MARAVAI LIFESCIENCES HOLDINGS, INC. 10-K

Item 1. Business Overview Maravai LifeSciences Holdings, Inc. (also referred to in this document as “Maravai”, “we”, “us” or “the Company”) is a leading life sciences company providing critical products to enable the development of novel vaccines, drug therapies, and diagnostics, and to support research on human diseases. Our customers include the top global biopharmaceutical companies ranked by research and development expenditures according to industry consultants, and many other emerging biopharmaceutical and life sciences research companies, as well as leading academic research institutions and in vitro diagnostics companies. Our products address the key phases of biopharmaceutical development spanning research to commercialization and include complex nucleic acids for vaccine, therapeutic and diagnostic applications, custom enzymes for research and diagnostic use and antibody-based products to detect impurities during the production of biopharmaceutical products. We provide products that support our customers from discovery through commercialization of their vaccines, therapeutic agents and in vitro diagnostic products. Our businesses principally address high growth market segments in biopharmaceutical development. In particular, the field of cell and gene therapy has emerged as one of the fastest growing treatment modalities to address a host of human conditions. There are more than 4,000 nucleic acid and cell and gene therapies in development or launched and sales in this category are expected to grow more than 3 times by 2030, according to industry consultants and management estimates. Our portfolio offers key products for each stage of the cell and gene therapy development lifecycle. For example, our messenger RNA (“mRNA”) products are used in drug development to assist in the production of immune-activating antigens and to deliver gene editing technologies in cell and gene therapy treatments; our CleanCap® technology is used to stabilize mRNA and streamlines mRNA manufacturing; we were one of the first companies to provide the essential modified uridine, N1-methyl-pseudouridine triphosphate, for research applications and under good manufacturing processes (“GMP”) conditions; our catalog mRNA products are frequently used by lipid developers to test and validate new mRNA delivery platforms; and our plasmid DNA products are used as templates for the production of our mRNA products. Our oligonucleotides, oligonucleotide supply products, enzymes and NTPs are also included in the supply chain of several diagnostic, next-gen sequencing (“NGS”) and research platforms, as well as DNA and RNA synthesis end-markets. We also provide biologics safety testing technology used to ensure the safety of the biological drug manufacturing process and drug products. Our proprietary capabilities and products underpin the value we aim to provide to our customers. Among other capabilities, we are experts in RNA and mRNA products, which are challenging and often unstable molecules requiring significant chemical modifications and analytical expertise to ensure their stability and efficacy in our customers’ applications. Notably, according to research commissioned by us consisting of interviews with our current and former customers, our competitors and industry experts focused across our two ongoing business segments (the “Industry Analysis”), we believe CleanCap technology is viewed as a leading solution to incorporate the five prime (“5’”) cap into mRNA. CleanCap is a novel chemical approach to produce the 5’ cap analog, which, in addition to making mRNA more stable, aids in protein production and helps prevent an unwanted immune response to the mRNA. CleanCap analogs have been incorporated into several mRNA programs targeting 4 Table of Contents immunization against the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID-19”). These programs include commercial programs led by Pfizer in partnership with BioNTech and by BioNTech in partnership with Fosun Pharma, as well as two COVID-19 vaccines which are now approved for use in Japan. In addition to these commercially approved programs, CleanCap has been incorporated into many research and clinical stage programs addressing stand-alone and combination vaccines for COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases, such as Influenza that have not yet been commercialized. We estimate our CleanCap products have been incorporated in approximately 350 vaccine and therapeutic programs in development as of December 31, 2023, including at least 60 molecules for which our mRNA CDMO services group manufactured the mRNA APIs using CleanCap. These include vaccine development programs for infectious diseases, including Lyme disease, malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, shingles, rabies, yellow fever, respiratory syncytial virus (“RSV”) and Zika, as well as other medical conditions. In addition to infectious diseases, these programs address a number of disease states, including ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, glycogen storage disorders, Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Hurler syndrome, ovarian cancer and cardiovascular disease. These therapeutic programs also use multiple therapeutic modalities, including CRISPR/Cas-9, transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN), enzyme replacement therapies, allogeneic CAR-T cells and base editing. Should one or more of these programs proceed to commercialization, we believe we will continue to supply our customers and our products will likely be incorporated in customer regulatory filings. mRNA is at the core of our capabilities. We developed our expertise in mRNA with a belief in its potential as a therapeutic modality. The first clinical trial for an mRNA therapeutic agent occurred in 2016. Now, more than 900 clinical trials are in the pipeline, principally focused on vaccines against viruses and cancer vaccines. With the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA has shown its potential for more rapid vaccine design and manufacture when compared to traditional techniques involving culturing inactivated virus to elicit an immune response. COVID-19 has helped highlight the potential advantage of mRNA as a treatment modality and directed significant resources to the growing base of knowledge about mRNA. This knowledge is now being directed at future vaccine programs addressing infectious diseases as well as for therapeutic agents for a host of human diseases. We are positioned to serve our biopharmaceutical customers in the fast-growing field of mRNA across a range of clinical programs for a variety of diseases. Forming long-term partnerships with our customers is core to our strategy. Today, we primarily serve our customers during the product development and process development phases. During product development, we collaborate with our customers to develop and synthesize nucleic acids, which in some cases comprise the active pharmaceutical ingredient (“API”) of our customers’ products in development. We also provide our customers a host of chemically complex and highly specialized raw materials. Process development is a complex phase that establishes highly validated procedures and determines the investment in facilities and equipment required to bring biopharmaceutical products to market. These decisions impact the viability of our customers’ products for use in clinical trials and commercialization. During process development, we provide enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (“ELISAs”) that reduce the risk posed by impurities and contaminants in biological drugs, a critical step to ensure the safety of the drug product. While we do not provide products that are themselves regulated as drugs or in vitro diagnostics, our customers frequently incorporate our products into their highly validated products and processes. For example, we provide oligonucleotides and antibody-based products used by in vitro diagnostic product manufacturers for their on-market products. Because of the extensive validation required for these products, these components are frequently purchased for the life of our customers’ products and we believe they are unlikely to be substituted. In addition, our analytical tools are used in the design and development of manufacturing processes and often will be used throughout the life cycle of our customers’ manufactured products. Once our services or products are qualified by our customers, they are often cited in regulatory documents and standard operating procedures. As a result, our customer relationships frequently span many years. The nature of our products and their uses require that they be manufactured by highly trained personnel in state-of-the-art facilities following exacting procedures to ensure quality. As of December 31, 2023, approximately 24% of our workforce have earned advanced degrees and all receive rigorous training on our procedures. During 2023, the majority of our nucleic acid products were manufactured at our San Diego, California Wateridge facility (“Wateridge facility”). The Wateridge facility was purpose-built to address our customers’ needs for critical raw materials manufactured under certain GMP conditions and APIs for investigational use. Our raw material products are manufactured following the voluntary quality standards of ISO 9001:2015. Our GMP-grade raw materials follow ISO 9001:2015 standards, additional voluntary GMP quality standards and customer specific requirements. Our API products are manufactured following the voluntary quality standards of ISO 9001:2015, the International Council for Harmonisation’s GMP Guide, comparable GMP principles for the European Union and customer specific requirements. We believe our products are exempt from compliance with the current GMP (“cGMP”) regulations of the FDA, as our products are further processed or incorporated into final drug products by our customers and we do not make claims related to their safety or effectiveness. Our other facilities are similarly designed for specific applications with quality systems to match our customers’ requirements. All of our manufacturing facilities meet applicable ISO standards. 5 Table of Contents We built our business through a combination of acquisitions and subsequent investments in our acquired companies to grow their commercial capabilities, upgrade and expand their research and production facilities, deploy stringent quality systems, integrate their back-office functions, and develop the personnel and management to fuel continued growth. Today, we offer an integrated portfolio that enables innovation across the biopharmaceutical and academic markets. Mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships that complement our capabilities in cell and gene therapy and biopharmaceutical production remain core to our strategy. Our strategy aims to augment our strong organic growth with the addition of synergistic products and capabilities. Our Portfolio and Capabilities We provide critical raw materials that support our customers from discovery through commercialization of their vaccines, therapeutic agents and in vitro diagnostic products. Our products are frequently incorporated into our customers’ products, whether as research products or APIs used in development or products incorporated as raw materials into on-market products. They may also be incorporated into the manufacturing process itself. We are therefore a critical part of our customers’ supply chain and they frequently seek to maintain their supply relationship with us for the life of their products or development programs. Our products address our customers’ needs for Nucleic Acid Production and Biologics Safety Testing, and our operations are aligned to these two segments. Within Nucleic Acid Production, we have four business units: TriLink Discovery, TriLink GMP, Glen Research and Alphazyme. Our Biologics Safety Testing business is comprised of Cygnus Technologies. Our brands, products and the end markets they serve are depicted in the following image: Nucleic Acid Production (78% of Revenue for the Year Ended December 31, 2023) We are a global provider of highly modified, complex nucleic acids and related products. We have recognized expertise in complex chemistries and products provided under exacting quality standards. Our core offerings include mRNA, long and short oligonucleotides, our proprietary CleanCap mRNA capping technology, mRNA building blocks, oligonucleotide building blocks and specialty enzymes. Our offerings address key customer needs for critical components, from research to GMP-grade raw materials and API manufacturing. We market our nucleic acid products under the TriLink BioTechnologies®, Glen Research and Alphazyme brands. Since the 1961 discovery of mRNA and its role in converting genetic information into proteins, countless attempts had been made to harness mRNA for therapeutic purposes. Today, mRNA vaccines are globally recognized for their success in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The success of COVID-19 vaccines has helped highlight the potential advantage of mRNA as a treatment modality and significant investments have been made industry wide to developing future mRNA vaccines as well as for therapeutic agents for 6 Table of Contents a host of human diseases. We are positioned to serve our biopharmaceutical customers in the fast-growing field of mRNA across a range of clinical programs for a variety of diseases. We offer the following nucleic acid products: mRNA, RNA Capping (CleanCap), oligonucleotides, oligonucleotide inputs, nucleoside triphosphates, custom nucleic acid chemistry, plasmid DNA and specialty enzymes. mRNA. mRNA is an intermediary molecule that translates the genetic information stored in DNA into proteins. The genetic information stored in DNA is transferred to mRNA in a cellular process called transcription. This process occurs in the nucleus of cells. DNA, a double stranded molecule, is unwound and copied as mRNA by the enzyme RNA polymerase. mRNA is then transferred out of the nucleus to the cytosol, a component of the cytoplasm of a cell, where it serves as a blueprint for making cellular proteins by a multi-component organelle complex called the ribosome. mRNA has traditionally been a difficult molecule for vaccine and therapeutic purposes. mRNA is inherently unstable compared to DNA and is susceptible to degradation by ubiquitous enzymes called RNases. mRNAs are also physically and chemically fragile and can degrade at elevated temperatures and under shear forces that occur during downstream manufacturing processes. We have developed manufacturing processes that overcome many of these obstacles, resulting in highly effective mRNA. We develop and manufacture mRNA products to support vaccine and therapeutic programs from pre-clinical development through and including clinical phases, including scale-up and analytical development services. The mRNA molecules may serve as APIs for diverse applications, such as enzyme replacement therapies, gene editing therapies and vaccines. We offer both research grade material and material made under GMP conditions for early phase clinical trials. RNA Capping. Within the mRNA category, we also offer our patented CleanCap technology. CleanCap analogs principally serve the mRNA vaccine and therapeutics markets. Cap analogs are a component of mRNA that aids in protein production as well as in making mRNA more stable inside cells. For mRNA to serve as a template to make a protein, it requires a special cap at the 5’ end of the molecule. The cap structure also affects the stability of the mRNA. Lack of a cap can result in activation of the innate immune system, which can affect the production of the desired protein or elicit undesired biological effects. We offer a suite of CleanCap analogs that are specifically made for therapeutics and vaccines. CleanCap analogs are sold as a stand-alone reagents or bundled with other mRNA products. Based on the Industry Analysis, we believe our cap analogs are critical features of several mRNA vaccines and therapies in development. Traditionally, the 5’ cap has been added in one of two ways. The cap can be added post mRNA synthesis by an enzymatic process. This enzymatic method has several drawbacks, including the high cost of the capping enzymes as well as the need to perform additional processing steps to the mRNA to remove enzymes and byproducts of the capping reaction. While capping efficiency is usually high, the extra processing steps typically result in degradation and mRNA of poorer quality. The second method is to add a synthetic cap analog into the transcription reaction such that the mRNA is transcribed and capped in a single step. Anti-reverse cap analog (“ARCA”) is an example of a cap analog that is added to the transcription reaction. This avoids the workflow challenges of the enzymatic process, but typically results in lower yields. Like ARCA, CleanCap analogs are synthetic, chemically-made mRNA 5’ cap analogs added to the transcription process in a single step. Unlike ARCA, however, CleanCap results in significantly higher levels of capping efficiency, resulting in very low levels of uncapped mRNA, which in turn minimizes the risk of activation of the innate immune system. In addition, CleanCap’s higher mRNA yields compared to ARCA result in lower cost of goods. When compared to enzymatic capping, CleanCap removes the additional downstream purification steps required. 7 Table of Contents We currently offer several variations of the CleanCap molecule, serving the needs of mRNA and self-amplifying RNA developers. CleanCap is available in two quality grades, research use only for discovery and development activities, and a GMP-grade for clinical and commercial applications. Our newest CleanCap analog, CleanCap M6, was introduced in May 2023 and is our most robust cap analog to date, enabling mRNA that delivers higher levels of protein production. CleanCap mRNA products represented 69% of our Nucleic Acid Production revenue for the year ended December 31, 2023 (including the revenue from CleanCap products). Oligonucleotides. The oligonucleotide product category supports broad customer applications, including therapeutics, in vitro diagnostics, NGS and CRISPR-based gene editing. Most of our TriLink BioTechnologies oligonucleotide products are custom manufactured DNA or RNA sequences, often highly modified and produced as research grade or under GMP conditions for use in development, clinical and commercial applications. Oligonucleotide Synthesis Inputs. Our product offerings through Glen Research include reagents and support supplies for DNA and RNA oligonucleotide synthesis, labeling, modification and purification. We are a reputable and trusted vendor with a large portfolio, quality brand, knowledgeable technical support, and responsive customer service. In addition to oligonucleotide synthesis service providers, our customer base includes life science, biopharma, and diagnostic companies as well as academic institutions and government organizations, all of which internally manufacture their own oligonucleotide products. Nucleoside triphosphates. Nucleoside triphosphates (“NTPs”) are the precursors to DNA and RNA. They are composed of a nitrogen base bound to either ribose or deoxyribose with three phosphate groups added to the sugar. We manufacture NTPs that are used in polymerase chain reactions (“PCR”), in sequencing reactions and in the manufacture of mRNA. The NTPs can be unmodified, composed of the four standard bases, or modified, with a base altered to enhance a particular biological property, such as the ability to evade the innate immune system in therapeutic applications. TriLink BioTechnologies NTPs are used by customers in both research and clinical trial applications. Our manufacturing capabilities for NTPs now includes both research use and GMP-grade. Custom Nucleic Acid Chemistry . Through our acquisition of MyChem LLC in the first quarter of 2022, TriLink BioTechnologies expanded its synthetic chemistry expertise and added proprietary manufacturing processes allowing for the highest purity NTP, amidite and custom nucleotide services. We serve a diverse market of diagnostics and therapeutic developers that require novel molecules that are otherwise unavailable on the market. Typically, these molecules are initially manufactured in small quantities, and then scaled to meet the need of larger diagnostic platform or therapeutic applications once positive candidates have been identified by the customer. Plasmid DNA. Unlike genomic DNA, which constitutes the chromosome, plasmid DNA exists outside the chromosome and represents small circular double-stranded constructs. Plasmid DNA is frequently used as a vector for replicating nucleic acid products. Plasmid DNA is integral to the production of mRNA, serving as the nucleic acid template for the DNA-dependent RNA polymerases that frequently are used in the manufacturing of mRNA. Our plasmid DNA offering allows us to ensure the quality and timeliness of the mRNA API manufacturing campaigns that we service for our customers. Specialty Enzymes. Through our acquisition of Alphazyme in the first quarter of 2023, our Nucleic Acid Production capabilities now include specialized enzymes. Enzymes are critical to almost every phase of nucleic acid production. Alphazyme provides custom, scalable molecular biology enzymes with a full product line of IVT, NGS, life science and diagnostic enzyme solutions. Discovery mRNA synthesis . Through the TriLink BioTechnologies Discovery Business unit, we offer a core set of products and services geared toward customers doing early-stage development work. We produce mRNA utilizing standard sequences for generalized research using customer supplied sequences for custom built constructs. We also provide process development services to optimize customers’ transcription and purification processes. These services can be integrated with our CleanCap, NTP products and enzyme portfolios and have access to our analytical and QC method development. GMP mRNA synthesis . Our GMP mRNA manufacturing services offer a clear pathway for customers running clinical trials. We focus on building partnerships with our customers in the emerging market of cell and gene therapy to ensure we are well-positioned to be an extension of their development teams. Our services feature robust quality management systems and include process development and scale-up, phase-appropriate, high-quality plasmid DNA, regulatory submission support, and in-house analytical services for mRNA analysis and characterization. Biologics Safety Testing (22% of Revenue for the Year Ended December 31, 2023) We provide products and services under the Cygnus Technologies®, LLC (“Cygnus Technologies”) brand that ensure the purity of our customers’ biopharmaceutical products, including biological drugs. For over 25 years, the Cygnus Technologies brand has been associated with products and services that enable the detection of impurities present in bioproduction. Our biologics safety testing products are used during development and scale-up, during the regulatory approval process and 8 Table of Contents throughout commercialization. We are recognized globally for the detection of host cell proteins (“HCPs”) and process-related impurities during bioproduction. Our customers in this segment manufacture a broad range of biopharmaceutical products. These include monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins, both as novel biologics and biosimilars, and recombinant vaccines, including oncolytic vaccines to treat cancer. We also provide products that support the development and commercialization of cell and gene therapies. Recombinant vaccines and cell and gene therapies rely on manufacturing of various viral vectors produced using recombinant nucleic acid and cell culture technologies. Viral vector manufacturing processes require rigorous analytics, including testing for process-related impurities such as HCPs, host cell DNA, purification leachates, growth media additives and enzymes used in viral vector purification processes. Of all process-related impurities, HCPs present the most complex impurity. Per regulatory requirements, viral vectors used as a component of CAR-T cell therapies or as gene therapies must be produced in certain cell lines, purified and tested for the presence of host cell proteins. All of the 19 existing FDA-and EMA-approved CAR-T Cell and Gene Therapies use Cygnus Host Cell Protein ELISA kits for HCP testing for commercial product lot release. Four of these 19 therapies were approved in 2023. ELISA is the benchmark method for monitoring levels of process-related impurities during the purification process and in product release testing. The advantages of well-developed ELISA kits include the ability to measure very low levels of impurities in the presence of high amounts of drug product, and are readily transferable across an organization from process development to manufacturing and quality control bioanalytical groups. Though relatively simple to run, these ELISA kits require a high level of expertise to design, develop and qualify. Customers establishing biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes may use off-the-shelf or generic HCP kits provided by manufacturers like ourselves, or they may choose to design their own in-house assays for their specific processes. Some customers may choose to use generic assays early in development and migrate to process-specific assays later. The trend in recent years has been for customers to increasingly use generic assays throughout their development and commercialization pathway, relying on our expertise, the established performance of our assays supported by our comprehensive state-of-the-art assay qualification services. If customers choose to develop process-specific assays, we offer custom antibody production and assay development as well as characterization services to meet their needs. Our comprehensive catalog of Cygnus Technologies HCP ELISA kits cover 24 expression platforms and provides the specificity and sensitivity to detect impurities with reproducibility, which supports regulatory compliance. Our reputation for quality is recognized by the industry and global regulatory agencies, with Cygnus Technologies assays used as reference methods throughout the industry and to support manufacturing and quality control of commercialized biologics and gene therapy products. Our customers in this segment are biopharmaceutical companies, contract research organizations (“CROs”), contract development and manufacturing organizations (“CDMOs”) and life science companies. Cygnus Technologies product categories include HCP ELISA kits, other bioprocess impurity and contaminant ELISA kits, viral clearance prediction kits, ancillary reagents and custom services. 9 Table of Contents HCP ELISA kits. HCP ELISA kits are bioassays used to detect residual proteins from the expression system used in bioproduction. HCPs constitute a major group of process-related impurities produced using cell culture technology no matter what cell expression platform is used. HCPs pose potential health risks for patients and the risk of failure of safety endpoints for drug manufacturers. When present in the administered product, even at low levels, HCPs can induce an undesired immune response, interfere with drug efficacy and impact drug stability. HCPs are a critical quality attribute for biologics safety testing development and must be adequately removed during the downstream purification process. Other impurity and contaminant kits . Products in this category include kits for measuring Protein A leachate, which results from the affinity purification method used for monoclonal antibody therapeutic agents; ELISA kits for measuring additives in growth media, such as bovine serum albumin; kits for measuring host cell DNA; ELISA kits to detect and quantify residual endonuclease impurities in recombinant viral vector and vaccine preparations: and ELISA kits to quantify residual AAV2, AAV8, AAV9 ligands resulting from affinity purification method used for adeno associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapies. Viral Clearance Prediction kits . In 2020, Cygnus Technologies introduced the MockV® Minute Virus of Mice (“MVM”) kit, a novel, proprietary viral clearance prediction tool that includes a non-infectious “mock virus particle” mimicking the physicochemical properties of live virus that may be present endogenously in the drug substance or introduced during bioproduction. The kit enables manufacturers to conduct viral clearance assessments easily and economically and to predict outcomes in-house ahead of costly and logistically challenging live viral clearance studies. In 2022, Cygnus Technologies introduced MockV® RVLP Kit. This kit enables bioprocess scientists to quantify the removal of Retrovirus-like Particles (RVLPs) produced endogenously by Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell lines during biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The kit includes a highly purified and concentrated stock solution of RVLP, an actual non-infectious retrovirus-like contaminant generated during CHO production. In the early 1990s, global regulatory agencies such as the FDA realized the prevalence of this particle and became concerned about the retroviral safety of CHO-derived biopharmaceuticals. Since then, the biopharmaceutical industry has relied on CROs to propagate Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus (XMuLV) as a model retrovirus to demonstrate effective clearance. With the availability of the MockV® RVLP Kit, biopharmaceutical companies can now independently assess the removal of the original retroviral particle of regulatory concern, derived directly from CHO cells. Ancillary reagents . These products include antibodies, antigens, sample diluents and other auxiliary products necessary to optimize applications for customer processes. Custom services . We provide process-specific antibody and ELISA development, qualification and maintenance services. In addition, we have pioneered advanced orthogonal methods including antibody affinity extraction (AAE™) and mass spectrometry for HCP antibodies coverage analysis and HCP identification, which we provide as custom services. Our Competitive Strengths We believe we are a leader in providing nucleic acid products and services and biologics safety testing products and services to biopharmaceutical customers worldwide. Our success is built on the ability of our proprietary technologies and products, provided under exacting quality standards, to reliably serve our customers’ needs for critical raw materials, and the process innovation, quality, analytical expertise and reliability of our services. Leading Supplier of Critical Solutions for Life Sciences from Discovery to Commercialization We seek to be an important component of our customers’ supply chain by providing inputs that are central to the performance of their products and processes throughout the product lifecycle. By collaborating with customers early in the development phase, our products frequently follow our customers’ development path to commercialization and are likely to be incorporated as raw materials in their on-market products and processes. Our decades-long experience and track record, coupled with our ongoing investment in facilities and quality systems, allow our customers to rely on us for their critical products. Our approach is to be a trusted partner throughout the life cycle of our customers’ products. Innovation, Proprietary Technologies and Expertise Underpin Our Portfolio Our expertise in complex chemistries leads customers to seek our collaboration in designing complex products that meet high performance expectations. Based on the responses to the Industry Analysis, we believe the solutions we provide, in many cases, cannot be provided effectively by our competitors. In certain cases, like our CleanCap technology, our know-how features differentiated performance characteristics and is backed by intellectual property. In other cases, such as our HCP products, our antibodies are proprietary and therefore can only be supplied by us. We believe the proprietary nature of our expertise and products solidifies our long-term customer relationships. 10 Table of Contents Products with Outstanding Quality Performance We believe our products stand out when compared to those of our competitors’ because they present innovative solutions to customer needs, as indicated by the responses to the Industry Analysis, while providing reliable performance and quality. CleanCap, for example, offers advantages over competing capping technologies in yield, process efficiency, stability and safety. Our oligonucleotides address complex chemistry challenges, which we believe few competitors can address. The results of the Industry Analysis indicate that our HCP ELISA kits have defined the market for impurity detection and we believe they have become a de facto standard in biologics safety testing. Trusted Brands Our TriLink BioTechnologies, Glen Research, Alphazyme and Cygnus Technologies brands are well known in their respective markets for innovation, consistent quality, and performance. This brand recognition has been earned over decades. Our manufacturing processes, quality standards, technical support and high-touch customer service ensure that we maintain the reputation of our brands. State-of-the-Art Manufacturing Facilities Our biopharmaceutical customers manufacture their products to meet stringent quality standards under strict regulatory guidelines and expect their critical suppliers to meet their exacting requirements. Our customers further expect that we have the production capacity to meet their needs in a timely manner. Maravai has designed and constructed four world-class manufacturing facilities, and since 2022 has expanded the company’s facility footprint by over 95,000 square feet to support expanded capabilities and future growth. As of December 31, 2023, we had invested approximately $93.2 million into our flagship San Diego, California Wateridge facility and its dedicated manufacturing suites to produce materials from Research Use Only (“RUO”) to GMP conditions, along with the required quality systems to meet requirements specified by our customers. This investment in our Wateridge facility allows us to meet our customers’ demand for our nucleic acid products, including CleanCap. In January 2023, we moved into a new state-of-the-art facility in Leland, North Carolina to increase our manufacturing and development capacity to further support the Biologics Safety Testing business. In March 2023, we expanded our San Diego, California manufacturing campus by making a significant investment in additional cleanroom and small molecule manufacturing space, implementing automation systems and adding support areas to augment production capacity with the Flanders 1 facility (“Flanders 1 facility”) for GMP small molecule production. This facility provides site redundancy for our Wateridge facility and features five GMP suites that can operate in parallel. In June 2023, we finished construction and took occupancy of an additional 32,000 square-foot facility in San Diego (“Flanders 2 facility”) for GMP-grade mRNA manufacturing to support customers progressing into Phase II clinical trials and beyond. In June 2023, we expanded the Alphazyme facility in Jupiter, Florida to add an additional research and development (“R&D”) space to support our specialized enzyme development. Experienced Leaders and Talented Workforce Our management includes experienced leaders with demonstrated records of success at Maravai and other highly regarded industry participants. They have decades of combined experience and expertise on the forefront of life sciences innovation. In addition, as of December 31, 2023, approximately 24% of our workforce have earned advanced degrees and all receive rigorous on the job training. We believe the quality of our personnel is critical to ensuring the collaborative, long-standing relationships we maintain with many of our customers. Our Markets We participate in two distinct market segments: Nucleic Acid Production and Biologics Safety Testing. Our businesses principally address high growth market segments in biopharmaceutical development. In particular, the field of cell and gene therapy has emerged as one of the fastest growing treatment modalities to address a host of human conditions. Biopharmaceutical customers are increasingly relying on outside parties to provide important raw material inputs and services for their clinical research and manufacturing, a development driving growth for suppliers with unique capabilities, high quality and the ability to manufacture at a relevant scale to support customer programs. We believe that suppliers like ourselves, with 11 Table of Contents this rare combination of capabilities, proprietary products and the required investment in manufacturing and quality systems, are benefiting from rapid growth as biopharmaceutical customers seek to partner with a small number of trusted partners. In addition to the continued trend toward outsourcing, several market developments should contribute to long-term growth in our addressable market segments, including: • Pivot toward mRNA vaccines and therapeutics for non-COVID indications has been accelerated in part by COVID-19 . The first two vaccines approved for use in combating the COVID-19 pandemic were mRNA vaccines, including the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech which uses our CleanCap product. Our CleanCap product is also incorporated into the booster vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. The mRNA platforms are gaining prominence as a result of their fast development time, lower relative manufacturing costs and proven safety profile. Pfizer and BioNTech are now developing a combined COVID-19 and Influenza vaccine that has been placed into a designation that can “fast-track” a regulatory decision by the FDA. In addition to the COVID-19 vaccines, mRNA technology is being investigated for a spectrum of other infectious diseases as well as cancer vaccines, including personalized medicine vaccines. RNA expertise is highly specialized, and customers seek partners with our expertise to provide these complex products. A small number of providers, like ourselves, with a successful track record for COVID-19, can provide this level of RNA capability. • Rapid growth in development of cell and gene therapies . Seven new cell and gene therapy approvals (Omisirge, Vyjuvek, Roctavian, Lantidra, Casgevy, Lyfgenia, Elvidys) were all granted FDA or EMA approval in 2023 and have added clinical credibility to cell and gene therapies. Our internal analysis, supported by third-party research, projects that by 2027, 20-30% of the mRNA pipeline assets will be for in vivo gene editing and ex vivo gene-edited cell therapies. We support the development of cell and gene therapies by providing products used in gene editing and cell therapy research. For example, our host cell protein assays are used during the manufacturing of viral vectors and plasmid DNA. Further, we participate by providing the critical high quality synthetic guide RNA and mRNA that encodes for gene-editing enzymes, such as Cas9 that are used in vivo gene editing and ex vivo gene-edited cell therapies. • Large and growing pipeline of protein-based therapeutics . In addition to cell and gene therapies, an increase in protein-based therapies is driving the need for impurity testing during process development and manufacturing from our Biologics Safety Testing business. Classical biologics are evolving to be expressed in vivo via mRNA. Our analysis suggests that therapeutic proteins and protein replacement may represent as much as 25% of the mRNA pipeline by 2027. We are well positioned to leverage our service capabilities and deep understanding of mRNA biology to serve our customers’ needs to express these large, complex, peptide-based molecules. 12 Table of Contents Nucleic Acid Production Market The nucleic acid production market includes the production and synthesis of reagents for research and manufacturing of DNA and RNA-based biologics, including cell and gene therapies, mRNA therapeutics and synthetic biology approaches. The field of mRNA-based drugs and vaccines has advanced dramatically within a few short years. Providers of technical expertise and manufacturing capabilities, like ourselves, with the facilities and quality systems demanded by biopharmaceutical customers, benefit from the demand created in the mRNA category. Biologics Safety Testing Market The biologics safety testing market includes the detection and clearance of downstream bioprocessing product-related and process-related impurities. We participate in the HCP and other process related impurities and viral contamination segments of this market for biopharmaceutical vaccine and therapeutics manufacturing. The growth in this market is driven by continued growth of biologics and biosimilars, viral vector manufacturing for rapidly-growing CAR-T and gene therapy modalities, and increased outsourcing of process development. Our Strategy Our customers strive to improve human health. Our goal is to provide them with products and services to accelerate their development efforts, from basic research through clinical trials and ultimately to commercialization for therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. Supporting Biopharmaceutical Customers from Discovery Through to Commercialization Our customers include both emerging and established biopharmaceutical leaders developing novel drugs, therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. Emerging biopharmaceutical customers frequently seek the support we can offer in our state-of-the-art facilities under our stringent quality standards, with the capabilities that result from the capital and process investments we have made over the last several years. We are capable of manufacturing reagents from research-grade to GMP-grade, which often exceeds the in-house capabilities of our pre-commercial customers. The results of the Industry Analysis indicate that our emerging and established customers also seek us out for our leading capabilities in nucleic acid chemistries and process control assays. We have expertise in complex chemistries, especially in highly modified nucleic acids and mRNA, and we believe we are a leader in applying these capabilities to the development of vaccines and therapeutics. We further support our customers as they transition from product development to commercialization by providing critical raw materials for their drugs. A core component of our strategy is the continued investment in facilities, quality standards and products and services that allow us to support our customers through the entire life cycle of their drugs. Developing Proprietary Technologies that Deepen our Relationships with Our Customers We believe we are experts in nucleic acids and our scientists aim to develop proprietary enabling technologies that become integral to our customers’ products. For example, CleanCap, our proprietary chemical capping technology, has demonstrated its advantages in terms of the stability of the associated mRNA and its efficiency in protein production when compared to traditional capping technologies. This efficiency has led biopharmaceutical customers to employ CleanCap in their vaccine and therapeutic programs. As those products proceed through development into commercialization, we believe CleanCap will be a critical input in on-market vaccines and therapeutics. Forming Long-Term Partnerships for Critical Biopharmaceutical Components and Process Tests Our products are frequently incorporated into regulated and highly validated therapeutic and diagnostic products and processes. Our biopharmaceutical customers expect us to provide them with consistent, high-quality products that meet narrow specifications, and that we ensure their supply chain for such products for the length of their programs. In many cases, we may be the sole source of the products we provide. We therefore take seriously our responsibility to our biopharmaceutical partners, and by extension the patients they serve. Our emphasis on partnership generally leads to long-term relationships with our customers. Focusing Our Efforts on High Growth End Markets While biopharmaceutical research and in vitro diagnostics markets are experiencing strong growth, we target the highest growth segments within those markets. Our product portfolio is well positioned to serve the biologic, cell and gene therapy and mRNA vaccine and therapeutic end markets, which are currently experiencing above-market growth. By investing in technologies at the forefront of biopharmaceutical and in vitro diagnostics, we aim to remain focused on the highest-growth applications. 13 Table of Contents Acquiring Leading Life Sciences Businesses and Supporting Their Continued Development We built our business by acquiring established and emerging companies with strong scientific foundations in our target markets and investing in their systems, processes and people to accelerate their growth and expand their technologies. Going forward, we may pursue strategic acquisitions that we believe meet, or could meet after being acquired and expanded, the following criteria: • address our core target markets; • have a demonstrated adherence to high quality standards; • be leaders in their market niche(s); • have differentiated or proprietary products and processes that provide clear value to our biopharmaceutical and other customers; and • have a track record of attractive rates of growth and compelling returns on invested capital. Our acquisition strategy is to invest significantly in our acquired businesses. We strive to rapidly integrate their quality, human resources, information and financial systems into our shared services. All of our companies share a common enterprise resource planning system, and we implement our financial controls and reporting systems soon after acquisition. We seek opportunities to invest in their facilities and personnel to provide an operating foundation for growth. We also augment their commercial capabilities through a combination of sales and marketing resources dedicated to each business, supported by our global marketing infrastructure. We will continue to seek a balance between driving growth organically and inorganically through acquisitions. Commercial We have relationships with the following categories of customers: developers of therapeutics and vaccines, other biopharmaceutical and life science research companies, academic institutions and molecular diagnostic companies. Our biopharmaceutical customers include startups, established biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical companies developing enzyme replacement therapies, gene editing therapies, ex vivo therapies and vaccines. Our commercial function includes direct sales, marketing, customer service, technical support and distributor management. We serve customers through direct sales in each business segment, with a primary focus on our biopharmaceutical and large diagnostics and commercial customers. We serve our academic customers via web, email and phone ordering as well as through key partnerships where our reagent products are included in their mRNA kits. We support all customers with live technical support and customer service. We address customers outside the United States with a combination of direct sales and distributors. We serve many of our biopharmaceutical customers, especially in our nucleic acid production segment, via direct sales worldwide. Our distributors also sell our products in over 40 countries and provide customer service and local sales and marketing. Competition We compete with a range of companies across our segments. Nucleic Acid Production Within nucleic acid production, we compete with four primary types of companies: (1) chemistry companies that create and produce the basic monomers, amidites, and supports that go into the creation of an oligonucleotide; (2) oligonucleotide manufacturers that specialize in custom oligonucleotide development of varying complexities and scales; (3) mRNA biotechnology companies that create fully processed mRNA and specialize in custom, complex orders; and (4) CDMOs that have the capability to accept work from large biopharmaceutical companies and serve as the outsourcing entity for the development and manufacturing of nucleic acid products. However, it is important to note that CDMOs seldom offer proprietary products. For mRNA capping analogs, we compete principally with Thermo Fisher Scientific, Aldevron (a subsidiary of Danaher), and New England BioLabs, who offer alternatives to CleanCap with enzymatic capping solutions. Many biopharmaceutical companies produce capping solutions in-house using enzymatic or ARCA processes. However, given CleanCap’s high yield and process efficiency, many customers who previously insourced these processes have begun to partner with us. Based on the Industry Analysis, we believe our products and services are more effective than those of our competitors. Deep scientific expertise, intellectual property protection and specialty equipment serve as barriers to entry in this space. 14 Table of Contents For our mRNA offerings, we compete with Aldevron, Patheon, eTheRNA, Lonza, Catalent, and Samsung Biologics, among others. Based on the Industry Analysis, we believe we have a reputation for our expertise in the RNA space with talented scientists who are constantly pushing the frontier of RNA science. This scientific expertise and the required high-cost equipment serve as barriers to entry. In addition to our expertise, we believe our GMP cleanroom manufacturing process differentiates us from competitors. For custom oligonucleotides, we compete with a number of manufacturers. Custom oligonucleotide providers include those that provide complex, highly modified oligonucleotides and those that provide less complex offerings. In the custom oligonucleotide space, complexity is based on the length of the sequence and level of modification to the phosphate backbone. Large manufacturers like Integrated DNA Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific and EMD Millipore Corporation (“Millipore Sigma”) serve less complex customer needs while we, LGC Biosearch Technologies and GenScript Biotech Corporation serve more complex customer needs. In the custom oligonucleotide market, we have a reputation for accepting complex orders and delivering high purity products that reduce researcher re-work and save money. Quick turnaround times and the ability to produce at scale are essential requirements in this segment. In the oligonucleotide synthesis inputs market, we compete against large distributor-manufacturers like Thermo Fisher and Millipore Sigma while also serving them as customers. Our Glen Research brand has a long history in this industry, which drives customer loyalty, and has a reputation for high-fidelity technical service, focusing on supplying and sourcing highly modified inputs for its customers. For our specialty enzymes offering, we compete with New England Biolabs, Thermo Fisher, QIAGEN, and Roche, among others. We believe that Alphazyme is uniquely positioned in the market to address customers’ custom enzyme needs and has a reputation of being a flexible partner. Biologics Safety Testing For drugs in early development, we compete against other bioprocess impurity kit providers such as BioGenes (“BioGenes”) or Enzo Life Sciences (“Enzo”). Competitors generally offer fewer expression platforms (generally between one and three) compared to our offering of 24 expression platforms and over 100 different impurity detection kits. As a drug successfully moves forward to validation and approval stages, a customer may either continue with an off-the-shelf kit or they may begin the process to develop a custom assay that is tailored to meet their specific host cell and manufacturing process needs. During the entire drug development process, and especially during this decision, we are partners with the manufacturer and provide our expertise to help them make the best bioprocess quality control and testing-related decisions. If a drug manufacturer continues with an off-the-shelf assay from development to validation and approval, they will generally stay with the incumbent kit provider due to the extensive validation they have conducted. For custom assay development, our main competitors are BioGenes, Rockland Immunochemicals and some CDMOs and CROs with custom assay development capabilities. The trend in recent years has been for CDMOs, CROs and large biopharmaceutical companies to focus on core competencies and outsource host cell protein assays or qualify off-the-shelf kits when possible. Licenses and Collaborations Broad Patent License Agreement We (through TriLink BioTechnologies) entered into a Nonexclusive Patent License and Material Transfer Agreement with The Broad Institute, Inc. (“Broad”) effective as of July 5, 2017, and amended on September 29, 2017 (the “Broad Patent License Agreement”). Broad, together with a consortium of educational institutions (including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), owns and controls certain patent rights relating to genome editing technology, including the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing processes and have a licensing program for use and commercialization of technologies and products covered by the underlying patent rights. Under the Broad Patent License Agreement, Broad grants to us a non-exclusive, royalty-bearing, non-transferable and non-sublicensable, worldwide license under the licensed patent rights to manufacture and sell products and to perform certain in vitro processes or services on a fee-for-service basis, in each case, solely as research tools for research purposes (excluding human, clinical or diagnostic uses). We must use diligent efforts to develop products, introduce products into the commercial market and make products reasonably available to the public. We are obligated to pay a mid-five figure annual license maintenance fee and royalties in the range of 5% to 10% on net sales of covered products and processes. The term of the Broad Patent License Agreement extends through the expiration of the last to expire claim of any of the licensed patents. We are entitled to terminate the Broad Patent License Agreement for convenience at any time on at least three (3) months written notice, in which case we must continue to pay license maintenance fees and royalties as noted above for the sale of products that are not covered by the specific claims of the licensed patent rights but are otherwise derived from such 15 Table of Contents licensed patent rights or from products covered by such licensed patent rights. Broad may terminate the license for our uncured failure to make payments, for our uncured material breach or if we bring a patent challenge against any of the institutional rights holders. Manufacturing and Supply We occupy facilities in San Diego, California, Leland, North Carolina, Sterling, Virginia, and Jupiter, Florida. Our Wateridge facility in San Diego is engaged in the manufacture of reagents. The facility was designed and built by us in conjunction with the building owner to contain fully functional chemical and biological manufacturing operations from material receiving to product distribution and has its own loading dock, manufacturing gas delivery system, solvent delivery and waste system, ISO Class 8 and ISO Class 7 designated customer manufacturing suites and integrated building management systems for required site control. In addition to the Wateridge facility, we have two facilities in San Diego, Flanders 1 and Flanders 2. Flanders 1 provides us with additional GMP manufacturing capacity and provides us the optionality downstream to manufacture materials beyond current quality requirements for mRNA raw materials, including CleanCap. Flanders 1 will also support an additional increase to batch run sizes and overall throughput. Flanders 2 was purpose built to support GMP-grade manufacturing and to support customers into Phase II clinical trials and beyond. Both the Flanders 1 and Flanders 2 facilities include the introduction of integrated manufacturing systems, quality of water improvements from Reverse Osmosis De-ionized grade water to WFI (“Water For Injection”), which is pharmaceutical grade water, and other facility infrastructure investments to support potential customer needs related to quality. We took occupancy of the Flanders facilities in 2023 and expect to begin manufacturing from both locations in 2024. In early 2023, our Southport, North Carolina operations were relocated to a new state-of-the-art facility in Leland, North Carolina. This new facility more than doubles our operational square footage and has capacity to support future growth in the manufacture and processing of antibody and HCP ELISA kits. The operations include laboratory, manufacturing, kitting, cold storage, shipping and waste handling capabilities. The fully customized design includes a Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence and specialized cell culture facilities. It significantly increases our manufacturing and development capacity while providing other R&D, laboratory and automation upgrades. Extensive process flow analysis has been incorporated into the facility design to optimize and enhance both our manufacturing and kit packaging operations. Our Sterling, Virginia facility was designed to perform quality control, aliquoting, packaging and shipping and houses the appropriate space and systems. Through our acquisition of Alphazyme in the first quarter of 2023, we acquired a purpose-built enzyme production facility in Jupiter, Florida, that can produce enzymes to kilogram quantities. The facility includes environmental controls such as HEPA filtration, pressure, temperature, and humidity monitoring, with vertical integration of all enzyme development, production, and testing operations. Our enzymes are produced under the controls of an ISO 13485:2016 compliant QMS. Our supply chain is supported by a diverse network of specialized suppliers and transportation partners and undergoes regular evaluations to assess supplier quality and identify risks, including those associated with supply concentration. These proactive evaluations enable us to implement strategic measures to effectively manage and mitigate risks. By continuously optimizing our supply chain, we ensure operational resilience and maintain a steady supply of critical materials for our products. Government Regulation We provide products used for basic research or as raw materials used by biopharmaceutical customers for further processing, and active pharmaceutical ingredients used for preclinical and clinical studies. The quality of our products is critical to researchers looking to develop novel vaccines and therapies and for biopharmaceutical customers who use our products as raw materials or who are engaged in preclinical studies and clinical trials. Biopharmaceutical customers are subject to extensive regulations by the FDA and similar regulatory authorities in other countries for conducting clinical trials and commercializing products for therapeutic, vaccine or diagnostic use. This regulatory scrutiny results in our customers imposing rigorous quality requirements on us as their supplier through supplier qualification processes and customer contracts. Our nucleic acid and biologics safety testing segments produce materials used in research and biopharmaceutical production, clinical trial vaccines and vaccine support products. We produce materials in support of our customers’ manufacturing businesses and to fulfill their validation requirements, as applicable. These customer activities are subject to regulation and consequently require these businesses to be inspected by the FDA and other national regulatory agencies under their respective cGMP regulations. These regulations result in our customers imposing quality requirements on us for the manufacture of our products, and maintain records of our manufacturing, testing and control activities. In addition, the specific activities of some of our businesses require us to hold specialized licenses for the manufacture, distribution and/or marketing of particular products. 16 Table of Contents All of our sites are subject to licensing and regulation, as appropriate under federal, state and local laws relating to: • the surface and air transportation of chemicals, biological reagents and hazardous materials; • the handling, use, storage and disposal of chemicals (including toxic substances), biological reagents and hazardous waste; • the procurement, handling, use, storage and disposal of biological products for research purposes; • the safety and health of employees and visitors to our facilities; and • protection of the environment and general public. Regulatory compliance programs at each of our businesses are managed by a dedicated group responsible for regulatory affairs and compliance, including the use of outside consultants. Our compliance programs are also managed by quality management systems, such as vendor supplier programs and training programs. Within each business, we have established Quality Management Systems (“QMS”) responsible for risk based internal audit programs to manage regulatory requirements and client quality expectations. Our QMS program ensures that management has proper oversight of regulatory compliance and quality assurance, inclusive of reviews of our system practices to ensure that appropriate quality controls are in place and that a robust audit strategy confirms requirements for compliance and quality assurance. Research Products Our products and operations may be subject to extensive and rigorous regulation by the FDA and other federal, state, or local authorities, as well as foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA regulates, among other things, the research, development, testing, manufacturing, clearance, approval, labeling, storage, recordkeeping, advertising, promotion, marketing, distribution, post-market monitoring and reporting, and import and export of pharmaceutical drugs. Certain of our products are currently marketed as research use only (“RUO”). We believe that our products that are marketed as RUO products are exempt from compliance with GMP regulations under the FDCA. RUO products cannot make any claims related to safety, effectiveness or diagnostic utility and they cannot be intended for human clinical diagnostic use. In November 2013, the FDA issued a final guidance on products labeled RUO, which, among other things, reaffirmed that a company may not make any clinical or diagnostic claims about an RUO product. The FDA will also evaluate the totality of the circumstances to determine if the product is intended for diagnostic purposes. If the FDA were to determine, based on the totality of circumstances, that our products labeled and marketed for RUO are intended for diagnostic purposes, they would be considered medical products that will require clearance or approval prior to commercialization. We do not make claims related to safety or effectiveness and they are not intended for diagnostic or clinical use. However, the quality of our products is critical to meeting customer needs, and we therefore voluntarily follow the quality standards outlined by the International Organization for Standardization for quality management systems (ISO 9001:2015) for the design, development, manufacture, and distribution of our products. Some biopharmaceutical customers desire extra requirements including quality parameters and product specifications, which are outlined in customer-specific quality agreements. These products are further processed and validated by customers for their applications. Customers qualify us as part of their quality system requirements, which can include a supplier questionnaire and on-site audits. Customers requalify us on a regular basis to ensure our quality system, processes and facilities continue to meet their needs and we are meeting requirements outlined in relevant customer agreements. Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (“APIs”) for Clinical Trials We provide APIs to customers for use in preclinical studies through and including clinical trials. We hold a drug manufacturing license with the California Food and Drug Branch of the California Department of Public Health for manufacture of APIs for clinical use and are subject to inspection to maintain licensure. Manufacture of APIs for use in clinical trials is regulated under § 501(a)(2)(B) of the FDCA, but is not subject to the current GMP regulations in 21 CFR § 211 by operation of 21 CFR § 210. We follow the principles detailed in the International Council for Harmonisation (“ICH”) Q7, Good Manufacturing Practice Guide for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (Section 19, APIs For Use in Clinical Trials) in order to comply with the applicable requirements of the FDCA, and the comparable GMP principles for Europe; European Community, Part II, Basic Requirements for Active Substances Used as Starting Materials (Section 19, APIs For Use in Clinical Trials). APIs are provided to customers under customer contracts that outline quality standards and product specifications. As products advance through the clinical phases, requirements become more stringent, and we work with customers to define and agree on requirements and risks associated with their product. 17 Table of Contents Customers’ biopharmaceutical products early in their development have a high failure rate and often do not advance through the clinical stages to commercialization. Our customers are required to follow regulatory pathways that are not always known, which may cause additional unforeseen requirements placed on us as their contract manufacturer and delays in advancing to the next stage of product development. We also provide novel compounds for cell and gene therapy applications, which result in additional challenges for our customers attempting to obtain regulatory approval given that this field is relatively new, and regulations are evolving. Customer clinical trials rely on approval from institutional review boards (“IRBs”) and patient and volunteer enrollment, which makes timelines unpredictable for advancing to the next stage in product development. Preclinical studies and clinical trials conducted by our customers are also expensive and data may be negative or inconclusive causing customers to abandon projects that were expected to continue. Regulatory requirements in both the United States and abroad are always evolving and compliance with future laws may require significant investment to ensure compliance. Other Regulatory Requirements Environmental laws and regulations. We believe that our operations comply in all material respects with applicable laws and regulations concerning environmental protection. To date, there have been no material effects upon our earnings or competitive position resulting from our compliance with applicable laws or regulations enacted or adopted relating to the protection of the environment. Our capital and operating expenditures for pollution control in 2023 and 2022 were not material and are not expected to be material in 2024. Intellectual Property Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for our products and services, defend and enforce our intellectual property rights, preserve the confidentiality of our trade secrets, and operate without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating valid and enforceable intellectual property rights of others. We seek to protect the investments made into the development of our products and services by relying on a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, including know-how, and license agreements. We also seek to protect our proprietary products and services, in part, by requiring our employees, consultants, contractors and other third parties to execute confidentiality agreements and invention assignment agreements. Patents. Our intellectual property strategy is focused on protecting through patents and other intellectual property rights our core products and services, including CleanCap, and related instrumentation and applications. In addition, we protect our ongoing research and development into critical reagents for cell and gene therapy through patents and other intellectual property rights. Our patent portfolio generally includes patents and patent applications relating to compositions and methods for the production of CleanCap, oligonucleotides, nucleic acids, immunofluorescence assays, and mock viral particles. We may own provisional patent applications, and provisional patent applications are not eligible to become issued patents until, among other things, we file national stage patent applications either directly or via the PCT within 12 or 30 to 32 months, respectively. If we do not timely file any national stage patent applications, we may lose our priority date with respect to our provisional patent applications and any patent protection on the inventions disclosed in such provisional patent applications. We cannot predict whether any such patent applications will result in the issuance of patents that provide us with any competitive advantage. Issued patents extend for varying periods depending on the date of filing of the patent application or the date of patent issuance and the legal term of patents in the countries in which they are obtained. Generally, utility patents issued for applications are granted a term of 21 years from the earliest effective filing date of a non-provisional patent application. Issued patents may be extended beyond the natural 21 year term for regulatory or administrative delay in accordance with provisions of applicable local law. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours. 18 Table of Contents The following granted patents relate to our CleanCap products and technology. Jurisdiction Patent Number Title Expiration United States 10494399 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 United States 10519189 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 United States 10913768C1 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 United States 11414453 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 United States 11878991 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 United States 11578095 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Europe 3352584 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Europe 3954225 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Europe 3906789 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Europe 4104687 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Europe 4140491 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Australia 2016328645 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Australia 2021206780 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Canada 2999274 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 China ZL 202310734863.0 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Hong Kong 40080484 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Japan 6814997 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Japan 7082174 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 Korea, Republic of 10-2500198 Compositions and methods for synthesizing 5′-Capped RNAs 2036 The following patents relate to our MockV related products and technology. Jurisdiction Patent Number Title Expiration United States 9632087 Methods for evaluating viral clearance from a biopharmaceutical solution employing mock viral particles 2034 United States 10309963 Methods for evaluating viral clearance from a process solution employing mock viral particles 2034 Europe 3044339 Methods and kits for quantifying the removal of mock virus particles from a purified solution 2034 Australia 2014320015 Methods and kits for quantifying the removal of Mock Virus Particles from a purified solution 2034 Australia 2021200484 Methods and kits for quantifying the removal of Mock Virus Particles from a purified solution 2034 China 105899684 Methods and kits for quantifying pseudoviral particles removed from purified solution 2034 Japan 6549126 Methods and kits for removal of mock virus particles from a purified solution 2034 United States 11754565 Methods and kits for removal of mock virus particles from a purified solution 2034 Trademarks. Our trademark portfolio is designed to protect the brands of our current and future products and includes U.S. trademark registrations for our company name, Maravai LifeSciences, subsidiary names Cygnus Technologies and TriLink Biotechnologies and various product names, such as CleanCap and MockV. Trade Secrets. We also rely on trade secrets, including know-how, unpatented technology and other proprietary information, to strengthen our competitive position. We have determined that certain technologies, such as the production of antibodies for biologics safety testing, are better kept as trade secrets, rather than pursuing patent protection. To prevent disclosure of trade secrets to others, it is our policy to enter into nondisclosure, invention assignment and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to trade secrets, such as our employees, collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, consultants, advisors 19 Table of Contents and other third parties. These agreements also provide that all inventions resulting from work performed for us or relating to our business and conceived or completed during the period of employment or assignment, as applicable, are our exclusive property. In addition, we take other appropriate precautions, such as physical and technological security measures, to guard against misappropriation of our proprietary information by third parties. We intend to pursue additional intellectual property protection to the extent we believe it would advance our business objectives. Notwithstanding these efforts, there can be no assurance that we will adequately protect our intellectual property or provide any competitive advantage. We cannot provide any assurance that any patents will be issued from our pending or any future patent applications or that any issued patents will adequately protect our products or technology. Our intellectual property rights may be invalidated, held unenforceable, circumvented, narrowed or challenged. In addition, the laws of various foreign countries where our products are distributed may not protect our intellectual property rights to the same extent as laws in the United States. Furthermore, it may be difficult to protect our trade secrets. While we have confidence in the measures we take to protect and preserve our trade secrets, they may be inadequate and can be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for violations of such measures. In addition, our trade secrets may otherwise become known or be independently discovered by competitors. Moreover, our invention assignment agreements with employees, collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, consultants, advisors and other third parties may not be self-executing or otherwise provide meaningful protection for our intellectual property rights. If we do not adequately protect our intellectual property, third parties, including our competitors, may be able to use our technologies to produce and market products that compete with us and erode our competitive advantage. For more information regarding risks related to intellectual property, please see Item 1A. “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Intellectual Property.” Human Capital Management: Empowering Our Future At Maravai, we understand that our strength lies in the expertise and commitment of our people. As of December 31, 2023, our team had over 650 full-time employees. Following the reduction in force, which was completed on January 5, 2024, we had approximately 570 full-time employees. Our workforce represents a diversity of backgrounds, with 44% identifying as female, 56% as male, and 52% as ethnically or racially diverse as of December 31, 2023. We take pride in the fact that, as of December 31, 2023, 24% of our team held advanced degrees, underscoring our emphasis on science and innovation. Our compensation and comprehensive benefits packages are designed to attract and retain the talent we need to be competitive in the markets we serve. Believing in the value of ownership, we extend equity awards to all full-time employees through our 2020 Omnibus Incentive Plan, alongside opportunities to participate in our 2020 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Our commitment to excellence ensures every employee receives thorough on-the-job training. We also understand that great people managers are the key to enabling and unlocking the potential of our employees. In 2023, we initiated a bi-monthly “Leading Together” people leader series with all levels of our people leaders to ensure they had the critical knowledge, perspective, and tools to develop their people and align their teams towards company goals and objectives. We actively work to foster direct and open lines of communication between all levels of staff through our all-employee engagement survey, our quarterly all-employee town halls, management skip level meetings, and an emphasis on our core values (Connected, Open, Driven, and Empowered). Our 2023 company-wide engagement survey reached a participation rate of 97% and all levels of leadership engage in action planning based on the results. In 2023, all of our sites participated in process excellence initiatives and we launched “Find a Better Way Day” to highlight the efforts of our employees to drive quality and safety improvements and reduce cost. As a leading life sciences company, we are committed to the health, safety and well-being of our employees. All employees that could be exposed to potential hazards are required to complete annual health and safety training, including laboratory chemical safety, hazard communication and hazardous waste management trainings. In 2023, we upgraded our electronic Safety Data Sheet (SDS) system to more readily provide chemical safety data electronically to employees and customers. Available Information Our website is located at www.maravai.com, and our investor relations website is located at investors.maravai.com. Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to these reports, are available through our investor relations website, free of charge, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file or furnish them with the SEC. Our filings with the SEC are also available, free of charge, on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. We webcast via our investor relations website our earnings calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community. Our investor relations website also provides notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance and other items that may be material or of interest to our investors, 20 Table of Contents including SEC filings, investor events, press and earnings releases, and blogs. The contents of our website are not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or in any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our website are intended to be inactive textual references only. 21 Table of Contents