Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business.
Overview
We are a clinical-stage, precision medicine pharmaceutical company focused on developing novel anti-cancer therapeutics for patients with high unmet medical need. We were founded on the innovation of our novel Drug Response Predictor (DRP®) platform. The DRP® technology is designed to define the gene expression signatures in cancer cells that predict the cancer cell’s sensitivity to a specific cancer therapeutic. Once defined, the DRP® gene expression signature can then be assessed in cancer tissue biopsies from patients to identify those cancers that share this signature of drug sensitivity, and by extension, to identify those patients who may then be most likely to receive benefit from that specific anti-cancer therapeutic. We have developed and published DRP® signatures for dozens of anti-cancer therapeutics. Ideally, by using DRP to identify the patients most likely to benefit clinically from a given therapeutic, clinical development of that therapeutic can be focused on a smaller, more responsive patient population, which would allow for smaller, cheaper and quicker trials while also enhancing the probability of clinical and regulatory success for that therapeutic. Historically, we have generated DRP signatures for numerous anti-cancer therapeutics and had in-licensed numerous assets for DRP-guided development, including Liposomal CisPlatin (LiPlaCis), Irofulven and dovitinib as well as the novel PARP/tankyrase inhibitor, stenoparib.
During 2024, Thomas H. Jensen, co-founder of Allarity, was permanently installed as Chief Executive Officer due to his extensive experience not only with the core DRP® platform technology but also with capital fund raising. Mr. Jensen was tasked with streamlining the organization and its finances. To help Mr. Jensen re-focus our clinical development program, we also added a new President and Chief Development Officer, Jeremy R. Graff, PhD, who was brought in with deep experience in cancer drug development, including nearly 17 years at Eli Lilly and Company and 10 more years in various C-suite roles in biotech. During 2025, Jeffrey Ervin was hired as Chief Financial Officer. He has a combined seven years of experience as CEO and CFO of Nasdaq- and NYSE-listed companies.
We are now singularly focused on the development of stenoparib and the parallel development of the stenoparib DRP® as a companion diagnostic. All other assets including dovitinib, Irofulven and LiPlaCis, were terminated and are no longer part of our portfolio. Stenoparib was in-licensed with exclusive world-wide rights from the Japanese Pharmaceutical company, Eisai Pharmaceuticals. Stenoparib is a novel, dual inhibitor of poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP1/2) as well as tankyrases, enzymes critically important in the WNT cancer cell survival pathway. Stenoparib has been explored in a phase 2 clinical trial in patients with advanced, recurrent ovarian cancer who have been pre-selected for enrollment using the stenoparib-DRP®. Emerging clinical data from this ongoing trial in heavily pre-treated, advanced ovarian cancer patients show promising clinical benefit including a patient with a complete, confirmed response (i.e., absence of active disease by RECISTv1.1 criteria) as well as a patient with primary platinum refractory disease who stayed on therapy more than 10 months and two additional patients with ongoing stable disease still on therapy more than 30 months. These compelling data in heavily pre-treated ovarian cancer patients have now prompted us to design a new clinical protocol, guided by key gynecologic oncology experts, to deepen and enrich the understanding of the clinical benefit from stenoparib treatment while also advancing the stenoparib-DRP® as a companion diagnostic used to select patients for stenoparib treatment. This new trial protocol was initiated in June 2025 and is currently enrolling patients randomized into 2 dose levels: 600 mg daily given twice daily (200 mg in the morning and 400 mg in the evening) and 800 mg given twice daily (400 mg for each of the morning and evening doses). In total, the trial aims to enroll 20 patients on each dose level for a total of 40 patients. Importantly, in this trial, only patients with platinum resistant or platinum ineligible ovarian cancer (PROC) with no more than 1 line of chemotherapy beyond the PROC designation will be enrolled. Moreover, all patients will be enrolled with a fresh tumor biopsy to assess the DRP® score that best aligns with extended, durable clinical benefit. Defining the DRP® score that best predicts clinical benefit will enable the DRP®to be used as a patient selection tool in subsequent pivotal trials. In addition to this new trial protocol in Platinum Resistant Ovarian Cancer patients, we have also begun a trial combining stenoparib with Temozolomide in relapsed Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC). This randomized, biomarker-driven trial is fully funded by the US Veteran’s Administration and was opened for enrollment in January 2026.
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Allarity ’ s DRP ® Companion Diagnostic Platform
Our patented DRP® platform is a proprietary technology that enables the development of cancer drug-specific companion diagnostics that may be used to identify patients most likely to benefit from a particular cancer therapy. Accordingly, using DRP to enrich for patients more likely to get benefit from a particular anti-cancer therapy can help to accelerate clinical development as trial sizes can be smaller with an anticipation of higher clinical benefit rates.
Our patented DRP® platform is a powerful bioinformatic engine based on advanced systems biology used to assess the cancer’s transcriptome - the entire library of genes that are transcribed, or expressed, in a cancer. To create a new, drug-specific DRP®, we first assess the transcriptome from an established panel of cancer cell lines which have been treated with the cancer drug or therapeutic candidate. We then correlate the gene expression profile of these cell lines that are either sensitive or resistant to the drug or therapeutic candidate. In our development of a companion diagnostic, we typically use the well-known collection of 60 human tumor cell lines from the National Cancer Institute known as the “NCI-60” panel. We may also use proprietary cancer cell line panels. Gene expression profiles of the cancer cell lines are derived from a microarray (commercially available Affymetrix Gene Chips) to quantify the level of mRNA and/or microRNA that have been transcribed from genes in those cells. The advanced bioinformatic algorithm at the heart of our DRP® platform then identifies the specific RNA changes (i.e., gene expression changes) that correlate with either drug response or resistance. The totality of these biomarkers becomes a “fingerprint” of response (or resistance) to that drug or therapeutic candidate. Our DRP® platform then applies what we believe to be a unique “biological relevance filter” — created from analyzing more than 3,000 actual biopsy samples from human clinical trials across a broad range of cancer types — to remove biomarkers that are not relevant to actual clinical response of cancers (from patients), thereby reducing background “noise” from our observations. This process generates a putative DRP® companion diagnostic, specific for the drug or therapeutic candidate, which identifies and ring-fences those cancer patients most likely to get benefit from that specific drug. Typically, between 50 and 400 biomarkers (i.e., expressed genes) comprise a putative DRP® companion diagnostic for any specific drug or therapeutic candidate.
Before we can confidently use the DRP® as a companion diagnostic, we must retrospectively validate the predictive power of the DRP® for that drug by accessing gene expression data from tumor biopsy tissues collected from prior clinical trials of that drug. Then, in a blinded manner, the DRP data are retrospectively used to “predict” which patients received clinical benefit. Unblinding the clinical benefit data and then comparing to the “prediction” made using the DRP allows us to assess the utility of DRP for potential patient selection. At this stage, we can assess clinical benefit against a range of DRP scores to begin to establish a cutoff score for the putative DRP® companion diagnostic - i.e., a score above which patients would be putatively enrolled in a prospective trial and below which patients would be excluded. Ideally, the DRP companion diagnostic will be used to screen patients before treatment for inclusion into a trial and this enriched population would show substantially elevated clinical benefit when compared to standard of care therapy in unselected patients. A PMA application may be made with the FDA and, if approved, our DRP® companion diagnostic may be used with an approved drug in cancer therapy.
Our DRP® platform has been evaluated for multiple anti-cancer drugs using retrospective observational studies in 35 clinical trials that were conducted or sponsored by other companies for those drugs. The FDA considers a retrospective observational study to be one in which the study identifies the population and determines the exposure/treatment from historical data (i.e., data generated prior to the initiation of the study) with the variables and outcomes of interest determined at the time the study is designed. See, Framework for FDA ’ s Real-World Evidence Program , page 6 (December 2018), https://www.fda.gov/media/120060/download . The FDA has accepted our retrospective validation in support of two IDE applications to conduct clinical trials, one with respect to LiPlaCis® and one with respect to stenoparib. We believe our DRP® platform has successfully generated drug-specific, putative DRP® companion diagnostics for a broad range of cancer drugs and therapeutic candidates with different mechanisms-of-action (e.g., kinase inhibitors, chemotherapeutics, HDAC inhibitors, PARP inhibitors, hormone receptor inhibitors, etc.) and across both solid and hematological cancers, showing the broad potential applicability of the DRP technology. Patent applications for our DRP® companion diagnostics have been submitted for more than 70 anticancer agents. Studies involving our DRP® platform, and resulting putative DRP® companion diagnostics, have also been extensively published in peer reviewed literature and presented at major oncology conferences.
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In contrast with other companion diagnostics technologies, we believe our DRP® platform enjoys several unique competitive advantages:
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Broadly Applicable . We believe our DRP® platform can successfully generate a drug-specific companion diagnostic for most cancer drug types, including DNA damaging agents, standard chemotherapeutics, targeted kinase inhibitors and epigenetic enzyme inhibitors.
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Retrospectively Validated . The ability of the DRP® platform to generate reliable and accurate predictive DRP® companion diagnostics in retrospective studies has been successful in more than 35 clinical trials.
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Extensively Published . Studies of our DRP® platform and putative companion diagnostics have been extensively published in peer-reviewed literature, including publications such as the British Journal of Cancer, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Plos One, and Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, and have been presented at major oncology conferences, including ASCO, ESMO, and EACR.
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Accepted for Use in Clinical Trials by Regulatory Agencies. Although none of our putative DRP® companion diagnostics have yet been approved by a regulatory agency for marketing, the U.S. FDA has previously granted 2 IDE applications approving the use of DRP® companion diagnostics for both stenoparib and LiPlaCis® to pre-select patients for clinical trials.
We have a broad intellectual property portfolio comprised of 18 granted DRP® patents covering 70 different cancer drugs, and another 9 DRP® patent applications pending covering 3 cancer drugs. Our rolling patent strategy allows our DRP® patents to be listed in FDA's Orange Book for the drugs where they occur in the approval label. We also control remaining composition of matter, formulation, and methods of use patent coverage on stenoparib which extends out to 2028 or 2032 depending on the relevant patents. The patent for the stenoparib-DRP® has been granted recently in Australia and Europe and is currently under review in the United States of America. These patents would extend the exclusivity period for stenoparib in combination with DRP®-guided patient selection beyond 2040.
Partnerships and Out-Licensing Leverage the DRP ® Platform for Other Cancer Therapeutics
We have also developed external partnerships and out-licensing arrangements to enable the advance of LiPlaCis® leveraging a platinum-specific DRP® companion diagnostic for development in partnership with Chosa Oncology. LiPlaCis® is an advanced, targeted liposomal formulation of Cisplatin. While we previously had an exclusive in-license to develop this drug from LiPlasome Pharma ApS, on March 28, 2022, we agreed to transfer our exclusive development rights to Chosa ApS, an affiliate of Smerud Medical Research International AS and have out-licensed our DRP® companion diagnostic for LiPlaCis® to Chosa. We have previously developed and retrospectively assessed a DRP® companion diagnostic specific for cisplatin, which may enable us to identify and treat the patients most likely to respond to this therapeutic candidate.
In 2024, we signed service agreements with external biotech clients for both DRP® analysis and gene expression services. Leveraging our gene expression and diagnostic capabilities, our laboratory generated $0.3 million of revenue in 2025.
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Stenoparib: Allarity ’ s Novel, Dual Inhibitor of PARP and Tankyrases
Our therapeutic candidate, stenoparib, is a dual inhibitor of the key DNA damage repair enzyme PARP, as well as Tankyrases, critical enzymes involved in the WNT signaling pathway commonly activated in many advanced cancers. DNA damage repair mechanisms are crucial to mammalian cell survival and replication. Inhibition of key DNA damage repair enzymes, such as PARP, has clinically demonstrated to be therapeutically beneficial in the treatment of cancers, notably ovarian cancers. Tankyrases are enzymes involved in the stabilization and maintenance of telomeres (the ends of chromosomal DNA) during cell replication. Tankyrases are also key activators of the WNT pathway which can enable cancer cell survival and are commonly upregulated in advanced, chemo- and radio- resistant cancers including ovarian as well as colon and other cancers.
There are multiple PARP inhibitors currently approved and used for the treatment of cancers, primarily ovarian and breast cancers but now also pancreatic and prostate cancers. PARP inhibitors disable DNA repair. Tumors with genetic defects in DNA damage repair (e.g., tumors with BRCA mutations) are particularly vulnerable to the added effect of PARP inhibition. Coupling PARP inhibition to in-born defects in DNA Damage Repair creates “Synthetic Lethality,” selectively killing cancer cells while theoretically sparing most normal cells (as most normal cells have intact DNA repair mechanisms). Stenoparib is distinct from other PARP inhibitors in that it not only potently inhibits PARP but also the PARP family enzymes known as Tankyrases. Tankyrases are key enzymes whose activation drives WNT pathway activity, enabling cancer cell survival, invasion, metastasis and therapeutic resistance. Moreover, there is evidence that WNT pathway inhibition may itself disable or diminish DNA Damage Repair creating a “BRCA-mutant like” state in cancer cells that may not typically be susceptible to PARP inhibitor-induced death. Additionally, preclinical data suggest that stenoparib may cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) — potentially suggesting stenoparib use for primary brain cancers as well as brain metastases from other cancers. Importantly, clinical evidence to date shows that stenoparib is well-tolerated and does not cause the myelotoxicity typical of other PARP inhibitors.
Pre-Clinical Studies
PARP utilizes nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) as substrate to catalyze the polymerization and transfer of poly (ADP-ribose) (PAR) to substrate proteins. The posttranslational modification through addition of PAR results in modulation of target protein function. Stenoparib is a nicotinamide mimetic, competitive PARP inhibitor that inhibits PARP1 and PARP2 equipotently, trapping PARP on DNA to restrict cancer cell growth and survival. In cell-based assays, stenoparib potently inhibited proliferation of the BRCA1 mutant human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-436. Additionally, stenoparib inhibited proliferation in the human hematologic cell lines: SR (B cell lymphoma) and MV-4-11-luc2/AcGFP (acute myeloid leukemia (AML)). In the murine leukemia cell line P388, P-glycoprotein (P-gp) overexpression had very little impact on inhibition of proliferation by stenoparib suggesting that PgP-mediated drug resistance, which is common for many cancer drugs, may not be an issue for stenoparib.
Oral administration of stenoparib for 28 days significantly inhibited tumor growth in vivo in the subcutaneous MDA-MB-436 xenograft model without any significant body weight loss. A dose responsive pharmacodynamic effect on PARP activity in MDA-MB-436 xenograft tumor tissue was observed following administration of a single stenoparib dose. The decrease in PARP activity was sustained over several hours. These results demonstrate monotherapy activity of stenoparib in a BRCA mutant breast cancer model. Single agent activity was also observed in the AML MV-4-11-luc2/AcGFP survival model. Treatment with stenoparib resulted in decreased tumor burden and reduction in disease, which translated to a statistically significant survival benefit.
In addition to activity as monotherapy, stenoparib used in combination potentiated the anti-tumor effects of common chemotherapeutics Temozolomide (TMZ), eribulin mesylate (E7389) and carboplatin. In intracranial survival models of melanoma (murine melanoma B16 cell line) and glioblastoma (human glioblastoma multiforme SJGBM2 cell line), the addition of stenoparib to TMZ resulted in a significantly increased survival benefit versus that derived from TMZ alone.
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Prior Clinical Trials
The initial planned first-in-human study of stenoparib (conducted by Eisai, Inc.) was an open-label, multi center, Phase 1 study of PARP Inhibitor stenoparib (formerly E7449) as single agent in subjects with advanced solid tumors or with B-cell malignancies and in combination with TMZ or with Carboplatin and Paclitaxel in Subjects with Advanced Solid Tumors. The first part (Phase 1) of the study started on January 31, 2012, and was completed with the last patient visit July 14, 2015. Further clinical evaluation was stopped, as it was decided to suspend the clinical development of E7449 (for the reasons described below). Preliminary data after treating the first 28 patients have been presented at ESMO conference 2014. The final data including the retrospective/prospective Stenoparib-DRP® selection results were presented at ASCO 2018.
The study was conducted as Phase 1 single-agent arm (Arm 1) with standard 3+3 dose escalation. During dose escalation, sequential cohorts of 3 to 6 subjects (dose escalation cohorts) were administered increasing doses of 50 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg, 600 mg, and 800 mg (Table 5-1). 41 subjects were enrolled and 33 completed the ‘Treatment phase’ (received first cycle of treatment) while 8 subjects discontinued. 32 subjects continued in the ‘Dose Extension Phase’. During the Dose Extension Phase, the primary reason for discontinuation of study treatment was disease progression (27 subjects due to objective disease progression, which was defined as treatment completion). Two subjects in the 600 mg dose group discontinued study treatment due to Adverse Events (AEs), with AE being the primary reason for discontinuation as recorded from the disposition page of the Case Report Form (CRF).
All 41 subjects received at least 1 dose of stenoparib and were included in the safety, PK, and pharmacodynamics analyses. 12 subjects who received the 600 mg dose of stenoparib in both fed and fasted states were analyzed for food effect.
After a single or multiple oral dose, stenoparib was moderately well absorbed with tmax ranging from 0.5 to 4 hours across subjects and dose groups. The elimination half-life was approximately 8 hours with less than 1.5% of the administered dose recovered in urine. Accumulation based on AUC was minimal (less than 1.2 fold) upon 15 days of dosing across the range of doses.
Stenoparib exposure (both Cmax and AUC) appeared to be approximately dose proportional following single or multiple oral doses between 50 mg and 800 mg, with slight deviation at the 400 mg and 600 mg doses. At the 600 mg dose, food delayed stenoparib absorption as evidenced by a shift in tmax by 2 hours, reduced Cmax by 60%, and increased AUC by 10%. The interpatient pharmacokinetic variability is large both with and without food. Thus, the effect of food decreases Cmax, and increases AUC.
Dose dependent inhibition of PARP activity, as demonstrated by percent change in PAR levels, was observed. Maximal inhibition of PARP activity was observed at the MTD dose (600 mg) of single agent stenoparib. Evaluation of PAR levels at the MTD dose of stenoparib (600 mg) in the food effect cohort demonstrated that PAR levels show maximal decrease at 2 to 4 hours post-dose with up to 90% inhibition in PAR levels (from baseline) observed. Sustained PARP inhibition was observed with a 70% or greater decrease in PAR levels observed at 24 hours post-dose. Greater decrease in PAR levels was observed with increasing plasma concentration of stenoparib and with the maximal inhibition observed corresponding to the peak plasma concentration in measurements obtained at Day-2 and Cycle 1 Day 15. A greater decrease in PAR levels was observed with a corresponding higher Cmax when stenoparib was administered without food than when administered with food. No significant changes in percent DNA in tail were observed.
In the finalized Phase 1 study, the majority of subjects (35/41; 85.4%) received up to 8 cycles of treatment with 26 subjects (63.4%) who received up to 2 cycles (<1 cycle = 7, 1 cycle = 5, and 2 cycles = 14); mean number of treatment cycles overall were 3.8 (median = 2 cycles, range: 0 i.e. <1 to 14). The overall median duration of treatment for all dose groups was 57 days (range: 1 to 392 days) with an overall median dose intensity of 11% (range: 1% to 111%) in terms of percentage of planned dose.
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In the completed Phase 1 study the following safety results were reported:
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Dose Limiting Toxicities (DLTs) were reported in 5 of the 25 DLT evaluable subjects, 4 of these occurred at the 800 mg QD dose (1 Grade 3 fatigue and 3 Grade 2 fatigue resulting in administration of less than 75% of the planned dosage of stenoparib) and 1 occurred at the 600 mg QD dose (Grade 3 anaphylactic reaction). Based on assessment of DLTs, the Maximum Tolerated Dose (MTD) and Recommended Phase 2 Dose (RP2D) of single agent stenoparib treatment was 600 mg administered orally once daily (QD) in 28-day cycles.
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The mean number of treatment cycles received by the 41 subjects treated at the different dose levels of stenoparib was 3.8 (median = 2 cycles, range: <1 to 14). The overall median duration of treatment for all dose groups was 57 days (range: 1 to 392 days).
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No deaths due to AEs were reported during the study. Nonfatal Severe Adverse Events (SAEs) were reported in 58.5% subjects overall. The majority of SAEs were considered not related to stenoparib treatment and were reported in not more than 1 subject overall; SAEs reported in more than 2 subjects overall were fatigue (n=3) and lower respiratory tract infection (n=3). Treatment related SAEs included fatigue (n=3), anemia (n=1), anaphylactic reaction (n=1), drug hypersensitivity (n=1), depression (n=1), pyrexia (n=1), and transaminases increased (n=1).
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Treatment Emergent Adverse Events (TEAEs) occurred in all study subjects. The most frequently reported (>30% of subjects overall) TEAEs were fatigue, chromaturia, decreased appetite, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, and vomiting. The majority of TEAEs were reported to be Grade 1 or 2 in severity. Overall, Grade 3 events were reported in 27 subjects (65.9%) and the most frequently reported Grade 3 event was fatigue (n=7, 17.1%). A single Grade 4 AE of non-treatment-related hypokalemia was reported in a subject in the 200 mg dose group. No Grade 5 (fatal) events were reported. (Table 5-3)
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The most common treatment-related TEAE was fatigue (63%), followed by chromaturia (49%), nausea (34%), diarrhea (29%), and maculo-papular rash (27%). The majority of treatment-related AEs were Grade 1 or 2 in severity. With the exception of treatment-related fatigue that was reported to be Grade 3 in severity for 4 subjects (2 subjects each in the 600 mg and 800 mg dose groups), all other Grade 3 treatment-related events were reported in not more than 2 subjects overall (Table 5-4).The most common treatment-related TEAE was fatigue (63%), followed by chromaturia (49%), nausea (34%), diarrhea (29%), and maculo-papular rash (27%). The majority of treatment-related AEs were Grade 1 or 2 in severity. With the exception of treatment-related fatigue that was reported to be Grade 3 in severity for 4 subjects (2 subjects each in the 600 mg and 800 mg dose groups), all other Grade 3 treatment-related events were reported in not more than 2 subjects overall (Table 5-4).
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The study treatment was discontinued due to AEs in 17% subjects (1/3 subjects in 50 mg, 4/21 subjects in 600 mg, and 2/6 subjects in 800 mg dose groups). The events leading to treatment discontinuation included fatigue (n=3), diarrhea (n=2), muscular weakness (n=2), nausea (n=1), photosensitivity reaction (n=1), decreased appetite (n=1), paresthesia (n=1), and anaphylactic reaction (n=1). A total of 24 of 41 subjects (59%) required dose interruptions to manage treatment emergent toxicity. Dose reductions due to AEs were required in 14.6% subjects overall (1/4 subjects in 400 mg, 2/21 subjects in 600 mg, and 3/6 subjects in 800 mg dose groups).
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Skin rash was considered as an event of special interest for stenoparib. Overall, 41.5% experienced AEs of skin rash with the highest incidence observed in the 800 mg dose group (66.7%) followed by the 600 mg dose group (47.6%). No serious events of skin rash were reported. All but 1 event of Grade 3 erythematous rash reported with the 600 mg dose group.
Preliminary anti-cancer activity assessment was a secondary objective of the Phase 1 study. Of the total 41 subjects who received single agent stenoparib treatment, best overall response (BOR) could not be assessed for 6 subjects including 5 subjects who discontinued study treatment prior to the first posttreatment tumor evaluation and 1 subject who did not have any target lesion (i.e., measurable disease). None of the 35 subjects assessed had a BOR of Complete Response (CR) based on investigator assessment using RECIST 1.1. The overall objective response rate (ORR; CR + Partial Response or PR) was 4.9% (n=2) with 2 PR out of 41 (both in ovarian cancer), and 31.7% Stable Disease (SD) (13 out of 41), and disease control rate lasting more than 23 weeks was 24.4% (CR+PR+SD: N=10). Retrospectively, both PRs were "predicted" by the DRP® for stenoparib after analyzing biopsies from 13 of the patients.
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Development of Our Lead Clinical Asset, Stenoparib
Stenoparib is a novel inhibitor of the key DNA damage repair enzyme PARP. Distinct from most other PARP inhibitors, stenoparib also inhibits Tankyrases, enzymes critically important in the WNT pathway- a pathway commonly activated in many different cancers that drives cancer cell survival and proliferation as well as invasion and metastasis. Stenoparib formerly known as E7449, was originally developed by Eisai, Inc. (Eisai) through Phase 1 clinical trials. The phase 1 Eisai trial was run in cancer patients regardless of cancer type (i.e., an “all-comers” trial; Plummer et al, 2020) and showed Partial Responses by RECIST criteria, especially in 2 ovarian cancer patients. Allarity had developed a DRP for stenoparib and engaged Eisai to assess whether that stenoparib-DRP would, in a retrospective assessment of the Eisai clinical data, identify the responsive patients. The success of doing so then prompted Allarity to in-license exclusive world-wide rights to develop, commercialize and market stenoparib. Consequently, Allarity must perform all of the obligations under these license agreements, including the payment to Esai pharmaceuticals of substantial development milestones and royalties on future sales in the event we receive marketing approval for stenoparib.
Stenoparib has been assessed in an ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of ovarian cancer patients who have had at least 3 prior lines of therapy. The trial has been running at numerous trial sites in the U.S. and Europe. The trial was expressly designed to enroll patients based on a stenoparib-DRP score above 50 (i.e., DRP+ patients) using the stenoparib-specific DRP® companion diagnostic for which the FDA has previously approved an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE). The first cohort was administered 600 mg stenoparib once daily - the Maximum Tolerated Dose assigned by Eisai in the original dose escalation phase 1 study. Cohort 2 was designed to enroll only DRP+ patients with 600 mg stenoparib being orally administered twice daily (200 mg dose in the morning and a 400 mg dose in the evening). Cohort 2 in particular has provided promising clinical efficacy data showing durable clinical benefit in multiple patients including one confirmed, complete response (by RECIST v1.1 criteria) as well as 1 platinum refractory patient remaining on the drug more than 10 months and 2 additional patients with extended stable disease continuing on treatment now beyond 30 months. These compelling data in heavily pre-treated ovarian cancer patients have now prompted us to design a new clinical protocol, guided by key gynecologic oncology experts, to deepen and enrich the understanding of the clinical benefit from stenoparib treatment while also advancing the stenoparib-DRP® as a companion diagnostic used to select patients for stenoparib treatment. This new trial protocol was initiated in June 2025 and is currently enrolling patients randomized into 2 dose levels, 600 mg daily given twice daily (200 mg in the morning and 400 mg in the evening) and 800 mg given twice daily (400 mg for each of the morning and evening doses). In total, the trial aims to enroll 20 patients on each dose level for a total of 40 patients. Importantly, in this trial, only patients with platinum resistant or platinum ineligible ovarian cancer (PROC) with no more than 1 line of chemotherapy beyond the PROC designation will be enrolled. Moreover, all patients will be enrolled with a fresh tumor biopsy to assess the DRP® score that best aligns with extended, durable clinical benefit. Defining the DRP® score that best predicts clinical benefit will enable the DRP®to be used as a patient selection tool in subsequent pivotal trials. In addition to this new trial protocol in Platinum Resistant Ovarian Cancer patients, we have also begun a trial combining stenoparib with Temozolomide in relapsed Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC). This randomized, biomarker-driven trial is fully funded by the US Veteran’s Administration and was opened for enrollment in January 2026.
Implications of Being an Emerging Growth Company and a Smaller Reporting Company
We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act, and we intend to take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies” including not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an “emerging growth company” can take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), for complying with new or revised accounting standards.
Additionally, we are a “smaller reporting company” as defined in Item 10(f)(1) of Regulation S-K. Even after we no longer qualify as an emerging growth company, we may still qualify as a “smaller reporting company,” which would allow us to continue to take advantage of many of the same exemptions from disclosure requirements, including presenting only the two most recent fiscal years of audited financial statements and reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements. We may continue to be a smaller reporting company if either (i) the market value of our stock held by non-affiliates is less than $250 million or (ii) our annual revenue was less than $100 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and the market value of our stock held by non-affiliates is less than $700 million. To the extent we take advantage of such reduced disclosure obligations, it may also make comparison of our financial statements with other public companies difficult or impossible.
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Corporate Information
We were founded in Denmark in 2004 by our chief scientific officer, Steen Knudsen, Ph.D., and our Chief Executive Officer, Thomas H. Jensen, both of whom were formerly academic researchers at the Technical University of Denmark working to advance novel bioinformatic and diagnostic approaches to improving cancer patient response to therapeutics.
We were incorporated in Delaware in 2021. On May 20, 2021, we entered a Plan of Reorganization and Asset Purchase Agreement (the “Recapitalization Share Exchange”), between us, Allarity Acquisition Subsidiary, our wholly owned Delaware subsidiary (“Acquisition Sub”), and Allarity Therapeutics A/S, an Aktieselskab organized under the laws of Denmark. Pursuant to the terms of the Recapitalization Share Exchange, our Acquisition Sub acquired substantially all of the assets and liabilities of Allarity Therapeutics A/S in exchange for shares of our common stock on December 20, 2021, and our common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market on that same day.
Our principal executive offices are located at 123 E. Tarpon Ave., Tarpon Springs, FL 34689. Our telephone number is (401) 426-4664, and our email address is info@allarity.com. Our corporate website address is www.allarity.com . Information contained on or accessible through our website is not a part of this Annual Report, and the inclusion of our website address in this Annual Report is an inactive textual reference only.
Allarity and its subsidiaries own or have rights to trademarks, trade names and service marks that they use in connection with the operation of their business. In addition, their names, logos and website names and addresses are their trademarks or service marks. Other trademarks, trade names and service marks appearing in this Annual Report are the property of their respective owners. Solely for convenience, in some cases, the trademarks, trade names and service marks referred to in this Annual Report are listed without the applicable ® , ™ and SM symbols, but they will assert, to the fullest extent under applicable law, their rights to these trademarks, trade names and service marks.
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BUSINESS
This Annual Report contains estimates, projections and other information concerning our industry, our business and the markets for our therapeutic candidate, stenoparib, including data regarding the estimated size of such markets and the incidence of certain medical conditions. We obtained the industry, market and similar data set forth in this Annual Report from our internal estimates and research and from academic and industry research, publications, surveys and studies conducted by third parties, including governmental agencies. In some cases, we do not expressly refer to the sources from which this data is derived. 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 that are assumed in this information. While we believe our internal research is reliable, such research has not been verified by any third party.
Our Business
Our DRP® companion diagnostic platform has been retrospectively evaluated using retrospective observational studies in 35 clinical trials that were conducted or sponsored by other companies. The FDA considers a retrospective observational study to be one in which the study identifies the population and determines the exposure/treatment from historical data (i.e., data generated prior to the initiation of the study) with the variables and outcomes of interest determined at the time the study is designed. See, Framework for FDA ’ s Real-World Evidence Program, page 6 (December 2018), https://www.fda.gov/media/120060/download . While retrospective studies guide our clinical development of our companion diagnostics, prospective clinical trials are typically required in order to receive a PMA from the FDA.
Throughout 2024, a deep dive review of our development programs, clinical progress, likelihood of clinical and regulatory success and an evaluation of commercial plausibility prompted our new management to terminate all development candidates except that of stenoparib. Not only does this streamline the focus on our most promising asset, but it also enabled critical cost saving measures. Stenoparib continues in phase 2 clinical studies for patients with advanced, recurrent ovarian cancer showing promising, durable clinical benefit in patients with limited alternative treatment options other than more chemotherapy. These data continue to mature and have prompted us to work with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in gynecologic oncology to devise and finalize a follow-on clinical trial in advanced ovarian cancer patients that will more aggressively advance stenoparib toward regulatory approval. Accordingly, stenoparib is now enrolling in a new phase 2 trial protocol specifically targeting Platinum resistant or ineligible ovarian cancer patients at two dose levels. A separate phase 2 study fully funded by the US Veteran’s Administration has begun enrolling patients with relapsed Small Cell Lung Cancer for treatment with stenoparib in combination with temozolomide.
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Overview of Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian Cancer (OC) is a lethal disease with a 5-year survival rate of 20-30% for advanced OC. A large proportion of patients with OC are diagnosed at an advanced tumor stage. The outcome after chemotherapy for advanced OC becomes poorer and poorer each time a new treatment is introduced following progression on the previous treatment. Approximately 14,000 OC patients die each year due to disease progression.
Treatment of OC (as well as breast cancer (BC)) advanced when the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 were cloned in the early 1990s, allowing identification of high-risk individuals. These genes encode proteins that are involved in DNA homologous recombination (HR). Patients harboring germline BRCA1/2 mutations carry a defective copy of the gene in every cell, which increases the likelihood of cancer developing if the remaining copy becomes defective through somatic mutation or epigenetic inactivation. However, there are also patients with germline mutations in other HR pathway genes and patients who do not carry an inherited germline mutation but have tumors with sporadic HRD mutations. Data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) demonstrates that approximately fifty percent of high grade serous ovarian cancers have aberrations in HR repair.
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Epidemiological studies have shown an association between germline BRCA1/2 (gBRCA1/2) mutations and the development of OC, BC, and to a lesser extent pancreatic and endometrial cancers. Mutation frequencies are estimated to be approximately 15-20% for those diagnosed with OC and 5% for those diagnosed with BC (15).
The peak incidence of BC occurred in the 41-50-year age group (28.3 per 1,000 person-years) for BRCA1 and in the 51-60-year group (30.6 per 1,000 person-years) for BRCA2 mutation carriers. The incidence of OC was 3.6 times higher for BRCA1 than BRCA2 carriers, with the peak incidence of cancer occurring regardless of mutation type among women in the 61-70-year age group (29.4 per 1,000 in BRCA1 carriers). For BRCA1 and 2 carriers, BC risk increased with the number of first- and second- degree relatives with breast cancer. In contrast, OC risk did not vary with respect to family history of this disease. DNA repair pathways involving BRCA1/2 engage in single or double stranded DNA breaks, which can occur from damage caused by ultraviolet light, the generation of reactive oxygen species, ambient or therapeutic irradiation, day- to-day replication errors or chemical exposure. Cells lacking a functional BRCA1/2 are also deficient in HR and show a high-degree of chromosomal instability as well as increased sensitivity to ionizing radiation and chemotherapeutic agents that lead to double-stranded breaks.
Rationale for Targeting PARP in Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian Cancer (OC) is a lethal disease with a 5-year survival rate of 20-30% for advanced OC. A large proportion of patients with OC are diagnosed at an advanced tumor stage. The outcome after chemotherapy for advanced OC becomes poorer and poorer each time a new treatment is introduced following progression on the previous treatment. Approximately 14,000 OC patients die each year due to disease progression.
Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARPs) are a family of DNA-dependent nuclear enzymes catalyzing the transfer of ADP-ribose moieties from cellular nicotinamide-adenine-dinucleotide (NAD+) to a variety of target proteins. There are 17 PARP family member proteins identified through sequence homology of the catalytic domain. PARP1, 2 and 3 have all been implicated in DNA repair, with PARP1 being the most abundant. PARP inhibitors are designed to compete with NAD+ for the substrate binding to PARP and inhibit PARP activity. Cells containing dysfunctional BRCA1 or BRCA2 have been shown to become profoundly sensitized to the inhibition of PARP enzymatic activity, resulting in chromosomal instability, cell cycle arrest and subsequent apoptosis. PARP inhibition is thought to induce synthetic lethality, which describes a process where at least two genetic lesions that individually are not lethal become lethal when combined in the same cell. For example, cells that are deficient in HR, which is not lethal in itself, are hypersensitive to a reduction in PARP activity by PARP inhibitors. However, disruption to other proteins involved in HR DNA repair other than in BRCA may have the same effect on PARP inhibitor sensitivity.
A further important mechanism of action for PARP inhibition is the trapping of the PARP1 and PARP2 enzymes at damaged DNA causing cytotoxicity and cell death. Recent studies have revealed a more complex web of fundamental cellular processes that PARP1 is involved in crucial cell processes other than in DNA damage repair, such as chromatin remodeling and transcription or regulation of the cell cycle.
There are multiple PARP inhibitors approved for either monotherapy or maintenance therapy or both in patients with advanced OC. The effectiveness of PARP inhibitors as monotherapy or as maintenance therapy has substantially improved the progression free survival and may be promising for overall survival in OC patients. PARP inhibitors as single agents or as potential enhancers of cytotoxic agents that provoke DNA damage, such as alkylating agents and chemotherapy, have been investigated in a number of studies, including olaparib, rucaparib, niraparib, veliparib, and talazoparib, where the two latter PARPi are still under development. As of Q3 2022, PARP inhibitors were withdrawn from the market for the treatment of active, advanced ovarian cancers.
There is a current unmet need for treatment of patients with OC who have progressed on PARPi treatment. Our ongoing Phase 2 study in ovarian cancer, as well as our new protocol in PROC patients, allows for enrollment of patients previously treated with a PARPi. We intend to use our Stenoparib-DRP ® to select patients from this group that will have a high likelihood of responding to our PARPi, stenoparib.
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Existing PARP Inhibitors and Our Opportunity
Numerous PARP inhibitors, including Lynparza ® (olaparib), Rubraca ® (rucaparib camsylate), Zejula ® (niraparib) and Talzenna ® (talazoparib tosylate) have been approved by the FDA for multiple oncology indications, including ovarian, breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancer. Sales of FDA-approved PARP inhibitors were approximately $9.0 billion in 2023 and are forecasted to be over $21.0 billion by 2031.
Despite the commercial success of PARP inhibitors, broader adoption is limited by their high rates of GI and bone marrow/ myelo-toxicity. Adverse grade 3–4 events from this class of drugs include anemia, thrombocytopenia, neutropenia and alopecia. Other common adverse reactions include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, and decreased appetite.
We believe stenoparib is distinguished among the PARP class of drugs by the following features and advantages:
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It does not show the myelotoxicity common among first generation PARP inhibitors.
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It is a dual inhibitor of Tankyrases 1 and 2, which provides a likely dual cancer cell killing mechanism by interference with Wnt signaling pathways and chromosomal telomerase maintenance and stability.
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It is resistant to P-glycoprotein (PgP) mediated export from target cancer cells, resulting in higher accumulation of drug in target cells.
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It can cross the BBB, enabling the potential treatment of primary brain tumors, such as GBM, and brain metastases from other body tumors, such as malignant breast cancer.
Additionally, the use of our Stenoparib-DRP ® companion diagnostic to identify and treat only those patients most likely to benefit from the drug (while excluding those patients unlikely to benefit from the drug), gives us a substantial advantage in increasing patient benefit rates, avoiding adverse events in patients that are not likely to benefit from our drug, and providing health economics advantages.
Overview of Our PRP ® (Patient Response Predictor)
Collections of drug-specific, putative DRP ® companion diagnostics can be grouped together to form a panel of DRP ® companion diagnostics that we believe can help guide therapeutic decision making for a given patient, in a true personalized medicine approach. For example, putative DRP ® companion diagnostics for a number of cancer drugs with a similar mechanism-of-action, for example chemotherapeutics such as cisplatin, doxorubicin, and Irofulven can be grouped together, by drug type (e.g., DNA damaging agents) in a panel to help identify which of these chemotherapeutics is most likely to benefit a particular patient. Similarly, putative DRP ® companion diagnostics for a number of cancer drugs with differing mechanism-of-action, such as fulvestrant, cisplatin, and dovitinib, can be grouped together, by cancer type (e.g., drugs that treat metastatic breast cancer) in a panel to help identify which of these drugs is most likely to benefit a particular patient. We call such panels of putative DRP ® companion diagnostics Patient Response Predictors (PRP ® s) .
We believe PRP ® s, once approved, have the potential to achieve the true promise of personalized cancer care, specifically to pre-screen a given cancer patient for their likelihood of responding to a range of therapeutic options, then selecting the drug(s) most likely to benefit that patient, while avoiding the prescription of therapeutics that are not likely to benefit that patient. In practice, the treating oncologist and/or cancer center would provide us with a tumor biopsy from a given patient (or gene expression data from such biopsy) and we would then run a PRP ® analysis, as requested by the oncologist, resulting in a PRP ® report, provided to the oncologist and the patient, identifying the therapy options most likely to benefit the patient. This report would be somewhat analogous to currently marketed predictive diagnostic panels and reports, such as FoundationOne ® (Foundation Medicine, Inc.), but with a different underlying technology base and therapeutic response predictive power.
An example of such a PRP ® for multiple myeloma was published in 2018 where the sensitivity of 67 patients to 14 drugs was predicted (A.J. Vangsted et al. , Gene 644 80-86).
We continue to explore the strategic and market potential of such PRP ® panels. Market introduction and penetration of such personalized medicine diagnostic tests and reports is challenging and subject to close scrutiny of regulatory agencies such as the FDA, and also are very capital intensive to develop, bring to market, and expand sales. Accordingly, development of a potential PRP ® product and business is not currently part of our priority strategy.
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Intellectual Property
Our commercial success depends in large part on our ability to obtain and maintain patent protection and market exclusivity in the U.S. and other major oncology markets and countries for our investigational products and our DRP ® companion diagnostics, to operate without being subject to the enforcement of third-party patents and proprietary rights, and to prevent others from infringing on our proprietary or intellectual property rights. We seek to protect our proprietary position by (1) filing, in the U.S. and certain other regions/countries (include the EU), patent applications intended to cover our DRP ® companion diagnostics and their use with a particular therapeutic to guide patient therapy decision making, and maintaining any DRP ® pending patent applications and issued patents in our major markets; (2) maintaining and advancing, and where possible expanding, existing patents and patent applications covering the composition-of-matter of our investigational products, their methods of use and related discoveries, their formulations and methods of manufacture, and related technologies, inventions and improvements that may be commercially important to our business; and (3) filing, in the U.S. and certain other regions/countries, new patent applications on novel therapeutic uses of our investigational products, alone or together with their DRP ® companion diagnostics. We may also rely on trade secrets and know-how to protect aspects of our business that are not amenable to, or that we do not consider appropriate for, patent protection, and which are difficult to reverse engineer. We also intend to take advantage of regulatory protection afforded through data exclusivity, market exclusivity and patent term extensions where available.
We have investigational products, and putative DRP ® companion diagnostics, for a number of therapeutic targets, although none of our companion diagnostics have yet received FDA or other regulatory agency approval. As of the date of this report, our Company-owned patent portfolio consists of:
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18 DRP ® companion diagnostics patents granted covering 70 different cancer drugs, including 8 issued patents in the U.S. and 5 issued patents in the EU. Our issued patents cover, among others, DRP ® companion diagnostics for dovitinib, LiPlaCis ® , 2X-111, and Irofulven. Our issued patent portfolio includes patents granted in the U.S., EU, China, Japan, Canada, and Australia.
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9 DRP ® companion diagnostics patent applications pending covering 3 drugs, including pending applications in the U.S., China, Japan, Canada, India, and Australia. Our pending patent applications cover, among others, DRP® companion diagnostics for 2X-111 and for stenoparib.
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Over 50 granted patents and pending patent applications, for composition-of-matter, methods of use, formulation, and methods of manufacturing, for many of our pipeline assets, including dovitinib, stenoparib, and 2X-111. These granted patents and applications generally cover the U.S. and EU, as well as numerous additional major world cancer therapeutics markets; although existing and remaining patent/application coverage varies from drug program to drug program. The dovitinib patent portfolio is being returned to Novartis. In some instances, the original drug owner/licensor owns and controls such pre-existing patent/application portfolios (such as for stenoparib).
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The term of any patents that issue from our company-owned (or in-licensed) U.S. and foreign patent applications will vary in accordance with the laws of each jurisdiction and available patent term extension but is typically 20 years from the earliest priority application filing date. Expiration dates for certain patents covering our portfolio assets ranges between 2028 and 2032. Expiration dates for the DRP ® companion diagnostic patents that cover our current pipeline programs will typically expire between 2030 and 2040. Any patents that may issue in the future from our company-owned (or in-licensed) pending patent applications are projected to expire between 2031 and 2041, unless extended or otherwise adjusted. Generally, the older and more developed the drug program the earlier the patent portfolio on the product will expire. For example, remaining patent portfolio term for dovitinib is less than remaining patent term for stenoparib. Such product patent portfolio expiration is independent from continuing patent coverage provided by DRP ® companion diagnostics for each product.
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In countries or regions, such as the U.S. and EU, where regulatory approval of a companion diagnostic together with its drug, on the label, is available, approved DRP ® companion diagnostics will substantially extend patent protection well after the core product patents (e.g., composition-of-matter) have expired.
Our patent portfolio includes patents and applications in-licensed from Eisai Co., Ltd. (“Eisai”) that protect stenoparib compositions and methods of its use for treatment.
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Stenoparib
Our stenoparib patent portfolio, which includes U.S. and foreign patents and patent applications, is positioned to protect aspects of our business in the United States and in key foreign jurisdictions. The following is a brief summary of the stenoparib patent portfolio, which includes patent families in-licensed from Eisai, as well as patent applications owned by Allarity.
In-licensed patents:
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Patents granted from national stage applications of Patent Cooperation Treaty Application No. PCT/US2008/078606 that are in-licensed from Eisai include composition of matter claims directed to genera and species encompassing stenoparib. Patents have issued in the United States (US 8,236,802 and US 8,894,989) and in key foreign jurisdictions including, e.g., Europe (EP 2209375), Canada (CA 2,700,903), China (CN 102083314B), Japan (JP 5439380), and South Korea (KR 10-1596526). The patents are scheduled to expire in 2028.
Owned patents:
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We are pursuing patent protection for the use of our DRP ® technology in conjunction with stenoparib via national stage applications of Patent Cooperation Treaty Application No. PCT/EP2019/062508 filed in the United States, Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, and Japan. This portfolio is scheduled to expire in 2039.
License Agreement with Novartis Pharma for Dovitinib
This agreement was terminated by Novartis effective January 26, 2024.
License Agreement with Eisai for Stenoparib
On July 6, 2017, we in-licensed the exclusive worldwide rights to all preventative, therapeutic and/or diagnostic uses related to cancer in humans and by amendment to the agreement on December 11, 2020, viral infections in humans (including, but not limited to, coronavirus vaccines and other treatments) for stenoparib from Eisai Inc. (“Eisai”) pursuant to a license agreement ("Eisai License Agreement"). Upon the execution of the Eisai License Agreement in 2017, we paid Eisai a one-time, non-refundable, and non-creditable payment of $1 million. Pursuant to the Eisai License Agreement, we are solely responsible for the development of stenoparib during the term of the Eisai License Agreement. The Eisai License Agreement also provides for a joint development committee consisting of six members, three appointed by us and three appointed by Eisai. One of our members of the joint development committee is designated chair of the committee and has the power to break any deadlock in decisions by the committee that must be made by a majority vote with each representative having one vote. The purpose of the committee is to implement and oversee development activities for stenoparib pursuant to the clinical development plan and serve as a forum for exchanging data, information, and development strategy.
On July 12, 2022, we amended the terms of the Eisai License Agreement with Eisai in order to (1) further postpone the due date of the extension payment and extend the deadline for our successful completion of its first Phase 1b or Phase 2 clinical trial for stenoparib beyond December 31, 2022; and (2) amend terms related to Eisai’s right of termination of development.
On May 26, 2023, we entered into a fourth amendment with Eisai to the Eisai License Agreement with an effective date of May 16, 2023, to postpone the extension payment, restructure the payment schedule and extend the deadline to complete enrollment in a further Phase 1b or Phase 2 Clinical Trial for the stenoparib. We agreed to pay Eisai in periodic payments as follows: (i) $100,000, which has been paid; (ii) $50,000 within 10 days of execution of the fourth amendment, which has been paid; (iii) $100,000 upon completion of a capital raise, which has been paid; and (iv) $850,000 on or before March 1, 2024.
On February 26, 2024, in exchange for an additional $200,000, paid as of May 1, 2024, we entered into a fifth amendment to the Eisai License Agreement with Eisai to postpone the payment of $850,000. We agreed to make a one-time payment to Eisai of $850,000 upon completion of a ten-million-dollar capital raising campaign, no later than September 1, 2024. We paid Eisai $850,000 on August 20, 2024 and no payments are currently outstanding.
On August 2, 2024, we entered into a sixth amendment to the Eisai License Agreement with Eisai in order to (1) amend the definition of a successful Phase 2 study completion and (2) amend the terms related to Eisai's right of termination for development.
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Development Milestone Payments
Pursuant to the Eisai License Agreement, as amended, we have agreed to make milestone payments to Eisai in connection with the development of stenoparib by us or our affiliates, or by a third-party (a “Program Acquirer”) that assumes control of the stenoparib development program from us corresponding to: (i) successful completion of a Phase 2 clinical trial; (ii) dosing of the first patient in the first Phase 3 clinical trial; (iii) submission of the first NDA with the FDA; (iv) submission of an MAA to the EMA; (v) submission of an NDA to the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare of Japan, or the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency of Japan, or any successor thereto (the “MHLW”); (vi) receipt of authorization by the FDA to market and sell a licensed product; (vii) receipt of approval of an MAA by the EMA for a licensed product; and (viii) receipt of approval by the MHLW in Japan for a licensed product. If all milestones have been achieved, we may be obligated to pay Eisai up to a maximum of $94 million. In addition, we have agreed to pay Eisai a one-time sales milestone payment in the amount of $50 million the first time our annual sales of licensed product are $1 billion or more.
Royalty Payments
In addition to the milestone payments described above, we have agreed to pay Eisai royalties based on annual incremental sales of product derived from stenoparib in an amount between 5% and 10% of annual sales of between $0 and $100 million, between 6% and 10% of annual sales between $100 million and $250 million, between 7% and 11% of annual sales between $250 million and $500 million, and between 11% and 15% of annual sales in excess of $500 million.
We are obligated to pay royalties under the agreement on a country-by-country and product-by-product basis for a period that commences with the first commercial sale of a product until the later of (i) the expiration of the last to expire valid claim of any licensed patent covering such licensed product in such country; or, (ii) the expiration of regulatory-based exclusivity for such licensed product in such country or (iii) the 15 year anniversary of the date of first commercial sale of such licensed product in such country. However, the agreement may be sooner terminated without cause by us upon 120 days prior written notice, or upon written notice of a material breach of the agreement by Eisai that is not cured within 90 days (30 days for a payment default).
Eisai also has the right to terminate the agreement upon written notice of a material breach of the agreement by us that is not cured within 90 days (30 days for a payment default) or if we file for bankruptcy.
Option to Reacquire Rights to Stenoparib
For the period of time commencing with enrollment of the first five patients in a Phase 2 clinical trial pursuant to the clinical development plan and ending 90 days following completion of a successful Phase 2 trial, Eisai has the option to reacquire our licensed rights to develop stenoparib for a purchase price equal to the fair market value of our rights, giving effect to the stage of development of stenoparib that we have completed under the agreement. We commenced a Phase 2 clinical trial in April 2019 and as of the date of this Annual Report, Eisai has not indicated an intention to exercise its repurchase option.
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LiPlaCis Support Agreement with Smerud, Chosa and LiPlasome
Pursuant to the terms of the amendment on March 28, 2022 to the out-license agreement with Smerud Medical Research International (the "Amended License Agreement"), Chosa ApS, a company organized under the laws of Denmark (“Chosa”), replaced us as the exclusive licensee to the LiPlaCis ® technology. In addition, we also granted Chosa an exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable license for (i) our DRP ® Companion Diagnostics that are specific for Cisplatin or LiPlaCis ® (a liposomal formulation of Cisplatin) for the research and development of LiPlaCis ® products, and (ii) the use of any and all know-how and intellectual property rights owned by us for Chosa’s use of our DRP ® Companion Diagnostics that are specific for Cisplatin or LiPlaCis ® (a liposomal formulation of Cisplatin) for the development and commercialization of LiPlaCis ® products, as contemplated in the Amended License Agreement. On March 28, 2022, and concurrent with the entry into the Amended License Agreement with LiPlasome Pharma ApS and Chosa, we entered into the LiPlaCis support agreement with Allarity Europe, Smerud, Chosa and LiPlasome (the “Support Agreement”). Pursuant to the terms of the Support Agreement, we agreed to equally share the milestone payments under the terms of the Amended License Agreement, pursuant to which it was contemplated that upon the achievement of all the milestones, our pro rata share of the milestone payments would be up to $3.5 million.
Manufacturing and Supply
We do not own or operate, and currently have no plans to establish, any manufacturing facilities. We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties for the manufacture of our investigational products for preclinical and clinical testing, as well as for commercial manufacture if any of our investigational products obtain marketing approval. We also rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties to package, label, store and distribute our investigational products, as well as for our commercial products if marketing approval is obtained. We believe that this strategy allows us to maintain a more efficient infrastructure by eliminating the need for us to invest in our own manufacturing facilities, equipment and personnel while also enabling us to focus our expertise and resources on the development of our investigational products.
To date, we have obtained APIs and drug product for our investigational products from either the original drug owner/licensee or from single-source third-party clinical manufacturing organizations (CMOs). We are in the process of developing our supply chain for each of our investigational products and intend to put in place framework agreements under which CMOs will generally provide us with necessary quantities of API and drug product on a project-by-project basis based on our development needs, and which agreements will provide us with intellectual property rights necessary to conduct the business. We may use a different CMO for each investigational product and will consider further diversification of drug product and supply organizations as circumstances warrant. Overall, as we advance our investigational products through development, we will start by seeking multiple sources for raw materials and address other potential points in concern over time.
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Commercialization
We intend to retain significant development and commercial rights to our investigational products and, if marketing approval is obtained, to commercialize our investigational products on our own, or potentially with a partner, in the U.S. and other regions, either globally or on a region-by-region basis. We do not intend to build the necessary infrastructure and sales, marketing and commercial product distribution capabilities for the U.S., and potentially other regions, following further advancement of our investigational products. We instead prefer to build appropriate partnerships with marketing, sales, and distribution partners to effect launch and market penetration for each of our therapeutic programs. However, as we near approval and commercial launch of each program, we will assess the suitability of marketing and sales partners and reserve the right to potentially develop and implement our own infrastructure to support the commercial success of our programs. Clinical data, the size of the addressable patient population and the size of the commercial infrastructure and manufacturing needs and economics related to the foregoing may all influence or alter our commercialization plans.
Competition
The pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are characterized by rapidly advancing technologies, intense competition and a strong emphasis on proprietary products. While we believe that our technology, development experience and scientific knowledge provide us with competitive advantages, we face potential competition from many different sources, including large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations that conduct research, seek patent protection and establish collaborative arrangements for the research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of cancer therapies. Any investigational products that we successfully develop and commercialize will compete with new therapies that may become available in the future. Similarly, our core DRP ® platform technology, and any drug-specific DRP ® companion diagnostics that we develop and commercialize, will compete with new companion diagnostic technologies that may become available in the future.
We compete in the segments of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other related markets that develop small molecules and drug conjugates, together with companion diagnostics, as treatments for cancer patients. There are many other companies that have commercialized and/or are developing such treatments for cancer including large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, such as AstraZeneca plc, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (“BMS”), Merck, Pfizer in partnership with Merck KGaA, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in partnership with Sanofi Genzyme (“Sanofi”) and Roche. There are also many other companies that are developing, have developed, and/or have commercialized patient-selective, companion diagnostic technologies/approaches for cancer patients, such as Foundation Medicine, Inc., Kura Oncology, Inc., and Lantern Pharma, Inc.
For our stenoparib program, we are aware of a number of companies that are currently marketing approved PARP inhibitors and/or developing PARP inhibitors that are or may be competitive to our drug, such as Big Pharma companies AstraZeneca, BMS, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and smaller pharmaceutical players BeiGene and Clovis Oncology. To our knowledge, there is currently no approved or in development PARP inhibitor, for the treatment of ovarian cancer or other indications, that has an identical therapeutic profile to stenoparib (especially with inhibitory activity against the WNT pathway), with or without its Stenoparib-DRP ® companion diagnostic.
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For our core DRP ® platform technology (and its resulting drug specific DRP ® companion diagnostics), we are aware of a number of companies that are currently marketing approved companion diagnostic platforms, or are attempting to develop such platforms, that are or may be competitive to (although distinct from) our DRP ® platform, such as Foundation Medicine and Lantern Pharma. To our knowledge, there is currently no approved or developmental diagnostic technology or platform — for the development of drug-specific companion diagnostics to guide selection and treatment of cancer patients most likely to respond to a given drug — that is as broadly applicable, robust, and highly validated as our DRP ® platform.
Many of the companies against which we are competing or against which we may compete in the future have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals, and marketing approved drugs than we do. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Smaller or early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel and establishing clinical trial sites and enrolling subjects for our clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs.
We could see a reduction or elimination of our commercial opportunity if our competitors develop and commercialize therapeutic products that are safer or more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any products that we or our collaborators may develop. Similarly, it is possible that our commercial opportunity may be reduced by the development and commercialization of competing companion diagnostic products that are superior to our DRP ® companion diagnostics. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or foreign regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we or our collaborators are able to enter the market. The key competitive factors affecting the success of all our investigational products, if approved, are likely to be their degree of anti-cancer activity, tolerability profile, convenience and price, the effectiveness of companion diagnostics (if required), the level of biosimilar or generic competition and the availability of reimbursement from government and other third-party payors. All these factors will be impacted by the value and superiority of our DRP ® companion diagnostics over any competing companion diagnostic approaches that currently exist or evolve in the oncology market.
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Government Regulation
Government authorities in the U.S. at the federal, state, and local level and in other countries regulate the research, development, testing, manufacture, quality control, approval, labeling, packaging, storage, record-keeping, promotion, advertising, distribution, post-approval monitoring and reporting, marketing and export and import of drug and biological products. Generally, before a new drug can be marketed, considerable data demonstrating its quality, safety and efficacy must be obtained, organized into a format specific for each regulatory authority, submitted for review and approved by the regulatory authority. Similar regulations and approvals exist in the EU and other major oncology therapeutic markets.
U.S. Drug Development
In the U.S., the FDA regulates drugs under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”). Similarly, in the European Union (EU), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) regulates the clinical trial, approval, and marketing of drugs. Drugs also are subject to other federal, state, and local statutes and regulations. The process of obtaining regulatory approvals and the subsequent compliance with appropriate federal, state, local and foreign statutes and regulations requires the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources. Failure to comply with the applicable U.S. or EU requirements at any time during the product development process, approval process or post-market may subject an applicant to administrative or judicial sanctions. These sanctions could include, among other actions, the FDA’s or EMA’s refusal to approve pending applications, withdrawal of an approval, a clinical hold, untitled or warning letters, product recalls or market withdrawals, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, refusals of government contracts, restitution, disgorgement and civil or criminal penalties. Any agency or judicial enforcement action could have a material adverse effect on us.
Our therapeutic candidate, stenoparib, is considered a small molecule drug and must be approved by the FDA through the new drug application (“NDA”), and similarly by the EMA under an equivalent process, before it may be legally marketed in the U.S. The process generally involves the following:
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completion of extensive preclinical studies in accordance with applicable regulations, including studies conducted in accordance with GLP;
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submission to the FDA of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application, which must become approved and effective before human clinical trials may begin;
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submission to the FDA of an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) application, which must become approved and effective before a drug-specific DRP ® companion diagnostic can be used in human clinical trials;
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approval by an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) or ethics committee at each clinical trial site before each trial may be initiated;
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performance of adequate and well controlled human clinical trials in accordance with applicable IND regulations, GCP requirements and other clinical trial-related protocols and regulations to establish substantial evidence of the safety and efficacy of the investigational product for each proposed indication;
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submission to the FDA of an NDA after completion of all pivotal trials;
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submission to the FDA of a Pre-Market Approval (PMA) application to allow use of a DRP ® companion diagnostic on the market together with its approved drug;
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determination by the FDA within 60 days of its receipt of an NDA to accept the filing for substantive review;
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satisfactory completion of an FDA pre-approval inspection of the manufacturing facility or facilities where the drug will be produced to assess compliance with cGMP requirements to assure that the facilities, methods and controls are adequate to preserve the drug’s identity, strength, quality and purity;
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potential FDA audit of the pre-clinical study and/or clinical trial sites that generated the data in support of the NDA filing;
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FDA review and approval of the NDA, including consideration of the views of any FDA advisory committee, prior to any commercial marketing or sale of the drug in the U.S.; and
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compliance with any post-approval requirements, including the potential requirement to implement a REMS and the potential requirement to conduct post-approval studies.
The data required to support an NDA are generated in two distinct developmental stages: pre-clinical and clinical. The pre-clinical and clinical testing and approval process requires substantial time, effort, and financial resources, and we cannot be certain that any approvals for stenoparib will be granted on a timely basis, or at all, whether in the U.S, EU, or other region/country.
Pre-Clinical Studies and IND/IDE
The preclinical developmental stage generally involves laboratory evaluations of drug chemistry, formulation, and stability, as well as studies to evaluate toxicity in animals, which support subsequent clinical testing. The sponsor must submit the results of the preclinical studies, together with manufacturing information, retrospective data, any available clinical data or literature and a proposed clinical protocol, to the FDA as part of the IND. An IND is a request for authorization from the FDA to administer an investigational product to humans and must become effective before human clinical trials may begin. Similarly, and IDE is a request for authorization from the FDA to use a diagnostic — in our case a DRP ® companion diagnostic — to screen, select, and treat specific patients in a human clinical trial.
Pre-clinical studies include laboratory evaluation of product chemistry and formulation, as well as in vitro and animal studies to assess the potential for adverse events and in some cases to establish a rationale for therapeutic use. The conduct of pre-clinical studies is subject to federal regulations and requirements, including GLP regulations for safety/toxicology studies. An IND sponsor must submit the results of the pre-clinical tests, together with manufacturing information, retrospective data, any available clinical data or literature and plans for clinical studies, among other things, to the FDA as part of an IND. Similarly, an IDE sponsor must submit information about the prior development and validation of the diagnostic, including results of the pre-clinical tests, together with manufacturing information, retrospective data, any available clinical data or literature and plans for clinical studies, among other things, to the FDA as part of an IDE. Some long-term preclinical testing, such as animal tests of reproductive adverse events and carcinogenicity, may continue after the IND is submitted. An IND automatically becomes effective 30 days after receipt by the FDA, unless before that time the FDA raises concerns or questions related to one or more proposed clinical trials and places the trial on clinical hold. In such a case, the IND sponsor and the FDA must resolve any outstanding concerns before the clinical trial can begin. As a result, submission of an IND may not result in the FDA allowing clinical trials to commence. Similarly, submission of an IDE for a DRP ® companion diagnostic may not result in the FDA allowing use of such DRP ® in an approved clinical trial.
Clinical Trials
The clinical stage of development involves the administration of the investigational product to healthy volunteers or patients under the supervision of qualified investigators, generally physicians not employed by or under the trial sponsor’s control, in accordance with GCP requirements, which include the requirement that all research subjects provide their informed consent for their participation in any clinical trial. Clinical trials are conducted under protocols detailing, among other things, the objectives of the clinical trial, dosing procedures, subject selection and exclusion criteria and the parameters to be used to monitor subject safety and assess efficacy. Each protocol, and any subsequent amendments to the protocol, must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND. Furthermore, each clinical trial must be reviewed and approved by an IRB for each institution at which the clinical trial will be conducted to ensure that the risks to individuals participating in the clinical trials are minimized and are reasonable in relation to anticipated benefits. The IRB must also approve the informed consent form that must be provided to each clinical trial subject or his or her legal representative and must monitor the clinical trial until completed. There also are requirements governing the reporting of ongoing clinical trials and completed clinical trial results to public registries. Clinical development in other major oncology markets, such as the EU, is subject to similar requirements and regulations.
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A sponsor who wishes to conduct a clinical trial outside of the U.S. may, but need not, obtain FDA authorization to conduct the clinical trial under an IND. If a foreign clinical trial is not conducted under an IND, the sponsor may submit data from the clinical trial to the FDA in support of an NDA. The FDA will generally accept a well-designed and well conducted foreign clinical trial not conducted under an IND if the clinical trial is conducted in compliance with GCP and. the FDA is able to validate the data through an onsite inspection, if deemed necessary. An NDA based solely on foreign clinical data meeting U.S. criteria for marketing approval may be approved if (1) the foreign data are applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice, (2) the studies have been performed by clinical investigators of recognized competence and (3) the FDA is able to validate the data through an onsite inspection or other appropriate means, if deemed necessary.
Clinical trials in the U.S. generally are conducted in three sequential phases, known as Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, and may overlap.
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Phase 1 clinical trials generally involve a small number of healthy volunteers or disease-affected patients who are initially exposed to a single dose and then multiple doses of the therapeutic candidate. The primary purpose of these clinical trials is to assess the metabolism, pharmacologic action, tolerability, and safety of the drug.
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Phase 2 clinical trials involve studies in disease-affected patients to determine the dose and dosing schedule required to produce the desired benefits. At the same time, safety and further pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic information is collected, possible adverse effects and safety risks are identified, and a preliminary evaluation of efficacy is conducted.
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Pivotal or Phase 3 clinical trials generally involve a large number of patients at multiple sites and are designed to provide the data necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product for its intended use, its safety in use and to establish the overall benefit/risk relationship of the product and provide an adequate basis for product approval. These trials may include comparisons with placebo and/or other comparator treatments. The duration of treatment is often extended to mimic the actual use of a product during marketing.
Post-approval trials, sometimes referred to as Phase 4 clinical trials, are conducted after initial marketing approval. These trials are used to gain additional experience from the treatment of patients in the intended therapeutic indication. In certain instances, the FDA may mandate the performance of Phase 4 clinical trials as a condition of approval of an NDA.
Progress reports detailing the results of the clinical trials, among other information, must be submitted at least annually to the FDA. Sponsor is also responsible for submitting written IND safety reports, including reports of serious and unexpected suspected adverse events, findings from other studies suggesting a significant risk to humans exposed to the drug, findings from animal or in vitro testing that suggest a significant risk for human subjects, and any clinically significant increase in the rate of a serious suspected adverse reaction over that listed in the protocol or investigator brochure. Clinical development in other major oncology markets, such as the EU, is subject to similar requirements and regulations.
Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials may not be completed successfully within any specified period, if at all. The FDA or the sponsor may suspend or terminate a clinical trial at any time on various grounds, including a finding that the research subjects or patients are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk. Similarly, an IRB can suspend or terminate approval of a clinical trial at its institution if the clinical trial is not being conducted in accordance with the IRB’s requirements or if the drug has been associated with unexpected serious harm to patients. Additionally, some clinical trials are overseen by an independent group of qualified experts organized by the clinical trial sponsor, known as a data safety monitoring board or committee. This group provides authorization for whether a trial may move forward at designated checkpoints based on access to certain data from the trial.
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Concurrent with clinical trials, companies may complete additional animal safety studies and must develop additional information about the chemistry and physical characteristics of the drug as well as finalize a process for manufacturing the product in commercial quantities in accordance with cGMP requirements. The manufacturing process, as performed by the manufacturing facility, must be capable of consistently producing quality batches of stenoparib. Additionally, appropriate packaging must be selected and tested, and stability studies must be conducted to demonstrate that stenoparib does not undergo unacceptable deterioration over its labeled shelf life.
NDA Review Process
Following completion of the clinical trials, data is analyzed to assess whether the investigational product is safe and effective for the proposed indicated use or uses. The results of pre-clinical studies and clinical trials are then submitted to the FDA as part of an NDA, along with proposed labeling, chemistry, and manufacturing information to ensure product quality and other relevant data. In short, the NDA is a request for approval to market the drug in the U.S. for one or more specified indications and must contain proof of safety and efficacy for a drug. Concomitantly, a PMA is submitted to the FDA as part of NDA approval that is conditioned on use of a companion diagnostic. In short, the PMA is a request for approval to market the companion diagnostic in the U.S., together with and required for prescription of the drug, for one or more specified indications and must contain clinical evidence of safety and efficacy and sufficient validation of the companion diagnostic used to select patients for treatment with the drug.
The NDA application must include both negative and ambiguous results of preclinical studies and clinical trials, as well as positive findings. Data may come from company-sponsored clinical trials intended to test the safety and efficacy of a product’s use or from a number of alternative sources, including studies initiated by investigators. To support marketing approval, the data submitted must be sufficient in quality and quantity to establish the safety and efficacy of the investigational product to the satisfaction of FDA. FDA approval of an NDA must be obtained before a drug may be legally marketed in the U.S. Similarly, FDA approval of a PMA must be obtained before a DRP® companion diagnostic may be legally marketed in the U.S.
Under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (“PDUFA”), as amended, each NDA must be accompanied by a user fee. FDA adjusts the PDUFA user fees on an annual basis. PDUFA also imposes an annual program fee for each marketed human drug. Fee waivers or reductions are available in certain circumstances, including a waiver of the application fee for the first application filed by a small business. Additionally, no user fees are assessed on NDAs for products designated as orphan drugs, unless the product also includes a non-orphan indication.
The FDA reviews all submitted NDAs before it accepts them for filing and may request additional information rather than accepting the NDA for filing. The FDA must decide on accepting an NDA for filing within 60 days of receipt. Once the submission is accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth review of the NDA. Under the goals and policies agreed to by the FDA under PDUFA, the FDA has 10 months, from the filing date, in which to complete its initial review of a new molecular-entity NDA and respond to the applicant, and six months from the filing date of a new molecular-entity NDA designated for priority review. The FDA does not always meet its PDUFA goal dates for standard and priority NDAs, and the review process is often extended by FDA requests for additional information or clarification. Similarly, the FDA must decide on accepting a PMA for review within 45 days of receipt. After acceptance, the FDA will begin substantive review of the PMA. During the review process, FDA will notify the PMA applicant via major/minor deficiency letters of any information needed by FDA to complete the review of the application. FDA may refer the PMA to an outside panel of experts (advisory committee). In general, all PMAs for the first-of-a-kind device are taken before the appropriate advisory panel for review and recommendation.
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Before approving an NDA, the FDA will conduct a pre-approval inspection of the manufacturing facilities for the new product to determine whether they comply with cGMP requirements. The FDA will not approve the product unless it determines that the manufacturing processes and facilities are in compliance with cGMP requirements and adequate to assure consistent production of the product within required specifications. The FDA also may audit data from clinical trials to ensure compliance with GCP requirements. Additionally, the FDA may refer applications for novel drug products or drug products which present difficult questions of safety or efficacy to an advisory committee, typically a panel that includes clinicians and other experts, for review, evaluation, and a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions, if any. The FDA is not bound by recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations when making decisions on approval. The FDA likely will reanalyze the clinical trial data, which could result in extensive discussions between the FDA and the applicant during the review process. After the FDA evaluates an NDA, it will issue an approval letter or a Complete Response Letter. An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the drug with specific prescribing information for specific indications. A Complete Response Letter indicates that the review cycle of the application is complete, and the application will not be approved in its present form. A Complete Response Letter usually describes all of the specific deficiencies in the NDA identified by the FDA. The Complete Response Letter may require additional clinical data, additional pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial(s) and/or other significant and time-consuming requirements related to clinical trials, preclinical studies and/or manufacturing. If a Complete Response Letter is issued, the applicant may either resubmit the NDA, addressing all the deficiencies identified in the letter, or withdraw the application. Even if such data and information are submitted, the FDA may decide that the NDA does not satisfy the criteria for approval. Data obtained from clinical trials are not always conclusive and the FDA may interpret data differently than we interpret the same data.
Similarly, an IDE application is considered approved 30 days after it has been received by the FDA, unless the FDA otherwise informs the sponsor via email prior to 30 calendar days from the date of receipt, that the IDE is approved, approved with conditions, or disapproved. In cases of disapproval, a sponsor can respond to the deficiencies.
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Expedited Development and Review Programs
The FDA has a fast-track program that is intended to expedite or facilitate the process for reviewing new drugs that meet certain criteria. Specifically, new drugs are eligible for fast-track designation if they are intended to treat a serious or life-threatening condition and preclinical or clinical data demonstrate the potential to address unmet medical needs for the condition. Fast track designation applies to both the product and the specific indication for which it is being studied. The sponsor can request the FDA to designate the product for fast-track status any time before receiving NDA approval, but ideally no later than the pre-NDA meeting with the FDA. In Q3 2025, the FDA granted fast-track designation to Allarity Therapeutics for stenoparib in advanced, recurrent ovarian cancers.
Any product submitted to the FDA for marketing, including under a fast-track program, may be eligible for other types of FDA programs intended to expedite development and review, such as priority review and accelerated approval. Any product is eligible for priority review if it treats a serious or life-threatening condition and, if approved, would provide a significant improvement in safety and effectiveness compared to available therapies.
A product may also be eligible for accelerated approval if it treats a serious or life-threatening condition and generally provides a meaningful advantage over available therapies. In addition, it must demonstrate an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit or on a clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than irreversible morbidity or mortality (“IMM”), which is reasonably likely to predict an effect on IMM or other clinical benefit. As a condition of approval, the FDA may require that a sponsor of a drug receiving accelerated approval perform adequate and well-controlled post-marketing clinical trials. FDA may withdraw drug approval or require changes to the labeled indication of the drug if confirmatory post-market trials fail to verify clinical benefit or do not demonstrate sufficient clinical benefit to justify the risks associated with the drug. If the FDA concludes that a drug shown to be effective can be safely used only if distribution or use is restricted, it may require such post-marketing restrictions as it deems necessary to assure safe use of the product.
Additionally, a drug may be eligible for designation as a breakthrough therapy if the product is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs or biologics, to treat a serious or life-threatening condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the product may demonstrate substantial improvement over currently approved therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints. The benefits of breakthrough therapy designation include the same benefits as fast-track designation, plus intensive guidance from the FDA to ensure an efficient drug development program. Fast track designation, priority review, accelerated approval and breakthrough therapy designation do not change the standards for approval, but may expedite the development or approval process. Even if a product qualifies for one or more of these programs, the FDA may later decide that the product no longer meets the conditions for qualification or decide that the time period for FDA review or approval will not be shortened.
Post-Approval Requirements
Following approval of a new product, the manufacturer and the approved product are subject to continuing regulation by the FDA, including, among other things, monitoring and record-keeping requirements, requirements to report adverse events and comply with promotion and advertising requirements, which include restrictions on promoting drugs for unapproved uses or patient populations, known as “off-label promotion,” and limitations on industry-sponsored scientific and educational activities. Although physicians may prescribe legally available drugs for off-label uses, manufacturers may not market or promote such uses. Prescription drug promotional materials must be submitted to the FDA in conjunction with their first use. Further, if there are any modifications to the drug, including changes in indications, labeling or manufacturing processes or facilities, the applicant may be required to submit and obtain FDA approval of a new NDA or NDA supplement, which may require the development of additional data or preclinical studies and clinical trials.
The FDA may also place other conditions on approvals including the requirement for REMS, to assure the safe use of the product. A REMS could include medication guides, physician communication plans or elements to assure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. Any of these limitations on approval or marketing could restrict the commercial promotion, distribution, prescription or dispensing of products. Product approvals may be withdrawn for non-compliance with regulatory standards or if problems occur following initial marketing.
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The FDA may withdraw approval if compliance with regulatory requirements and standards is not maintained or if problems occur after the product reaches the market. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with a product, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in revisions to the approved labeling to add new safety information; imposition of post-market studies or clinical studies to assess new safety risks or imposition of distribution restrictions or other restrictions under a REMS program. Other potential consequences include, among other things:
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restrictions on the marketing or manufacturing of the product, complete withdrawal of the product from the market, or product recalls;
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fines, warning letters, or holds on post-approval clinical studies;
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refusal of the FDA to approve pending applications or supplements to approved applications;
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suspension or revocation of product approvals;
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product seizure or detention;
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refusal to permit the import or export of products; and
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injunctions or the imposition of civil or criminal penalties.
The FDA strictly regulates marketing, labeling, advertising and promotion of products that are placed on the market. Drugs may be promoted only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved label. The FDA and other agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses, and a company that is found to have improperly promoted off-label uses may be subject to significant liability. Marketing and promotion of approved drugs in other major oncology markets, such as the EU, are subject to similar requirements and regulations.
Other U.S. Regulatory Matters
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are subject to various healthcare laws, regulation, and enforcement by the federal government and by authorities in the states and foreign jurisdictions in which they conduct their business. Our conduct, including those of our employees, as well as our business operations and relationships with third parties, including current and future arrangements with healthcare providers, third-party payors, customers, and others may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, which may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we research, as well as, sell, market, and distribute any products for which we obtain marketing approval. The applicable federal, state, and foreign healthcare laws and regulations that may affect our ability to operate include, but are not limited to:
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The federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which makes it illegal for any person or entity, including a prescription drug manufacturer (or a party acting on its behalf), to knowingly and willfully solicit, receive, offer or pay any remuneration that is intended to induce or reward referrals, including the purchase, recommendation, order or prescription of a particular drug, for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program, such as Medicare or Medicaid. Moreover, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("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 civil False Claims Act.
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The federal false claims, including the civil False Claims Act that can be enforced by private citizens through civil whistleblower or qui tam actions, and civil monetary penalties law prohibit individuals or entities from, among other things, knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, to the federal government, claims for payment that are false or fraudulent or making a false statement to avoid, decrease or conceal an obligation to pay money to the federal government.
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HIPAA prohibits, among other things, executing or attempting to execute a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program or making false statements relating to healthcare matters.
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HIPAA, as amended by HITECH, and their implementing regulations also impose obligations on covered entities such as health insurance plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and certain healthcare providers and their respective business associates and their covered subcontractors, including mandatory contractual terms, with respect to safeguarding the privacy, security, and transmission of individually identifiable health information.
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The federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, with specific exceptions, to annually report to CMS information regarding certain payments and other transfers of value to physicians, as defined by such law, and teaching hospitals as well as information regarding ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members; additionally, the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promoted Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act, under the provision titled “Fighting the Opioid Epidemic with Sunshine,” in part, extended the reporting and transparency requirements for physicians under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and other mid-level practitioners, with reporting requirements having gone into effect in 2022 for payments made, or ownership and investment interests held, in 2021.
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Analogous state and foreign laws and regulations, such as state anti-kickback and false claims laws which may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-governmental third-party payors, including private insurers, state laws that require biotechnology companies to comply with the biotechnology industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government; state and local laws that require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures and require the registration of their sales representatives, state laws that require biotechnology companies to report information on the pricing of certain drug products, and state and foreign laws that govern the privacy and security of health information in some circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.
Pricing and rebate programs must also comply with the Medicaid rebate requirements of the U.S. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 and more recent requirements in the PPACA. If products are made available to authorized users of the Federal Supply Schedule of the General Services Administration, additional laws and requirements apply. Manufacturing, sales, promotion, and other activities also are potentially subject to federal and state consumer protection and unfair competition laws. In addition, the distribution of pharmaceutical products is subject to additional requirements and regulations, including extensive record-keeping, licensing, storage, and security requirements intended to prevent the unauthorized sale of pharmaceutical products. Products must meet applicable child-resistant packaging requirements under the U.S. Poison Prevention Packaging Act as well as other applicable consumer safety requirements.
The failure to comply with any of these laws or regulatory requirements subjects firms to possible legal or regulatory action. Depending on the circumstances, failure to meet applicable regulatory requirements can result in significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, including damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, integrity oversight and reporting obligations, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, injunctions, requests for recall, seizure of products, total or partial suspension of production, denial or withdrawal of product approvals or refusal to allow a firm to enter into supply contracts, including government contracts.
Marketing, promotion, and sale of approved drugs in other major oncology markets, such as the EU, are subject to similar requirements and regulations. For example, in the EU, safeguarding the privacy, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and laws, which are widely considered to be the most stringent in the world.
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U.S. Patent-Term Restoration and Marketing Exclusivity
Depending upon the timing, duration, and specifics of FDA approval of any future therapeutic candidates, some of our U.S. patents, if issued, may be eligible for limited patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act. The Hatch-Waxman Act permits restoration of the patent term of up to five years as compensation for the lost opportunity to market the drug during the patent term while the drug was under the FDA regulatory review process. Patent-term restoration, however, cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from regulatory approval. The patent-term restoration period is generally one-half the time between the effective date of an IND or the issue date of the patent, whichever is later, and the submission date of an NDA plus the time between the submission date of an NDA or the issue date of the patent, whichever is later, and the approval of that application, except that the review period is reduced by any time during which the applicant failed to exercise due diligence. Only one patent applicable to an approved drug is eligible for the extension and the application for the extension must be submitted prior to the expiration of the patent. The US Patent Office (USPTO), in consultation with the FDA, reviews and approves the application for any patent term extension or restoration. In the future, we may apply for restoration of patent term for our currently owned or licensed patents to add patent life beyond its current expiration date, depending on the expected length of the clinical trials and other factors involved in the filing of the relevant NDA.
Market exclusivity provisions under the FDCA also can delay the submission or the approval of certain applications. The FDCA provides a five-year period of non-patent marketing exclusivity within the U.S. to the first applicant to gain approval of an NDA for a new chemical entity. A drug is a new chemical entity if the FDA has not previously approved any other new drug containing the same active moiety, which is the molecule or ion responsible for the action of the drug substance. During the exclusivity period, the FDA may not accept for review an abbreviated new drug application (“ANDA”), or a 505(b)(2) NDA submitted by another company for a generic version of such drug where the applicant does not own or have a legal right of reference to all the data required for approval. However, an application may be submitted after four years if it contains a certification of patent invalidity or non-infringement. The FDCA also provides three years of marketing exclusivity for an NDA, 505(b)(2) NDA or supplement to an existing NDA if new clinical investigations, other than bioavailability studies, that were conducted or sponsored by the applicant are deemed by the FDA to be essential to the approval of the application, for example, new indications, dosages, or strengths of an existing drug. This three-year exclusivity covers only the conditions of use associated with the new clinical investigations and does not prohibit the FDA from approving ANDAs for drugs containing the original active agent. Five-year and three-year exclusivity will not delay the submission or approval of a full NDA. However, an applicant submitting a full NDA would be required to conduct or obtain a right of reference to all the preclinical studies and adequate and well-controlled clinical trials necessary to demonstrate safety and effectiveness or generate such data themselves.
European Union Drug Development
Similar to the U.S., the various phases of preclinical and clinical research in the European Union are subject to significant regulatory controls. Although the EU Clinical Trials Directive 2001/20/EC has sought to harmonize the EU clinical trials regulatory framework, setting out common rules for the control and authorization of clinical trials in the EU, the EU Member States have transposed and applied the provisions of the Directive differently. This has led to significant variations in the member state regimes. Under the current regime, before a clinical trial can be initiated, it must be approved in each of the EU countries where the trial is to be conducted by two distinct bodies: the National Competent Authority (“NCA”), and one or more Ethics Committees (“ECs”). Under the current regime all suspected unexpected serious adverse reactions to the investigated drug that occur during the clinical trial have to be reported to the NCA and ECs of the Member State where they occurred.
The EU clinical trials legislation currently is undergoing a transition process mainly aimed at harmonizing and streamlining clinical-trial authorization, simplifying adverse-event reporting procedures, improving the supervision of clinical trials and increasing their transparency. Recently enacted Clinical Trials Regulation EU No 536/2014 ensures that the rules for conducting clinical trials in the EU will be identical. In the meantime, Clinical Trials Directive 2001/20/EC continues to govern all clinical trials performed in the EU.
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European Union Drug Review and Approval
In the European Economic Area (“EEA”), which comprises the 28 Member States of the European Union and three European Free Trade Association States (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein), medicinal products can only be commercialized after obtaining a Marketing Authorization (“MA”). There are two types of MAs.
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The Community MA is issued by the European Commission through the Centralized Procedure, based on the opinion of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, of the EMA, and is valid throughout the entire territory of the EEA. The Centralized Procedure is mandatory for certain types of products, such as biotechnology medicinal products, orphan medicinal products, advanced-therapy medicines such as gene-therapy, somatic cell-therapy or tissue-engineered medicines and medicinal products containing a new active substance indicated for the treatment of HIV, AIDS, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, auto-immune and other immune dysfunctions, and viral diseases. The Centralized Procedure is optional for products containing a new active substance not yet authorized in the EEA, or for products that constitute a significant therapeutic, scientific, or technical innovation or which are in the interest of public health in the EU.
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National MAs, which are issued by the competent authorities of the Member States of the EEA and only cover their respective territory, are available for products not falling within the mandatory scope of the Centralized Procedure. Where a product has already been authorized for marketing in a Member State of the EEA, this National MA can be recognized in another Member States through the Mutual Recognition Procedure. If the product has not received a National MA in any Member State at the time of application, it can be approved simultaneously in various Member States through the Decentralized Procedure. Under the Decentralized Procedure an identical dossier is submitted to the competent authorities of each of the Member States in which the MA is sought, one of which is selected by the applicant as the Reference Member State (“RMS”). The competent authority of the RMS prepares a draft assessment report, a draft summary of the product characteristics (“SOPC”), and a draft of the labeling and package leaflet, which are sent to the other Member States (referred to as the Member States Concerned) for their approval. If the Member States Concerned raise no objections, based on a potential serious risk to public health, to the assessment, SOPC, labeling or packaging proposed by the RMS, the product is subsequently granted a national MA in all the Member States (i.e., in the RMS and the Member States Concerned).
Under the above-described procedures, before granting the MA, EMA or the competent authorities of the Member States of the EEA assess the risk-benefit balance of the product on the basis of scientific criteria concerning its quality, safety and efficacy. Like the U.S. patent term-restoration, Supplementary Protection Certificates (“SPCs”) serve as an extension to a patent right in Europe for up to five years. SPCs apply to specific pharmaceutical products to offset the loss of the ability to market a drug during the patent term due to the lengthy testing and clinical trials these products require prior to obtaining regulatory marketing approval.
Coverage and Reimbursement
Sales of our therapeutic products and DRP ® companion diagnostics, if approved, will depend, in part, on the extent to which our products will be covered by third-party payors, such as government health programs, commercial insurance and managed healthcare organizations. There is significant uncertainty related to third-party payor coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products. In the U.S., for example, principal decisions about reimbursement for new products are typically made by CMS. CMS decides whether and to what extent a new product will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare, and private third-party payors often follow CMS’s decisions regarding coverage and reimbursement to a substantial degree. However, no uniform policy of coverage and reimbursement for drug products exists. Accordingly, decisions regarding the extent of coverage and amount of reimbursement to be provided for any of our products will be made on a payor-by-payor basis.
Increasingly, third-party payors are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for medical products. Further, such payors are increasingly challenging the price, examining the medical necessity and reviewing the cost effectiveness of medical therapeutic candidates. There may be especially significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs. Third-party payors may limit coverage to specific therapeutic candidates on an approved list, known as a formulary, which might not include all FDA-approved drugs for a particular indication. We may need to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies to demonstrate the medical necessity and cost effectiveness of our products. As a result, the coverage determination process is often a time-consuming and costly process that will require us to provide scientific and clinical support for the use of our products to each payor separately, with no assurance that coverage and adequate reimbursement will be obtained. Additionally, coverage policies and third-party reimbursement rates may change at any time. Even if favorable coverage and reimbursement status is attained for one or more products for which we receive regulatory approval, less favorable coverage policies and reimbursement rates may be implemented in the future.
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The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (“MMA”) established the Medicare Part D program to provide a voluntary prescription drug benefit to Medicare beneficiaries. Under Part D, Medicare beneficiaries may enroll in prescription drug plans offered by private entities that provide coverage of outpatient prescription drugs. Unlike Medicare Part A and B, Part D coverage is not standardized. While all Medicare drug plans must give at least a standard level of coverage set by Medicare, Part D prescription drug plan sponsors are not required to pay for all covered Part D drugs, and each drug plan can develop its own drug formulary that identifies which drugs it will cover and at what tier or level. However, Part D prescription drug formularies must include drugs within each therapeutic category and class of covered Part D drugs, though not necessarily all the drugs in each category or class. Any formulary used by a Part D prescription drug plan must be developed and reviewed by a pharmacy and therapeutic committee. Government payment for some of the costs of prescription drugs may increase demand for products for which we receive marketing approval. However, any negotiated prices for our products covered by a Part D prescription drug plan likely will be lower than the prices we might otherwise obtain. Moreover, while the MMA applies only to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private third-party payors often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own payment rates.
In addition, where a drug product requires a companion diagnostic (in our case, a DRP ® companion diagnostic), then companion diagnostic tests require coverage and reimbursement separate and apart from the coverage and reimbursement for their companion pharmaceutical or biological products. Similar challenges to obtaining coverage and reimbursement, applicable to pharmaceutical or biological products, will apply to companion diagnostics. In general, insurance payors will cover and reimburse a companion diagnostic where sufficient clinical proof is provided to support that use of the companion diagnostic improves healthcare outcomes and/or reduces healthcare expenses associated with a given drug.
In addition, in most foreign countries, the proposed pricing for a drug must be approved before it may be lawfully marketed. The requirements governing drug pricing and reimbursement vary widely from country to country. For example, the European Union provides options for its member states to restrict the range of medicinal products for which their national health insurance systems provide reimbursement and to control the prices of medicinal products for human use. A member state may approve a specific price for the medicinal product, or it may instead adopt a system of direct or indirect controls on the profitability of the company placing the medicinal product on the market. There can be no assurance that any country that has price controls or reimbursement limitations for pharmaceutical products will allow favorable reimbursement and pricing arrangements for any of our products. Historically, products launched in the European Union do not follow price structures of the U.S. and generally prices tend to be significantly lower.
Healthcare Reform
The U.S. government, state legislatures and foreign governments have shown significant interest in implementing cost containment programs to limit the growth of government-paid healthcare costs, including price-controls, restrictions on reimbursement and requirements for substitution of generic products for branded prescription drugs. For example, the PPACA substantially changed the way healthcare is financed by both the government and private insurers and continues to significantly impact the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. The PPACA contains provisions that may reduce the profitability of drug products through increased rebates for drugs reimbursed by Medicaid programs, extension of Medicaid rebates to Medicaid managed care plans, mandatory discounts for certain Medicare Part D beneficiaries and annual fees based on pharmaceutical companies’ share of sales to federal healthcare programs. The Medicaid Drug Rebate Program requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to enter into and have in effect a national rebate agreement with the HHS Secretary as a condition for states to receive federal matching funds for the manufacturer’s outpatient drugs furnished to Medicaid patients. The PPACA made several changes to the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, including increasing pharmaceutical manufacturers’ rebate liability by raising the minimum basic Medicaid rebate on most branded prescription drugs from 15.1% of average manufacturer price (“AMP”), to 23.1% of AMP and adding a new rebate calculation for “line extensions” (i.e., new formulations, such as extended release formulations) of solid oral dosage forms of branded products, as well as potentially impacting their rebate liability by modifying the statutory definition of AMP. The PPACA also expanded the universe of Medicaid utilization subject to drug rebates by requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to pay rebates on Medicaid managed care utilization and by enlarging the population potentially eligible for Medicaid drug benefits. Additionally, for a drug product to receive federal reimbursement under the Medicaid or Medicare Part B programs or to be sold directly to U.S. government agencies, the manufacturer must extend discounts to entities eligible to participate in the 340B drug pricing program. The required 340B discount on a given product is calculated based on the AMP and Medicaid rebate amounts reported by the manufacturer.
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There remain judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the PPACA, as well as efforts by the previous administration to repeal or replace certain aspects of the PPACA. Since January 2017, there have been several executive orders and other directives designed to delay the implementation of certain provisions of the PPACA or otherwise circumvent some of the requirements for health insurance mandated by the PPACA. Concurrently, Congress has considered legislation that would repeal or repeal and replace all or part of the PPACA. While Congress has not passed comprehensive repeal legislation, several bills affecting the implementation of certain taxes under the PPACA have passed. In 2017, the Tax Act repealed, effective January 1, 2019, the tax-based shared responsibility payment imposed by the PPACA on certain individuals who fail to maintain qualifying health coverage for all or part of a year that is commonly referred to as the “individual mandate.” In addition, the 2020 federal spending package permanently eliminated, effective January 1, 2020, the PPACA’s mandated “Cadillac” tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health coverage and medical device tax and, effective January 1, 2021, also eliminates the health insurer tax. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, among other things, amended the PPACA, effective January 1, 2019, to close the coverage gap in most Medicare Part D drug plans. In December 2018, CMS published a new final rule permitting further collections and payments to and from certain ACA-qualified health plans and health insurance issuers under the PPACA risk adjustment program in response to the outcome of federal district court litigation regarding the method CMS uses to determine this risk adjustment. In April 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a federal circuit decision that previously upheld Congress’ denial of $12.0 billion in “risk corridor” funding. In December 2018, a Texas U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the PPACA is unconstitutional in its entirety because the “individual mandate” was repealed by Congress as part of the Tax Act. Additionally, in December 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the District Court ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and remanded the case back to the District Court to determine whether the remaining provisions of the PPACA are invalid as well. On June 17, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Fifth Circuit holding that the state plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the individual mandate under Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It is unclear how future litigation and other efforts to repeal and replace the PPACA will impact the PPACA and our business. We will continue to evaluate the effect that the PPACA and its possible repeal and replacement has on our business. Complying with any new legislation, resulting in a material adverse effect on our business.
Other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted in the U.S. since the PPACA was enacted. These changes included aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to providers of up to 2% per fiscal year, effective April 1, 2013, which, due to subsequent legislative amendments, will stay in effect through 2030 unless additional congressional action is taken. The CARES Act, which was signed into law in March 2020, and designed to provide financial support and resources to individuals and businesses affected by COVID-19 pandemic, suspended the 2% Medicare sequester from May 1, 2020, through December 31, 2020, and extended the sequester by one year, through 2030, to offset the added expense of the 2020 suspension. The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several providers and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. These new laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which could have a material adverse effect on customers for our drugs, if approved, and accordingly, our financial operations.
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Additionally, there has been heightened governmental scrutiny recently over the way drug manufacturers set prices for their marketed products, which has resulted in several Congressional inquiries and proposed and enacted federal and state legislation designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to product pricing, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for drug products. For example, at the federal level, the administration’s budget proposals for fiscal year 2021 includes a $135 billion allowance to support legislative proposals seeking to reduce drug prices, increase competition, lower out-of-pocket drug costs for patients, and increase patient access to lower-cost generic and biosimilar drugs. On March 10, 2020, the administration sent “principles” for drug pricing to Congress, calling for legislation that would, among other things, cap Medicare Part D beneficiary out-of-pocket pharmacy expenses, provide an option to cap Medicare Part D beneficiary monthly out-of-pocket expenses, and place limits on pharmaceutical price increases. Additionally, the administration previously released a “Blueprint” to lower drug prices and reduce out of pocket costs of drugs that contained proposals to increase manufacturer competition, increase the negotiating power of certain federal healthcare programs, incentivize manufacturers to lower the list price of their products and reduce the out-of-pocket costs of drug products paid by consumers. Although a number of these and other measures may require additional authorization to become effective, Congress and the administration have each indicated that it will continue to seek new legislative and/or administrative measures to control drug costs. For example, on July 24, 2020, the administration announced four executive orders to lower drug prices, including allowing importation of certain drugs, changing how drug rebates are negotiated by middlemen, like pharmacy benefit managers, and directing such rebates to be passed to patients as point-of-sale discounts, and requiring Medicare to pay certain Part B drugs at the lowest price available in economically comparable countries (the details of which were released on September 13, 2020 and also expanded the policy to cover certain Part D drugs). The president has delayed the effective date of the international drug pricing order, pending discussion with major drug companies. How these executive orders will be implemented and their impact on the industry remain uncertain. Additionally, the FDA recently released a final rule, effective November 30, 2020, implementing a portion of the importation executive order providing guidance for states to build and submit importation plans for drugs from Canada. At the state level, legislatures have increasingly passed legislation and implemented regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological product pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing. We are unable to predict the future course of federal or state healthcare legislation in the U.S. directed at broadening the availability of healthcare and containing or lowering the cost of healthcare. These and any further changes in the law or regulatory framework that reduce our revenue or increase our costs could also have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
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Human Capital
As of December 31, 2025, we had eight employees; seven of whom were full-time and one part-time. Most employees are engaged in research and development activities. Of our employees, the majority are in Hoersholm, Denmark. Among our executive management team members, one is located in Sweden, one near Nashville, TN, and one near Tampa, FL. None of our employees are represented by labor unions or covered by collective bargaining agreements. We consider our relationship with our employees to be good. We have also retained a number of expert advisors and consultants who help navigate us through different aspects of our business.
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Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.