsorption (TmP/GFR) and serum 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D levels increased over 24 weeks of treatment. The mean serum phosphorus level entered the normal range (above 2.5mg/dL Lower limit of normal) within one week of treatment, and was maintained in the low normal range from week 10 to week 24 of treatment. Of the seven patients who responded, six patients showed an improvement in bone mineral density, and bone turnover markers showed a statistically significant increase. One patient completed 48 weeks of treatment, at which time bone biopsy indicated an improvement from severe osteomalacia at baseline to mild osteomalacia at 48 weeks. The same patient showed resolution of four fractures at 24 weeks of treatment, determined by bone scan as previously disclosed. Bone mineral density for this patient improved 2% and 3% in the lumber spine and total hip, respectively. Adverse events occurred in all patients. Treatment-related adverse events were observed in three patients (38%), and included Vitamin D deficiency and rash as previously disclosed, and dysgeusia, all mild in grade. There was one serious adverse event of neoplasm progression, which occurred in one patient with pre-existing metastatic spindle sarcoma who did not respond and has discontinued treatment. No injection site reactions were observed. Two patients reported restless leg syndrome, one of whom had symptoms suggestive of worsening pre-existing restless leg syndrome. No clinically meaningful changes were observed in mean serum calcium, urinary calcium and in serum intact parathyroid hormone. Bone biopsy and bone scan data for additional patients will be available at a later date.

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rhGUS (UX003) for the treatment of MPS 7

rhGUS is an intravenous, or IV, enzyme replacement therapy for the treatment of MPS 7, also known as Sly Syndrome. Patients with MPS 7 suffer from severe cellular and organ dysfunction that typically leads to death in the teens or early adulthood. MPS 7 is caused by a deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme beta-glucuronidase, which is required for the breakdown of certain complex carbohydrates known as glycosaminoglycans, or GAGs. The inability to properly break down GAGs leads to their accumulation in many tissues, resulting in a serious multi-system disease. Patients with MPS 7 may have abnormal coarsened facial features, enlargement of the liver and spleen, airway obstruction, lung disease, cardiovascular complications, joint stiffness, short stature, and a skeletal disease known as dysostosis multiplex. In addition, many patients experience progressive lung problems as a result of airway obstruction and mucous production, often leading to sleep apnea and pulmonary insufficiency, and eventually requiring tracheostomy. There are currently no approved drug therapies for MPS 7.

We licensed exclusive worldwide rights to rhGUS-related know-how and cell lines from Saint Louis University in November 2010. We have conducted preclinical studies to support the chronic IV administration of rhGUS. Administration of rhGUS resulted in substantial distribution of enzyme, as well as reduction in tissue pathology in a wide variety of tissues, including the liver, spleen, lung, heart, kidney, muscle, bone, and brain. No adverse toxicology related to rhGUS was noted in these studies.

In December 2013, we initiated an open-label, Phase 1/2 study in the United Kingdom to evaluate the safety, tolerability, efficacy, and dose of IV administration of rhGUS every other week in three patients with MPS 7. Results from the 12-week analysis evaluating 2 mg/kg of rhGUS every other week were presented in September 2014 at the Society for the Study of Inborn Errors of Metabolism, or SSIEM, Annual Symposium and showed a decline in urinary glycosaminoglycans, or GAG excretion of approximately 40-50% from baseline. After the initial 12 weeks, the study entered a dose-exploration phase in which patients were treated with a lower and then higher dose of rhGUS. The 36-week results, which were presented in February 2015 at the Annual WORLD Symposium, showed a greater change in urinary GAG excretion at the higher 4 mg/kg dose of rhGUS, with a mean urinary GAG reduction of approximately 60%.

Sustained decreases in liver size were observed in the two patients who had enlarged livers at baseline, and an improvement in pulmonary function was observed in the one patient who was able to perform the evaluations. Improvements were also observed in the MPS Health Assessment Questionnaire measure of functional capabilities and in the Physician Global Impression of Change scale of overall health status in this open-label study.

No serious adverse events or infusion-associated reactions were observed in the study. The most common adverse events were consistent with the symptoms of MPS 7 or related to intravenous administration of the investigational therapy, including respiratory disorders, infections, and arthralgia.

We initiated a Phase 3 global, randomized, placebo-controlled, blind-start clinical study in December 2014. The Phase 3 study was designed to assess the efficacy and safety of rhGUS in 12 patients between five and 35 years of age. Patients were randomized to one of four groups. One cohort began rhGUS therapy immediately, while the other three started on placebo and crossed over to rhGUS at different predefined time points in a blinded manner. This study design generated treatment data from all 12 patients. Based on data from the Phase 1/2 study, patients were dosed with 4 mg/kg of rhGUS every other week for up to a total of 48 weeks, and all groups received a minimum of 24 weeks of treatment with rhGUS.

The primary objective of the study was to determine the efficacy of rhGUS as determined by the percent reduction in urinary GAG excretion after 24 weeks of treatment. The Phase 3 study also evaluates as secondary endpoints the safety and tolerability of rhGUS, pulmonary function, walking, stair climb, shoulder flexion, fine and gross motor function, hepatosplenomegaly, cardiac size and function, visual acuity, patient and caregiver assessment of most significant clinical problems, global impressions of change, a multi-domain responder index, and other endpoints.

In July 2016, we announced that the study met its primary endpoint of reducing urinary GAG (dermatan sulfate) excretion after 24 weeks of treatment, demonstrating a reduction from baseline of 64.8 percent (p<0.0001). The Multi-Domain Responder Index (MDRI) score at 24 weeks of treatment, a secondary endpoint, demonstrated an overall mean improvement (±SD) of +0.5 domains (±0.80) (p=0.0527). Six of the 12 patients had an improvement in their MDRI score of +1 or more. Five patients demonstrated no worsening of this progressive disease, or an MDRI score of 0. One patient had an MDRI score of -1. The MDRI is a summation of scores from each of the following domains: the six-minute walk test (6MWT), forced vital capacity (FVC), shoulder flexion, visual acuity, and the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2) fine motor and gross motor function. For the 6MWT, the improvement (±SE) was 20.8 (±16.75) meters at 24 weeks of treatment based on the estimates from 9 patients who had any change from baseline data. Three of these patients demonstrated an improvement of a magnitude equal or greater than the minimally important difference (MID) with increases of 65 meters, 80 meters and 83 meters at 24 weeks compared to baseline. For the fatigue scores, four patients improved at or above the MID level after 24 weeks of treatment and nine of 12 showed improvement at some point during the study. All patients experienced treatment emergent adverse events, which were generally mild to moderate in severity. Six of the eight patients with infusion associated reactions (IARs) on rhGUS treatment had events involving the IV catheter. There were two patients that each had a single hypersensitivity-type IAR, including one Grade 3 treatment-related anaphylactoid serious adverse event (SAE) that resulted from an infusion rate error. The second patient had mild fever and diaphoresis that resolved without treatment. No patients demonstrated recurring hypersensitivity reactions to infusions. There was a second SAE that was a Grade 2 unrelated event from an accidental injury. There were no deaths and no treatment discontinuations or missed infusions due to AEs. Seven of the 12 patients developed anti-rhGUS antibodies, which were not associated with immune-mediated AEs.

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Based on the data from the Phase 3 study, we have met with the FDA and the EMA and plan to submit regulatory filings in the first half of 2017.We previously obtained feedback from the FDA and the EMA regarding the design of the Phase 3 study. The FDA stated that their evaluation of the pivotal Phase 3 study will be based on the totality of the data on a patient-by-patient basis and advised against the declaration of a primary endpoint. The EMA has agreed that approval under exceptional circumstances could be possible based upon a single positive placebo-controlled pivotal study in approximately 12 patients using urinary GAG levels as a surrogate primary endpoint, provided the data was strongly supportive of a favorable benefit/risk ratio. The EMA requested that some evidence or trend in improvement in clinical endpoints be observed to support the primary endpoint, but recognized that a statistically significant result on clinical endpoints was unlikely given the small number of patients expected to be enrolled in the study.

In August 2015 we initiated a study of rhGUS in MPS 7 patients under the age of five years, including potentially younger infants born with hydrops fetalis. These hydropic infants can die within a few months to one year of birth, but enzyme replacement therapy might be able to reduce GAG storage and improve health in these patients. The Phase 2 open-label study will assess the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of rhGUS in up to seven pediatric patients under five years old.

We are also supplying rhGUS to investigators who are treating patients under emergency investigational new drug, or eIND, applications and other expanded access programs. Results following 24 weeks of treatment of the first eIND patient were announced in September 2014 and published in Molecular Genetics and Metabolism in February 2015.

UX007 for the treatment of LC-FAOD

We are developing UX007 for oral administration intended as a substrate replacement therapy for patients with LC-FAOD. UX007 is a purified, pharmaceutical-grade form of triheptanoin, a specially designed synthetic triglyceride compound, created via a multi-step chemical process. UX007 is a medium odd-chain triglyceride of seven-carbon fatty acids designed to provide substrate replacement for fatty acid metabolism and restore production of energy. Patients with LC-FAOD have a deficiency that impairs the ability to produce energy from fat, which can lead to depletion of glucose in the body, and severe liver, muscle, and heart disease, as well as death. There are currently no approved drugs or treatments specifically for LC-FAOD. The current standard of care for LC-FAOD includes diligent prevention of fasting combined with the use of low-fat/high-carbohydrate diets, carnitine supplementation in some cases, and medium even-chain triglyceride oil supplementation. Despite treatment with the current standard of care, many patients continue to suffer significant morbidity and mortality.

We licensed certain intellectual property rights for triheptanoin from Baylor Research Institute in August 2012. Triheptanoin has been studied clinically for over a decade in more than a hundred human subjects affected by a variety of diseases. Multiple investigator-sponsored open-label studies suggest clinical improvements with triheptanoin treatment, even for patients who were on standard of care. We presented data at the International Conference of Inborn Errors of Metabolism, or ICIEM, in August 2013 from a retrospective medical record review study assessing the clinical outcome of triheptanoin treatment on LC-FAOD patients who had been participating in a compassionate use program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The data showed that treatment with triheptanoin appeared to reduce the frequency and severity of hospitalizations previously experienced by these patients for disease-related causes, including muscle rupture, hypoglycemia, and cardiomyopathy. A reduction in mean total hospital days per year from 17.55 to 5.40 (69%; p = 0.0242) was observed after transitioning from standard of care to triheptanoin therapy. These results are clinically important but are derived from a retrospective medical review, and not from a prospective randomized controlled study.

In September 2015, case reports from five infants with moderate or severe cardiomyopathy due to LC-FAOD were presented at the SSIEM Annual Symposium. While on the standard of care medium-chain triglyceride, or MCT, oil, the patients were hospitalized with heart failure that required cardiac support and, in some cases, resuscitation. The patients discontinued MCT oil and then began to receive triheptanoin on an expanded access basis. In patients with known ejection fraction, or EF, values before and after treatment (n=4) the mean EF prior to treatment with triheptanoin was 32% (range: 21% to 44%) and after treatment at last assessment was 66% (range: 55% to 71%). The most common adverse events were gastrointestinal distress, including loose stools. One patient discontinued treatment after approximately 14 weeks due to gastrointestinal symptoms. No other significant tolerance issues or treatment-related adverse events were reported. Four of the patients continue to receive triheptanoin. These data are from an expanded access program and are based on open-label uncontrolled treatment, which limits definitive conclusions about efficacy and safety.

In October 2015, we reported interim data on the acute effects of UX007 that was being evaluated in a Phase 2 study in LC-FAOD patients. The study was single-arm open-label and evaluated 29 pediatric and adult patients across three main symptom groups (musculoskeletal, liver/hypoglycemia, and cardiac). Patients needed to have moderate to severe FAOD with significant disease in at least one of these domains or a frequent medical events history in order to enroll. The study began with a four-week run-in period to assess baseline data while on the standard of care therapy including MCT oil, if applicable. Patients on MCT oil then discontinued it and UX007 was titrated to a target dose of 25-35% of total daily caloric intake. Patients were followed to evaluate the effects of UX007 treatment over 24 weeks on several endpoints, including cycle ergometry performance, 12-minute walk test, liver disease/hypoglycemia, cardiac disease, and quality of life. The 24-week analysis mainly evaluated the acute effects of UX007 on the musculoskeletal aspects of the disease. Patients who opted to continue will be treated for a total of 78 weeks, and rates of major medical events, such as rhabdomyolysis, hypoglycemia and cardiac events, will be monitored and compared to rates for the two years prior to treatment with UX007. The study planned to evaluate the safety and tolerability of UX007 and to determine both the appropriate patient population as well as endpoints for evaluation in a Phase 3 study. The majority of patients enrolled presented with musculoskeletal disease compared to a limited number who presented with liver and cardiac symptoms. Patients spanned a wide age range from ten months to 58 years old. Prior to initiating treatment with UX007, 27 of the 29 patients were on the standard of care

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MCT oil therapy. Following discontinuation of MCT oil therapy, the average dose of UX007 through 24 weeks was 30% of total daily caloric intake.

Improvements were observed in both measures of exercise tolerance (cycle ergometry and 12 minute walk test) in musculoskeletal patients who performed the tests. The three areas of evaluation with cycle ergometry included workload (measured in watts produced at a fixed heart rate), respiratory exchange ratio, or RER, a measure of energy supply, and duration of cycling. Patients showed improvements in both workload and duration and no change in RER. At week 24, seven patients (who qualified by age and performed the test at baseline) produced a mean 60% increase in watts over baseline representing a mean increase of +446.8 watts (median: +127.5; min, max: -388, +2438). The mean duration was increased in 3 patients who did not complete all 40 minutes at baseline. Eight qualified patients demonstrated a mean 28% increase of +188 meters (median: 93.5; min, max: -80, +880) at week 18 in the 12-minute walk test. These patients also experienced an improvement in the mean energy expenditure index (a ratio of heart rate per meter walked). The data on the 12 minute walk test and cycle ergometry together support an improvement in muscle function and exercise efficiency in a small number of patients that would need to be confirmed in larger controlled studies. Patients with liver/hypoglycemia and cardiac disease were limited, 3 and 2 respectively, but they qualified for entry due to frequent history of events and will contribute to the event rate measurement over 78 weeks. 

Overall, major medical events appeared to decrease in the 25 patients who completed the 24 weeks of treatment when compared to the reported event rate in these patients approximately 18 months prior to treatment with UX007. These data are preliminary and require significantly more time for proper evaluation at the 78 week time-point. The major medical event rate aggregates events related to hypoglycemia, rhabdomyolysis, and cardiomyopathy.

Improvements in patient-reported quality of life scores (SF-12) were observed in adult patients, but no difference was seen in parent-reported scores (SF-10) for pediatric patients. The Peabody Developmental Motor Score (PDMS-2) and the Pediatric Disability Inventory (PEDI-CAT), also showed no impairment in the overall patient population at baseline and no change after 24 weeks.

Four of the 29 enrolled patients discontinued prior to 24 weeks. One patient discontinued due to diarrhea in week 1, which resolved within a few days of discontinuation, and three patients withdrew consent (weeks 1, 8, 8) for reasons not attributed to treatment with UX007. All other patients opted to continue treatment in the extension phase of the study. There have been no deaths. One serious related adverse event of moderate gastroenteritis with vomiting was considered treatment-related. A viral infection was suspected, but the investigator could not rule out cause by UX007 given the proximity to dosing. That patient continues to be treated in the study and maintained dosing throughout the event, which has now resolved. Overall, 18 patients (62%) had treatment-related adverse events, most of which were mild-to-moderate in nature. The most common treatment-related adverse events were diarrhea, abdominal/gastrointestinal pain, and vomiting. Some gastrointestinal events were managed by adjusting dosing or dosing with food. The most common adverse events, including those not deemed treatment-related, were viral infections, gastrointestinal disorders, rhabdomyolysis, fever, and headache.

78-week data, including a comparison of major medical event rates approximately 18 months before and after UX007 treatment, as well as long-term safety and exercise tolerance data, are expected in 2016. We are planning to initiate a Phase 3 study in LC-FAOD patients in 2017 based on the interim Phase 2 data. The Phase 3 trial design and endpoints continue to be optimized prior to discussion with regulators. Further details are expected to be provided after discussions with regulatory authorities.

UX007 for the treatment of Glut1 DS

We are also developing UX007 for patients with Glut1 DS. Glut1 DS is caused by a mutation affecting the gene that codes for Glut1, which is a protein that transports glucose from the blood into the brain. Because glucose is the primary source of energy for the brain, Glut1 DS results in a chronic state of brain energy deficiency and is characterized by seizures, developmental delay, and movement disorder. There are currently no approved drugs specific to Glut1 DS. The current standard of care for Glut1 DS is the ketogenic diet, an extreme high-fat (70-80% of daily calories as fat)/low-carbohydrate diet, which generates ketone bodies as an alternative energy source to glucose, and one or more antiepileptic drugs. The ketogenic diet can be effective in reducing seizures but compliance can be difficult, and the effectiveness of the diet in the treatment of developmental delay and movement disorders has not been confirmed. In addition, ketogenic diet can lead to side effects including renal stones. In general, Glut1 DS patients are considered relatively refractory to antiepileptic drugs with only approximately 8% achieving seizure control on antiepileptic drugs alone. There are currently no antiepileptic drugs approved specifically for patients with Glut1 DS.

UX007 is intended as a substrate replacement therapy to provide an alternative source of energy to the brain in Glut1 DS patients. There are open-label investigator-sponsored clinical studies ongoing, and there is one publication presenting data on absence seizure reduction and improved developmental function in some Glut1 DS subjects taking UX007.

In March 2014, we initiated a Phase 2 global, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group clinical study that plans to enroll up to 40 patients who are currently not fully compliant with ketogenic diet and continue to have seizures. The primary efficacy objective is the reduction in frequency of seizures compared to placebo following a 6-week baseline period and subsequent 8-week placebo-controlled treatment period. Other efficacy objectives include cognitive function and movement disorder. The blinded treatment period will be followed by an open-label extension period in which patients will be treated with UX007 through week 52. In order to accelerate enrollment, we amended the enrollment criteria to also include patients with only absence seizures. We have completed enrollment of 36 patients, and data are expected in the first quarter of 2017.

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In April 2015, positive data from an investigator-sponsored study of UX007 for the treatment of movement disorders associated with Glut1 DS were presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting. The data showed a statistically significant 90% reduction in movement disorder events after treatment with UX007 (p=0.028) and a statistically significant increase in events after withdrawal from treatment with UX007 (p=0.043). Based on these study results, in November 2015, we announced an update to our development plan for UX007 in Glut1 DS patients. We now plan to initiate a Phase 3 study in approximately 40 Glut1 DS patients with the movement disorder phenotype by the end of 2016. The study is intended to be a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, double cross-over study. The study is designed to assess the impact of UX007 on movement disorder events as recorded by a patient diary. In recent interactions with the FDA, they have raised questions about the clinical meaningfulness of Glut1 DS movement disorder events. Therefore, we are working on further substantiating the clinical meaningfulness of Glut1 DS movement disorder events captured by a patient diary prior to finalizing the study design.

Ace-ER (UX001) for the treatment of GNE myopathy

We are developing Ace-ER, which is an extended-release, oral formulation of sialic acid for the treatment of GNE myopathy, which is also known as hereditary inclusion body myopathy, or HIBM. GNE myopathy is characterized by severe progressive muscular myopathy, or disease in which muscle fibers do not function properly, with onset typically in the late teens or twenties. Patients with GNE myopathy have a genetic defect in the gene coding for a particular enzyme that is involved in the first step in the biosynthesis of sialic acid. Therefore, GNE myopathy patients have a sialic acid deficiency, which interferes with muscle function, leading to myopathy and atrophy. Patients typically lose major muscle function within ten to 20 years of diagnosis. There is no approved drug therapy for GNE myopathy.

Ace-ER is intended as a potential substrate replacement therapy designed to address sialic acid deficiency and restore muscle function in GNE myopathy patients. We have conducted a Phase 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of Ace-ER in 47 GNE myopathy patients. Data from this study were presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in April 2014. Patients in the study were initially randomized to receive placebo, three grams, or six grams of Ace-ER per day. After 24 weeks, placebo patients crossed over to either three grams or six grams total daily dose, for an additional 24 weeks. The final analysis compared change at week 48 from baseline for the combined groups at six grams versus three grams of Ace-ER. Assessments included pharmacokinetics, composites of upper extremity and lower extremity muscle strength as measured by dynamometry, other clinical endpoints, patient reported outcomes, and safety.

At 24 weeks, assessments of upper extremity composite of muscle strength showed a statistically significant difference in the six-gram group compared to placebo (+2.33 kg; 5.5% relative difference from baseline; p=0.040). At 48 weeks, a statistically significant difference between the combined six-gram group and the combined three-gram group was observed (+3.44 kg; 8.5% relative difference from baseline; p=0.0033). Patients with less advanced disease (able to walk more than 200 meters at baseline), a predefined subset, showed a more pronounced difference (+4.69 kg; 9.6% relative difference from baseline; p=0.00055). The lower extremity composite showed a similar pattern of response but did not show a statistically significant difference between the dose groups. None of the groups showed a significant decline in the lower extremity composite during the treatment period. A positive trend was seen in patient-reported outcomes of functional activity consistent with the potential clinical meaningfulness of the muscle strength assessment. Ace-ER appeared to be well tolerated with no serious adverse events observed to date in either dose group, and no dose-dependent treatment-emergent adverse events were identified. Most adverse events were mild to moderate and the most commonly reported adverse events were gastrointestinal in nature and pain related to muscle biopsy procedures.

We continued to treat these patients in an extension study evaluating an increased daily dosage of sialic acid based on the dose dependence observed at weeks 24 and 48. Interim data from the extension study were presented at the International Congress of the World Muscle Society, or WMS, in October 2014. In the first part of the extension study, all 46 patients who completed the 48-week Phase 2 study crossed over to six grams for a variable period of time that was on average 24 weeks. In the second part of the extension study, all 46 patients and 13 treatment-naïve patients received 12 grams of Ace-ER for 24 weeks. The results presented at WMS included the 49 out of 59 patients who had 24 weeks of data at the higher dose. While the 12-gram data did not suggest any clinically meaningful advantage over six grams, the 12-gram data do provide additional data that supported clinical activity with Ace-ER treatment. The higher dose appeared to be generally safe and well tolerated with no drug-related serious adverse events, but the rate of mild to moderate gastrointestinal adverse events did appear to be greater with this dose. Throughout the approximately two-year study period, treatment with Ace-ER appeared to slow the progression of upper extremity disease when compared to the 24-week placebo group extrapolated out to two years.

We initiated a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled 48-week pivotal Phase 3 study of Ace-ER in 89 patients with GNE myopathy in May 2015 and completed enrollment in July 2016. The FDA agreed with the Phase 3 study design, including the primary endpoint of a composite of upper extremity muscle strength, with supportive secondary endpoint data from a patient-reported outcome, both of which were studied in the Phase 2 study. Data from the Phase 3 study are expected in 2017.

In October 2015 we announced the filing and acceptance for review of an MAA seeking conditional approval from the EMA based on our Phase 2 study results for the use of six grams per day of Ace-ER tablets in the treatment of GNE myopathy. An oral explanation is scheduled for November 8, 2016, primarily to discuss the one remaining major objection related to the clinical interpretation of the Phase 2 data. The oral explanation meeting is a closed meeting, and we anticipate that our next update on the program will be at the time of the CHMP opinion, which we currently expect by the end of the year. A decision from the European Commission is expected in the first half of 2017.  

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Preclinical Pipeline

rhPPCA (UX004) for the treatment of galactosialidosis

Recombinant human protective protein cathepsin-A, or rhPPCA, which we in-licensed from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in September 2012, is in preclinical development as an enzyme replacement therapy for galactosialidosis, a rare lysosomal storage disease for which there are no currently approved drug therapies. Similar to MPS patients, patients with galactosialidosis present with both soft tissue storage in the liver, spleen, and other tissues, as well as connective tissue (bone and cartilage) related disease. As with MPS 7, an enzyme deficiency results in accumulation of substrates in the lysosomes, causing skeletal and organ dysfunction, and death. We are continuing preclinical development of rhPPCA.

Collaboration with Arcturus Therapeutics, Inc. for mRNA therapeutics

We signed a research collaboration and license agreement with Arcturus Therapeutics, Inc. to develop mRNA therapeutics for select rare disease targets in October 2015. The Arcturus collaboration may help us address a wider range of rare diseases than possible with current approaches. As part of the collaboration, Arcturus will utilize its UNA Oligomer™ chemistry and LUNAR™ nanoparticle delivery platform to initially design and optimize mRNA therapeutics for two targets selected by us; we also have the option to add up to eight additional targets during the collaborative research period.

Collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited

We entered into a strategic partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited to develop and commercialize therapies to treat rare genetic diseases in June 2016. As part of the collaboration, we received an exclusive license to one preclinical Takeda product candidate in a pre-determined field of use, which includes an option to an additional field of use for this product with terms to be negotiated, and have an exclusive option to co-develop and co-commercialize the product candidate in additional therapeutic areas. We have also established a five-year research collaboration with Takeda in which we will have the option to license up to five additional Takeda product candidates for rare diseases.

Other preclinical programs

          We continue to work on other compounds in various preclinical stages of development.

Financial Operations Overview

We are a clinical-stage company and have only a limited operating history. To date, we have invested substantially all of our efforts and financial resources in identifying, acquiring, and developing our product candidates, including conducting clinical studies and providing general and administrative support for these operations. To date, we have funded our operations primarily from the sale of equity securities.

We have never been profitable and have incurred net losses in each year since inception. Our net losses were $64.9 million and $39.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, $174.6 million and $90.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively. Substantially all of our net losses have resulted from costs incurred in connection with our research and development programs and from general and administrative costs associated with our operations.

Revenue

We recorded revenue for UX003 in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 for named patient sales in Europe. All of the costs to manufacture the associated inventory were expensed as incurred because the product is not approved for commercial sale. We do not expect to receive any significant product sales revenue until we obtain regulatory approval for any of our product candidates.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenses consist primarily of costs incurred for the development of our product candidates, which include:

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We expense all research and development costs in the periods in which they are incurred. Costs for certain development activities are recognized based on an evaluation of the progress to completion of specific tasks using information and data provided to us by our vendors and clinical sites. Nonrefundable advance payments for goods or services to be received in future periods for use in research and development activities are deferred and capitalized. The capitalized amounts are then expensed as the related goods are delivered and the services are performed.

The largest component of our total operating expenses has historically been our investment in research and development activities, including the clinical development of our product candidates. We allocate research and development salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation, and indirect costs to our product candidates on a program-specific basis, and we include these costs in the program-specific expenses. We expect our research and development expenses will increase in absolute dollars in future periods as we continue to invest in research and development activities related to developing our product candidates, and as programs advance into later stages of development and we enter into larger clinical studies. The process of conducting the necessary clinical research to obtain FDA approval is costly and time consuming and the successful development of our product candidates is highly uncertain. As a result, we are unable to determine the duration and completion costs of our research and development projects or when and to what extent, if any, we will generate revenue from the commercialization and sale of any of our product candidates.

General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel costs, allocated facilities costs, and other expenses for outside professional services, including legal, human resources, audit, and accounting services. Personnel costs consist of salaries, benefits, and stock-based compensation. We expect that our general and administrative expenses will increase in the future to support continued research and development activities, preparation for potential commercialization of our product candidates, and as a result of operating as a public company, including expenses related to compliance with the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and those of any national securities exchange on which our securities are traded, additional insurance expenses, investor relations activities, and other administration and professional services.

Interest Income

Interest income consists of interest earned on our cash, cash equivalents, and investments.

Other Income (Expense)

Other income (expense) primarily consists of foreign currency exchange gains and losses. Our foreign currency exchange gains and losses relate to transactions and asset and liability balances denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

Our management’s discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations is based on our condensed consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these condensed consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, as well as the reported expenses incurred during the reporting periods. Our estimates are based on our historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. There have been no significant and material changes in our critical accounting policies during the nine months ended September 30, 2016, as compared to those disclosed in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations-Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates” in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC.

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Results of Operations

Comparison of the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2016 to the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015:

Revenue (dollars in thousands)

 

 

 

We recognized revenue for a nominal amount of named patient sales of UX003 in Europe for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016. We did not recognize any revenue for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015.

Research and Development Expenses (dollars in thousands)

 

 

 

Research and development expenses increased $19.0 million and $62.3 million for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2016, compared to the same periods in 2015. The increase in research and development expenses shown above is primarily due to:

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We expect our research and development expenses to increase in the future as we advance our product candidates through clinical development. The timing and amount of expenses incurred will depend largely upon the outcomes of current or future clinical studies for our product candidates as well as the related regulatory requirements, manufacturing costs and any costs associated with the advancement of our preclinical programs.

General and Administrative Expenses (dollars in thousands)

 

 

 

General and administrative expenses increased $7.0 million and $23.7 million for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2016, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2015. The increase in general and administrative expenses was primarily due to increases in commercial planning costs, professional services costs, stock-based compensation, and personnel costs resulting from an increase in the number of employees in support of our activities.

We expect general and administrative expenses to increase to support our organizational growth, the costs of being a public company, and for our expected staged build out of our commercial organization over the next several years related to multiple late-stage product candidates.

Interest Income (dollars in thousands)

 

 

 

Interest income increased $0.2 million and $1.5 million for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2016, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2015, primarily due to funds invested from our common stock offerings and increased yield on our investment portfolio.

Other Income (Expense), net (dollars in thousands)

 

 

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Other income (expense), net decreased $0.1 million and net increased $0.2 million for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2016, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2015. The decrease during the three months ended September 30, 2016 and the increase during the nine months ended September 30, 2016 were primarily due to the fluctuations of the volume of transactions and the foreign exchange rates used in the remeasurement of transactions denominated in foreign currencies.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Since our inception, we have funded our operations primarily with $103.9 million in net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock, $121.7 million in net proceeds from the sale of common stock in our IPO and $555.1 million in net proceeds from the sale of common stock in our underwritten public offerings following our IPO. In July 2016, we entered into an ATM sales agreement with Cowen whereby we may sell up to $150.0 million in aggregate proceeds of common stock from time to time. For the three months ended September 30, 2016, we received $33.7 million in net proceeds from the ATM sales agreement. In July 2016, in conjunction with the effective date of the Takeda collaboration and license agreement, we also consummated a common stock purchase agreement whereby Takeda purchased 374,590 shares of the Company’s common stock for total consideration of $40.0 million. As part of the agreement, we had the option to require Takeda to purchase an additional $25.0 million of common stock at the then-current 30-day VWAP, which we exercised in October 2016.

As of September 30, 2016, we had $472.6 million in available cash, cash equivalents, and investments. During the period of October 1, 2016 through November 7, 2016, the Company sold an additional $26.0 million in net proceeds under the ATM sales agreement, resulting in $89.1 million in remaining aggregate proceeds available under the ATM sales agreement. Our cash, cash equivalents, and investments are held in a variety of interest-bearing accounts, corporate debt securities, U.S. government treasury and agency securities, and money market accounts. Cash in excess of immediate requirements is invested with a view toward liquidity and capital preservation, and we seek to minimize the potential effects of concentration and credit risk.

The following table summarizes our cash flows for the periods indicated (in thousands):

 

Cash Used in Operating Activities

Our primary use of cash is to fund operating expenses, which consist primarily of research and development expenditures. Due to our significant research and development expenditures, we have generated significant operating losses since our inception. Cash used to fund operating expenses is affected by the timing of when we pay these expenses, as reflected in the change in our outstanding accounts payable and accrued expenses.

Cash used in operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 was $113.3 million and reflected a net loss of $174.6 million, offset by non-cash charges of $34.8 million for stock-based compensation, $4.2 million for the amortization of premium paid on purchased investments, $2.3 million for depreciation and amortization, and $0.7 million for the estimated fair value of a license fee in conjunction with the Takeda collaboration agreement. Cash used in operating activities also reflected a $5.8 million increase in prepaid expenses and other current assets primarily due to increases in KHK receivable, prepaid manufacturing costs, and prepaid clinical costs as well as an increase in deferred rent for the commencement of a new lease. There was also a $1.3 million increase in other assets primarily due to an increase in prepaid clinical costs, a $3.8 million increase in accounts payable primarily due to the timing of payments, and a $22.6 million increase in accrued expenses and other liabilities primarily as a result of an accrual for a liability under a collaboration agreement as well as an increase in clinical study, manufacturing, and related costs as we continued to increase our research and development activities.

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Cash used in operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 was $65.5 million and reflected a net loss of $90.4 million, offset by $15.4 million for stock-based compensation, $3.7 million for the amortization of premium paid on purchased investments, and non-cash charges of $0.9 million for depreciation and amortization. Cash used in operating activities also reflected a $6.4 million increase in prepaid expenses and other current assets primarily due to an increase in contract research organization, or CRO, prepaid clinical costs, an increase in KHK receivable and an increase in interest receivable, a $0.5 million increase in accounts payable primarily due to the timing of payments, and a $11.8 million increase in accrued expenses and other liabilities as a result of an increase in clinical study, manufacturing, related costs as we continued to increase our research and development activities and employee bonuses.

Cash Provided by or Used in Investing Activities

Cash provided by investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 was $98.3 million and related to purchases of investments of $311.5 million, purchases of property and equipment of $9.5 million and an increase of $1.2 million in restricted cash for the expansion of the space under our current lease agreement, offset by proceeds from maturities of investments of $326.2 million and the sale of investments of $94.3 million.

Cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 was $258.8 million and related to purchases of investments of $477.3 million, purchases of property and equipment of $3.0 million and an increase of $0.2 million in restricted cash for the expansion of the space under our current lease, offset by proceeds from maturities of investments of $158.4 million and the sale of investments of $63.3 million.

Cash Flows Provided by Financing Activities

Cash provided by financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 was $63.7 million and was comprised of $33.7 million from the sale of common stock from the ATM sales agreement, $26.4 million from the purchase of common stock by Takeda, and $3.6 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock from the exercise of stock options.

Cash provided by financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 was $466.7 million and was comprised of $461.2 million from our underwritten public offerings and $5.5 million of proceeds from the issuance of common stock from the exercise of stock options and warrants.

Funding Requirements

We anticipate that we will continue to generate losses for the foreseeable future, and we expect the losses to increase as we continue the development of, and seek regulatory approvals for, our product candidates, and begin to commercialize any approved products. We will likely require additional capital to fund our operations and complete our ongoing and planned clinical studies, and funding may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. We expect to satisfy future cash needs through existing capital balances or, if necessary, through equity or debt financings, or strategic collaborations. If we are unable to raise additional capital in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce the scope of, or terminate one or more of our clinical studies, research and development programs, future commercialization efforts, or grant rights to develop and market product candidates that we would otherwise prefer to develop and market ourselves.

Our future funding requirements will depend on many factors, including the following:

We may seek to raise any necessary additional capital through some combination of public or private equity offerings, debt financings, collaborations, strategic alliances, licensing arrangements, and other marketing and distribution arrangements. To the extent that we raise additional capital through marketing and distribution arrangements or other collaborations and strategic alliances or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our product candidates, future revenue streams, research programs, or product candidates or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we do raise additional capital through public or private equity offerings, the ownership interest of our existing stockholders will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect our stockholders’ rights. If we raise additional capital through debt financing, we may be subject to covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends.

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Contractual Obligations and Commitments

During the nine months ended September 30, 2016, there were no material changes to our contractual obligations and commitments described under Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

Since our inception in April 2010, we have not engaged in any off-balance sheet arrangements, as defined in the rules and regulations of the SEC.

Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

Our exposure to market risk for changes in interest rates relates primarily to interest earned on our cash equivalents and investments. The primary objective of our investment activities is to preserve our capital to fund operations. A secondary objective is to maximize income from our investments without assuming significant risk. Our investment policy provides for investments in low-risk, investment-grade debt instruments. As of September 30, 2016, we had cash, cash equivalents, and investments totaling $472.6 million which includes bank deposits, money market funds, asset-backed securities, and investment-grade corporate bonds which are subject to default, changes in credit rating, and changes in market value. The securities in our investment portfolio are classified as available for sale and are subject to interest rate risk and will decrease in value if market interest rates increase. A hypothetical 100 basis point shift change in interest rates during any of the periods presented would not have had a material impact on our financial statements. To date, we have not experienced a loss of principal on any of our investments.

We face foreign exchange risk as a result of entering into transactions denominated in currencies other than U.S. dollars. Due to the uncertain timing of expected payments in foreign currencies, we do not utilize any forward exchange contracts. All foreign transactions settle on the applicable spot exchange basis at the time such payments are made. An adverse movement in foreign exchange rates could have a material effect on payments made to foreign suppliers and for license agreements. A hypothetical 10% change in foreign exchange rates during any of the periods presented would not have had a material impact on our financial statements.  

Item 4. Controls and Procedures

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

We carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of our “disclosure controls and procedures” as of the end of the period covered by this report, pursuant to Rules 13a-15(b) and 15d-15(b) under the Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. In connection with that evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective and designed to provide reasonable assurance that the information required to be disclosed is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC rules and forms as of September 30, 2016. For the purpose of this review, disclosure controls and procedures means controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we file or submit is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms. These disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we file or submit is accumulated and communicated to management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, our management recognized that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and our management necessarily was required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

 

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

There have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) during our third quarter ended September 30, 2016, that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect our internal control over financial reporting.

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PART II. OTHER INFORMATION

 

Item 1. Legal Proceedings

We are not currently a party to any material legal proceedings. We may, however, in the ordinary course of business face various claims brought by third parties and we may, from time to time, make claims or take legal actions to assert our rights, including intellectual property rights as well as claims relating to employment matters and the safety or efficacy of our products. Any of these claims could subject us to costly litigation and, while we generally believe that we have adequate insurance to cover many different types of liabilities, our insurance carriers may deny coverage, may be inadequately capitalized to pay on valid claims, or our policy limits may be inadequate to fully satisfy any damage awards or settlements. If this were to happen, the payment of any such awards could have a material adverse effect on our consolidated operations, cash flows, and financial position. Additionally, any such claims, whether or not successful, could damage our reputation and business.

 

Item 1A. Risk Factors  

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks, together with all the other information in this report, including our financial statements and notes thereto, before deciding to invest in our common stock. If any of the following risks actually materializes, our operating results, financial condition, and liquidity could be materially adversely affected. As a result, the trading price of our common stock could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Financial Condition and Capital Requirements

We are a clinical-stage company and have a limited operating history on which to assess our business, have incurred significant losses since our inception, and anticipate that we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future.

We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a limited operating history. We have incurred net losses in each year since our inception in April 2010, including net losses of $64.9 million and $39.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively, and net losses of $174.6 million and $90.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

We have devoted substantially all of our financial resources to identifying, acquiring, and developing our product candidates, including conducting clinical studies, developing manufacturing processes, manufacturing product candidates for clinical studies, and providing general and administrative support for these operations. To date, we have financed our operations primarily through the sale of equity securities. The amount of our future net losses will depend, in part, on the rate of our future expenditures and our ability to obtain funding through equity or debt financings, strategic collaborations, or grants. Biopharmaceutical product development is a highly speculative undertaking and involves a substantial degree of risk. Our product candidates are in clinical development, and we may never have a product candidate approved for commercialization, though UX003 is currently available on a named patient basis in certain countries in Europe. If we obtain regulatory approval to market a product candidate, our future revenue will depend upon the size of any markets in which our product candidates may receive approval, and our ability to achieve sufficient market acceptance, pricing, reimbursement, and adequate market share for our product candidates in those markets. However, even if we obtain adequate market share for our product candidates, because the potential markets in which our product candidates may ultimately receive regulatory approval are very small, and our expenses may be greater than expected, we may never become profitable despite obtaining such market share and acceptance of our products.

We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for the foreseeable future. We anticipate that our expenses will increase substantially if and as we:

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Further, the net losses we incur may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter and year to year, such that a period-to-period comparison of our results of operations may not be a good indication of our future performance.

We have not generated any significant revenue from product sales and may never be profitable.

We have no products approved for commercialization and have not generated any significant revenue from product sales. Our ability to generate significant revenue and achieve profitability depends on our ability, alone or with strategic collaboration partners, to successfully complete the development of, and obtain the regulatory and marketing approvals necessary to commercialize one or more of our product candidates. We do not anticipate generating significant revenue from product sales in the near future. Our ability to generate substantial future revenue from product sales, including named patient sales, depends heavily on our success in many areas, including but not limited to:

Even if one or more of the product candidates that we develop is approved for commercial sale, we anticipate incurring significant costs associated with commercializing any approved product candidate. Our expenses could increase beyond expectations if we are required by the FDA, the EMA, or other regulatory agencies, domestic or foreign, to change our manufacturing processes or assays, or to perform clinical, nonclinical, or other types of studies in addition to those that we currently anticipate. In cases where we are successful in obtaining regulatory approvals to market one or more of our product candidates, our revenue will be dependent, in part, upon the size of the markets in the territories for which we gain regulatory approval, the accepted price for the product, the ability to obtain reimbursement at any price, and whether we own the commercial rights for that territory. If the number of our addressable rare disease patients is not as significant as we estimate, the indication approved by regulatory authorities is narrower than we expect, or the reasonably accepted population for treatment is narrowed by competition, physician choice, or treatment guidelines, we may not generate significant revenue from sales of our products, even if approved. For example, the development of KRN23, rhGUS, and UX007 for pediatric use is an important part of our current business strategy; if we are unable to obtain regulatory approval for the desired age ranges, our business may suffer.

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We will likely need to raise additional capital to fund our activities. This additional financing may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all. Failure to obtain this necessary capital when needed may force us to delay, limit, or terminate our product development efforts or other activities.

We are currently advancing our KRN23, rhGUS, UX007, and Ace-ER product candidates through clinical development and our other product candidate, rhPPCA, as well as our other early stage research projects, through preclinical development. Developing our product candidates is expensive, and we expect our research and development expenses to increase substantially in connection with our ongoing activities, particularly as we advance our product candidates through clinical studies and potential global commercialization.

As of September 30, 2016, our available cash, cash equivalents, and investments were $472.6 million. We will likely require additional capital to obtain regulatory approval for, and to commercialize all of our product candidates. In addition, our operating plans may change as a result of many factors that may currently be unknown to us, and we may need to seek additional funds sooner than planned. Our future funding requirements will depend on many factors, including but not limited to:

Any additional fundraising efforts may divert our management’s attention from their day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates. In addition, we cannot guarantee that future financing will be available in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us, if at all. Moreover, the terms of any financing may adversely affect the holdings or the rights of our stockholders and the issuance of additional securities, whether equity or debt, by us, or the possibility of such issuance, may cause the market price of our shares to decline. The sale of additional equity or convertible securities would dilute all of our stockholders. If we incur debt, it could result in increased fixed payment obligations and we may be required to agree to certain restrictive covenants, such as limitations on our ability to incur additional debt, limitations on our ability to acquire, sell, or license intellectual property rights, and other operating restrictions that could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. We could also be required to seek funds through collaborative partnerships or other arrangements and we may be required to relinquish rights to some of our technologies or product candidates or otherwise agree to terms unfavorable to us, any of which may have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and prospects. Even if we believe we have sufficient funds for our current or future operating plans, we may seek additional capital if market conditions are favorable or if we have specific strategic considerations.

If we are unable to obtain funding on a timely basis or at all, we may be required to significantly curtail, delay, or discontinue one or more of our research or development programs or the commercialization of any product candidates or be unable to expand our operations or otherwise capitalize on our business opportunities, as desired, which could materially affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Risks Related to the Discovery and Development of Our Product Candidates

We are heavily dependent on the success of our product candidates, some of which are in the early stages of 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 product candidates will receive regulatory approval, which is necessary before they can be commercialized.

Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our product candidates, we must conduct extensive clinical studies to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the product candidates in humans. To date, we have invested substantially all of our efforts and financial resources to identifying, acquiring, and developing our product candidates, including conducting clinical studies and providing general and administrative support for these operations. We cannot be certain that any clinical studies will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. Our inability to successfully complete nonclinical 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 our product candidates. We currently generate no significant revenue from sales of drugs, and we may never be able to develop or commercialize a marketable drug. We cannot be certain that any of our product candidates will be successful in clinical studies or receive regulatory approval. Further, our product candidates may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in some clinical studies. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for our product candidates, we may not be able to continue our operations.

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Each of our product candidates is in development and will require additional clinical development; management of nonclinical, clinical, and manufacturing activities; regulatory approval; obtaining adequate manufacturing supply; building a commercial organization; significant marketing efforts; and reimbursement before we generate any significant revenue from commercial product sales. We have multiple programs that are currently in clinical studies. Three of our product candidates have advanced into pivotal studies, but such studies may not result in approval. For Ace-ER, we filed for conditional marketing authorization in the EU on the basis of results from our Phase 2 study, which was originally designed to serve as a hypothesis-generating exploratory study and not as a pivotal study. Additionally, the study had a small sample size, did not have a primary endpoint and had a pre-specified unblinding that occurred halfway during the treatment period. Accordingly, the data from this Phase 2 study are not as comprehensive or robust as data that are typically generated from a pivotal Phase 3 study. Although conditional marketing authorization initially allows for approval based on a positive benefit-risk assessment without providing comprehensive clinical data, marketing approval applications based on smaller and less definitive studies may entail a higher risk for rejection than the standard approval pathway. Additionally, our filing for conditional marketing authorization for Ace-ER represents our first application for regulatory approval of an investigational drug. In the course of interacting with the EMA on this filing, certain findings and observations have been made, including but not limited to safety and efficacy and deficiencies in our clinical and chemistry, manufacturing, and controls processes and procedures, which we are in the process of addressing. One remaining major objection relates to the clinical interpretation of the Phase 2 data. There can be no assurance that our responses to any of these issues will be adequate such that we will be able to secure approval with the current filing or within projected time periods. Even if we obtain conditional approval, it may be withdrawn under certain circumstances. In addition, confirmatory clinical studies would be required and could fail to demonstrate sufficient safety and efficacy to obtain full approval. We also currently plan to file for conditional marketing authorization for KRN23 for XLH in the EU based on Phase 1/2 and Phase 2 data. This filing would face similar hurdles.

Some of our product candidates are in the early-stage translational research phases of development. Such early-stage programs will require substantial investment to reach clinical studies and regulatory approval, and their risk of failure may be higher than for our clinical-stage product candidates. For example, our collaboration with Arcturus focuses on an advanced but less established technology platform that will require significant effort and investment. A failure in that collaboration or our other early-stage programs may negatively affect our operational results.

We generally plan to seek regulatory approval to commercialize our product candidates in the United States, the EU, and in additional foreign countries where we have commercial rights. To obtain regulatory approval in other countries, we must comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements of such other countries regarding safety, efficacy, chemistry, manufacturing, and controls, clinical studies, commercial sales, pricing, and distribution of our product candidates. Even if we are successful in obtaining approval in one jurisdiction, we cannot ensure that we will obtain approval in any other jurisdictions. If we are unable to obtain approval for our product candidates in multiple jurisdictions, our revenue and results of operations could be negatively affected.

We cannot be certain that any of our product candidates will be successful in clinical studies or receive regulatory approval. Further, our product candidates may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in clinical studies. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for our product candidates, we may not be able to continue our operations.

The regulatory approval processes of the FDA and comparable foreign authorities are lengthy, time consuming, and inherently unpredictable. Even if we achieve positive results in our pre-clinical and clinical studies, if we are ultimately unable to obtain timely regulatory approval for our product candidates, our business will be substantially harmed.

Our future success is dependent on our ability to successfully develop, obtain regulatory approval for, and then successfully commercialize one or more product candidates. We are not permitted to market or promote any of our product candidates before we receive regulatory approval from the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, and we may never receive such regulatory approval for any of our product candidates. We have not obtained regulatory approval for any product candidate, and it is possible that none of our existing product candidates or any product candidates we may seek to develop in the future will ever obtain regulatory approval.

To obtain regulatory approval in the United States and other jurisdictions, we must comply with numerous and varying requirements regarding safety, efficacy, chemistry, manufacturing and controls, clinical studies (including good clinical practices), commercial sales, pricing, and distribution of our product candidates. Even if we are successful in obtaining approval in one jurisdiction, we cannot ensure that we will obtain approval in any other jurisdictions. In addition, approval policies, regulations, positions of the regulatory agencies on study design and/or endpoints, or the type and amount of clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development, which may cause delays in the approval or the decision not to approve an application. Communications with the regulatory agencies during the approval process are also unpredictable; favorable communications early in the process do not ensure that approval will be obtained and unfavorable communications early on do not guarantee that approval will not be obtained. If we are unable to obtain approval for our product candidates in multiple jurisdictions, our revenue and results of operations could be negatively affected. Applications for our product candidates could fail to receive regulatory approval, or could be delayed in receiving regulatory approval, for many reasons, including but not limited to the following:

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Furthermore, the disease states we are evaluating often will not have clear regulatory paths for approval and/or do not have validated outcome measures. In these circumstances, we work closely with the regulatory authorities to define the approval path and may have to qualify outcome measures as part of our development programs. For example, for patients with XLH there is no available regulatory precedent describing requirements for obtaining approval to treat this disease, and there are no validated patient-reported outcome measures that are specific to this disease. Additionally, many of the disease states we are targeting are highly heterogeneous in nature, which may impact our ability to determine the treatment benefit of our potential therapies. For example, patients with FAOD, Glut1 DS, and MPS 7 have a highly heterogeneous disease course, which may impact our ability to determine the true treatment benefit of our product candidates in these patients.

This lengthy and uncertain approval process, as well as the unpredictability of the clinical and nonclinical studies, may result in our failure to obtain regulatory approval to market any of our product candidates, or delayed regulatory approval, which would significantly harm our business, results of operations, and prospects.

Clinical drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process with uncertain outcomes and the potential for substantial delays, and the results of earlier studies may not be predictive of future study results.

Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of our product candidates, we must conduct extensive clinical studies to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the product candidates in humans. Clinical testing is expensive, time consuming, and uncertain as to outcome. We cannot guarantee that any clinical studies will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. A failure of one or more clinical studies can occur at any stage of testing, and our future clinical studies may not be successful. Product candidates that have shown promising results in early-stage clinical studies may still suffer significant setbacks in subsequent clinical studies. For example, the safety or efficacy results generated to date in clinical studies for KRN23, rhGUS, UX007, and Ace-ER do not ensure that later clinical studies will demonstrate similar results. Results from investigator-sponsored studies or compassionate-use studies may not be confirmed in company-sponsored studies or may negatively impact the prospects for our programs. Additionally, given the nature of the rare diseases we are seeking to treat, we often have to devise newly-defined endpoints to be tested in our studies, which can lead to some subjectivity in interpreting study results and could result in regulatory agencies not agreeing with the validity of our endpoints, or our interpretation of the clinical data, and therefore denying approval. For example, for our Glut1 DS Phase 3 clinical trial, we have proposed utilizing a patient diary to track movement disorder events. Based on FDA feedback expressing concern about the clinical meaningfulness of all such events tracked, we are collecting additional supportive data regarding the clinical impact of events from patients and optimizing the diary in order to capture the clinically meaningfulness of events. There is no guarantee that these modifications to the endpoint will be acceptable to FDA. Given the illness of the subjects in our studies and the nature of their rare diseases, we may also be required or choose to conduct certain studies on an open-label basis. Additionally, we have in the past, and may in the future elect to review interim clinical data at multiple time points during the studies, which could introduce bias into the study results and potentially result in denial of approval.

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In the biopharmaceutical industry, there is a high failure rate for drugs and biologics proceeding through clinical studies, and product candidates in later stages of clinical studies may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy despite having progressed through nonclinical studies and initial clinical studies. A number of companies in the biopharmaceutical industry have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical studies due to lack of efficacy or adverse safety profiles, notwithstanding promising results in earlier studies.

Scenarios that may prevent successful or timely completion of clinical development include but are not limited to:

Any inability to successfully complete nonclinical and clinical development could result in additional costs to us or negatively impact our ability to generate revenue. In addition, if we make manufacturing or formulation changes to our product candidates, such as our plan to manufacture a combination extended release and immediate release version of sialic acid, or new formulations of UX007, we may need to conduct additional studies to bridge our modified product candidates to earlier approved versions. Clinical study delays could also shorten any periods during which our products have patent protection and may allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do, which could negatively impact our ability to obtain orphan exclusivity and to successfully commercialize our product candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.

We may find it difficult to enroll patients in our clinical studies given the limited number of patients who have the diseases for which our product candidates are being studied. Difficulty in enrolling patients could delay or prevent clinical studies of our product candidates.

Identifying and qualifying patients to participate in clinical studies of our product candidates is critical to our success. The timing of our clinical studies depends in part on the speed at which we can recruit patients to participate in testing our product candidates, and we may experience delays in our clinical studies if we encounter difficulties in enrollment.

Each of the conditions for which we plan to evaluate our current product candidates is a rare genetic disease. Accordingly, there are limited patient pools from which to draw for clinical studies. For our current product candidates:

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In addition to the rarity of these diseases, the eligibility criteria of our clinical studies will further limit the pool of available study participants as we will require patients to have specific characteristics that we can measure or to assure their disease is either severe enough or not too advanced to include them in a study. For example, the UX007 Glut1 DS Phase 2 study requires a minimum baseline rate of generalized tonic-clonic seizures or the presence of absence seizures at baseline. Additionally, the process of finding and diagnosing patients may prove costly. We also may not be able to identify, recruit, and enroll a sufficient number of patients to complete our clinical studies because of the perceived risks and benefits of the product candidate under study, the proximity and availability of clinical study sites for prospective patients, and the patient referral practices of physicians. The availability and efficacy of competing therapies and clinical studies can also adversely impact enrollment. For example, our Phase 2 UX007 Glut1 DS study is enrolling patients who are not currently on or compliant with the ketogenic diet. However, the ketogenic diet is the standard of care and considered effective in seizure control. If patients are unwilling to participate in our studies for any reason, the timeline for recruiting patients, conducting studies, and obtaining regulatory approval of potential products may be delayed, the commercial prospects of our product candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenue from any of these product candidates could be delayed or prevented. In addition, any delays in completing our clinical studies will increase our costs, slow down our product candidate development and approval process, and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenue. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition, and prospects significantly. In addition, many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical studies may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates.

If we do not achieve our projected development goals in the timeframes we announce and expect, the commercialization of our products may be delayed and the credibility of our management may be adversely affected and, as a result, our stock price may decline.

For planning purposes, we estimate the timing of the accomplishment of various scientific, clinical, regulatory, and other product development goals, which we sometimes refer to as milestones. These milestones may include the commencement or completion of scientific studies and clinical trials, the submission of regulatory filings, and the potential approval of such regulatory filings. We periodically make public announcements about the expected timing of some of these milestones. All of these milestones are based on a variety of assumptions, but the actual timing of these milestones can vary dramatically from our estimates, in many cases for reasons beyond our control. If we do not meet these publicly announced milestones, the commercialization of our products may be delayed and the credibility of our management may be adversely affected and, as a result, our stock price may decline.

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Our product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that could delay or prevent their regulatory approval, limit the commercial profile of an approved label, or result in significant negative consequences following marketing approval, if any.

Undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay, or halt clinical studies or further development, and could result in a more restrictive label or the delay or denial of regulatory approval by the FDA or other comparable foreign authorities. Some of our product candidates are in the early stages of development and the safety profile has not been established. For example, in the completed Phase 1 study, four-month Phase 1/2 study, and long-term twelve-month Phase 1/2 study, adult patients treated with KRN23 have experienced drug-related side effects including injection site reaction, arthralgia, diarrhea, restless legs syndrome, injection site erythema, injection site pain, upper abdominal pain, headache, and decreased neutrophil count. Most of these adverse events were mild and no treatment-related serious adverse events have been observed. In interim Phase 2 data in pediatric patients, the most common treatment-related adverse event by preferred term was injection site reaction. There were no deaths and there was one serious adverse event of fever and muscle pain in a patient that was considered possibly treatment-related. Patients treated with triheptanoin have experienced drug-related side effects such as cramping, diarrhea, and loose stools. In addition, over 14 years of treatment experience in approximately 130 human subjects, including greater than 60 with LC-FAOD, we are aware of three serious adverse events that were classified as possibly related to triheptanoin treatment (muscle cell rupture and elevated creatine kinase reported for two subjects and myoglobinuria in one subject); however, these serious adverse events can be considered typical of the underlying disease. In interim data from our Phase 2 study, there were no deaths, but there was one treatment-related serious adverse event of moderate gastroenteritis with vomiting. The most common treatment-related adverse events were diarrhea, abdominal/gastrointestinal pain, and vomiting. While we have not completed our own clinical studies for UX007, we may discover other side effects associated with its use. Additionally, patients treated with Ace-ER have experienced drug-related side effects including mild gastrointestinal discomfort. Enzyme replacement therapies have been associated with infusion-associated reactions due to developing an allergy to the product, which can cause rashes, pain, significant clinical disease, or even death. Our rhGUS and rhPPCA product candidates may also cause these or similar side effects as further development proceeds. Results of our studies or investigator-sponsored trials could reveal a high and unacceptable severity and prevalence of these or other side effects. In such an event, our studies could be suspended or terminated, and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities could order us to cease further development of or deny or withdraw approval of our product candidates for any or all targeted indications.

Drug-related side effects could affect patient recruitment and the ability of enrolled patients to complete a study. Such side effects could also result in potential product liability claims. We currently carry product liability insurance in the amount of $10.0 million per incident and $10.0 million in the aggregate, and we are required to maintain product liability insurance pursuant to certain of our agreements. We believe our product liability insurance coverage is sufficient in light of our current clinical programs; however, we may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in sufficient amounts to protect us against losses due to liability, or losses may exceed the amount of insurance that we carry. A product liability claim or series of claims brought against us could cause our stock price to decline and, if judgments exceed our insurance coverage, could adversely affect our results of operations and business. In addition, regardless of merit or eventual outcome, product liability claims may result in impairment of our business reputation, withdrawal of clinical study participants, costs due to related litigation, distraction of management’s attention from our primary business, initiation of investigations by regulators, substantial monetary awards to patients or other claimants, the inability to commercialize our product candidates, and decreased demand for our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale.

Additionally, if our product candidates receive marketing approval, and we or others later identify undesirable side effects caused by such products, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including but not limited to:

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

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Even if we obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates, our products will remain subject to regulatory scrutiny.

If our product candidates are approved, they will be subject to ongoing regulatory requirements for manufacturing, labeling, packaging, storage, distribution, advertising, promotion, sampling, record-keeping, conduct of post-marketing studies, and submission of safety, efficacy, and other post-market information, including both federal and state requirements in the United States and requirements of comparable foreign regulatory authorities.

Manufacturers and manufacturers’ facilities are required to comply with extensive FDA, and comparable foreign regulatory authority, requirements, including ensuring that quality control and manufacturing procedures conform to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) regulations. As such, we and our contract manufacturers will be subject to continual review and inspection to assess compliance with GMP and adherence to commitments made in any NDA, BLA, MAA, or other comparable application for approval in another jurisdiction. Accordingly, we and others with whom we work must continue to expend time, money, and effort in all areas of regulatory compliance, including manufacturing, production, and quality control.

Any regulatory approvals that we receive for our product candidates may be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or other conditions of approval, or contain requirements for potentially costly post-marketing testing, including Phase IV clinical studies, and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the product candidate. We could also be asked to conduct post-marketing clinical studies to verify the safety and efficacy of our products in general or in specific patient subsets. If original marketing approval were obtained via the accelerated approval or conditional marketing authorization pathways, we would be required to conduct a successful post-marketing clinical study to confirm clinical benefit for our products. An unsuccessful post-marketing study or failure to complete such a study could result in the withdrawal of marketing approval. We will be required to report certain adverse events and manufacturing problems, if any, to the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities. Any new legislation addressing drug safety issues could result in delays in product development or commercialization, or increased costs to assure compliance. We will have to comply with requirements concerning advertising and promotion for our products. Promotional communications with respect to prescription drugs are subject to a variety of legal and regulatory restrictions and must be consistent with the information in the product’s approved label. As such, we may not promote our products for indications or uses for which they do not have approval. The holder of an approved NDA, BLA, MAA, or other comparable application must submit new or supplemental applications and obtain approval for certain changes to the approved product, product labeling, or manufacturing process.

If we fail to comply with applicable regulatory requirements, or there are safety or efficacy problems with a product, a regulatory agency or enforcement authority may, among other things:

Any government investigation of alleged violations of law could require us to expend significant time and resources in response, and could generate negative publicity. Any failure to comply with ongoing regulatory requirements may significantly and adversely affect our ability to commercialize and generate revenue from our products. If regulatory sanctions are applied or if regulatory approval is withdrawn, the value of our company and our operating results will be adversely affected.

Changes in methods of treatment of disease could reduce demand for our products and adversely affect revenues.

Even if our drug products are approved, if doctors elect a course of treatment which does not include our drug products, this decision would reduce demand for our drug products and adversely affect our revenues. Changes in treatment method can be caused by the introduction of other companies’ products or the development of new technologies or surgical procedures which may not directly compete with ours, but which have the effect of changing how doctors decide to treat a disease.

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Risks Related to our Reliance on Third Parties

We rely on third parties to conduct our nonclinical and clinical studies and perform other tasks for us. If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines, or comply with regulatory requirements, we may be exposed to sub-optimal quality and reputational harm, we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or commercialize our product candidates, and our business could be substantially harmed.

We have relied upon and plan to continue to rely upon third parties, including CROs and collaborative partners, to analyze, collect, monitor, and manage data for our ongoing nonclinical and clinical programs. We rely on third parties for execution of our nonclinical and clinical studies, and for estimates regarding costs and efforts completed, and we control only certain aspects of their activities. For example, we will rely on our partner Arcturus for the design and optimization of initial product candidates under our messenger RNA collaboration. Nevertheless, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our studies is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory, and scientific standards, and our reliance on the CROs and other third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities. We and our CROs and other vendors and partners are required to comply with GMP, Good Clinical Practices (GCP), and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP), which are regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA, the Competent Authorities of the Member States of the European Economic Area, and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for all of our product candidates in development. Regulatory authorities enforce these regulations through periodic inspections of study sponsors, principal investigators, study sites, and other contractors. If we or any of our CROs or other vendors and partners, including the sites at which clinical studies are conducted, fail to comply with applicable regulations, the data generated in our nonclinical and clinical studies may be deemed unreliable and the FDA, EMA, or comparable foreign regulatory authorities may deny approval and/or require us to perform additional nonclinical and clinical studies before approving our marketing applications, which would delay the approval process. We cannot make assurances that upon inspection by a given regulatory authority, such regulatory authority will determine that any of our clinical studies comply with GCP regulations or that nonclinical studies comply with GLP regulations. In addition, our clinical studies must be conducted with products produced under GMP regulations. If the regulatory authorities determine that we have failed to comply with GLP, GMP, or GCP regulations, they may deny approval of our product candidates and/or we may be required to repeat clinical or nonclinical studies, which would delay the regulatory approval process.

Our CROs and other vendors and partners are not our employees, and except for remedies available to us under our agreements with such third parties, we cannot control whether or not they devote sufficient time and resources to our on-going nonclinical and clinical programs. If our vendors and partners do not successfully carry out their contractual duties or obligations or meet expected deadlines, if they need to be replaced, or if the quality or accuracy of the data they obtain is compromised due to the failure to adhere to our protocols, regulatory requirements, or for other reasons, our clinical studies may be extended, delayed, or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for or successfully commercialize our product candidates. CROs and other vendors and partners may also generate higher costs than anticipated as a result of changes in scope of work or otherwise. As a result, our results of operations and the commercial prospects for our product candidates would be harmed, our costs could increase, and our ability to generate revenue could be delayed.

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

We also rely on third parties in other ways, including efforts to support patient identification, to assist our finance and legal departments, and to provide other resources for our business. Use of these third parties could expose us to sub-optimal quality, missed deadlines, and non-compliance with applicable laws, all of which could result in reputational harm to us and negatively affect our business.

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We are dependent on KHK for the clinical and commercial supply of KRN23 for all major markets and for the development and commercialization of KRN23 in certain major markets, and KHK’s failure to provide an adequate supply of KRN23 or to commercialize KRN23 in those markets could result in a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.

Under our agreement with KHK, KHK has the sole right to commercialize KRN23 in Europe and, at a specified time, in the United States and Canada, subject to a limited promotion right we retained. Our development partnership with KHK may not be successful, and we may not realize the expected benefits from such partnership, due to a number of important factors, including but not limited to the following:

We rely completely on third parties to manufacture our product candidates. Our business could be harmed if those third parties fail to provide us with sufficient quantities of drug product, or fail to do so at acceptable quality levels or prices.

We do not currently have, nor do we plan to acquire, the infrastructure or capability internally to manufacture our product candidates, and we lack the resources and the capability to manufacture any of our product candidates on a clinical or commercial scale. We rely on our manufacturers to purchase from third-party suppliers the materials necessary to produce our product candidates for our clinical studies. There are a limited number of suppliers for raw materials that we use to manufacture our drugs, placebos, or active controls, and there may be a need to identify alternate suppliers to prevent a possible disruption of the manufacture of the materials necessary to produce our product candidates for our clinical studies, and, if approved, ultimately for commercial sale. We do not have any control over the process or timing of the acquisition of these raw materials by our manufacturers. Although we generally do not begin a clinical study unless we believe we have a sufficient supply of a product candidate to complete such study, any significant delay or discontinuity in the supply of a product candidate, or the raw material components thereof, for an ongoing clinical study due to, among other things, the failure of a manufacturer to provide drug substance or drug product of sufficient quantity or quality, or the need to replace a third-party manufacturer could considerably delay completion of our clinical studies, product testing, and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates, and could also impair named patient sale supply of our product candidates, which could harm our business and results of operations.

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We are subject to a multitude of manufacturing risks, any of which could substantially increase our costs and limit the supply of our product candidates.

The process of manufacturing our product candidates is complex, highly regulated, and subject to several risks, including but not limited to those listed below.

Any adverse developments affecting manufacturing operations for our product candidates may result in shipment delays, inventory shortages, lot failures, withdrawals or recalls, or other interruptions in the supply of our product candidates. Due to their stage of development, small volume requirements, and infrequency of batch production runs, we carry limited amounts of safety stock for our product candidates. We may also have to take inventory write-offs and incur other charges and expenses for product candidates that fail to meet specifications, undertake costly remediation efforts, or seek more costly manufacturing alternatives.

The drug substance and drug product for most of our product candidates are currently acquired from single-source suppliers. The loss of these suppliers, or their failure to supply us with the necessary drug substance or drug product, could materially and adversely affect our business.

We acquire most of the drug substances and drug products for our product candidates from single sources. The drug substance and drug product for KRN23 are made by KHK pursuant to our license and collaboration agreement with KHK. The drug substance and drug product for rhGUS are manufactured by Rentschler Biotechnologie GmbH under a development and clinical supply agreement and accompanying purchase orders. The pharmaceutical-grade drug substance for UX007 is manufactured by IOI Oleo GmbH, or IOI Oleo, pursuant to our supply agreement with IOI Oleo, and the drug product for UX007 is prepared by Haupt Pharma AG and CPM pursuant to purchase orders. The drug substance for Ace-ER is manufactured by Sanyo Fine Co., Ltd. under our license agreement and accompanying purchase orders with Nobelpharma Co., Ltd. and under our clinical supply agreement with Evonik Corporation, and the drug product for Ace-ER is manufactured by Alcami Corporation, or Alcami (formerly known as AAIPharma Services Corp., or AAIPharma), pursuant to our license agreement and accompanying purchase orders with Alcami. We have not currently secured any other suppliers for the drug substance or drug product of our product candidates and, although we believe that there are alternate sources of supply that could satisfy our clinical and commercial requirements, we cannot provide assurance that identifying alternate sources and establishing relationships with such sources would not result in significant delay in the development of our product candidates. Additionally, we may not be able to enter into supply arrangements with alternative suppliers on commercially reasonable terms or at all. A delay in the development of our product candidates or having to enter into a new agreement with a different third-party on less favorable terms than we have with our current suppliers could have a material adverse impact upon on our business.

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We and our collaborators and contract manufacturers are subject to significant regulation with respect to manufacturing our product candidates. The manufacturing facilities on which we rely may not continue to meet regulatory requirements or may not be able to meet supply demands.

All entities involved in the preparation of therapeutics for clinical studies or commercial sale, including our existing contract manufacturers for our product candidates, are subject to extensive regulation. Components of a finished therapeutic product approved for commercial sale or used in clinical studies must be manufactured in accordance with GMP. These regulations govern manufacturing processes and procedures (including record keeping) and the implementation and operation of quality systems to control and assure the quality of investigational products and products approved for sale. Poor control of production processes can lead to the introduction of contaminants or to inadvertent changes in the properties or stability of our product candidates that may not be detectable in final product testing. We, our collaborators, or our contract manufacturers must supply all necessary documentation in support of an NDA, BLA, MAA, or other application for regulatory approval, on a timely basis and must adhere to GLP, GMP, and similar regulations enforced by the FDA and other regulatory agencies through their facilities inspection programs. Some of our contract manufacturers have never produced a commercially approved pharmaceutical product and therefore have not obtained the requisite regulatory authority approvals to do so. The facilities and quality systems of some or all of our collaborators and third-party contractors must pass a pre-approval inspection for compliance with the applicable regulations as a condition of regulatory approval of our product candidates or any of our other potential products. In addition, the regulatory authorities may, at any time, audit or inspect a manufacturing facility involved with the preparation of our product candidates or our other potential products or the associated quality systems for compliance with the regulations applicable to the activities being conducted. Although we oversee the contract manufacturers, we cannot control the manufacturing process of, and are substantially dependent on, our contract manufacturing partners for compliance with the regulatory requirements. If these facilities do not pass a pre-approval plant inspection, regulatory approval of the products may not be granted or may be substantially delayed until any violations are corrected to the satisfaction of the regulatory authority, if ever.

The regulatory authorities also may, at any time following approval of a product for sale, audit the manufacturing facilities of our collaborators and third-party contractors. If any such inspection or audit identifies a failure to comply with applicable regulations or if a violation of our product specifications or applicable regulations occurs independent of such an inspection or audit, we or the relevant regulatory authority may require remedial measures that may be costly and/or time consuming for us or a third-party to implement, and that may include the temporary or permanent suspension of a clinical study or commercial sales or the temporary or permanent closure of a facility. Any such remedial measures imposed upon us or third parties with whom we contract could materially harm our business.

If we, our collaborators, or any of our third-party manufacturers fail to maintain regulatory compliance, the FDA or other applicable regulatory authority can impose regulatory sanctions including, among other things, refusal to approve a pending application for a new drug product or biologic product, withdrawal of an approval, or suspension of production. As a result, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially harmed.

Additionally, if supply from one approved manufacturer is interrupted, an alternative manufacturer would need to be qualified through an NDA or BLA supplement or MAA variation, or equivalent foreign regulatory filing, which could result in further delay. The regulatory agencies may also require additional studies if a new manufacturer is relied upon for commercial production. Switching manufacturers may involve substantial costs and is likely to result in a delay in our desired clinical and commercial timelines.

These factors could cause us to incur higher costs and could cause the delay or termination of clinical studies, regulatory submissions, required approvals, or commercialization of our product candidates. Furthermore, if our suppliers fail to meet contractual requirements and we are unable to secure one or more replacement suppliers capable of production at a substantially equivalent cost, our clinical studies may be delayed or we could lose potential revenue.

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

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

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Risks Related to Commercialization of Our Product Candidates

If the market opportunities for our product candidates are smaller than we believe they are, our revenue may be adversely affected, and our business may suffer. Because the target patient populations of our product candidates are small, and the addressable patient population potentially even smaller, we must be able to successfully identify patients and acquire a significant market share to achieve profitability and growth.

We focus our research and product development on treatments for rare and ultra-rare genetic diseases. Given the small number of patients who have the diseases that we are targeting, it is critical to our ability to grow and become profitable that we continue to successfully identify patients with these rare and ultra-rare genetic diseases. Some of our current clinical programs may be most appropriate for patients with more severe forms of their disease. For instance, our Phase 2 study of UX007 in LC-FAOD enrolled patients with more severe disease. In addition, while adults make up the majority of the XLH patients, they often have less severe disease that may reduce the penetration of KRN23 in the adult population relative to the pediatric population. Given the overall rarity of the diseases we target, it is difficult to project the prevalence of the more severe forms, or the other subsets of patients that may be most suitable to address with our product candidates, which may further limit the addressable patient population to a small subset. Our projections of both the number of people who have these diseases, as well as the subset of people with these diseases who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our product candidates, are based on our beliefs and estimates. These estimates have been derived from a variety of sources, including the scientific literature, surveys of clinics, patient foundations, or market research, and may prove to be incorrect. Further, new studies may change the estimated incidence or prevalence of these diseases. The number of patients may turn out to be lower than expected. The effort to identify patients with diseases we seek to treat is in early stages, and we cannot accurately predict the number of patients for whom treatment might be possible. Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for each of our product candidates may be limited or may not be amenable to treatment with our product candidates, and new patients may become increasingly difficult to identify or access, which would adversely affect our results of operations and our business. Further, even if we obtain significant market share for our product candidates, because the potential target populations are very small we may never become or remain profitable nor generate sufficient revenue growth to sustain our business.

We intend to rely on third-party manufacturers to produce our product candidates, but we have not entered into binding agreements with any such manufacturers to support commercialization. Additionally, these manufacturers do not have experience producing our product candidates at commercial levels and may not achieve the necessary regulatory approvals or produce our product candidates at the cost, quality, quantities, locations, and timing needed to support profitable commercialization.

We have not yet secured manufacturing capabilities for commercial quantities of our product candidates. Although we intend to rely on third-party manufacturers for commercialization, we have only entered into agreements with such manufacturers to support our clinical studies. We may be unable to negotiate binding agreements with the manufacturers to support our commercialization activities on commercially reasonable terms.

Manufacturers may not have the experience or ability to produce our product candidates at commercial levels. We may run into technical or scientific issues related to manufacturing or development that we may be unable to resolve in a timely manner or with available funds. We also have not completed all of the characterization and validation activities necessary for commercialization and regulatory approvals. If our manufacturing partners are not able to conduct all such necessary activities in accordance with applicable regulations, our commercialization efforts will be harmed.

Even if our third-party product manufacturers develop an acceptable manufacturing process, if such third-party manufacturers are unable to produce the necessary quantities of our product candidates, are unable to comply with GMP or other pertinent regulatory requirements, or are unable to produce our product candidates within our planned timeframe and cost parameters, the development and sales of our products, if approved, may be materially harmed.

Additionally, the cost to us for the supply of our product candidates manufactured by such third parties may be high and could limit our profitability, even if our third-party product manufacturers develop acceptable manufacturing processes that provide the necessary quantities of our product candidates in a compliant and timely manner. Furthermore, KHK is our sole supplier of commercial quantities of KRN23. The supply price to us for commercial sales of KRN23, which will be determined on a fixed double-digit percentage of net sales, will be higher than the typical cost of goods sold by companies focused on rare diseases.

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We face intense competition and rapid technological change and the possibility that our competitors may develop therapies that are similar, more advanced, or more effective than ours, which may adversely affect our financial condition and our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates.

The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are intensely competitive and subject to rapid and significant technological change. We are currently aware of various existing therapies that may compete with our product candidates. For example, XLH is currently treated with oral phosphate and Vitamin D therapy, which may compete with KRN23. Furthermore, B. Braun Medical Inc., or B. Braun, has received orphan drug designation for triheptanoin in Europe for certain LC-FAOD indications and we do not know if B. Braun is planning to initiate clinical development. Triheptanoin is also available in food-grade form, which may compete with our pharmaceutical-grade product. Investigator-sponsored trials evaluating triheptanoin in multiple indications are ongoing. LC-FAOD is currently treated with diet therapy and medium-chain triglyceride oil, which may compete with UX007. Glut1 DS is currently treated primarily with the ketogenic diet and anti-epileptic drugs, which may also compete with UX007. Additionally, we are aware of a program at the National Institutes of Health that is investigating the use of another metabolite in the sialic acid pathway, ManNAc, for the treatment of GNE myopathy, which could compete with Ace-ER. Data from a Phase 2 study of ManNAc for the treatment of GNE myopathy was presented at the 2016 International Congress of the World Muscle Society. The intellectual property rights for ManNAc are licensed to Escala Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Fortress Biotech, Inc., which acquired the rights from a company in New Zealand that manufactures ManNAc. Escala has received orphan designation for ManNAc in the United States and Europe for GNEM. ManNAc may have a potential advantage over Ace-ER in that it is not a charged molecule like sialic acid, which might improve ManNac’s distribution and uptake. ManNac is also available for purchase from chemical supply and other companies, which may compete with Ace-ER. Gene therapy, gene correction, RNA-based therapies, and other approaches may also emerge for the treatment of any of the disease areas in which we focus.

We have competitors both in the United States and internationally, including major multinational pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies, and biotechnology companies. Some of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies we expect to compete with include Shire, Sanofi, BioMarin, Alexion, and Roche, as well as other companies ranging from startups to large multinational companies. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, and other resources, such as larger research and development staff and experienced marketing and manufacturing organizations. Additional mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries may result in even more resources being concentrated in our competitors. As a result, these companies may obtain regulatory approval more rapidly than we are able to and may be more effective in selling and marketing their products as well. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large, established companies. Competition may increase further as a result of advances in the commercial applicability of technologies and greater availability of capital for investment in these industries. Our competitors may succeed in developing, acquiring, or licensing on an exclusive basis, products that are more effective or less costly than any product candidate that we may develop, or achieve earlier patent protection, regulatory approval, product commercialization, and market penetration than we do. Additionally, technologies developed by our competitors may render our potential product candidates uneconomical or obsolete, and we may not be successful in marketing our product candidates against competitors.

We continue to build an integrated commercial organization. If we are unable to establish sufficient field forces and marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to market and sell our product candidates, we may be unable to generate significant revenue.

Although our employees may have sold other similar products in the past while employed at other companies, we, as a company, have no experience selling and marketing our product candidates and we currently have minimal marketing and field force capacity. To successfully commercialize any products that may result from our development programs, we will need to develop these capabilities, either on our own or with others. If our product candidates receive regulatory approval, we intend to establish a marketing organization and field forces with technical expertise, as well as supporting distribution capabilities to commercialize our product candidates in major markets, which will be expensive, difficult, and time consuming. Any failure or delay in the development of our internal field forces, marketing, and distribution capabilities would adversely impact the commercialization of our products.

Further, given our lack of prior experience in marketing and selling biopharmaceutical products, our initial estimate of the size of the required field force may be materially more or less than the size of the field force actually required to effectively commercialize our product candidates. As such, we may be required to hire large teams to adequately support the commercialization of our product candidates or we may incur excess costs as a result of hiring more commercial personnel than necessary. With respect to certain geographical markets, we may enter into collaborations with other entities to utilize their local marketing and distribution capabilities, but we may be unable to enter into such agreements on favorable terms, if at all. If our future collaborators do not commit sufficient resources to commercialize our future products, if any, and we are unable to develop the necessary marketing capabilities on our own, we will be unable to generate sufficient product revenue to sustain our business. We may be competing with companies that currently have extensive and well-funded marketing and sales operations. Without an internal team or the support of a third-party to perform key commercial functions, we may be unable to compete successfully against these more established companies.

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The commercial success of any current or future product candidate will depend upon the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors, and others in the medical community.

Even with the requisite approvals from the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities, the commercial success of our product candidates will depend in part on the medical community, patients, and payors accepting our product candidates as medically useful, cost-effective, and safe. Any product that we bring to the market may not gain market acceptance by physicians, patients, payors, and others in the medical community. The degree of market acceptance of any of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including:

Even if a potential product displays a favorable efficacy and safety profile in nonclinical and clinical studies, market acceptance of the product will not be fully known until after it is launched. Our efforts to educate the medical community and payors on the benefits of the product candidates may require significant resources and may never be successful. If our product candidates are approved but fail to achieve an adequate level of acceptance by physicians, patients, payors, and others in the medical community, we will not be able to generate sufficient revenue to become or remain profitable.

The insurance coverage and reimbursement status of newly approved products is uncertain. Failure to obtain or maintain adequate coverage and reimbursement for new or current products could limit our ability to market those products and decrease our ability to generate revenue.

Our target patient populations are small, and accordingly the pricing, coverage, and reimbursement of our product candidates, if approved, must be adequate to support our commercial infrastructure. Our per-patient prices must be sufficient to recover our development and manufacturing costs and potentially achieve profitability. Accordingly, the availability and adequacy of coverage and reimbursement by governmental and private payors are essential for most patients to afford expensive treatments such as ours, assuming approval. Sales of our product candidates will depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of our product candidates will be paid for by health maintenance, managed care, pharmacy benefit, and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by government authorities, private health insurers, and other payors. If coverage and reimbursement are not available, or are available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize our product candidates. Even if coverage is provided, the approved reimbursement amount may not be high enough to allow us to establish or maintain pricing sufficient to realize a return on our investment.

There is significant uncertainty related to the insurance coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products. In the United States, the principal decisions about coverage and reimbursement for new drugs are typically made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as CMS decides whether and to what extent a new drug will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare. Private payors tend to follow the coverage reimbursement policies established by CMS to a substantial degree. It is difficult to predict what CMS will decide with respect to reimbursement for products such as ours.

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

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Moreover, increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors in the United States and abroad to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and the level of reimbursement for new products approved and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for our product candidates. We expect to experience pricing pressures in connection with the sale of any of our product candidates due to the trend toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations, and additional legislative changes. For example, within the last year, several states in the U.S. have introduced legislation to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose their costs to justify the prices of their products, and an “Affordable Drug Pricing Task-Force” has been formed in the U.S. House of Representatives with the goal of combating the increased costs of prescription drugs. The downward pressure on healthcare costs in general, and with respect to prescription drugs, surgical procedures, and other treatments in particular, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected to the entry of new products.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we are unable to obtain and maintain effective patent rights for our product candidates or any future product candidates, we may not be able to compete effectively in our markets.

We rely upon a combination of patents, trade secret protection, and confidentiality agreements to protect the intellectual property related to our technologies and product candidates. Our success depends in large part on our and our licensors’ ability to obtain and maintain patent and other intellectual property protection in the United States and in other countries with respect to our proprietary technology and products.

We have sought to protect our proprietary position by filing patent applications in the United States and abroad related to our novel technologies and products that are important to our business. This process is expensive and time consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. It is also possible that we will fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection.

The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain and involves complex legal and factual questions for which legal principles remain unsolved. The patent applications that we own or in-license may fail to result in issued patents with claims that cover our product candidates in the United States or in other foreign countries. There is no assurance that all potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and patent applications has been found, which can invalidate a patent or prevent a patent from issuing from a pending patent application. Even if patents do successfully issue, and even if such patents cover our product candidates, third parties may challenge their validity, enforceability, or scope, which may result in such patents being narrowed, found unenforceable, or invalidated. Furthermore, even if they are unchallenged, our patents and patent applications may not adequately protect our intellectual property, provide exclusivity for our product candidates, or prevent others from designing around our claims. Any of these outcomes could impair our ability to prevent competition from third parties, which may have an adverse impact on our business.

We, independently or together with our licensors, have filed several patent applications covering various aspects of our product candidates. We cannot offer any assurances about which, if any, patents will issue, the breadth of any such patent or whether any issued patents will be found invalid and unenforceable or will be threatened by third parties. Any successful opposition to these patents or any other patents owned by or licensed to us after patent issuance could deprive us of rights necessary for the successful commercialization of any product candidates that we may develop. Further, if we encounter delays in regulatory approvals, the period of time during which we could market a product candidate under patent protection could be reduced.

Although we have a number of patents or applications covering methods of use and certain compositions of matter, we do not have complete patent protection for our product candidates. For example, there are no issued patents and very limited pending applications for KRN23 in Latin America, where we have rights to commercialize the compound. Therefore, a competitor could develop the same or similar antibody as well as other approaches that target FGF23. Additionally, there are currently no issued patents that cover the rhPPCA composition of matter or the use of rhPPCA for the treatment of galactosialidosis. Therefore, it is possible that a competitor could develop the same or similar enzyme with respect to rhPPCA and its use in the treatment of galactosialidosis, subject to any regulatory exclusivities. With respect to Ace-ER, none of the patents or applications relating to Ace-ER cover composition of matter. Therefore, it is possible that a competitor could develop the same or similar molecule. If we cannot obtain and maintain effective patent rights for our product candidates, we may not be able to compete effectively and our business and results of operations would be harmed.

We may not have sufficient patent terms to effectively protect our products and business.

Patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years after it is filed. Although various extensions may be available, the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Even if patents covering our product candidates are obtained, once the patent life has expired for a product, we may be open to competition from generic medications.

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While patent term extensions under the Hatch-Waxman Act in the United States and under supplementary protection certificates in Europe may be available to extend the patent exclusivity term for KRN23, rhGUS, UX007, and Ace-ER, we cannot provide any assurances that any such patent term extension will be obtained and, if so, for how long. In addition, upon issuance in the United States, any patent term can be adjusted based on certain delays caused by the applicant(s) or the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). For example, a patent term can be reduced based on certain delays caused by the patent applicant during patent prosecution. If we do not have sufficient patent terms or regulatory exclusivity to protect our products, our business and results of operations will be adversely affected.

Patent policy and rule changes could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents.

Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of our patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection. The laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all. We therefore cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to make the invention claimed in our owned and licensed patents or pending applications, or that we or our licensor were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. Assuming the other requirements for patentability are met, in the United States prior to March 15, 2013, the first to make the claimed invention is entitled to the patent, while outside the United States, the first to file a patent application is entitled to the patent. After March 15, 2013, under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy-Smith Act, enacted on September 16, 2011, the United States has moved to a first to file system. The Leahy-Smith Act also includes a number of significant changes that affect the way patent applications will be prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. The effects of these changes are currently unclear as the USPTO must still implement various regulations, the courts have yet to address any of these provisions and the applicability of the act and new regulations on specific patents discussed herein have not been determined and would need to be reviewed. In general, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

If we are unable to maintain effective proprietary rights for our product candidates or any future product candidates, we may not be able to compete effectively in our markets.

In addition to the protection afforded by patents, we rely on trade secret protection and confidentiality agreements to protect proprietary know-how that is not patentable or that we elect not to patent, processes for which patents are difficult to enforce and any other elements of our product candidate discovery and development processes that involve proprietary know-how, information, or technology that is not covered by patents. However, trade secrets can be difficult to protect. We seek to protect our proprietary technology and processes, in part, by entering into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, scientific advisors, and contractors. We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our data and trade secrets by maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems. While 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 breach. In addition, our trade secrets may otherwise become known or be independently discovered by competitors.

Although we expect all of our employees and consultants to assign their inventions to us, and all of our employees, consultants, advisors, and any third parties who have access to our proprietary know-how, information, or technology to enter into confidentiality agreements, we cannot provide any assurances that all such agreements have been duly executed or that our trade secrets and other confidential proprietary information will not be disclosed or that competitors will not otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. Misappropriation or unauthorized disclosure of our trade secrets could impair our competitive position and may have a material adverse effect on our business. Additionally, if the steps taken to maintain our trade secrets are deemed inadequate, we may have insufficient recourse against third parties for misappropriating the trade secret.

Claims of intellectual property infringement may prevent or delay our development and commercialization efforts.

Our commercial success depends in part on our avoiding infringement of the patents and proprietary rights of others. There have been many lawsuits and other proceedings involving patent and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, including patent infringement lawsuits, interferences, oppositions, and reexamination proceedings before the USPTO and corresponding foreign patent offices. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by other parties, exist in the fields in which we are developing product candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued, the risk increases that our product candidates may be subject to claims of infringement of the patent rights of these other parties.

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Other parties may assert that we are employing their proprietary technology without authorization. There may be patents or patent applications with claims to materials, formulations, methods of manufacture, or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of our product candidates. We have conducted freedom to operate analyses with respect to only certain of our product candidates, and therefore we do not know whether there are any patents of other parties that would impair our ability to commercialize all of our product candidates. We also cannot guarantee that any of our analyses are complete and thorough, nor can we be sure that we have identified each and every patent and pending application in the United States and abroad that is relevant or necessary to the commercialization of our product candidates. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications that may later result in issued patents that our product candidates may infringe. For example, we are aware of a pending U.S. patent application by the Japan Health Sciences Foundation. Although we do not believe any valid and enforceable claim covering our product candidate will be issued from this U.S. application, we cannot guarantee that such claim will not issue.

In addition, other parties may obtain patents in the future and claim that use of our technologies infringes upon these patents. If any of these patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover aspects of our formulations, the manufacturing process of any of our product candidates, methods of use, any molecules formed during the manufacturing process or any final product itself, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to commercialize such product candidate unless we obtained a license under the applicable patents, or until such patents expire or are finally determined to be invalid or unenforceable. Such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

Parties making claims against us may obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could effectively block our ability to further develop and commercialize one or more of our product candidates. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees for willful infringement, pay royalties, redesign our infringing products, or obtain one or more licenses from third parties, which may be impossible or require substantial time and monetary expenditure.

We may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining necessary rights to our product candidates through acquisitions and in-licenses.

We currently have rights to the intellectual property, through licenses from third parties and under patents that we own, to develop our product candidates. Because our programs may require the use of proprietary rights held by third parties, the growth of our business will likely depend in part on our ability to acquire, in-license, or use these proprietary rights. For example, our product candidates may require specific formulations to work effectively and efficiently and the rights to these formulations may be held by others. We may be unable to acquire or in-license any compositions, methods of use, processes, or other third-party intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify as necessary for our product candidates. The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and a number of more established companies are also pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources, and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities. In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment.

We sometimes collaborate with U.S. and foreign academic institutions to accelerate our preclinical research or development under written agreements with these institutions. Typically, these institutions provide us an option to negotiate a license to any of the institution’s rights in technology resulting from the collaboration. Regardless of such option, we may be unable to negotiate a license within the specified timeframe or under terms that are acceptable to us. If we are unable to do so, the institution may offer the intellectual property rights to other parties, potentially blocking our ability to pursue our program.

If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third-party intellectual property rights or maintain the existing intellectual property rights we have, we may have to abandon development of that program and our business and financial condition could suffer.

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We may face competition from biosimilars, which may have a material adverse impact on the future commercial prospects of KRN23, rhGUS, and rhPPCA.

Even if we are successful in achieving regulatory approval to commercialize a product candidate faster than our competitors, we may face competition from biosimilars with respect to KRN23, rhGUS, and rhPPCA. In the United States, the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009, or BPCI Act, created an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products that are demonstrated to be “highly similar,” or biosimilar, to or “interchangeable” with an FDA-approved biological product. The BPCI Act prohibits the FDA from approving a biosimilar or interchangeable product that references a brand biological product until 12 years after the licensure of the reference product, but permits submission of an application for a biosimilar or interchangeable product to the FDA four years after the reference product was first licensed. The BPCI Act does not prevent another company from developing a product that is highly similar to the innovative product, generating its own data, and seeking approval. In the budget for fiscal year 2016, the Obama administration reasserted its proposal from prior years to cut this 12-year period of exclusivity down to seven years. The administration also reasserted a proposal to prohibit additional periods of exclusivity due to minor changes in product formulations, a practice often referred to as “evergreening.” In October 2015, the United States agreed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement with 11 other countries that addresses a variety of trade and economic issues. The TPP includes a provision that would require the signatory countries to provide a minimum of five years of exclusivity, and in some instances, eight years of exclusivity, to biological products. To come into effect, the TPP will require a requisite number of signatory countries to ratify the agreement; in the United States, such ratification, if it occurs, will be performed by Congress. It is possible that Congress could seek to harmonize the exclusivity periods in the TPP and the BPCI Act, or take other measures to modify or eliminate periods of exclusivity for biosimilar and interchangeable products. The BPCI Act is complex and is only beginning to be interpreted and implemented by the FDA. As a result, its ultimate impact, implementation, and meaning are subject to uncertainty. Changes to the BPCI Act or the FDA’s interpretation or implementation of the BPCI Act could have a material adverse effect on the future commercial prospects for KRN23, rhGUS, and rhPPCA.

In Europe, the European Commission has granted marketing authorizations for several biosimilars pursuant to a set of general and product class-specific guidelines for biosimilar approvals issued over the past few years. In Europe, a competitor may reference data supporting approval of an innovative biological product, but will not be able to get on the market until 10 years after the time of approval of the innovative product. This 10-year marketing exclusivity period will be extended to 11 years if, during the first eight of those 10 years, the marketing authorization holder obtains an approval for one or more new therapeutic indications that bring significant clinical benefits compared with existing therapies. In addition, companies may be developing biosimilars in other countries that could compete with our products.

If competitors are able to obtain marketing approval for biosimilars referencing our products, our products may become subject to competition from such biosimilars, with the attendant competitive pressure and consequences.

Additional competitors could enter the market with generic versions of our small-molecule product candidates, which may result in a material decline in sales of UX007 and Ace-ER.

Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, a pharmaceutical manufacturer may file an abbreviated new drug application, or ANDA, seeking approval of a generic copy of an approved innovator product. Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, a manufacturer may also submit an NDA under section 505(b)(2) that references the FDA’s finding of safety and effectiveness of a previously approved drug. A 505(b)(2) NDA product may be for a new or improved version of the original innovator product. Innovative small molecule drugs may be eligible for certain periods of regulatory exclusivity (e.g., five years for new chemical entities, three years for changes to an approved drug requiring a new clinical study, and seven years for orphan drugs), which preclude FDA approval (or in some circumstances, FDA filing and review of) an ANDA or 505(b)(2) NDA relying on the FDA’s finding of safety and effectiveness for the innovative drug. In addition to the benefits of regulatory exclusivity, an innovator NDA holder may have patents claiming the active ingredient, product formulation or an approved use of the drug, which would be listed with the product in the “Orange Book.” If there are patents listed in the Orange Book, a generic applicant that seeks to market its product before expiration of the patents must include in the ANDA or 505(b)(2) what is known as a “Paragraph IV certification,” challenging the validity or enforceability of, or claiming non-infringement of, the listed patent or patents. Notice of the certification must be given to the innovator, too, and if within 45 days of receiving notice the innovator sues to protect its patents, approval of the ANDA is stayed for 30 months, or as lengthened or shortened by the court.

Accordingly, if UX007 and Ace-ER are approved, competitors could file ANDAs for generic versions of UX007 and Ace-ER, or 505(b)(2) NDAs that reference UX007 and Ace-ER, respectively. If there are patents listed for UX007 and Ace-ER in the Orange Book, those ANDAs and 505(b)(2) NDAs would be required to include a certification as to each listed patent indicating whether the ANDA applicant does or does not intend to challenge the patent. We cannot predict whether any patents issuing from our pending patent applications will be eligible for listing in the Orange Book, how any generic competitor would address such patents, whether we would sue on any such patents, or the outcome of any such suit.

We may not be successful in securing or maintaining proprietary patent protection for products and technologies we develop or license. Moreover, if any patents that are granted and listed in the Orange Book are successfully challenged by way of a Paragraph IV certification and subsequent litigation, the affected product could more immediately face generic competition and its sales would likely decline materially. Should sales decline, we may have to write off a portion or all of the intangible assets associated with the affected product and our results of operations and cash flows could be materially and adversely affected.

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The patent protection and patent prosecution for some of our product candidates is dependent on third parties.

While we normally seek and gain the right to fully prosecute the patents relating to our product candidates, there may be times when patents relating to our product candidates are controlled by our licensors. This is the case with our agreement with KHK, who is primarily responsible for the prosecution of patents and patent applications licensed to us under the collaboration agreement. If KHK or any of our future licensing partners fail to appropriately prosecute and maintain patent protection for patents covering any of our product candidates, our ability to develop and commercialize those product candidates may be adversely affected and we may not be able to prevent competitors from making, using, and selling competing products. In addition, even where we now have the right to control patent prosecution of patents and patent applications we have licensed from third parties, we may still be adversely affected or prejudiced by actions or inactions of our licensors and their counsel that took place prior to us assuming control over patent prosecution.

If we fail to comply with our obligations in the agreements under which we license intellectual property and other rights from third parties or otherwise experience disruptions to our business relationships with our licensors, we could lose license rights that are important to our business.

We are a party to a number of intellectual property license agreements that are important to our business and expect to enter into additional license agreements in the future. Our existing license agreements impose, and we expect that future license agreements will impose, various diligence, milestone payment, royalty, and other obligations on us. If we fail to comply with our obligations under these agreements, or we are subject to a bankruptcy, we may be required to make certain payments to the licensor, we may lose the exclusivity of our license, or the licensor may have the right to terminate the license, in which event we would not be able to develop or market products covered by the license. Additionally, the milestone and other payments associated with these licenses will make it less profitable for us to develop our drug candidates. See “Business—License Agreements” in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for a description of our license agreements with KHK, Baylor Research Institute, Nobelpharma, Alcami, HIBM Research Group, St. Louis University, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and our Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC on June 10, 2016 for a description of our license agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, which include descriptions of the termination provisions of these agreements.  

In certain cases, we control the prosecution of patents resulting from licensed technology. In the event we breach any of our obligations related to such prosecution, we may incur significant liability to our licensing partners. Licensing of intellectual property is of critical importance to our business and involves complex legal, business, and scientific issues. Disputes may arise regarding intellectual property subject to a licensing agreement, including but not limited to:

If disputes over intellectual property and other rights that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates.

Although we are not currently involved in any litigation, we may be involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents or the patents of our licensors, which could be expensive, time consuming, and unsuccessful.

Competitors may infringe our patents or the patents of our licensors. Although we are not currently involved in any litigation, if we or one of our licensing partners were to initiate legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent covering one of our product candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that the patent covering our product candidate is invalid and/or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the United States, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity and/or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, including lack of novelty, obviousness, or non-enablement. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld relevant information from the USPTO, or made a misleading statement, during prosecution. The outcome following legal assertions of invalidity and unenforceability is unpredictable.

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Interference proceedings provoked by third parties or brought by us or declared by the USPTO may be necessary to determine the priority of inventions with respect to our patents or patent applications or those of our licensors. An unfavorable outcome could require us to cease using the related technology or to attempt to license rights to it from the prevailing party. Our business could be harmed if the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms. Our defense of litigation or interference proceedings may fail and, even if successful, may result in substantial costs and distract our management and other employees. In addition, the uncertainties associated with litigation could have a material adverse effect on our ability to raise sufficient capital to continue our clinical studies, continue our research programs, license necessary technology from third parties, or enter into development partnerships that would help us bring our product candidates to market.

Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a material adverse effect on the price of our common stock.

We may be subject to claims that our employees, consultants, or independent contractors have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information of third parties or that our employees have wrongfully used or disclosed alleged trade secrets of their former employers.

We employ certain individuals who were previously employed at universities or other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies, including our competitors or potential competitors. Although we try to ensure that our employees, consultants, and independent contractors do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, and we are not currently subject to any claims that our employees, consultants, or independent contractors have wrongfully used or disclosed confidential information of third parties, we may in the future be subject to such claims. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel, which could adversely impact our business. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and distract management and other employees.

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

Although we are not currently experiencing any claims challenging the inventorship of our patents or ownership of our intellectual property, we may in the future be subject to claims that former employees, collaborators, or other third parties have an interest in our patents or other intellectual property as an inventor or co-inventor. For example, we may have inventorship disputes arise from conflicting obligations of consultants or others who are involved in developing our product candidates. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these and other claims challenging inventorship. If we fail to successfully defend against such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights, such as exclusive ownership of, or right to use, valuable intellectual property. Such an outcome could have a material adverse effect on our business. Even if we are successful in defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and distract management and other employees.

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

As is the case with other biopharmaceutical companies, our success is heavily dependent on intellectual property, particularly patents. Obtaining and enforcing patents in the biotechnology industry involves both technological and legal complexity. Therefore, obtaining and enforcing biotechnology patents is costly, time consuming, and inherently uncertain. In addition, the United States has recently enacted and is currently implementing wide-ranging patent reform legislation. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have narrowed the scope of patent protection available in certain circumstances and weakened the rights of patent owners in certain situations. In addition to increasing uncertainty about our ability to obtain patents in the future, this combination of events has created uncertainty with respect to the value of patents, once obtained. Depending on future actions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts, and the USPTO, the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that would weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce our existing patents and patents that we might obtain in the future.

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

Filing, prosecuting, and defending patents on product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the United States can be less extensive than those in the United States. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the United States. Further, licensing partners such as KHK may not prosecute patents in certain jurisdictions in which we may obtain commercial rights, thereby precluding the possibility of later obtaining patent protection in these countries. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the United States, or from selling or importing products made using our inventions in and into the United States or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and may also export infringing products to territories where we have patent protection, but enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States. These products may compete with our products, and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.

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Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets, and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biotechnology products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions, whether or not successful, could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly, could put our patent applications at risk of not issuing, and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.

Risks Related to Our Business Operations

Our future success depends in part on our ability to retain our Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer and to attract, retain, and motivate other qualified personnel.

We are dependent on Emil D. Kakkis, M.D., Ph.D., our Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, the loss of whose services may adversely impact the achievement of our objectives. Dr. Kakkis could leave our employment at any time, as he is an “at will” employee. Recruiting and retaining other qualified employees, consultants, and advisors for our business, including scientific and technical personnel, will also be critical to our success. There is currently a shortage of skilled personnel in our industry, which is likely to continue. As a result, competition for skilled personnel is intense and the turnover rate can be high. We may not be able to attract and retain personnel on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for individuals with similar skill sets. In addition, failure to succeed in preclinical or clinical studies may make it more challenging to recruit and retain qualified personnel. The inability to recruit and retain qualified personnel, or the loss of the services of Dr. Kakkis, may impede the progress of our research, development, and commercialization objectives.

If we fail to obtain or maintain orphan drug exclusivity for our products, our competitors may sell products to treat the same conditions and our revenue will be reduced.

Our business strategy focuses on the development of drugs that are eligible for FDA and EU orphan drug designation. Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may designate a product as an orphan drug if it is intended to treat a rare disease or condition, defined as a patient population of fewer than 200,000 in the United States, or a patient population greater than 200,000 in the United States where there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing the drug will be recovered from sales in the United States. In the EU, the EMA’s Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products for Human Use grants orphan drug designation to promote the development of products that are intended for the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of a life-threatening or chronically debilitating condition when the prevalence of the condition is not more than five in 10,000 persons in the EU or when, without incentives, it is unlikely that sales of the drug in the EU would be sufficient to justify the necessary investment in developing the drug or biological product. Additionally, there must be no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention, or treatment, or, if such a method exists, the medicine must be of significant benefit to those affected by the condition. In the United States, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as opportunities for grant funding towards clinical study costs, tax advantages, and user-fee waivers. In addition, if a product receives the first FDA approval for the indication for which it has orphan designation, the product is entitled to orphan drug exclusivity, which means the FDA may not approve any other application to market the same drug for the same indication for a period of seven years, except in limited circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority over the product with orphan exclusivity or where the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient product quantity. 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 following drug or biological product 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.

Because the extent and scope of patent protection for our products may in some cases be limited, orphan drug designation is especially important for our products for which orphan drug designation may be available. For eligible drugs, we plan to rely on the exclusivity period under the Orphan Drug Act to maintain a competitive position. If we do not obtain orphan drug exclusivity for our drug products and biologic products that do not have broad patent protection, our competitors may then sell the same drug to treat the same condition sooner than if we had obtained orphan drug exclusivity, and our revenue will be reduced.

Even though we have orphan drug designation for UX007 for the treatment of fatty acid oxidation disorders in the United States, as well as for UX007 for the treatment of Glut1 DS, KRN23, rhGUS, and Ace-ER in the United States and Europe, we may not be the first to obtain marketing approval for any particular orphan indication due to the uncertainties associated with developing pharmaceutical products. Further, even if we obtain orphan drug exclusivity for a product, that exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from competition because different drugs with different active moieties can be approved for the same condition or the same drug can be approved for a different indication unless there are other exclusivities such as new chemical entity exclusivity preventing such approval. Even after an orphan drug is approved, the FDA or EMA can subsequently approve the same drug with the same active moiety for the same condition if the FDA or EMA concludes that the later drug is safer, more effective, or makes a major contribution to patient care. Orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug nor gives the drug any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process.

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We will need to expand our organization and we may experience difficulties in managing this growth, which could disrupt our operations.

As of September 30, 2016, we had 359 full-time employees. As our development and commercialization plans and strategies develop, we expect to need additional managerial, operational, field forces, marketing, financial, legal, and other resources. Our management may need to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from our day-to-day activities and devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities. We may not be able to effectively manage the expansion of our operations, which may result in weaknesses in our infrastructure, operational mistakes, loss of business opportunities, loss of employees, and reduced productivity among remaining employees. Our expected growth could require significant capital expenditures and may divert financial resources from other projects, such as the development of additional product candidates. If our management is unable to effectively manage our growth, our expenses may increase more than expected, our ability to generate and/or grow revenue could be reduced, and we may not be able to implement our business strategy. Our future financial performance and our ability to commercialize product candidates and compete effectively will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth.

We may not be successful in our efforts to identify, license, discover, develop, or commercialize additional product candidates.

Although a substantial amount of our effort will focus on the continued clinical testing, potential approval, and commercialization of our existing product candidates, the success of our business also depends upon our ability to identify, license, discover, develop, or commercialize additional product candidates. Research programs to identify and develop new product candidates, such as those under our collaboration with Arcturus, requires substantial technical, financial, and human resources. We may focus our efforts and resources on potential programs or product candidates that ultimately prove to be unsuccessful. Our research programs or licensing efforts may fail to yield additional product candidates for clinical development and commercialization for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the following:

If any of these events occur, we may be forced to abandon our development efforts for a program or programs, or we may not be able to identify, license, discover, develop, or commercialize additional product candidates, which would have a material adverse effect on our business and could potentially cause us to cease operations.

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We incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management is now required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives and corporate governance practices.

As a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting, and other expenses. We are required to comply with several supplemental requirements that will necessitate additional resources and management time and expense. These supplemental requirements include providing full executive compensation disclosure, such as Compensation, Discussion & Analysis section in our proxy statement for the annual meeting of stockholders; a say-on-frequency vote; a say-on-pay vote beginning with this year’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders; and pay-ratio disclosure beginning with our 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We will also be subject to rules subsequently implemented by the SEC and The NASDAQ Global Select Market. In addition, the current political environment, and the current high level of government intervention and regulatory reform may lead to substantial new regulations and disclosure obligations, which may lead to additional compliance costs and impact the manner in which we operate our business in ways we cannot currently anticipate. Our management and other personnel devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives. Moreover, these rules and regulations have increased our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time consuming and costly. For example, being a public company could make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance and we may be required to incur substantial costs to maintain adequate levels of such coverage.

Additionally, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective internal controls for financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures. In particular, we are required to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal controls over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting, as required by Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We are also subject to the compliance requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which results in us incurring substantial expenses and expending significant management efforts to comply with the Act. We currently do not have an internal audit group, and we will need to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge. If we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404(b) or if we identify or our independent registered public accounting firm identifies deficiencies in our internal controls over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses, the market price of our stock could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by NASDAQ, the SEC, or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

Changes to healthcare and FDA laws, regulations, and policies may have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

United States

In the United States, there have been and continue to be a number of legislative initiatives to contain healthcare costs and to modify the regulation of drug and biologic products. For example, in March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, or the PPACA, was passed, which substantially changes the way health care is financed by both governmental and private insurers, and significantly impacts the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. The PPACA, among other things, subjects biologic products to potential competition by lower-cost biosimilars, addresses a new methodology by which rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program are calculated for drugs that are inhaled, infused, instilled, implanted, or injected, increases the minimum Medicaid rebates owed by manufacturers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and extends the rebate program to individuals enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations, establishes annual fees and taxes on manufacturers of certain branded prescription drugs, and promotes a new Medicare Part D coverage gap discount program.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed into law on December 18, 2015, modifies certain provisions of the PPACA; the new appropriations law suspends or delays several taxes, including the excise tax on high cost employer-sponsored health coverage, which were expected to generate significant funds for the PPACA. Implementation of the PPACA remains ongoing, and there remains uncertainty as to how the law’s various provisions will ultimately affect the industry.

In addition, other legislative changes have been adopted in the United States to contain healthcare costs. On August 2, 2011, the Budget Control Act of 2011, among other things, required reductions in federal spending, which eventually triggered Medicare sequestration—the requirement to reduce Medicare payments to providers up to 2% per fiscal year. Following an executive order by President Obama on March 1, 2013, the 2% Medicare payment reductions were applied to fee-for-service claims with dates of service or dates of discharge on or after April 1, 2013. Sequestration was initially set to expire in fiscal year 2021 but was extended, most recently by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which extends Medicare sequestration to 2025. We expect that additional state and federal healthcare reform measures will be adopted in the future, any of which could limit the amounts that federal and state governments will pay for healthcare products and services, and which could result in reduced demand for our product candidates or additional pricing pressures.

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In addition, the FDA’s laws, regulations, and policies remain the subject of agency and legislative proposals for reform, which could affect our product development, testing, marketing approvals, and post-market activities. For example, as discussed in the risk factor entitled “We may face competition from biosimilars, which may have a material adverse impact on the future commercial prospects of KRN23, rhGUS, and rhPPCA,” there are proposals to reduce the exclusivity protections provided to biosimilar and interchangeable biologic products, and FDA has begun to issue policies regarding key aspects of the regulation of these products. Congress also is considering various proposals relating to the FDA’s premarket approval process and other issues. For example, the 21^st Century Cures Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives passed in July 2015, proposes a wide range of reforms, such as broadening the types of data required to support drug approval, extending protections from genetic competition, accelerating approval of breakthrough therapies, expanding the orphan drug product program, and clarifying how manufacturers communicate about their products. It is uncertain whether these or similar proposals will be passed into law.

European Union

In the EU, the European Commission adopted the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2016/161 of 2 October 2015, supplementing Directive 2001/83/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council by setting forth detailed rules for the safety features appearing on the packaging of medicinal products for human use. The Regulation sets forth the rules for the features appearing on the packaging of these medicinal products, including, inter alia, the characteristics and technical specifications of the unique identifier that enables the authenticity of medicinal products to be verified and individual packs to be identified, the modalities for the verification of the safety features, and the list of medicinal products and product categories subject and not subject to prescription which shall not bear and bear (respectively) safety features.

The European Commission has also launched a series of public consultations that are aimed to the adoption of Notices and Guidelines which will serve the interpretation of currently applicable Regulations and Directives.

For example, from August 28, 2015 to November 24, 2015, the European Commission launched four public consultations which concerned good manufacturing practices and clinical trials for human medicinal products. From November 16, 2015 to February 15, 2016, the European Commission opened a public consultation from the Commission on certain aspects of the application of Articles 3, 5 and 7 of Regulation (EC) No 141/2000 on orphan medicinal products. The purpose of the Consultation is to review the 2003 Communication on orphan medicinal products (which will be replaced with a Notice), in order to streamline the regulatory framework and to adapt the Communication to technical progress. The consultation focuses on a variety of elements of Regulation (EC) No 141/2000, which include the encouragement of development of orphan medicinal products for communicable diseases and the simplification of the procedure for the reassessment of orphan criteria when two authorization application procedures are pending in parallel for two orphan medicinal products.

We may be subject, directly or indirectly, to federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse laws, false claims laws, and health information privacy and security laws. If we are unable to comply, or have not fully complied, with such laws, we could face substantial penalties.

If we obtain FDA approval for any of our product candidates and begin commercializing those products in the United States, our operations may be directly, or indirectly through our customers, subject to various federal and state fraud and abuse laws, including, without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the federal False Claims Act, and physician sunshine laws and regulations. These laws may impact, among other things, our proposed field marketing and education programs. In addition, we may be subject to patient privacy regulation by both the federal government and the states in which we conduct our business. The laws that may affect our ability to operate include:

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Because of the breadth of these laws and the narrowness of the statutory exceptions and safe harbors available, it is possible that some of our business activities could be subject to challenge under one or more of such laws. In addition, recent health care reform legislation has strengthened these laws. For example, the PPACA, among other things, amends the intent requirement of the federal anti-kickback and criminal healthcare fraud statutes. A person or entity no longer needs to have actual knowledge of this statute or specific intent to violate it. Moreover, the PPACA provides that the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal anti-kickback statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the False Claims Act.

If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the laws described above or any other governmental regulations that apply to us, we may be subject to penalties, including civil and criminal penalties, damages, fines, exclusion from participation in government health care programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, imprisonment, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations.

International expansion of our business exposes us to business, regulatory, political, operational, financial, and economic risks associated with doing business outside of the United States.

We currently have limited international operations, but our business strategy incorporates potentially significant international expansion, particularly in anticipation of approval of our product candidates. We currently conduct physician and patient association outreach activities, as well as clinical studies, outside of the United States and plan to maintain field forces representatives internationally in the future. Doing business internationally involves a number of risks, including but not limited to:

Any of these factors could significantly harm our future international expansion and operations and, consequently, our results of operations.

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We may incur additional tax liabilities related to our operations.

We are subject to income tax in the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide tax liabilities, and our effective tax rate is derived from a combination of the applicable statutory rates in the various jurisdictions in which we operate. We record liabilities that involve significant management judgment for uncertain tax positions. The IRS or other domestic or foreign taxing authorities may disagree with our interpretation of tax law as applied to our operations or with the positions we may take with respect to particular tax issues on our tax returns. Consequently, our reported effective tax rate and our after-tax cash flows may be materially and adversely affected by tax assessments or judgments in excess of accrued amounts we have estimated in preparing our financial statements. Further, our effective tax rate may also be adversely affected.

Our effective tax rate is derived from a combination of the applicable statutory rates in the various jurisdictions in which we operate. Such rate may be adversely affected by numerous factors, including changes in our operating structure, changes in the mix of our earnings among countries with differing statutory rates, including those resulting from our intercompany transfer pricing or from changes in the rules governing transfer pricing, the repatriation of non-U.S. earnings for which we have not previously provided for U.S. taxes, the availability of the U.S. research and development tax credit, and other changes in tax laws and regulations. We cannot give any assurance as to what our effective tax rate will be in the future because, among other things, there is uncertainty regarding the tax policies of the jurisdictions where we operate. Changes in tax laws, such as tax reform in the United States or changes in tax laws resulting from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s multi-jurisdictional plan of action to address base erosion and profit shifting, could impact our effective tax rate. Any significant increase in our future effective tax rate could reduce net income for future periods and may have a material adverse impact on our results of our operations.

If we fail to comply with environmental, health, and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.

Our research and development activities and our third-party manufacturers’ and suppliers’ activities involve the controlled storage, use, and disposal of hazardous materials, including the components of our product candidates and other hazardous compounds. We and our manufacturers and suppliers are subject to laws and regulations governing the use, manufacture, storage, handling, and disposal of these hazardous materials. In some cases, these hazardous materials and various wastes resulting from their use are stored at our or our manufacturers’ facilities pending their use and disposal. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination, which could cause an interruption of our commercialization efforts, research and development efforts, and business operations or environmental damage that could result in costly clean-up and liabilities under applicable laws and regulations governing the use, storage, handling, and disposal of these materials and specified waste products. Although we believe that the safety procedures utilized by us and our third-party manufacturers for handling and disposing of these materials generally comply with the standards prescribed by these laws and regulations, we cannot guarantee that this is the case or eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or injury from these materials. In such an event, we may be held liable for any resulting damages—and such liability could exceed our resources—and state or federal or other applicable authorities may curtail our use of certain materials and/or interrupt our business operations. Furthermore, environmental laws and regulations are complex, change frequently, and have tended to become more stringent. We cannot predict the impact of such changes and cannot be certain of our future compliance. We do not currently carry biological or hazardous waste insurance coverage.

Risks generally associated with a company-wide implementation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system may adversely affect our business and results of operations or the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting.

We are in the process of implementing a company-wide ERP system to upgrade certain existing business, operational, and financial processes. Our ERP implementation is a complex and time-consuming project that we expect will require more than a year to complete. Our results of operations could be adversely affected if we experience time delays or cost overruns during the ERP implementation process, or if the ERP system or associated process changes do not give rise to the benefits that we expect. This project has required and may continue to require investment of capital and human resources, the re-engineering of processes of our business, including our procurement process, and the attention of many employees who would otherwise be focused on other aspects of our business. Any deficiencies in the design and implementation of the new ERP system could result in potentially much higher costs than we had incurred and could adversely affect our ability to develop and launch solutions, provide services, fulfill contractual obligations, file reports with the SEC in a timely manner, operate our business or otherwise affect our controls environment. Any of these consequences could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

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Our business and operations may be materially adversely affected in the event of computer system failures or security breaches.  

Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal computer systems, and those of our CROs and other third parties on which we rely, are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, unauthorized access, cyber-attacks, natural disasters, fire, terrorism, war, and telecommunication and electrical failures. If such an event were to occur and interrupt our operations, it could result in a material disruption of our drug development programs. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from ongoing or planned clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and significantly increase our costs to recover or reproduce the data. To the extent that any disruption or security breach results in a loss of or damage to our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, including protected health information or personal data of employees or former employees, we could incur liability and the further development of our drug candidates could be delayed. We may also be vulnerable to cyber-attacks by hackers or other malfeasance. This type of breach of our cybersecurity may compromise our confidential information and/or our financial information and adversely affect our business or result in legal proceedings.

We or the third parties upon whom we depend may be adversely affected by earthquakes or other natural disasters and our business continuity and disaster recovery plans may not adequately protect us from a serious disaster.

Our corporate headquarters and laboratory are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and our collaboration partner for KRN23, KHK, is located in Japan, which have both in the past experienced severe earthquakes and other natural disasters. We do not carry earthquake insurance. Earthquakes or other natural disasters could severely disrupt our operations or those of our collaborators, and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and prospects. If a natural disaster, power outage, or other event occurred that prevented us from using all or a significant portion of our headquarters, that damaged critical infrastructure (such as the manufacturing facilities of our third-party contract manufacturers) or that otherwise disrupted operations, it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible for us to continue our business for a substantial period of time. The disaster recovery and business continuity plans we have in place currently are limited and are unlikely to prove adequate in the event of a serious disaster or similar event. We may incur substantial expenses as a result of the limited nature of our disaster recovery and business continuity plans, which, particularly when taken together with our lack of earthquake insurance, could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock

The market price of our common stock may be highly volatile.

The market price of our common stock has been, and is likely to continue to be, volatile, including for reasons unrelated to changes in our business. Our stock price could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to a variety of factors, including but not limited to the following:

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In addition, biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies in particular have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of these companies. Broad market and industry factors may negatively affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance.

Future sales and issuances of our common stock or rights to purchase common stock, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans, could result in additional dilution of the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause our stock price to fall.

We will need additional capital in the future to continue our planned operations. To the extent we raise additional capital by issuing equity securities, our stockholders may experience substantial dilution. We may sell common stock, convertible securities, or other equity securities in one or more transactions at prices and in a manner we determine from time to time. If we sell common stock, convertible securities, or other equity securities in more than one transaction, investors may be materially diluted by subsequent sales. These sales may also result in material dilution to our existing stockholders, and new investors could gain rights superior to our existing stockholders.

Pursuant to our 2014 Incentive Plan, or the 2014 Plan, our management is authorized to grant stock options and other equity-based awards to our employees, directors, and consultants. An aggregate of 2,250,000 shares were available for issuance at the inception of the 2014 Plan. The number of shares available for future grant under the 2014 Plan will automatically increase on January 1 of each year (as of January 1, 2015) by the lesser of 2,500,000 shares or 4% of all shares of our capital stock outstanding as of December 31 of the prior calendar year, subject to the ability of our compensation committee to take action to reduce the size of the increase in any given year. Currently, we plan to register the increased number of shares available for issuance under the 2014 Plan each year.

Pursuant to our 2014 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or 2014 ESPP, eligible employees can acquire shares of our common stock at a discount to the prevailing market price, and an aggregate of 600,000 shares were available for issuance at the inception of the 2014 ESPP. The number of shares available for issuance under the 2014 ESPP will automatically increase on January 1 of each year (as of January 1, 2015) by the lesser of 1,200,000 shares or 1% of all shares of our capital stock outstanding as of December 31 of the prior calendar year, subject to the ability of our compensation committee to take action to reduce the size of the increase in any given year. If our board of directors elects to increase the number of shares available for future grant under the 2014 Plan or the 2014 ESPP, our stockholders may experience additional dilution, which could cause our stock price to fall.

Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.

We have incurred substantial losses during our history and do not expect to become profitable in the near future nor may we ever achieve profitability. To the extent that we continue to generate taxable losses, unused taxable losses will, subject to certain limitations, carry forward to offset future taxable income, if any, until such unused losses expire. Under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” generally defined as a greater than 50% change (by value) in its equity ownership over a three-year period, the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards, or NOL carryforwards, and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research tax credits) to offset its post-change income may be limited. An analysis to determine limitations upon our NOL carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes for ownership changes that have occurred previously has been performed, resulting in a permanent decrease of federal and state NOL carryforwards in the amount of $6.9 million and a permanent decrease in federal research tax credit carryforwards in the amount of $0.3 million. As a result of these decreases and others that may occur as a result of future ownership changes, our ability to use our pre-change NOL carryforwards and other tax attribute carryforwards to offset U.S. federal taxable income and tax liabilities is limited and may become subject to even greater limitations, which could potentially accelerate or permanently increase future federal tax liabilities for us. In addition, there may be periods during which the use of state income tax NOL carryforwards and other state tax attribute carryforwards (such as state research tax credits) are suspended or otherwise limited, which could potentially accelerate or permanently increase future state tax liabilities for us.

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We do not intend to pay dividends on our common stock so any returns will be limited to the value of our stock.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings, if any, for the development, operation, and expansion of our business and do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends for the foreseeable future. Any return to stockholders will therefore be limited to the appreciation of their stock.

Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and by-laws, as well as provisions of Delaware law, could make it more difficult for a third-party to acquire us or increase the cost of acquiring us, even if doing so would benefit our stockholders or remove our current management.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, amended and restated by-laws, and Delaware law contain provisions that may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control of us or changes in our management. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and by-laws include provisions that:

These provisions, alone or together, could delay, deter, or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in our management.

In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which limits the ability of stockholders owning in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock to merge or combine with us.

Any provision of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or amended and restated by-laws or Delaware law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our stockholders to receive a premium for their shares of our common stock, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our common stock.

 

Item 2. UNREGISTERED SALES OF EQUITY SECURITIES AND USE OF PROCEEDS

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

On July 26, 2016, the Company issued 374,590 shares of its common stock (the Shares) to Takeda in exchange for $40.0 million, pursuant to the terms of the common stock purchase agreement between the Company and Takeda. This issuance of common stock to an accredited investor was exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the Securities Act) in reliance upon Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act or Regulation D promulgated under the Securities Act. On August 10, 2016, the Company filed a prospectus supplement with the SEC, registering the Shares and allowing Takeda to resell the Shares from time to time.  

ITEM 3. DEFAULTS UPON SENIOR SECURITIES

None.

ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not applicable.

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ITEM 5. OTHER INFORMATION

None.

Item 6. EXHIBITS

 

 

*The certification attached as Exhibit 32.1 that accompanies this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q is furnished to, and not deemed filed with the SEC and is not to be incorporated by reference into any filing of Registrant under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, whether made before or after the date of this Form 10-Q, irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filing.

 

  

 

 

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.

 

 

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