Personalis, Inc. 10-K

Item 1. Business. Overview We are a growing cancer genomics company transforming the development of next-generation therapies by providing more comprehensive molecular data about each patient’s cancer and immune response. We designed our NeXT Platform to adapt to the complex and evolving understanding of cancer, providing our biopharmaceutical customers with information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, together with the immune system, in contrast to many cancer panels that cover roughly only 50 to 500 genes. In parallel with the development of our platform technology, we have also pursued business within the population sequencing market, and we have provided whole genome sequencing services under contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the “VA”) Million Veteran Program (the “VA MVP”), which has enabled us to innovate, scale our operational infrastructure, and achieve greater efficiencies in our lab. In September 2020, we announced receipt of a new task order from the VA MVP with an approximate value of up to $31 million. The cumulative value of task orders received from the VA MVP since inception is approximately $175 million, approximately $132.5 million of which we had recognized as revenue as of December 31, 2020. In August 2020, we launched NeXT Liquid Biopsy, which is a liquid biopsy assay that analyzes all of the approximately 20,000 human genes versus the more narrowly focused liquid biopsy assays that are currently available. By combining technological innovation, operational scale, and regulatory differentiation, our NeXT Platform is designed to help our customers obtain new insights into the mechanisms of response and resistance to therapy as well as new potential therapeutic targets. Our platform enhances the ability of biopharmaceutical companies to unlock the potential of conducting translational research in the clinic rather than with pre-clinical animal models or cancer cell lines. We also announced in January 2020 a diagnostic test, NeXT Dx Test, which is based on our NeXT Platform, that we envision being used initially by both leading clinical cancer centers as well as biopharmaceutical companies. Most recently, in December 2020, we launched two new capabilities that are integrated into our NeXT Platform: our Systemic HLA Epitope Ranking Pan Algorithm (“SHERPA”) machine learning-based tool for the comprehensive identification and characterization of cancer neoantigens, as well as our Neoantigen Presentation Score (“NEOPS”) for predicting cancer immunotherapy response. SHERPA enables the development of new neoantigen-based diagnostic biomarkers, such as our NEOPS, and novel personalized therapies. We have the capacity to sequence and analyze approximately 200 trillion bases of deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) per week in our facility. We believe our capacity for this is already larger than the sequencing capacities of most cancer genomics companies, and we continue to build automation and other infrastructure to scale further as demand increases and in support of our NeXT Liquid Biopsy. To date, we have sequenced more than 150,000 human samples, of which more than 100,000 were whole human genomes. Our headquarters – housing our Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (“CLIA”)-certified, College of American Pathologists (“CAP”)-accredited laboratory – is located in Menlo Park, CA. We were incorporated under the laws of the state of Delaware in February 2011 under the name Personalis, Inc. Our customers include biopharmaceutical companies (including large pharmaceutical companies), universities, non-profits, and government entities such as the VA MVP. Personalis: The Genomics Engine for Next-Generation Cancer Therapies Biopharmaceutical customers use our comprehensive platform across a diverse set of therapeutic approaches to cancer. We generate and analyze data from patients who participated in clinical trials, which we believe will enable these customers to develop more effective therapies. The information we generate is important to our customers developing three major classes of next-generation therapeutics: immunotherapies, targeted therapies, and personalized cancer therapies. • Immunotherapies: Over the past decade, a number of drugs have emerged based on the discovery that the immune system plays a key role in addressing cancer. Checkpoint inhibitors, a specific type of immunotherapy, have generated substantial commercial success over the past decade; however, the development of new therapies in this category has been challenged by difficulties in understanding the precise interaction between cancer and the immune system. Since our platform provides a broad set of insights on tumor and immune biology, we believe it enables biopharmaceutical companies to better understand how therapeutics are working in patients. • Targeted Therapies: A growing category of successful cancer treatments consists of therapies that target specific genes or molecular mechanisms of cancer. Many of these targeted therapies are proposed to be tested in combination with immunotherapies. These therapies have grown to represent a considerable share of the overall oncology therapeutics market today. Comprehensively understanding each patient’s genomic and immune profile is critical to understanding how a patient may respond to such therapies. We believe that our coverage of all of the approximately 20,000 genes provides us a strong competitive advantage against existing cancer panels that cover roughly only 50 to 500 genes. We believe our company is positioned to become a leading provider of the complex information that we believe will continue to inform the development of targeted cancer therapies. • Personalized Cancer Therapies: Many biopharmaceutical companies are pursuing personalized cancer therapies, which are designed and manufactured individually for each patient based on genomic alterations in a given patient’s tumor. While there are many potential approaches to developing these therapies, including neoantigen-based vaccines and T-cell therapies, all of them could benefit from the data and analytics that our platform can generate about a patient’s tumor. 4 Many of our customers have leveraged our U.S. Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”) Device Master File as a component of their investigational new drug (“IND”) filings with the FDA. If drugs that used our platform in the clinical trials to form the basis for approval are approved, we may be able to derive revenue in connection with the sale of these drugs. We believe we are working with the majority of companies developing neoantigen-targeted personalized cancer therapies. We anticipate that as the clinical utility of our platform is validated, we will have opportunities in connection with diagnostics and the commercialization of cancer therapeutics, which are significantly larger than our initial clinical-trial focused markets. Over time, we expect our biopharmaceutical customers and research collaborators to build evidence of the clinical utility of our platform as a diagnostic for advanced cancer therapies. Separately, we are also acquiring samples and building a database which we expect will hold value for our biopharmaceutical customers and may ultimately allow us to discover new mechanisms of cancer treatment. Financial Highlights Our revenues have grown rapidly as our penetration of clinical trials in advanced oncology therapeutics and our relationship with the VA MVP has expanded, consistent with our reputation as a leader in the field. We generated revenues of $37.8 million, $65.2 million, and $78.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019, and 2020, respectively. We also incurred net losses of $19.9 million, $25.1 million, and $41.3 million for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019, and 2020, respectively. We have one reportable segment from the sale of sequencing and data analysis services and substantially all of our revenues to date have been derived from sales in the United States. As of December 31, 2020, we had $203.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments, an increase of $75.0 million from December 31, 2019. Our revenues are primarily generated through sales of our services to the VA MVP and biopharmaceutical companies. Unlike diagnostic or therapeutic companies, we have not sought reimbursement through traditional healthcare payors. We raised $144.0 million and $117.5 million in our June 2019 initial public offering and August 2020 follow-on offering, respectively, net of underwriting discounts and commissions. Subsequent to the fiscal period ended December 31, 2020 covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K, on January 29, 2021, we completed a follow-on offering in which we issued and sold 3,950,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $38.00 per share. We received net proceeds of $141.1 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. The underwriters exercised their option to purchase an additional 592,500 shares shortly thereafter, resulting in additional net proceeds to us of $21.2 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. In total, we raised net proceeds of $162.3 million after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. Market Opportunities We estimate the market opportunity for our current and planned products to be approximately $38 billion as follows: • Therapy Selection and Monitoring: According to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Facts & Figures 2020 , more than 16.9 million cancer survivors were alive on January 1, 2019 in the United States. Based on data from Cancer Treatment and Survivorship Statistics, 2019 and Cancer Statistics, 2019, we estimate that approximately 2.2 million of these cancer survivors were diagnosed within the last two years. Over time, the likelihood that the original cancer will reoccur can decline below the baseline likelihood of a new, genetically independent cancer emerging. Therefore, we limit our analysis to patients within the period of two years from their initial cancer diagnosis. Of these 2.2 million patients, about 200,000 enroll in pharmaceutical clinical trials according to data from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, ClincalTrials.gov, January 2019, with the assumption that the remaining cancer patients undergo normal clinical care. As part of that standard care, these patients go through therapy selection and eventual monitoring. For therapy selection, we estimate that each of the approximately 2.0 million cancer patients undergoing normal clinical care will have a tissue biopsy sequenced and tested at a cost of approximately $3,000, which is the approved CMS reimbursement rate, which results in an estimated potential market opportunity of $6 billion per year. Cancer mutations identified in this initial tissue-biopsy based test can then be used for subsequent monitoring using cell free DNA. For monitoring, we estimate that each patient has a liquid biopsy sequenced and tested four times per year at an estimated cost of $2,840 per test, based on publicly-available data on comparable tests. Our NeXT Dx Test addresses this market for tissue biopsy testing while clinical versions of our products in development may address this liquid-biopsy based monitoring opportunity. Our estimates lead us to project approximately a $22.72 billion potential market opportunity per year for monitoring. • Clinical Trial Patients: For each of the 200,000 pharmaceutical clinical trial patients, we estimate that an initial tissue sample will be sequenced at least once at a cost of $3,000, which is the approved CMS reimbursement rate, and the liquid biopsy sample testing at least eight different time points per year for monitoring, at an estimated cost of $4,000 per sequencing test, based on the frequency of monitoring in a recent immuno-oncology drug trial and our historical standard pricing for tissue samples and anticipated pricing for liquid biopsy samples. Based on this, we estimate the potential market opportunity to be approximately $7 billion per year for tissue- and liquid-based sequencing of these clinical trial patients. 5 • Population Sequencing: According to publicly-available industry information and presentations , we estimate the potential market for population sequencing services is over $2 billion per year. Our whole genome sequencing products address this potential market opportunity . Our Products and Services Broadly speaking, we provide proprietary genomic information to customers. Our genomic sequencing and analytics products are focused on the following customer applications: biopharmaceutical company research, clinical and companion diagnostics, and population sequencing. NeXT Platform Our NeXT Platform is a high-accuracy, clinical-grade, next-generation sequencing and analysis platform. We have created an ecosystem of products and capabilities built on the NeXT Platform that synergize to drive value for our customers: ImmunoID Next (comprehensive tumor profiling from tissue), NeXT Liquid Biopsy (comprehensive tumor profiling from plasma), NeXT Dx Test (comprehensive genomic cancer profiling test enabling advanced composite biomarkers for cancer treatment), NeXT SHERPA and NeXT NEOPS (neoantigen prediction capabilities). We are currently investing in the development of additional future product offerings, including NeXT Personal (liquid biopsy offering for personalized tumor tracking for patients), NeXT CDx (diagnostic test), and NeXT Database (comprehensive tumor immune-genomics database). Our NeXT Platform is designed to provide comprehensive analysis of both a tumor and its immune microenvironment, from a single limited tissue or plasma sample. Our platform covers the DNA sequence of all of the approximately 20,000 human genes. We also report on the entire transcriptome of a tumor, which encompasses ribonucleic acid (“RNA”) expression across the approximately 20,000 human genes, allowing us to more accurately determine which of the many genomic mutations might actually be driving tumor progression. Furthermore, our platform analyzes elements of the immune cells that have infiltrated a tumor both from the adaptive immune system and the innate immune system. Given the practical challenges in obtaining high-quality tumor samples via biopsy, we have developed our platform to work with a limited tumor tissue sample. Biopharmaceutical companies face significant challenges in attempting to divide samples to ship to multiple service providers to perform different tests. If a biopharmaceutical company is successful in acquiring results from multiple service providers, it is challenging to compare the results across multiple data platforms from multiple service providers. Our sequencing approach, validated with orthogonal technologies, allows us to run multiple analyses on a single sample. Our platform is composed of multiple proprietary technologies, many of which we have developed from the ground up. The breadth of the assays that we have integrated into our platform, our proprietary sample preparation process, and the comprehensiveness of our platform allow us to maximize the utility of often limited tumor tissue samples that our customers have from their clinical trials. An overview of key features and differentiators of our NeXT Platform follows. Comprehensive tumor and immune genomics from a single limited sample: • Sequencing and analyzing all of the approximately 20,000 human genes generates more comprehensive molecular information than current tumor tissue and liquid biopsy panels focused on roughly 50 to 500 genes • Covers a much broader set of biomarkers for new immunotherapies and traditional targeted therapies • Analysis of both tumor DNA and RNA expression • Analysis of both tumor and normal tissue • Analysis of non-human species such as oncoviruses • NeXT liquid biopsy targets approximately 20,000 genes and enables testing at multiple time points • Proprietary technology enables superior sequencing quality and advanced analytics Makes single, comprehensive tumor molecular profiling practical for cancer patients: • Tumor and immune molecular profiling from one limited tumor sample • Engineered to be cost-effective and scalable, with rapid turnaround times, making it suitable for large-scale profiling of cancer patients • Overcomes the need for fragmented tumor testing • One platform for both research and clinical use Platform anticipates future cancer biomarkers that will come with evolving science: • NeXT overcomes the limitations of small panels that become out of date when new genetic biomarkers or therapeutic targets are identified • Comprehensive coverage of all genes, DNA and RNA, tumor and normal tissue, and immune biology enables our platform to accommodate new genetic biomarkers and signatures as they are published 6 Generates comprehensive, harmonized data across patients to enable large-scale database creation and insight: • Comprehensive profiling for large cohorts of patients leads to more useful databases for biopharmaceutical customers using our platform and our internal database • Opportunity for integration with other sources of real-world data such as electronic health records to generate real-world evidence that may be used by biopharmaceutical customers to inform and accelerate therapeutic development • Data harmonization, analytics, and machine learning maximize therapeutic insight • Comprehensive nature of the platform provides long-lasting data relevance, yielding new insights over time as new biomarkers are identified Our NeXT Platform technology can analyze cell-free DNA (“cfDNA”) obtained from blood plasma, also known as a liquid biopsy. As with a tissue biopsy, we analyze all of the approximately 20,000 human genes in each plasma sample, in contrast to currently marketed liquid biopsy panels. This cfDNA may be obtained by a blood draw concurrently with a tissue sample. Together, the two samples can be used to provide a more comprehensive initial characterization of the tumor. Additionally, we expect to monitor changes in tumor genetics that arise in response to therapy through serial measurements using cfDNA samples collected across multiple time points. In 2020, we launched our first liquid biopsy assay designed to analyze all human genes so as to detect potential neoantigens and tumor escape mechanisms that arise under therapeutic pressure. Although we believe our cfDNA test will offer new insights, we believe it will be most useful for our biopharmaceutical customers alongside our primary tumor biopsy product, given that a tumor biopsy is required to analyze gene expression and elucidate tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes which are critical to understanding cancer’s interaction with the immune system. NeXT Liquid Biopsy was launched in August 2020 and we have received several initial customer orders in 2020 with initial deliveries expected in 2021. We are currently investing in the development of NeXT Personal, a liquid biopsy offering for personalized tumor tracking for patients. An overview of key liquid biopsy capabilities follows. Liquid biopsy approaches look at cfDNA in plasma samples derived from the blood. cfDNA is DNA that is released into circulation by cells, including tumor cells, as a result of cell death. This cfDNA can be obtained by a blood draw and can be used to monitor changes in tumor genetics. We believe tumor biopsy and liquid biopsy approaches to tumor molecular profiling will provide complementary information for each patient. Tumor biopsies provide tumor immune microenvironment and tumor gene expression information that current liquid biopsy panels do not provide. Liquid biopsies can be useful for providing additional DNA mutation information, especially for monitoring therapy response across different time points when tumor biopsies are not feasible. Unlike typical liquid biopsy panel approaches focused on roughly only 50 to 500 driver genes, our NeXT Liquid Biopsy is designed to sequence all of the approximately 20,000 genes in the human genome. Our broader liquid biopsy approach will help biopharmaceutical customers identify biological changes across multiple time points for each patient in their trials that they would otherwise miss with the current, narrowly focused liquid biopsy panels. We also believe broader coverage will enable better neoantigen prediction, broader biomarker coverage, and higher potential to identify new drug targets. Figure 1: ImmunoID NeXT tumor biopsy and NeXT liquid biopsy yields complementary data. 7 We believe that combining tumor biopsies with cfDNA can provide a more complete picture of the spectrum of mutations found in a cancer patient. As an example of this, we compared the mutations found in eight late-stage colorectal tumor biopsy samples with those found in the plasma taken at the same time. We found a range of overlap between tumor biopsy-identified sequence variations and the sequences generated using cfDNA. These observations show that, while there was significant overlap between the tumor and liquid biopsy results, there were also mutations unique to tumor biopsy and vice versa (see examples of this in Figure 2). This observation underscores the concept that tissue and liquid biopsies may be complementary, and when combined, may provide a more complete picture of the patient’s disease. Figure 2. Overlap of sequence variations detected in matched tumor and blood plasma. Numbers indicate variants detected in the tumor only, plasma only, or in both. We anticipate that our liquid biopsy approach will have many applications, including monitoring of tumor response to therapy over many time points, detecting new genetic variants from evolution of the tumor under therapeutic pressure, detecting acquired mechanisms of resistance, and identifying neoantigens. Our NeXT Dx Test is a comprehensive genomic cancer profiling test enabling advanced composite biomarkers for cancer treatment and provides a path from translational research to CDx on our NeXT Platform. The NeXT Dx Test helps oncologists identify potential therapies and clinical trial options for cancer patients. NeXT Dx Test is one of the first cancer diagnostic platforms to profile approximately 20,000 genes in both the tumor exome and transcriptome, providing a comprehensive genomic testing solution that goes beyond many existing cancer diagnostic panels that focus on only a few hundred genes. The NeXT Dx Test includes advanced analytics to provide a diagnostic report on genetic alterations in medically-important cancer genes, as well as emerging immunotherapy composite biomarkers of medical importance. Additionally, immunotherapy-related biomarkers such as microsatellite instability (“MSI”) status and tumor mutational burden (“TMB”) are included in the clinical report. The NeXT Dx Test is a laboratory-developed test performed at our CAP-accredited and CLIA’88-certified laboratory that is optimized for formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor samples. The test utilizes ImmunoID NeXT, our clinical-grade, next-generation sequencing and analysis platform, to report base substitutions, insertions/deletions, gene fusions, and copy number alterations in cancer driver genes of clinical significance. Additionally, MSI status is reported based on five canonical loci (BAT25, BAT26, NR-21, NR-24, and NR-27), and TMB status is reported by leveraging the exome-wide analysis of non-synonymous somatic mutations. Based on the tumor’s molecular profile, the report delivers relevant therapy recommendations and appropriate clinical trial matches. Each case is reviewed by a team of board-certified molecular geneticists and genetic counselors. Test results are electronically delivered to the ordering clinician. In December 2020, we announced the launch of our Systematic HLA Epitope Ranking Pan Algorithm (“SHERPA”), our proprietary, machine learning-based tool for the comprehensive identification and characterization of cancer neoantigens. Integrated into our NeXT Platform, SHERPA enables the development of new neoantigen-based diagnostic biomarkers and novel personalized therapies. Trained on a proprietary immunopeptidomics dataset derived from engineered cell lines, SHERPA improves neoantigen presentation prediction compared to other in silico methods. With this advancement, SHERPA can enable more predictive biomarkers for cancer therapy as well as facilitate the development of neoantigen-targeting, personalized cancer therapies. While most conventional in silico methods generally only assess the potential MHC-binding affinity and stability of identified peptides, SHERPA goes a step further by incorporating features relating to the antigen processing machinery and RNA abundance to generate a presentation rank for each detected peptide. We believe this will aid in determining the relative likelihood of a given neoantigen being presented and undergoing immunosurveillance. A large drug development customer of ours has leveraged SHERPA to characterize immune response to precision genetic therapeutics in patients with rare diseases, demonstrating the applicability of this machine learning tool in disease areas beyond cancer. 8 Our proprietary Neoantigen Presentation Score ( “ NEOPS ” ), also launched in December 2020, is one example of a SHERPA-derived composite biomarker that has shown promise in predicting immunotherapy response in cancer patients. NEOPS combines analysis from our state-of-the-art tumor neoantigen prediction tool, SHERPA, with mechanisms of immune evasion to better predict response to cancer therapy. NEOPS combines the tumor genomic and immune-related analytics of our NeXT Platform to create a composite biomarker that can be more effective in predicting immunotherapy response than other, simpler biomarkers. NeXT makes comprehensive tumor molecular profiling practical for cancer patients at scale To deliver a comprehensive immune-genomic assessment of a tumor, we invested substantial resources to engineer NeXT to provide data and analysis that would otherwise be unavailable or require many individual technologies, which collectively present significant costs and logistical impracticalities. With NeXT, we built a proprietary platform that is comprehensive, cost-effective, and scalable and enables a short turnaround time, making it practical to profile cancer patients at scale. This has required innovation on a number of fronts. Revenues in connection with our NeXT Platform were minimal prior to our current fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. In the current year ended December 31, 2020, revenues from our NeXT Platform accounted for approximately one-third of total revenues, excluding revenues from the VA MVP (discussed further below). ACE Platform The ACE Platform is the predecessor to our NeXT Platform. To address the limitations of typical NGS-based assay, we developed our patented Accuracy and Content Enhanced (“ACE”) technology for next-generation sequencing. ACE improves nucleic acid preparation processes and combines it with patented assay and sequencing methods to achieve superior, high-fidelity, clinical-grade sequencing quality that ensures high sensitivity for mutations that can inform clinical and therapeutic applications such as neoantigen prediction, biomarker identification, and novel drug target selection. Our ACE Platform powers multiple products and services to our customers including: ACE Extended Cancer Panel for DNA, ACE Extended Cancer Panel for RNA, ACE Cancer Research Exome, and ACE Cancer Research Transcriptome. Our ACE technology provides coverage of difficult-to-sequence gene regions across all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, filling in key gaps left by other NGS approaches. ACE technology provides superior and uniform coverage of difficult genomic regions, such as high GC content areas, and fills gaps and inconsistencies in sequencing to achieve an optimal output. ACE is able to deliver more comprehensive coverage not by simply generating more data, but by generating higher quality data. We and others have shown in two publications that our ACE technology achieves superior gene sequencing coverage and finishing. The substantial majority of our revenues since inception, excluding revenues from the VA MVP (discussed below) and our growing revenues from our NeXT Platform described above, were derived from ACE Extended Cancer Panel and Cancer Research services. Whole Genome Sequencing Since 2012, we have been contracted to provide DNA sequencing and data analysis services to the VA MVP. The VA MVP began collecting samples in 2011 and is a landmark research effort aimed at better understanding how genetic variations affect health. Up to two million veterans are expected to enroll in the VA MVP study. With more than 825,000 enrollees to date, the VA MVP exceeds the enrollment numbers of any single VA study or research program in the past, and is in fact one of the largest population sequencing efforts in history. In September 2017, we entered into a one-year contract with three one-year renewal option periods with the VA for the VA MVP, and received orders under this contract in September 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. To date, we have been contracted to deliver approximately 147,000 genome sequence data sets to the VA MVP, and we expect revenue from the contracts awarded to date to continue into 2021. This relationship with the VA MVP has enabled us to scale our operational infrastructure and achieve greater efficiencies in our lab. It has also supported our development of industry-leading, large-scale cancer genomic testing. The substantial experience that we have and expect to continue to develop in whole genome sequencing also optimally positions us for what we anticipate to be the longer-term strategic direction of the cancer genomics industry, which may include whole genome sequencing of tumors. The VA MVP program has accounted for a substantial amount of our revenues in recent years, 71% of our total revenues in 2020, 67% in 2019, and 49% in 2018. 9 Personalis is Valuable to Biopharmaceutical Companies We believe that our platform is valuable to our customers because: • Our tumor and immune molecular profiling capabilities provide an unprecedented breadth of data from a single limited tumor sample. We provide information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, as well as gene expression, the immune system, and other elements of cancer biology, in contrast to other currently marketed panels that cover a limited range of roughly 50 to 500 genes and do not focus on immune cells. The commercial success of immunotherapy drugs has demonstrated the need to better understand the immune system. Unfortunately, development of new therapies in this category has been challenged by difficulties understanding the precise interaction between cancer and the immune system. Since our platform provides comprehensive insights on tumor and immune biology, including in both innate and adaptive immune cells, we believe it will enable drug companies to better understand the biological effect of therapeutics in patients. • Our platform enhances the opportunity to conduct translational research by analyzing tumor tissues from patients in clinical trials, rather than animal models or in vitro cancer cell lines, which have historically limited cancer research. While conventional pre-clinical model systems, such as animal models and cancer cell lines, have been instrumental in early-stage cancer research and drug development, translation of results to the clinic has been limited and remains a significant barrier to progress, in part because these models do not sufficiently reflect the complexity of human cancer and the human immune system. Over recent years, tools used to study tissue from patients have improved and the utilization of tissue from trials has increased. We believe our platform represents the next step in this transition by further enabling biopharmaceutical companies to address the historical limitations of analyzing patient tissue comprehensively. • The information we provide to personalized cancer therapy companies is used to design therapeutics . Many biopharmaceutical companies are pursuing personalized cancer therapies, which are designed and manufactured, individually, for each patient based on genomic alterations in a given patient’s tumor. While there are many potential approaches towards developing these therapies including neoantigen therapeutics, peptide-based vaccines, RNA and DNA vaccines, virally or bacterially encoded vaccines, and adoptive cell therapies, we believe all of them can benefit from the data and analytics that our platform can generate about a patient’s tumor. We anticipate that drugs approved based on these therapeutic strategies may specify the use of our platform, enabling us to derive revenue in connection with the sale of commercial drugs, including the data generation and information processing required to treat each patient. We believe we are working with the majority of companies developing neoantigen-targeted personalized cancer therapies. • Our enterprise-grade operational infrastructure is scalable, enables rapid turnaround times, and is tailored to meet the unique workflow needs of our customers. We have invested significant resources to develop an operational infrastructure that allows us to easily customize our services for each of our customers and scale rapidly to meet their potential research and commercial demands. Moreover, we believe our infrastructure provides customers with visibility and control over processes, ensures consistency across all components used for the duration of each clinical trial, is fully traceable for compliance purposes, and allows us to scale while maintaining rapid turnaround times. • We offer a complementary liquid biopsy test, which also offers broad 20,000-gene coverage versus more narrowly focused liquid biopsy tests that are currently available. As with a tissue biopsy, we analyze all of the approximately 20,000 human genes. We are not aware of any other company developing a cfDNA platform that analyzes all of the approximately 20,000 human genes. This cfDNA may be obtained by a blood draw concurrently with a tissue sample. Together, the two samples can be used to provide a more comprehensive initial characterization of the tumor. Additionally, we expect to monitor changes in tumor genetics that arise in response to therapy through serial measurements using cfDNA samples collected across multiple time points. Our liquid biopsy assay is designed to monitor known neoantigens and detect novel neoantigens and tumor escape mechanisms that arise under therapeutic pressure. Our Strategy Our mission is to transform the development of next-generation cancer therapies by providing more comprehensive molecular data about each patient’s tumor. To achieve this mission, our strategy is to: • Drive continued adoption of our NeXT Platform and population sequencing with both new and existing customers. • Continue to drive the adoption and expansion of our liquid biopsy offerings. • Continue to invest in our infrastructure and ramp up efforts to obtain clinical and regulatory approvals for our NeXT Platform. • Continue to enhance and display clinical utility of the NeXT Platform through collaborations. • Expand our facility capacity and operational footprint to support our future growth. 10 • Expand Personalis’ footprint in China through our newly formed wholly owned subsidiary, Shanghai Personalis Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and develop relationships with the local scientific and regulatory community. Our Proprietary Software and Robust Operational Infrastructure We have invested significant resources to develop an operational infrastructure that allows us to easily customize our services for each of our customers and scale rapidly to meet their potential research and commercial demands. Our NeXT Platform is complemented by our enterprise-grade software and bespoke information management systems that we tailor to meet our customers’ unique needs and integrate with their workflows. Moreover, our infrastructure provides customers with visibility and control over processes, ensures consistency across all components used for the duration of each clinical trial, is traceable for compliance purposes, and allows us to scale while maintaining rapid turnaround times. We designed our proprietary informatics system, the Symphony Enterprise Informatics System (“Symphony”), as a flexible and scalable enterprise-grade system used to manage the unique complexities and challenges of our genomics laboratory. Symphony integrates laboratory information management systems (“LIMS”) and bioinformatics systems to connect laboratory operations with downstream data analysis. Symphony orchestrates all operational activities from our laboratory starting with sample receipt to the reporting of results of the genomic profiling and data delivery. We also use machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches to generate substantial performance advantages for our algorithms, such as neoantigen binding prediction. We have the capacity to sequence and analyze approximately 200 trillion bases of DNA per week in our facility. We believe this capacity is already larger than the sequencing capacities of most cancer genomics companies, and we continue to build automation and other infrastructure to scale further as demand increases and in support of our NeXT Liquid Biopsy. To date, we have sequenced more than 150,000 human samples, of which more than 100,000 were whole human genomes. We rely on a limited number of suppliers for sequencers and other equipment and raw materials that we use in our laboratory operations. For example, we rely on Illumina, Inc. (“Illumina”) as the sole supplier of sequencers and various associated reagents, and as the sole provider of maintenance and repair services for these sequencers. We have in place certain agreements and purchase arrangements with Illumina to satisfy the needs of our laboratory operations. We believe our platform is well positioned to scale rapidly and substantially as the field of personalized cancer therapies matures. We believe that our platform could be essential to the composition and manufacture of any personalized cancer therapy developed using our platform. Furthermore, we expect that patients would be tested at multiple time points during the course of treatment: first to design a therapy according to an initial genomic profile generated from a tissue and/or liquid biopsy, and then as follow-up testing via liquid biopsy to detect any changes that would require therapy modifications after initial therapeutic interventions. If a therapy that uses our NeXT Platform achieves regulatory approval, we believe that our commercial opportunity may increase substantially. We leverage our proprietary software, laboratory automation and protocols, and other operational and technological know-how to power our NeXT Platform. Our Industry Over the past decade, the biopharmaceutical community has achieved major advances in the treatment of cancer, including approval of therapies capable of targeting specific genetic drivers of cancer and novel immunotherapies that empower the immune system to attack cancer cells. Despite these advances, the substantial majority of currently available cancer therapies have significant limitations, including efficacy only in certain subsets of patients, limited long-term survival rates, and significant toxicities. Moreover, the current research and development paradigm in oncology is beset by significant inefficiencies and substantial costs, with the average cost per patient in clinical trials reaching approximately $60,000 (Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, Biopharmaceutical Industry-Sponsored Clinical Trials: Impact on State Economies , March 2015). While tumor molecular profiling technologies have enhanced research and development efforts, most current tumor biopsy and liquid biopsy tests analyze a relatively narrow set of roughly only 50 to 500 tumor genes, missing key genes and immune mechanisms underlying cancer therapy. With the lack of a comprehensive profiling solution, biopharmaceutical companies often attempt to use a disparate array of tests to compensate, resulting in a fragmented view of the tumor biology, insufficient tumor sample, logistical complexities, and increased costs. The resulting data heterogeneity makes it difficult to mine for new biological insights across cohorts of patients in clinical trials. These piecemeal approaches to tumor molecular profiling often result in solutions that are difficult to use at scale, especially in a clinical or therapeutic setting where simplicity, cost, turnaround time, and validation are important. Our platforms help biopharmaceutical companies seeking to develop more efficacious therapies by comprehensively interrogating a patient’s tumor and immune cells in detail, both to discover tumor vulnerabilities and elucidate potential therapeutic alternatives. To meet the demands of our customers, we built our NeXT Platform to be cost-effective and scalable with rapid turnaround times for tissue sample data and analytics. The NeXT Platform represents the next step of our ACE Platform, allowing customers to move up the value chain by gaining more information from a single sample. We believe that our platforms have the potential to enable a research, development, and treatment paradigm that is dynamic and adaptive to the evolving genomic and immune system landscape of patients’ tumors over time. We believe our technology will drive this evolving paradigm, which will ultimately enable our customers to develop safer and more efficacious therapeutics (see Figure 3). As the clinical utility of our platforms increases, we expect to grow our diagnostic capabilities, including the ability to guide therapy based on a patient’s changing tumor and immune system, and supporting the commercialization of therapeutics developed by our biopharmaceutical customers. 11 Figure 3 . Personalis NeXT Platform addresses the increasingly complex understanding of cancer. Despite the large sums invested in research and despite new treatments, cancer remains a major challenge for modern medicine and a source of high unmet medical need. According to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Facts & Figures 2020 , as of January 1, 2019, there were more than 16.9 million people in the United States who were suffering from cancer or who had previously suffered from cancer. Cancer prevalence is increasing globally as well. The World Health Organization (the “WHO”) predicted in its September 2018 estimates on the global prevalence of cancer that there would be 18.1 million new cancer cases and nearly 10 million cancer deaths globally in 2018. According to the WHO, the total economic impact of healthcare expenditure and loss of productivity resulting from cancer worldwide was approximately $1.2 trillion in 2010. Improving Cancer Treatment is Increasingly About Leveraging Molecular Data Despite the rapid evolution of cancer therapies, the current research and development paradigm in oncology is beset by significant inefficiencies and costs. Cancer therapeutics have one of the lowest clinical trial success rates of all major diseases. According to a study of 7,455 drug development programs during 2006 to 2015, the overall likelihood of FDA approval from Phase I clinical trial for oncology developmental candidates was 5.1% (BIO Industry Analysis, Clinical Development Success Rates 2006-2015 , June 2016). The majority of currently available cancer therapeutics have serious limitations, including efficacy only in certain subsets of patients, limited long-term survival rates, and significant toxicities. The mechanisms underlying the success or failure of clinical trials are often poorly understood. To develop more efficacious cancer treatments, the biopharmaceutical community is faced with multiple key questions for a given therapeutic approach: • Why do some patients respond to treatment and others do not? • What are the underlying mechanisms of treatment resistance? • Are there additional therapeutic targets or alternative pathways that can improve outcomes? • What therapeutic combinations can improve outcomes? • Are there ways to increase patient response through personalized therapeutics? • Are there ways to reduce toxicity? There is a growing recognition that there is a tremendous amount of untapped molecular data that can be derived from analyzing tumors from large numbers of cancer patients, whether in cancer clinical trials or post-commercialization, that can help answer some of these seminal questions and accelerate therapeutic development. The threefold increase in probability of FDA approval from Phase I clinical trial for therapies with biomarkers across all diseases and therapeutic types provides an indication of the benefits of leveraging molecular data. Current Tumor Molecular Profiling Solutions Have Not Kept Pace with New Cancer Therapies Biopharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to tumor molecular profiling across large cohorts of patients to generate the data needed to answer these questions. Unfortunately, current tumor molecular profiling methods have not kept pace with new therapy development and overlook crucial elements of our evolving understanding of cancer biology. 12 Current T umor M olecular P rofiling F alls S hort for N ew C ancer I mmunotherapies Most current tumor molecular profiling panels were designed with a focus on targeted therapies, which, along with chemotherapy, have been used for cancer treatment for the past several decades. Targeted therapies treat cancers based on the specific genomic alterations driving their growth. Some targeted therapies have been developed to target specific molecules that are overexpressed or mutated in cancer cells. Because targeted therapies focus on cancer driver genes, the vast majority of tumor molecular profiling panels today, whether tissue or liquid biopsy based, typically sequence the DNA of between 50 to 500 genes, just a small fraction of the approximately 20,000 human genes. Recently, however, transformational new approaches to cancer therapy that have been developed to harness the patient’s own immune system have changed the treatment paradigm and our understanding of cancer biology. These new immunotherapies have dramatically improved the treatment of certain tumors that have previously been difficult to treat. Among these new immunotherapies, checkpoint inhibitors of the CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 genes are particularly effective. These therapies help “take the brakes off” the immune system and elicit a stronger immune response against the tumor. Patients can also be treated by adoptive cell therapy, in which the patient’s immune system is supplemented with cytotoxic cells that have been programmed to attack cells expressing specific antigens on their tumors. There are also new opportunities for personalized cancer therapies where a new therapeutic vaccine or cell therapy is developed for each patient. Despite early success, the majority of patients today still do not respond to immunotherapy, underscoring the importance of gathering data that can help biopharmaceutical companies understand factors governing response and resistance to therapy. With these new immunotherapies and our rapidly evolving understanding of cancer biology, we believe the data needed to inform therapeutic development goes far beyond the typical 50 to 500 genes on current tumor molecular profiling panels. The paradigm has shifted from the need to understand mechanisms behind a single gene target to a dynamic, systems biology view involving complex interactions between thousands of genes in the tumor and the immune system in the pathogenesis of cancer and cancer drug response. Information about all of the approximately 20,000 human genes allows deeper insight into the biology of cancer, identifying novel or patient-specific therapeutic targets, including neoantigens, and predictive biomarkers of response to therapy. Understanding the immune cell signatures in the tumor microenvironment and immune repertoire changes is critical for understanding drug response. In addition to DNA, comprehensive RNA expression information from the tumor is needed to analyze complex pathways that may be activated in the tumor. It is important to identify the increasingly complex mechanisms of tumor response and resistance to cancer therapy, such as neoantigen burden, tumor antigens, deficient antigen presentation, oncogenic pathways, immune evasion pathways, HLA mutations, T-cell clonality, immune infiltration, and others. Table 1 describes some of the biological gaps in current panels. Most of these elements go beyond the capabilities of today’s tumor molecular profiling panels. Table 1. Most current tumor tissue and liquid biopsy profiling panels miss critical tumor and immune biology. 13 Fragmented Tumor Molecular Profiling Approaches Result in a Fragmented View of Biology and Limited Insights With the lack of a comprehensive profiling solution, biopharmaceutical companies often turn to fragmented, piecemeal approaches to tumor molecular profiling as a stopgap measure. Those fragmented tumor molecular profiling approaches lead to major problems for therapeutic development. Limitations in available tumor samples, including liquid biopsies, force scientists to pick and choose which profiling platforms to include and which to omit, resulting in a fragmented picture of the biology. Fragmented profiling solutions also result in inconsistent profiling from patient to patient, and clinical trial to clinical trial. This results in data heterogeneity that makes it difficult to mine for new biological insights across cohorts of patients in trials. Finally, these piecemeal approaches to tumor molecular profiling result in solutions that often are difficult to use at scale in a clinical or therapeutic setting where logistical simplicity, cost, turnaround time, and validation are important. Current Tumor Molecular Profiling Panels Can Become Antiquated with Evolving Science With the explosion of immunotherapy and advances in our understanding of cancer, new insights into the underlying mechanisms of response and resistance have emerged. New putative genetic or immune biomarkers of response are regularly identified for different therapies in the context of different cancers. For instance, new biomarkers have been identified including tumor mutational burden, neoantigens, HLA type, B2M mutations, TGFß, JAK1/JAK2 mutations, expression signatures, cytotoxicity signatures, and T-cell clonality, among others. A recent Nature Medicine review identified 18 different categories of biomarkers correlating with immunotherapy response spanning tumor, immune cells, and the tumor microenvironment. Due to the limited coverage of most cancer panels, they may miss new biomarkers. We believe this problem will continue as research uncovers new insights into cancer. Sequencing Quality and Coverage Next generation sequencing (“NGS”) is the technological basis for many tumor molecular profiling platforms today. NGS rapidly sequences nucleic acids and then uses a computationally intensive process to reconstruct gene sequences from millions of short sequence segments. These segments are processed in parallel, an approach that greatly increases the speed that the sequence data can be generated. However, because the segments come from random locations in the genome, reassembling the original sequence is both a technically and computationally challenging process. A key objective is to ensure that every portion of the genes being sequenced is covered by at least one sequence segment. The average number of sequence segments representing a gene is referred to as the sequence depth. The deeper the coverage, the greater fraction of the gene is likely to be covered and the higher confidence that low-frequency variants can be found. However, even when sequenced to high depth, typical NGS approaches can leave uneven, poor coverage in genes with mutations linked to cancer and cancer therapy. Many of these regions cannot be fully covered by simply sequencing to higher depth because their sequencing coverage deficits are due to inherent limitations of the NGS platform. Regions of high guanine-cytosine (“GC”) content or repetitive sequence regions are two such examples of regions that are difficult to cover with standard NGS assays. This can leave gaps in coverage of therapeutically important genes. This is particularly problematic in cancer, where there can be significant heterogeneity in the tumor samples that can make it even harder to see mutations in regions of poor coverage. To address the limitations of typical NGS-based assay, we have developed our patented ACE technology for next-generation sequencing. ACE improves nucleic acid preparation processes and combines it with patented assay and sequencing methods to achieve superior, high-fidelity, clinical-grade sequencing quality that ensures high sensitivity for mutations that can inform clinical and therapeutic applications such as neoantigen prediction, biomarker identification, and novel drug target selection. Our NeXT Platform uses our ACE technology to provide coverage of difficult-to-sequence gene regions across all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, filling in key gaps left by other NGS approaches. ACE technology provides superior and uniform coverage of difficult genomic regions, such as high GC content areas, and fills gaps and inconsistencies in sequencing to achieve an optimal output. ACE is able to deliver more comprehensive coverage not by simply generating more data, but by generating higher quality data. We and others have shown in two publications that our ACE technology achieves superior gene sequencing coverage and finishing. Commercialization Strategy We commercialize our products in the United States and Europe through our targeted sales organization. We have also recently begun efforts to commercialize our products in China. In June 2020, we announced a partnership with a clinical genomics and life sciences company headquartered in China and our formation of a wholly owned subsidiary in Shanghai. In 2020, we derived substantially all of our revenues from our customers in the United States. Our sales representatives have extensive experience in enterprise/consultative selling in the genomics space. We augment this team with Ph.D.-level Field Application Specialists that provide deep understanding and expertise in the areas of oncology and genomics applications, ensuring top-quality pre- and post-sales customer support. Our commercial efforts are focused on demonstrating the value proposition of the NeXT Platform to biopharmaceutical customers with the goal of both increasing utilization of the product at existing accounts and to drive adoption in new targeted accounts. Our entire commercial organization promotes our ability to support biopharmaceutical customers across several application areas including biomarker discovery, new target discovery, therapy development, and treatment monitoring. We anticipate that patients in clinical trials for cancer therapies will increasingly be tested pre-treatment and periodically afterwards to understand response to treatment in deep molecular detail, as their tumors evolve under therapeutic pressure. Although the majority of our revenues come from single time point testing, we believe our revenues from multiple time point testing will continue to grow. We also derive revenues from analysis of multiple customer samples from the same patient and time point to assess genetic 14 differences between the primary tumor and metastases. Given the value of comprehensive genomic information from multiple time points or samples, we anticipate that our revenue, and the available market, will continue to grow. As the clinical utility of advanced biomarkers is further established, we expect there to be a patient-centered diagnostic opportunity whereby some patients would be guided to personalized therapies. We believe that our platform’s ability to support biomarkers for a broad range of therapeutics positions us to be a leader in therapy selection for patients. Our Customers Our cancer genomic services are sold primarily to pharmaceutical companies, biopharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, universities, non-profits, and government entities, while services for population sequencing initiatives are sold primarily to the VA MVP, which is a government entity. Our customers include a majority of the top ten oncology-focused pharmaceutical companies, as measured by annual revenues. As of the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, 45 customers have placed orders for our NeXT Platform products. In 2020, VA MVP accounted for 71% of our revenues. No other customer accounted for 10% or more of our revenues. In 2019, we had two customers account for 10% or more of our revenues: VA MVP at 67% and Pfizer Inc. at 13%. In 2018, we had three customers account for 10% or more of our revenues: VA MVP at 49%, Merck & Co., Inc. at 12%, and Pfizer Inc. at 10%. Our Competition Our principal competition comes from commercial and academic organizations using established and new laboratory tests to produce information that is similar to the information that we generate for our customers. These companies offer services that implement various technological approaches including next-generation sequencing and microarray analyses. Some of our present or potential competitors include Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, C2i Genomics, Inc., Caris Life Sciences, Inc., Covance Inc., which was acquired by Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in February 2015, Foundation Medicine, Inc., which was acquired by Roche Holdings, Inc. in July 2018, Freenome, Inc., Genosity, Inc., Guardant Health, Inc., Inivata Limited, Invitae Corporation, Mount Sinai Genomics, Inc. which does business under the name Sema4, Natera, Inc., NanoString Technologies, Inc., NeoGenomics, Inc., Personal Genome Diagnostics, Inc., Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., and Tempus, Inc. Additionally, several companies develop next-generation sequencing platforms that can be used for genomic profiling for biopharmaceutical research and development applications. These include Illumina, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., and other organizations that specialize in the development of next-generation sequencing instrumentation that can be sold directly to biopharmaceutical companies, clinical laboratories, and research centers. Separate from their instrumentation product lines, both Illumina and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., for example, currently market next-generation sequencing clinical oncology kits that are sold to customers who have bought and operate their respective sequencing instruments. We believe that we compete favorably because of the integrity and comprehensiveness of the data generated by our NeXT Platform. Maximizing insights into both the tumor- and immune-related components of the tumor microenvironment is essential in identifying and understanding the reasons why certain cancer patients respond more favorably to oncology therapies than others. It is via access to such a comprehensive dataset for each patient that our customers can begin to discover new, clinically relevant biomarkers for the immunotherapy era, and ultimately improve cancer patient outcomes with the development of more efficacious therapeutics. Intellectual Property Protection of our intellectual property is fundamental to the long-term success of our business. Specifically, our success is dependent on our ability to obtain and maintain proprietary protection for our technology and the know-how related to our business, defend and enforce our intellectual property rights, and operate our business without infringing, misappropriating, or otherwise violating valid and enforceable intellectual property rights of others. We seek to protect our investments made into the development of our technology by relying on a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, know-how, confidentiality agreements and procedures, non-disclosure agreements with third parties, employee disclosure and invention assignment agreements, and other contractual rights. Our patent strategy is focused on seeking coverage for our core technology, our ACE assay, and specific follow-on applications and implementations for enhancing sequencing coverage of certain genomic regions and analyzing cell-free nucleic acids. In addition, we file for patent protection on our ongoing research and development, particularly other novel assay technologies which may be applicable in cancer cases and other diseases. Notwithstanding these efforts, we cannot be sure that patents will be granted with respect to any patent applications we have filed or may license or file in the future, and we cannot be sure that any patents we have or may be licensed or granted to us in the future, will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented, or that such patents will be commercially useful in protecting our technology. Moreover, we rely, in part, on trade secrets to protect aspects of our business that are not amenable to, or that we do not consider appropriate for, patent protection. However, trade secrets can be difficult to protect. While we take steps to protect and preserve our trade secrets, including by entering into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, scientific advisors, and contractors, conducting an annual training for our employees to increase awareness of cybersecurity threats, and maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems, such measures can be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for any such breach. In addition, our trade secrets may otherwise become known or be independently discovered by competitors. For more information regarding the risks related to our intellectual property, please see “Risk Factors—Intellectual Property Risks.” 15 Our patent portfolio is comprised of patents and patent applications owned by the company. These patents and patent applications generally fall into five broad categories: • our ACE assay technology, including claims directed to methods for enriching sample nucleic acids based on differences in GC-content, molecular size, presence of genetic variations or rearrangements, epigenetic modifications, and species-origin (e.g., human and non-human); • hybrid exome-genome technologies, including claims directed to methods for combining exome and genome sequencing data generated from a sample to identify polymorphisms; • liquid biopsy methods, including claims directed to methods of analyzing sequenced cell-free and leukocyte-derived nucleic acids in a blood sample to identify a tissue source, or recommend a drug treatment; • clinical interpretation methods, including claims directed to methods of ranking genes associated with a phenotype and inheritance pattern; and • personalized genetic testing assays, including claims directed to methods for using sequencing data to create a personalized genetic test to monitor cancer progression, or the recurrence of disease. As of December 31, 2020, we own thirteen issued U.S. and foreign patents in China and the United Kingdom and several pending U.S. and foreign patent applications. Issued U.S. patents in our portfolio of company-owned patents are expected to expire between 2033 and 2038, excluding any additional term for patent term adjustments or patent term extensions. If patents are issued on our pending patent applications, the resulting patents are projected to expire on dates ranging from 2033 to 2040. Government Regulations Federal and State Laboratory Licensing Requirements Under the CLIA, a laboratory is any facility that performs laboratory testing on specimens derived from humans for the purpose of providing information for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of disease, or the impairment of or assessment of health. CLIA requires that a laboratory hold a certificate applicable to the type of laboratory examinations it performs and that it complies with, among other things, standards covering operations, personnel, facilities administration, quality systems and proficiency testing, which are intended to ensure, among other things, that clinical laboratory testing services are accurate, reliable and timely. To renew our CLIA certificate, we are subject to survey and inspection every two years to assess compliance with program standards. Because we are a CAP accredited laboratory, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) does not perform this survey and inspection and relies on our CAP survey and inspection. We also may be subject to additional unannounced inspections. Laboratories performing high complexity testing are required to meet more stringent requirements than laboratories performing less complex tests. In addition, a laboratory that is certified as “high complexity” under CLIA may develop, manufacture, validate, and use proprietary tests referred to as laboratory developed tests (“LDTs”). CLIA requires analytical validation including accuracy, precision, specificity, sensitivity, and establishment of a reference range for any LDT used in clinical testing. The regulatory and compliance standards applicable to the testing we perform may change over time, and any such changes could have a material effect on our business. CLIA provides that a state may adopt laboratory regulations that are more stringent than those under federal law, and a number of states have implemented their own more stringent laboratory regulatory requirements. State laws may require that nonresident laboratories, or out-of-state laboratories, maintain an in-state laboratory license to perform tests on samples from patients who reside in that state. As a condition of state licensure, these state laws may require that laboratory personnel meet certain qualifications, specify certain quality control procedures or facility requirements, or prescribe record maintenance requirements. Because our laboratory is located in the state of California, we are required to and do maintain a California state laboratory license. We also maintain licenses to conduct testing in other states where nonresident laboratories are required to obtain state laboratory licenses. We maintain a current license with the New York State Department of Health for our laboratory. Other states may currently have or adopt similar licensure requirements in the future, which may require us to modify, delay, or stop its operations in those states. Regulatory framework for medical devices in the United States Pursuant to its authority under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (the “FDC Act”), the FDA has jurisdiction over medical devices, which are defined to include, among other things, in vitro diagnostic devices (“IVDs”). The FDA regulates, among other things, the research, design, development, pre-clinical and clinical testing, manufacturing, safety, effectiveness, packaging, labeling, storage, recordkeeping, pre-market clearance or approval, adverse event reporting, marketing, promotion, sales, distribution, and import and export of medical devices. Unless an exemption applies, each new or significantly modified medical device we seek to commercially distribute in the United States will require either a premarket notification to the FDA requesting permission for commercial distribution under Section 510(k) of the FDC Act, also referred to as a 510(k) clearance, or approval from the FDA of a PMA. Both the 510(k) clearance and PMA processes can be resource intensive, expensive, and lengthy, and require payment of significant user fees. Although the FDA regulates medical devices, including IVDs, the FDA has historically exercised its enforcement discretion and not enforced applicable provisions of the FDC Act and FDA regulations with respect to LDTs, which are a subset of IVDs that are intended for clinical use and developed, validated, and offered within a single laboratory for use only in that laboratory. We market our diagnostic test based on the NeXT Platform as an LDT. As a result, we believe our diagnostic services are not currently subject to the FDA’s enforcement of its medical device regulations and the applicable FDC Act provisions. 16 Federal and State Fraud and Abuse Laws We are subject to federal fraud and abuse laws such as the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (the “AKS”), the federal prohibition against physician self-referral (the “Stark Law”), and the federal false claims law, or the False Claims Act (the “FCA”). We are also subject to similar state and foreign fraud and abuse laws. The AKS prohibits, among other things, knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, in return for or to induce such person to refer an individual, or to purchase, lease, order, arrange for, or recommend purchasing, leasing, or ordering, any good, facility, item, or service that is reimbursable, in whole or in part, under a federal healthcare program. The Stark Law and similar state laws, including California’s Physician Ownership and Referral Act, generally prohibit, among other things, clinical laboratories and other entities from billing a patient or any governmental or commercial payer for any diagnostic services when the physician ordering the service, or any member of such physician’s immediate family, has a direct or indirect investment interest in or compensation arrangement with us, unless the arrangement meets an exception to the prohibition. Other federal fraud and abuse laws to which we are subject include, but are not limited to, the federal civil and criminal false claims laws including the FCA, which imposes liability on any person or entity that, among other things, knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment to the federal government, and the federal Civil Monetary Penalties Law, which prohibits, among other things, the offering or transfer of remuneration to a Medicare or state healthcare program beneficiary if the person knows or should know it is likely to influence the beneficiary’s selection of a particular provider, practitioner, or supplier of services reimbursable by Medicare or a state healthcare program, unless an exception applies. Under the FCA, private citizens can bring claims on behalf of the government through qui tam actions. We must also operate within the bounds of the fraud and abuse laws of the states in which we do business which may apply to items or services reimbursed by non-governmental third-party payers, including private insurers. Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will involve substantial costs. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion from government-funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, disgorgement, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, additional reporting, or oversight obligations if we become subject to a corporate integrity agreement or other agreement to resolve allegations of non-compliance with the law and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. If any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we do business is found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to significant criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government-funded healthcare programs. HIPAA and HITECH Under the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) issued regulations that establish uniform standards governing the conduct of certain electronic healthcare transactions and requirements for protecting the privacy and security of protected health information (“PHI”), used or disclosed by covered entities and business associates. Covered entities and business associates are subject to HIPAA and HITECH. Our subcontractors that create, receive, maintain, transmit, or otherwise process PHI on behalf of us are HIPAA “business associates” and must also comply with HIPAA as a business associate. HIPAA and HITECH include privacy and security rules, breach notification requirements, and electronic transaction standards. The Privacy Rule covers the use and disclosure of PHI by covered entities and business associates. The Privacy Rule generally prohibits the use or disclosure of PHI, except as permitted under the Rule. The Privacy Rule also sets forth individual patient rights, such as the right to access or amend certain records containing his or her PHI, or to request restrictions on the use or disclosure of his or her PHI. The Security Rule requires covered entities and business associates to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronically transmitted or stored PHI by implementing administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Under HITECH’s Breach Notification Rule, a covered entity must notify individuals, the Secretary of the HHS, and in some circumstances, the media of breaches of unsecured PHI. In addition, we may be subject to state health information privacy and data breach notification laws, which may govern the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of health-related and other personal information. California, for example, has enacted the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act, which sets forth standards in addition to HIPAA and HITECH with which all California health care providers like us must abide. State laws may be more stringent, broader in scope, or offer greater individual rights with respect to PHI than HIPAA, and state laws may differ from each other, which may complicate compliance efforts. Entities that are found to be in violation of HIPAA as the result of a failure to secure PHI, a complaint about our privacy practices or an audit by HHS, may be subject to significant civil and criminal fines and penalties and additional reporting and oversight obligations if such entities are required to enter into a resolution agreement and corrective action plan with HHS to settle allegations of HIPAA non-compliance. 17 U.S. Healthcare Reform In the United States, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes at the federal and state levels that seek to reduce healthcare costs and improve the quality of healthcare. For example, in March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (collectively, the “ACA”), became law. This law substantially changed the way health care is financed by both commercial payers and government payers, and significantly impacted our industry. The ACA contained a number of provisions expected to impact the clinical laboratory industry, such as changes governing enrollment in state and federal health care programs, reimbursement changes, and fraud and abuse. Some of the provisions of the ACA have yet to be implemented, and there have been judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the ACA, as well as recent efforts by the former Trump administration to repeal or replace certain aspects of the ACA. Since January 2017, former President Trump signed two executive orders and other directives designed to delay the implementation of certain provisions of the ACA. Concurrently, Congress considered legislation that would repeal, or repeal and replace, all or part of the ACA. While Congress has not passed comprehensive repeal legislation, it has enacted laws that modify certain provisions of the ACA such as removing penalties, starting January 1, 2019, for not complying with the ACA’s individual mandate to carry health insurance and delaying the implementation of certain ACA-mandated fees. On December 14, 2018, a Texas U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the ACA is unconstitutional in its entirety because the “individual mandate” was repealed by Congress as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. While the Texas U.S. District Court Judge, as well as the Trump administration and CMS, stated that the ruling will have no immediate effect pending appeal of the decision, it is unclear how this decision, subsequent appeals, and other efforts to repeal and replace the ACA will impact the ACA. We anticipate there will continue to be proposals by legislators at both the federal and state levels, regulators and commercial payers to reduce costs while expanding individual healthcare benefits. Certain of these changes could impose additional limitations on the prices we will be able to charge for our tests, the coverage of or the amounts of reimbursement available for our tests from payers, including commercial payers and government payers. Material Agreements VA MVP Agreement On September 28, 2017, we entered into a contract with the VA for the VA MVP to provide them with a combination of whole genome sequencing services (the “VA MVP Agreement”). The performance period for the services includes a base period of one year (September 2017 through August 2018), with three one-year renewal option periods that may be exercised upon discretion of the VA MVP (September 2018 through August 2019; September 2019 through August 2020; and September 2020 through August 2021). Each task order issued against the VA MVP Agreement has a separate period of performance and is subject to the terms and conditions of the VA MVP Agreement. Funds are obligated by the VA MVP under each task order based on actual needs. To date, the VA MVP has exercised all of its three one-year renewal options, meaning that the VA MVP Agreement expires at the end of August 2021 and there are no remaining renewal options. Our current task order extends through August 2021. In order for us to provide additional services to the VA MVP after August 2021, we would need to receive an additional task order before the VA MVP Agreement expires in September 2021, or enter into a new services agreement with the VA MVP. All materials and samples utilized during the course of the VA MVP Agreement and all data first produced or delivered under the VA MVP Agreement are the sole property of the VA MVP. Under the VA MVP Agreement, we are subject to confidentiality and security obligations, as well as various obligations upon events of default. The VA MVP may terminate the VA MVP Agreement, or any part thereof, at its sole convenience. Subject to the terms of the VA MVP Agreement, we shall be paid a percentage of the contract price reflecting the percentage of the work performed prior to the notice of termination, plus reasonable charges that we can demonstrate have resulted from the termination. The VA MVP may terminate the VA MVP Agreement, or any part thereof, for cause in the event of any default by us, or if we fail to comply with any contract terms and conditions, or fail to provide the VA MVP, upon request, with adequate assurances of future performance. In the event of termination for cause, the VA MVP shall not be liable to us for any amount for supplies or services not accepted, and we shall be liable to the VA MVP for any and all rights and remedies provided by law. If it is determined that the VA MVP improperly terminated this contract for default, such termination shall be deemed a termination for convenience. Agreements with Illumina On March 1, 2019, we received a quotation for supply of genetic analysis products (the “Quote”) from Illumina. The Quote provided information as to the cost of five NovaSeq TM 6000 Sequencing System instruments. The term of the Quote extended through March 31, 2019. On March 20, 2019, we submitted a purchase order to Illumina for five NovaSeq TM 6000 Sequencing System instruments, four of which we have received and one of which will be received on or before the due date of March 23, 2023. On November 1, 2017, we entered into a master services subcontract agreement (the “Subcontract Agreement”) with Illumina. Under the terms of the Subcontract Agreement, we engaged Illumina as our subcontractor to perform certain genotyping services (the “Services”) on our behalf pursuant to written purchase orders in fulfillment of our VA MVP Agreement. The price for Illumina’s Services set forth in the Subcontract Agreement is effective through December 31, 2021, or later if the VA MVP Agreement is extended. 18 The Subcontract Agreement extends through the last day of the VA MVP Agreement, currently August 2021 but as may be extended, unless it is otherwise terminated early pursuant to its terms. All or part of the Subcontract Agreement may be terminated at our convenience in the event that the VA MVP terminates the VA MVP Agreement or terminates the part of the VA MVP Agreement that affects the Services provided by Illumina. Each party may terminate the Subcontract Agreement for default in the event that the other party materially fails to perform any of the provisions of the Subcontract Agreement, materially fails to make progress so as to endanger performance of the Subcontract Agreement in accordance with its terms, or becomes financially or legally incapable of completing the work and does not provide a plan of correction or recovery within the provided period of time to cure such failure. The Subcontract Agreement may be renewed for subsequent one-year terms as agreed by the parties subject to a four-year limit. On March 26, 2019, we entered into a pricing agreement with Illumina, which provides pricing terms for the NovaSeq™ 5000/6000 S4 Reagent Kit (each, a “Kit”). The pricing agreement had a purchase commitment of $1.7 million by June 30, 2019 to purchase these Kits, which we fulfilled in the ordinary course of business. The term of the pricing agreement extends through December 31, 2022. From time to time, we receive quotations for supply of genetic analysis products from Illumina that provide for pricing terms on Illumina products outside of those discussed above. Human Capital Management within Our Company We recognize that our employees are both our most valuable asset and our most important investment. The success of our organization is reliant upon each individual’s significant contribution to our corporate culture and goals. Following is a list of our core company values: • Integrity • Respect • Teamwork and collaboration • Commitment to scientific excellence • Dedication to discovery and innovation • Passion We understand that our future depends upon the attraction, retention, and engagement of a talented, diverse, and committed team that can thrive and innovate in a supportive and safe environment. Our efforts to ensure this occurs across the enterprise include offering competitive total rewards programs, ongoing training and development, commitment to the safety and health of our employees, and support for our employees during the unprecedented global circumstances that began in 2020. Many of our insights and adaptations during 2020 related to the hiring and support of our employees are expected to be continued through 2021. These include additional outreach and enhanced communication by our leadership and employees at multiple levels and support for more flexible work plans. At a foundational level, employees receive training related to workplace safety and emergency preparedness, awareness and expectations of inclusion and diversity, required data protection, and other regulatory matters. Our Diversity Committee identifies learnings employees can benefit from including insights from employees with different backgrounds and opportunities to actively contribute at work and in our communities to support diversity and inclusiveness. As an example, we have made visible the contributions of various groups to the science that informs our work at Personalis. We believe engagement and retention is especially critical at Personalis given the complex and highly technical nature of our work. Successfully onboarding new employees involves a significant commitment from managers and fellow employees. Retaining newly hired team members is also critical given the relatively small number of applicants who meet our requirements and the competitive market for such talent. Our approach involves ongoing internal and external reviews and benchmarking of the competitiveness of our offerings, including in the following areas: cash and equity compensation, benefits, workplace flexibility, and career growth and development opportunities. As a company with significant growth plans, we expect to continue not only with our current efforts, but to broaden them with input from employees and managers, as well as comparisons with others in our industries and other sectors. As of December 31, 2020, we had 235 employees, 234 of whom were full-time employees. Of these full-time employees, 96 were in research and development, 60 in laboratory operations, 44 in commercial operations, and 34 in general and administrative functions. At this time, 227 of our full-time employees are in the United States (including 208 who are based out of our corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, California), six of our full-time employees are in Europe, and one of our full-time employees is in China. As of December 31, 2020, more than 95 of our employees had completed a Ph.D. or other advanced science or medical degree. None of our employees are represented by a labor union or covered by collective bargaining agreements, and we have not experienced any work stoppages. We consider our relations with our employees to be good. 19 Environment We believe we are in compliance with the regulations established by the state of California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Requirements and California Environmental Protection Agency applicable to our operations in Menlo Park, California. This includes, but is not limited to, having an Injury and Illness Prevention Program, a Hazard Communication Program, an Emergency Action Plan, a Chemical Hygiene Plan and an Exposure Control Plan, which are captured in written standard operating procedures (“SOPs”). We provide training to our employees on these SOPs. We are committed to evaluate our compliance to such regulations on a recurring basis. Available Information Our website is located at https://www.personalis.com. Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, including their exhibits, proxy and information statements, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a), 14, and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are available through the “Investors” portion of our website free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. Information on our website is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any of our other securities filings unless specifically incorporated herein or therein by reference. In addition, our filings with the SEC may be accessed through the SEC’s Interactive Data Electronic Applications system at http://www.sec.gov. All statements made in any of our securities filings, including all forward-looking statements or information, are made as of the date of the document in which the statement is included, and we do not assume or undertake any obligation to update any of those statements or documents unless we are required to do so by law. 20