UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

☒ ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020

OR

☐ TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM                    TO

Commission File Number 001-37521

INTEC PHARMA LTD.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its Charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: +972-2-586-4657

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. YES ☐  NO ☒

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YES ☐  NO ☒

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

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

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

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☐

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

The aggregate market value of the ordinary shares held by non-affiliates of the Registrant, based on the closing price of the ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market on June 30, 2020, was $19,549,537.

The number of shares of Registrant’s ordinary shares outstanding as of March 12, 2021: 4,502,578.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

None.

Table of Contents

ABOUT THIS ANNUAL REPORT

All references to “we,” “us,” “our,” “Intec”, “Intec Israel”, “the Company” and “our company”, in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, or our Annual Report, are to Intec Pharma Ltd. and its subsidiaries Intec Pharma Inc. and Intec Parent, Inc., Dillon Merger Sub, Inc. and Domestication Merger Sub Ltd., unless the context otherwise requires. All references to Intec Parent are to Intec Parent, Inc., a newly formed Delaware wholly owned subsidiary of Intec Israel that is intended to be the successor to Intec Israel following the domestication of Intec Israel to Delaware as further described under “Item 1. Business — Proposed Merger.” All references to “ordinary shares” and “share capital” refer to ordinary shares and share capital of Intec Israel. All references to “Israel” are to the State of Israel. Our historical results do not necessarily indicate our expected results for any future periods. Any discrepancies in any table between totals and sums of the amounts listed are due to rounding. Unless otherwise indicated, or the context otherwise requires, references in this Annual Report to financial and operational data for a particular year refer to the fiscal year of our Company ended December 31 of that year.

In this Annual Report, “NIS” means New Israeli Shekel, and “$,” “US$” and “U.S. dollars” mean United States dollars.

Unless otherwise indicated, all information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K gives effect to a 1-for-20 reverse share split of our ordinary shares that became effective on October 30, 2020, and all references to ordinary shares outstanding and per share amounts give effect to the reverse share split.

No Offer or Solicitation

This communication shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act.

Additional Information about the Proposed Merger and Where to Find It

In connection with the proposed merger between Intec Israel and Decoy Biosystems, Intec Israel will file a Registration Statement on Form S-4, which will include a document that serves as a proxy statement and prospectus of Intec Israel and Intec Israel plans to file other documents regarding the proposed merger with the SEC. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS AND OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY, WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE, BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION THAT SHAREHOLDERS SHOULD CONSIDER BEFORE MAKING ANY DECISION REGARDING THE PROPOSED MERGER. A definitive proxy statement/prospectus will be sent to Intec Israel’s and Decoy Biosystems’ shareholders. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain these documents (when available) free of charge from the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. The documents filed by Intec with the SEC may also be obtained free of charge from the Company by requesting them by mail at Intec Pharma Ltd., 12 Hartom Street, Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem 9777512, Israel.

Participants in the Solicitation

Intec Israel and its respective directors and executive officers and other members of management and employees and certain of their respective significant shareholders may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from Intec shareholders in respect of the proposed merger. Information about the Intec Israel’s directors and executive officers is available in this Annual Report. Information regarding the persons who may, under the rules of the SEC, be deemed participants in the proxy solicitation and a description of their direct and indirect interests, by security holding or otherwise, will be contained in the proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials to be filed with the SEC regarding the proposed merger when they become available. Investors should read the proxy statement/prospectus carefully when it becomes available before making any voting or investment decisions. You may obtain free copies of these documents from the SEC and Intec Israel as indicated above.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report contains forward-looking statements about our expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding, among other things, our product development efforts, business, financial condition, results of operations, strategies, plans and prospects. In addition, from time to time, we or our representatives have made or may make forward-looking statements, orally or in writing. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “anticipate,” “could,” “might,” “seek,” “target,” “will,” “project,” “forecast,” “continue” or their negatives or variations of these words or other comparable words or by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical matters. These forward-looking statements may be included in, among other things, various filings made by us with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, press releases or oral statements made by or with the approval of one of our authorized executive officers. Forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results as of the date they are made. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause our actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors summarized below:

We believe these forward-looking statements are reasonable; however, these statements are only current predictions and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our or our industry’s actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements. We discuss many of these risks in this Annual Report in greater detail under the heading “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report. Given these uncertainties, you should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events.

All forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf speak only as of the date hereof and are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements included in this Annual Report. We undertake no obligations to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. In evaluating forward-looking statements, you should consider these risks and uncertainties and not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

Market data and certain industry data and forecasts used throughout this Annual Report were obtained from market research databases, consultant surveys commissioned by us, publicly available information, reports of governmental agencies and industry publications and surveys. Industry surveys, publications, consultant surveys commissioned by us and forecasts generally state that the information contained therein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. We have relied on certain data from third-party sources, including internal surveys, industry forecasts and market research, which we believe to be reliable based on our management’s knowledge of the industry. Statements as to our market position are based on the most currently available data. While we are not aware of any misstatements regarding the industry data presented in this Annual Report, our estimates involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change based on various factors, including those discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we remain responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the historical information presented in this Annual Report, as of the date on the front cover of this Annual Report.

PART I

Item 1. Business.

Historical Background and Corporate Structure

Intec Pharma Ltd. was established and incorporated in Israel on October 23, 2000 as a private Israeli company under the name Orly Guy Ltd. In February 2001, our name was changed to Intec Pharmaceuticals (2000) Ltd. Our research and development activities began originally through a private partnership, Intec Pharmaceutical Partnership I.P.P, a general Israeli partnership, formed on September 21, 2000. Its operations were transferred in full to us at the beginning of 2002 in return for the allocation of shares in our company to the partners in the partnership, pro rata with their ownership in the partnership. In March 2004, we changed our corporate name to Intec Pharma Ltd. In February 2010, we successfully completed an initial public offering in Israel on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, or TASE and in August 2015 we completed an initial public offering in the U.S. In September 2017, we incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary, Intec Pharma Inc., in the State of Delaware. In August 2018, we voluntarily delisted from the TASE.

Effective January 1, 2019, we ceased reporting as a “foreign private issuer” as defined in Rule 3b-4 of the Exchange Act, and became subject to the rules and regulations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or Exchange Act, applicable to U.S. domestic issuers. As a result, we have been filing an Annual Report on Form 10-K beginning with the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018. Our annual reports for prior years were filed on Form 20-F.

We are a smaller reporting company, and we will remain a smaller reporting company until the fiscal year following the determination that our ordinary shares held by non-affiliates is more than $250 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter, or our annual revenues are more than $100 million during the most recently completed fiscal year and our ordinary shares held by non-affiliates is more than $700 million measured on the last business day of our second fiscal quarter. Similar to emerging growth companies, smaller reporting companies are able to provide simplified executive compensation disclosure, are exempt from the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404, and have certain other reduced disclosure obligations, including, among other things, being required to provide only two years of audited financial statements and not being required to provide selected financial data, supplemental financial information or risk factors.

Our principal executive offices are located in Har Hotzvim at 12 Hartom Street, Jerusalem, Israel 9777512 and our telephone number is (+972) (2) 586-4657. Our website address is http://www.intecpharma.com. The information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website is neither a part of nor incorporated into this Annual Report. We have included our website address in this Annual Report solely as an inactive textual reference.

We use our investor relations website (http://ir.intecpharma.com) as a channel of distribution of Company information. The information we post through this channel may be deemed material. Accordingly, investors should monitor our website, in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. The contents of our website are not, however, a part of this Annual Report.

Proposed Merger with Decoy Biosystems

On March 15, 2021, Intec Israel, Intec Parent, Inc, a Delaware corporation, or Intec Parent, Dillon Merger Subsidiary Inc., a Delaware corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Intec Parent, or the Merger Sub, Domestication Merger Sub Ltd., an Israeli company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Intec Parent, or the Domestication Merger Sub, and Decoy Biosystems, Inc., a Delaware corporation, or Decoy, entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger and Reorganization, or the Merger Agreement, pursuant to which, following the merger of the Domestication Merger Sub with and into Intec Israel, with Intec Israel being the surviving entity and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intec Parent, or the Domestication Merger, and upon satisfaction of additional closing conditions, the Merger Sub will merge with and into Decoy, with Decoy being the surviving entity and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intec Parent, or the Merger. The Merger is expected to be completed in the third calendar quarter of 2021 and if it is completed then the business of Decoy will become the business of Intec Parent.

The Merger

As set forth in the Merger Agreement, after completion of the Domestication Merger and subject to other closing conditions of the Merger, on the closing date, or the Closing Date, the Merger Sub will merge with and into Decoy, with Decoy being the surviving entity. As a result of the Merger, Decoy will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intec Parent.

Subject to the terms and conditions of the Merger Agreement, at the effective time of the Merger, which shall occur on the Closing Date, or the Effective Time, (i) each outstanding share of Decoy common stock, par value $0.001 per share, or the Decoy Common Stock (other than any shares held as treasury stock (which will be cancelled) and any dissenting shares and after giving effect to the conversion of Decoy SAFEs (Simple Agreements for Future Equity) and Decoy preferred stock into Decoy Common Stock) will be converted into shares of Intec Parent common stock, par value $0.01 per share, or Intec Common Stock, based on the exchange ratio as described below, and (ii) each outstanding and unexercised Decoy stock option, whether vested or unvested, will be converted into a stock option exercisable for that number of shares of Intec Parent Common Stock equal to the product of (x) the aggregate number of shares of Decoy Common Stock for which such stock option was exercisable and (y) the exchange ratio. The shares of Intec Parent Common Stock issuable in exchange for shares of Decoy Common Stock as described above are referred to as the “Merger Shares.”

Under the exchange ratio formula in the Merger Agreement, without taking into consideration the effect of the respective levels of cash and liabilities of each of Intec Israel and Decoy, which will result in an adjustment to such exchange ratio, following the closing of the Merger, or the Closing, the former Decoy securityholders immediately before the Merger are expected to own approximately 75% of the aggregate number of the outstanding securities of Intec Parent, and the securityholders of the Company immediately before the Domestication Merger are expected to own approximately 25% of the aggregate number of the outstanding securities of Intec Parent, calculated on a fully diluted basis. The actual allocation will be subject to adjustment based on, among other things, Decoy’s and Intec Israel’s net cash balance (including, in the case of the Company, any proceeds from any disposition of the Accordion Pill business), subject to certain exceptions. As further described below, the Closing is also conditioned on completion of the Domestication Merger and on a financing by the Company or Intec Parent, which will dilute securityholders of both Intec Israel and Decoy on a pro-rata basis.

Following the Closing, Jeffrey Meckler will serve as Intec Parent’s Chief Executive Officer, Michael Newman will serve as Intec Parent’s Chief Scientific Officer, Nir Sassi will serve as Intec Parent’s Chief Financial Officer, and Walt Linscott will serve as Intec Parent’s Chief Business Officer. Additionally, following the Closing, the board of directors of Intec Parent is expected to initially consist of eight directors and will be comprised of (i) five (5) members designated by the Company and (ii) three (3) members designated by Decoy.

The Merger Agreement contains customary representations, warranties and covenants made by each of the Company and Decoy, including covenants relating to (i) the conduct of their respective businesses prior to the Closing, (ii) the preparation and filing of a registration statement on Form S-4 registering the Merger Shares and the shares of Intec Parent Common Stock to be issued in connection with the Domestication Merger (the “Registration Statement”) and the preparation and/or filing, as applicable, of a proxy statement/information statement for the special meeting or approval by written consent, as applicable, of shareholders of each of the Company and Decoy, (iii) holding a meeting or approval by written consent, as applicable, of shareholders of each of the Company and Decoy to obtain their requisite approvals in connection with the Domestication Merger and Merger, as applicable, including, among other approvals, the approval by the Company shareholders of the issuance of the Merger Shares, and (iv) subject to certain exceptions, the recommendation of the board of directors of each party to the Merger Agreement to its shareholders that such approvals be given.

Consummation of the Merger is subject to certain closing conditions, including, among other things, (i) consummation of the Domestication Merger, (ii) approval of certain matters related to the Merger by the shareholders of the Company and approval of the Merger by the stockholders of Decoy, (iii) the effectiveness of the Registration Statement, (iv) the continued listing of the Company’s ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market (and following the Domestication Merger, the shares of Intec Parent Common Stock) and the authorization for listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market of the Merger Shares, (v) the receipt of a tax ruling from the Israel Tax Authority with respect to the Domestication Merger, (vi) disposition of the Accordion Pill business, as further described below, and (vii) a closing financing by Intec Israel or Intec Parent such that upon Closing of the Merger (taking into account of the proceeds to be received with respect to such financing), the combined net cash of Intec Parent shall be not less than $30 million and not more than $50 million and which represents an agreed minimum valuation derived from the exchange ratio for Intec Parent following the Closing. The Merger Agreement requires the Company to convene a shareholders’ meeting for purposes of obtaining the necessary shareholder approvals required in connection with the Merger.

The Merger Agreement contains certain termination rights for both the Company and Decoy, including, but not limited to, the right of the Company and Decoy to terminate the Merger Agreement by mutual written consent or if a court of competent jurisdiction or other Governmental Body (as defined in the Merger Agreement) has issued a final and non-appealable order, decree or ruling, or has taken any other action, having the effect of permanently restraining, enjoining or otherwise prohibiting the Merger. In addition, either the Company or Decoy may terminate the Merger Agreement if the Merger is not consummated on or before the date that is 155 days following the delivery of the Decoy audited financial statements for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019 which date may be extended in certain circumstances. In connection with the termination of the Merger Agreement under specified circumstances, Decoy may be required to pay to the Company a break-up fee of $1,000,000, or the Company may be required to pay to Decoy a reverse break-up fee of $1,000,000 and forfeit a deposit in the amount of $350,000 in favour of Decoy to cover transaction expenses.

Certain Agreements Related to the Merger

The Domestication Merger

As set forth in the Merger Agreement, prior to the date of the Closing Date, Intec Israel shall re-domesticate as a Delaware corporation by merging with and into the Domestication Merger Sub, with Intec Israel surviving the merger and becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Intec Parent. In connection with the Domestication Merger, all Intec Israel ordinary shares, having no par value per share, or the Intec Israel Shares, outstanding immediately prior to the Domestication Merger will convert, on a one-for-one basis, into shares of Intec Parent, or the Intec Parent Common Stock and all options and warrants to purchase Intec Israel Shares outstanding immediately prior to the Domestication Merger will be exchanged for equivalent securities of Intec Parent.

Disposition of Accordion Pill Business

In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, Intec Israel agreed that prior to the Closing Date it would use commercially reasonable efforts to enter into one or more agreements providing for the sale, transfer or assignment or that it would otherwise take steps related to the divestment or disposal and satisfaction of liabilities of the Company’s Accordion Pill business, to be effected immediately after the Closing.

Support Agreements

In connection with the execution of the Merger Agreement, certain shareholders of Decoy entered into support agreements with the Company, Intec Parent and Merger Sub covering approximately 74% of the outstanding shares of Decoy relating to the Merger, or the Decoy Stockholder Support Agreements. The Decoy Stockholder Support Agreements provide, among other things, that the stockholders party to the Decoy Stockholder Support Agreements will vote all of the shares of Decoy held by them: (i) in favor of the adoption of the Merger Agreement, the approval of the Merger and the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, provided that they will vote such shares in the same manner as the vote in respect of the Merger Agreement and the Merger of the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of Decoy’s capital stock who do not sign a Decoy Stockholder Support Agreement, and (ii) against any adverse proposal, for up to eighteen (18) months following the date of the Decoy Stockholder Support Agreements (depending on the manner of termination of the Merger Agreement).

In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, the officers and directors of the Company have each entered into support agreements with Decoy relating to the Merger (the “Intec Shareholder Support Agreements”). The Intec Shareholder Support Agreements provide, among other things, that the officers and directors party to the Intec Shareholder Support Agreements will vote all of the ordinary shares of the Company held by them: (i) in favour of the adoption of the Merger Agreement, the approval of the Merger Agreement and other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, and (ii) against any adverse proposal.

Lock-Up Agreements

In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, certain stockholders of Decoy and the officers and directors of Intec have each entered into a lock-up agreement with the Company, Intec Parent and Decoy, or the Lock-Up Agreements. The Lock-Up Agreements place certain restrictions on the transfer of shares of common stock of Intec Parent held by the respective signatories thereto for 180 days after the Closing Date.

Although we have entered into the Merger Agreement and intend to consummate the Merger, there is no assurance that we will be able to successfully complete the Merger on a timely basis, or at all. If, for any reason, the Merger is not completed, we will reconsider our strategic alternatives and expect that we would either continue to advance the existing Accordion Pill business either on our own or in partnership with a strategic partner or we may seek to complete a potential merger, reorganization or other business combination transaction with another company similar to the Merger. If, for any reason, the Merger is not consummated and we are unable to continue to operate the Accordion Pill business or identify and complete an alternative strategic transaction like the Merger, we may be required to dissolve and liquidate our assets. In such case, we would be required to pay all of our debts and contractual obligations, and to set aside certain reserves for potential future claims, and there can be no assurances as to the amount or timing of available cash left to distribute to our shareholders after paying our debts and other obligations and setting aside funds for reserves.

Accordion Pill Business

As discussed above, on March 15, 2021, we entered into the Merger Agreement. As a result, you should not place undue reliance on the plans discussed below relating to our Accordion Pill business as they are subject to change.

We are a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing drugs based on our proprietary Accordion Pill platform technology, which we refer to as the Accordion Pill, or AP. Our Accordion Pill is an oral drug delivery system that is designed to improve the efficacy and safety of existing drugs and drugs in development by utilizing an efficient gastric retention, or, GR and specific release mechanism. Our product pipeline currently includes several product candidates in various stages. Our most advanced product candidate, Accordion Pill Carbidopa/Levodopa, or, AP-CD/LD, was being developed for the indication of treatment of Parkinson’s disease symptoms in advanced Parkinson’s disease patients.

In July 2019, we announced top-line results from our pivotal Phase III clinical for AP-CD/LD for the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease known as the ACCORDANCE study in which the ACCORDANCE study did not meet its target endpoints. While AP-CD/LD provided treatment for Parkinson’s disease symptoms, it did not demonstrate statistically superiority over immediate release CD/LD on the primary endpoint of OFF time reduction under the conditions established in the protocol. Treatment-emergent adverse effects observed with AP-CD/LD were generally consistent with the known safety profile of CD/LD formulations and no new safety issues were observed throughout the double-blinded study, during the gastroscopy safety sub-study or the 12-month open-label extension study. From our review of the data, we have observed a meaningful reduction in OFF time in certain subsets of patients. We have completed the analysis of the full data set. In February 2021, we entered into a non-binding term sheet for the sale or license of the AP-CD/LD program to an undisclosed third party and are currently negotiating the terms of a definitive agreement. There is no assurance that this will result in a definitive agreement.

Previously, we successfully completed a Phase II clinical trial for AP-CD/LD for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease symptoms in advanced Parkinson’s disease patients and in February 2019, we announced that AP-CD/LD met the primary endpoint in a pharmacokinetic, or PK study, comparing the AP-CD/LD 50/500mg dosed three times daily, the most common dose used in our ACCORDANCE study, to 1.5 tablets of CD/LD immediate release (Sinemet™) 25/100 dosed five times per day in Parkinson’s disease patients.

We have invested in the commercial scale manufacture of AP-CD/LD, for which we are in partnership with LTS Lohmann Therapie-Systeme AG (LTS) in Andernach, Germany. In October 2019, we completed the qualification studies for the commercial scale manufacture of the Accordion Pill and we have initiated the validation and stability studies of certain batches which are expected to serve as the clinical material for the next Phase 3 clinical trial plan. We have suspended further validation and stability studies and we intend to initiate the validation and stability studies of the remaining batches upon partnering the AP-CD/LD program.

In addition, we have initiated a clinical development program for our Accordion Pill platform with the two primary cannabinoids contained in cannabis sativa, which we refer to as AP-Cannabinoids. We are formulating and testing CBD and THC for the treatment of various pain indications. AP-Cannabinoids are designed to extend the absorption phase of CBD and THC, with the goal of more consistent levels for an improved therapeutic effect, which may address several major drawbacks of current methods of treatment, such as short duration of effect, delayed onset, variability of exposure, variability of the administered dose and adverse events that correlate with peak levels. In March 2017, we initiated a Phase I single-center, single-dose, randomized, three-way crossover clinical trial in Israel to compare the safety, tolerability and PK of AP-THC/CBD with Sativex®, an oral buccal spray containing CBD and THC that is commercially available outside of the United States. Initial results demonstrated that the Accordion Pill platform is well suited to safely deliver CBD and THC with significant improvements in exposure compared with Sativex®. In December 2018, we initiated a PK study of AP-THC and the results of the study demonstrate that the custom designed AP delivery system in the AP-THC PK study did not meet our expectations. In December 2020, we initiated a clinical trial in Israel evaluating the safety, tolerability and PK of an optimized AP-THC and we expect to report top line results from this study in the second quarter of 2021.

While the ACCORDANCE results were not what we expected, we continue to believe in the potential of the Accordion Pill platform. In December 2018, we reported that we successfully developed an Accordion Pill for a Novartis proprietary compound that met the required in vitro specifications set forth in a feasibility agreement with Novartis. In 2019 we completed the human PK study and its results demonstrated that the AP met the technical requirements set forth by Novartis. In December 2019, Novartis, following an internal and revised commercial strategic assessment, advised us that this program no longer meets Novartis’ mid to long-term strategic goals. Novartis paid us $1.5 million on conclusion of the program. We restructured our clinical manufacturing planned to support this program in order to reduce costs.

In May 2019, we reported entering into a research collaboration agreement with Merck for the development of a custom-designed AP for one of Merck’s proprietary compounds. We met the required in vitro specifications for that compound but do not anticipate an in-vivo study. In October 2020, we entered into a new research collaboration agreement with Merck for another compound. Details of the new agreement are confidential.

In December 2020, we entered into a cannabinoid research collaboration agreement with GW Research Limited, or GW to explore using the AP platform for an undisclosed research program.

In March 2021, we entered into a feasibility agreement on a confidential basis with a pharmaceutical company to develop a custom-designed AP for a rare disease indication.

In late 2019, a novel strain of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, was reported in Wuhan, China. While initially the outbreak was largely concentrated in China, it has now spread to countries across the globe, including in Israel and the United States. Many countries around the world, including in Israel and the United States, have implemented significant governmental measures to control the spread of the virus, including temporary closure of businesses, severe restrictions on travel and the movement of people, and other material limitations on the conduct of business. We implemented remote working and work place protocols for our employees in accordance with government requirements. The implementation of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in disruptions to our partnering efforts which depend, in part, on attendance at in-person meetings, industry conferences and other events. It is not possible at this time to estimate the full impact that the COVID-19 pandemic could have on our operations, as the impact will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, including the duration and severity of the outbreak, and the actions that may be required to contain COVID-19 or treat its impact.

Our Accordion Pill Platform Technology

We believe that our Accordion Pill technology has the potential to improve the performance of approved drugs and drugs in development, including Levodopa, by providing several distinct advantages, including, but not limited to:

Our anticipated ability to submit NDAs pursuant to Section 505(b)(2) for our existing pipeline and future products increases the likelihood of accelerating the time to commercialization of our products and decreasing costs when compared to those typically associated with new chemical entities, or NCEs.

Our Accordion Pill platform technology is designed to increase the time that drugs are retained in the stomach as compared to other oral dosage forms, such as tablets and capsules. This capability is particularly important to drugs with a narrow absorption window, or NAW, which are absorbed mainly in the upper part of the gastrointestinal, or GI, tract. Regular controlled-release formulations of such drugs currently on the market sometimes fail to provide an efficient solution, as once the regular dosage form has passed the drug’s NAW in the upper gastrointestinal, or GI, tract, the drug is not, or is very poorly, absorbed in the distal parts of the GI tract. The Accordion Pill platform technology is also designed for drugs with low solubility, which do not efficiently dissolve in the GI tract, and drugs with low permeability, which do not efficiently penetrate the intestinal wall and reach the blood stream, such as Biopharmaceutics Classification System, or BCS, Class II (low solubility, high permeability) and Class IV (low solubility, low permeability) drugs. According to The AAPS Journal published by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, of the top 200 oral drugs in the United States, Great Britain, Spain and Japan in 2006, approximately 30% to 35% were BCS Class II drugs and approximately 5% to 10% were BCS Class IV drugs. Further, according to The AAPS Journal in 2011 approximately 90% of new molecular entities in development were either Class II or Class IV drugs. Poorly soluble drugs are sometimes characterized by low bioavailability, which is strongly affected by the drug’s solubility. In addition, the extent of absorption of poorly soluble drugs can be dose dependent, leading to non-linear PK behavior. The Accordion Pill’s efficient GR and specific release mechanism prolongs the absorption phase of drugs with an NAW, which can result in significantly more stable plasma levels. In addition, the Accordion Pill has demonstrated an enhancement of the absorption of a poorly soluble, BCS Class II/IV drug in a crossover PK clinical study in 12 healthy volunteers. For poorly soluble drugs, we believe that our technology acts through the gradual delivery of an undissolved drug by the Accordion Pill in the stomach, which allows for the complete dissolution of the drug dose in the stomach over the delivery period. The gradual passage of the drug from the stomach to the upper part of the GI tract enables an increase in the amount of the drug that can be dissolved and thus absorbed, in the upper small bowel. In addition, we believe that bile secretion in the upper part of the GI tract also improves the intestinal environment for better absorption. Finally, the significant dilution of the drug solution in the small bowel caused by prolonged delivery increases the amount of the drug available for absorption.

Our clinical trials to date have demonstrated that the Accordion Pill is retained in the stomach for eight to 12 hours, as compared to significantly shorter time periods, typically as little as two to three hours, when using other solid dosage forms. The efficient GR and the predetermined release profile for each specific drug associated with our Accordion Pill technology demonstrated a significant improvement in PK, which is the drug plasma level over time and a corresponding improvement in efficacy and safety.

The following chart depicts the Accordion Pill’s capability to improve the PK of Levodopa, which is a drug characterized by a narrow absorption window:

AP-CD/LD Phase II clinical trial — more stable Levodopa levels with statistically significant

reduced peak-to-trough fluctuations

Levodopa plasma levels in n=8 advanced Parkinson’s disease patients following twice daily, or b.i.d., administration (eight hours apart) of AP-CD/LD 50/375 versus four times daily, or q.i.d., administration (four hours apart) of a commercial Carbidopa/Levodopa formulation (equivalent daily Levodopa dose). The PK study was performed on day seven, following six days of drug administration at home. No Levodopa medication was allowed for ten hours before the first administration at day seven. The PK results showed that the peak to trough ratio, which measures the maximum average concentration relative to the minimum average concentration of LD plasma levels, was reduced from 29.9 to 3.2 with the AP-CD/LD.

The following chart depicts the Accordion Pill’s capability to improve the PK of a BCS Class II/IV drug combined with our Accordion Pill technology that is currently on the market and is characterized with poor solubility:

PK results with the Accordion Pill with a BCS Class II/IV drug that is currently available

on the market in 12 healthy volunteers

The results of our clinical trial have demonstrated approximately a 100% increase in bioavailability in 12 healthy volunteers with our Accordion Pill technology, as compared to the commercial formulation of the drug. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the increase in bioavailability obtained when administering one Accordion Pill and two Accordion Pills was proportional to the increase in dosage, or linear absorption, whereas the commercial formulation does not show linear absorption in these dosage ranges.

Although there is no assurance that these results will be repeated in other instances, we believe that these results are important because the enhancement of bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs is one of the main challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry.

Our Accordion Pill technology enables us to combine active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs, which are also referred to as drugs, and inactive ingredients that are included in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s, or FDA’s, list of approved inactive ingredients, into pharmaceutical-grade, biodegradable polymeric films, welded into a planar structure, folded into the shape of an accordion and placed inside of a capsule. While in the stomach, the capsule dissolves and the Accordion Pill unfolds and releases the drug in a predetermined profile. In order to provide optimum results for each drug, each Accordion Pill drug differs and will likely differ in several ways, including composition, structure and properties.

The diagram below illustrates the general structure of the Accordion Pill:

All of the ingredients in the Accordion Pill (active and inactive) are combined physically, not chemically, thus maintaining the chemical composition of the active ingredients.

The Accordion Pill has a drug release mechanism that is independent of the gastric retention mechanism. It can combine both immediate and controlled release profiles, as well as more than one drug. We have demonstrated that the Accordion Pill has the ability to carry a drug load of up to 550 mg. We have also demonstrated that the Accordion Pill fully degrades in the intestine once it is expelled from the stomach.

Our Product Pipeline

Our product pipeline currently includes several product candidates in various stages of development.

Our most advanced product candidate, AP-CD/LD, was being developed for the indication of treatment of Parkinson’s disease symptoms in advanced Parkinson’s disease patients. In February 2021, we entered into a non-binding term sheet for the sale or license of the AP-CD/LD program to an undisclosed third party and are currently negotiating the terms of a definitive agreement. There is no assurance that this will result in a definitive agreement.

In July 2019, we announced top-line results from our pivotal Phase III clinical for AP-CD/LD for the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease known as the ACCORDANCE study in which the ACCORDANCE study did not meet its target endpoints. While AP-CD/LD provided treatment for Parkinson’s disease symptoms, it did not demonstrate statistically superiority over immediate release CD/LD on the primary endpoint of OFF time reduction under the conditions established in the protocol. Treatment-emergent adverse effects observed with AP-CD/LD were generally consistent with the known safety profile of CD/LD formulations and no new safety issues were observed throughout the double-blinded study, during the gastroscopy safety sub-study or the 12-month open-label extension study. From our review of the data, we have observed a meaningful reduction in OFF time in certain subsets of patients. We have completed the analysis of the full data set.

Previously, we successfully completed a Phase II clinical trial for AP-CD/LD for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease symptoms in advanced Parkinson’s disease patients and in February 2019, we announced that AP-CD/LD met the primary endpoint in a pharmacokinetic, or PK study, comparing the AP-CD/LD 50/500mg dosed three times daily, the most common dose used in our ACCORDANCE study, to 1.5 tablets of CD/LD immediate release (Sinemet™) 25/100 dosed five times per day in Parkinson’s disease patients.

We have invested in the commercial scale manufacture of AP-CD/LD, for which we are in partnership with LTS Lohmann Therapie-Systeme AG (LTS) in Andernach, Germany. In October 2019, we completed the qualification studies for the commercial scale manufacture of the Accordion Pill and we have initiated the validation and stability studies of certain batches which are expected to serve as the clinical material for the next Phase 3 clinical trial plan. We have suspended further validation and stability studies and we intend to initiate the validation and stability studies of the remaining batches upon partnering the AP-CD/LD program.

In addition, we have initiated a clinical development program for our Accordion Pill platform with the two primary cannabinoids contained in cannabis sativa, which we refer to as AP-Cannabinoids. We are formulating and testing CBD and THC for the treatment of various pain indications. AP-Cannabinoids are designed to extend the absorption phase of CBD and THC, with the goal of more consistent levels for an improved therapeutic effect, which may address several major drawbacks of current methods of treatment, such as short duration of effect, delayed onset, variability of exposure, variability of the administered dose and adverse events that correlate with peak levels. In March 2017, we initiated a Phase I single-center, single-dose, randomized, three-way crossover clinical trial in Israel to compare the safety, tolerability and PK of AP-THC/CBD with Sativex®, an oral buccal spray containing CBD and THC that is commercially available outside of the United States. Initial results demonstrated that the Accordion Pill platform is well suited to safely deliver CBD and THC with significant improvements in exposure compared with Sativex®. In December 2018, we initiated a PK study of AP-THC and the results of the study demonstrate that the custom designed AP delivery system in the AP-THC PK study did not meet our expectations. In December 2020, we initiated a PK clinical trial in Israel evaluating the safety, tolerability and PK of an optimized AP-THC and we expect to report top line results from this study in the second quarter of 2021.

While the ACCORDANCE results were not what we expected, we continue to believe in the potential of the Accordion Pill platform. In December 2018, we reported that we successfully developed an Accordion Pill for a Novartis proprietary compound that met the required in vitro specifications set forth in a feasibility agreement with Novartis. In 2019 we completed the human PK study and its results demonstrated that the AP met the technical requirements set forth by Novartis. In December 2019, Novartis, following an internal and revised commercial strategic assessment, advised us that this program no longer meets Novartis’ mid to long-term strategic goals. Novartis paid us $1.5 million on conclusion of the program. We restructured our clinical manufacturing planned to support this program in order to reduce costs.

In May 2019, we reported entering into a research collaboration agreement with Merck for the development of a custom-designed AP for one of Merck’s proprietary compounds. We met the required in vitro specifications for that compound but do not anticipate an in-vivo study. In October 2020, we entered into a new research collaboration agreement with Merck for another compound. Details of the new agreement are confidential.

In December 2020, we entered into a cannabinoid research collaboration agreement with GW to explore using the AP platform for an undisclosed research program.

In March 2021, we entered into a feasibility agreement on a confidential basis with a pharmaceutical company to develop a custom-designed AP for a rare disease indication.

AP-CD/LD for the Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms in Advanced Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, degenerative disease characterized by movement symptoms such as involuntary tremor or trembling in the hands, arms and legs; muscle rigidity of the limbs and trunk; slowness of and a decline in movement; and impaired balance and coordination. In its advanced stages, the disease causes comprehensive dysfunction of the patient’s bodily systems, including difficulties in swallowing, speech disorders and significant mental decline. Parkinson’s disease results from a continuing loss of dopamine-producing nerve cells. Dopamine is required for normal functioning of the central nervous system and smooth, coordinated function of the body’s muscles and movement. According to the National Parkinson’s Foundation, the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease appear when approximately 60–80% of dopamine-producing cells are damaged.

Although there is presently no cure for Parkinson’s disease, there are a number of medications that provide relief from the symptoms. Dopamine replacement therapy with Levodopa is generally considered to be the most effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease. After 50 years of clinical use, Levodopa therapy still offers the best symptomatic control of Parkinson’s disease and is the most widely used therapy. Levodopa is converted into dopamine in the brain and is usually administered with Carbidopa, which helps prevent Levodopa from converting to dopamine outside the brain. Levodopa helps reduce tremor, stiffness and slowness and helps improve muscle control, balance and walking. Virtually all Parkinson’s disease patients will require Levodopa therapy during the course of their disease.

Parkinson’s disease patients typically experience a satisfactory response to initial treatment with Levodopa. However, at later stages of Parkinson’s disease, there is a decline in the capacity of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system, or the brain pathways that moderate control of voluntary movement, to synthesize, store, and release dopamine. Therefore, the dopaminergic system becomes more and more dependent on dopamine from external sources, such as Levodopa treatment.

As the disease progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to control the symptoms adequately by Levodopa treatment, and patients develop motor complications, for the following reasons:

Recent studies have reported that up to 50% of patients show the onset of motor fluctuations within two years of starting conventional Levodopa therapy. For many patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease, the repeated emergence of off states can occupy up to one-third or more of a typical waking day. The loss of consistent symptomatic control from Levodopa is a major challenge for the long-term management of Parkinson’s disease. When Parkinson’s disease patients experience “wearing off” between Levodopa doses, this short-duration response occurs in parallel to the drug’s peripheral PK profile. Therefore, with the evolution of these short-duration responses, improving the consistency in Levodopa’s plasma levels becomes the major factor for improving symptom control.

Oral Levodopa formulations currently on the market do not provide satisfactory consistent Levodopa plasma levels. There are two major challenges to maintaining consistency in Levodopa plasma levels: (i) the very short half-life of Levodopa (approximately 90 minutes) and (ii) the fact that Levodopa’s absorption is confined to the upper part of the GI tract (i.e., it has an NAW). For drugs with an NAW, conventional controlled release formulations are limited in providing long-acting performance, as once the drug has passed through the upper GI tract, it will no longer be absorbed. These factors result in high peak-to-trough ratios of Levodopa in the plasma, namely high variability of the concentration of the drug in the blood, rather than a consistent level being maintained, reducing the clinical benefits of Levodopa therapy. Providing stable Levodopa plasma levels is therefore a major unmet need for the long-term management of Parkinson’s disease.

Key opinion leaders interviewed by Global Data, a market research provider, summarized the unmet needs in Parkinson’s disease treatment to include, among others, greater efficacy in reducing motor complications, reducing side effects and reducing pill burden.

Market. According to a 2018 report by Global Data, Parkinson’s disease is the second most common chronic progressive neurodegenerative disorder in the elderly after Alzheimer’s disease, affecting 1%–2% of individuals worldwide over the age of 65 and the annual growth of Parkinson’s disease cases in individuals over the age of 65 from 2016 to 2026, in the Seven Major Markets, is estimated to be 2.28%. According to Global Data, in 2016 the market for pharmaceutical treatments for Parkinson’s disease was approximately $3.1 billion a year in the Seven Major Markets growing to $8.8 billion by 2026. According to a 2016 Global Burden of Disease Study there are approximately 6.1 million people worldwide who suffer from Parkinson’s disease.

We have also conducted, together with leading consultants, market assessment of AP-CD/LD for the treatment of the symptoms associated with advanced Parkinson’s disease. The assessment indicates there is a substantial market for AP-CD/LD with hundreds of thousands of patients suffering with Parkinson’s disease appropriate for AP-CD/LD treatment.

Our Solution — AP-CD/LD

AP-CD/LD, our lead product candidate, is in development for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease symptoms. AP-CD/LD is an Accordion Pill that contains the generic drugs Carbidopa and Levodopa, which are currently approved for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease symptoms. We have successfully completed a Phase II clinical trial, and we completed a Phase III clinical trial of AP-CD/LD, top-line results of which were announced in July 2019.

AP-CD/LD – Clinical Trials

Phase III ACCORDANCE Study

The Phase III ACCORDANCE clinical trial of AP-CD/LD was a multi-center, global, randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, active-controlled, parallel-group study in adult subjects with advanced PD. The study was evaluating the safety and efficacy of AP-CD/LD compared with immediate release CD/LD (IR-CD/LD; Sinemet) as a treatment for the symptoms of PD.

The study enrolled a total of 462 patients into the Sinemet titration period. After the multiple titration and optimization steps, 320 patients were then randomized into the 13-week double-blinded portion of the study. The study was conducted at approximately 90 clinical sites throughout the U.S., Europe and Israel.

Preliminary analysis of the baseline data for the enrolled population shows:

Prior to the 13-week randomized portion of the study, the ACCORDANCE study had two open label periods of 6 weeks each during which all patients in these open label periods were first stabilized and optimized on the active comparator, Sinemet, and then on AP-CD/LD. All patients who completed the 13-week randomized period were eligible to continue in an Open Label Extension study, or the OLE study, in which they received treatment with AP-CD/LD for up to an additional 12 months.

The following is an illustration of the study design:

The primary efficacy endpoint of the study was the change from baseline to endpoint in the percentage of daily off time during waking hours based on Hauser home diaries. The study was 90% powered to be statistically significant for a one-hour difference in off time between Sinemet and AP-CD/LD.

Secondary endpoints included change from baseline to endpoint in “on time” without troublesome dyskinesia during waking hours, CGI-I at endpoint as recorded by physician and patient and change from baseline through endpoint in the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) Score parts 2 and 3.

In July 2019, we announced top-line results from our pivotal Phase III clinical for AP-CD/LD for the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease known as the ACCORDANCE study in which the ACCORDANCE study did not achieve its primary objective. The ACCORDANCE study featured two open-label titration steps where patients were first optimized on immediate release CD/LD, and then optimized on the AP-CD/LD formulation. Patients entered the study with an average OFF time of 6.0 hours per 16-hour day. After the initial open-label titration, the average OFF time was reduced to 5.02 hours. Double blinded treatment for 13 weeks with either immediate release or AP CD/LD led to further improvements in OFF time, with the final OFF time for the IR treated group at 4.76 hours and the OFF time for the AP group at 4.53 hours. Therefore, while AP-CD/LD provided treatment for Parkinson’s disease symptoms comparable to the immediate release preparation, it did not achieve the primary objective of demonstrating statistically superiority over immediate release CD/LD under the conditions established in the protocol.

The following figure displays the average hours of “off” time of the AP-CD/LD treated group and the IR treated group:

From our review of the data, we observed a meaningful reduction in OFF time in certain subsets of patients and from a safety perspective, treatment-emergent adverse effects observed with AP-CD/LD were generally consistent with the known safety profile of CD/LD formulations and no new safety issues were observed throughout the double-blinded study, during the gastroscopy safety sub-study or the 12-month open-label extension study. We believe that both dosing was suboptimal and titration targets in the protocol were suboptimal.

The following figures display the post hoc analysis of a subset of patients that did not require the maximal AP dose of 1500 mg LD and who received 1.6 to 2.0 dose ratio of AP LD to IR LD. 

We have completed the analysis of the full data set and we are currently seeking to partner AP-CD/LD as the basis for the strategy for AP-CD/LD moving forward.

Phase II Clinical Trial

Our Phase II clinical trial with AP-CD/LD was a multi-center, open-label, randomized, crossover, active control trial that included five groups. Overall, 60 patients completed the trial per protocol, in several medical centers in Israel. The Phase II clinical trial assessed safety, PK and pharmacodynamics/efficacy in patients with various stages of Parkinson’s disease compared with their current Levodopa treatment. Each group of the clinical trial was deemed to initiate upon the first patient enrolling in a group and to be completed upon the conclusion of data analysis. The initiation and completion dates for groups 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 were August 2009 – December 2009, April 2010 – August 2010, December 2010 – July 2011, August 2011 – November 2011 and December 2011 – October 2012, respectively. The following table details the structure, design and purpose of the Phase II clinical trial:

Pharmacokinetic Results

Group 1 of our Phase II clinical trial with AP-CD/LD was conducted with 12 male and female patients with non-fluctuating Parkinson’s disease. The crossover design included the following treatment arms: (i) AP-CD/LD 50/250 mg administered two times a day, or b.i.d. and (ii) immediate release CD/LD 25/250 mg administered by half tablet q.i.d, resulting in a total daily dosage of 50/500mg. The treatments were administered for six days, with the seventh day consisting of PK testing. On the PK day of the control period, patients were given an additional 50 mg of Carbidopa (12.5 mg four times a day, or q.i.d.) to achieve the recommended daily 70 – 100 mg dose of Carbidopa. Immediately following the PK testing on day seven, the patients crossed over to the other treatment to repeat the seven day process. This study concluded that (i) the bioavailability of Levodopa when administered via AP-CD/LD was similar to the immediate release reference; (ii) AP-CD/LD provided more stable plasma levels of Levodopa, with reduced peak-to-trough ratio, when compared to the immediate release reference; and (iii) AP-CD/LD provided higher morning Levodopa plasma levels than the immediate release reference.

Group 3 of our Phase II clinical trial with AP-CD/LD was conducted with ten male and female patients with advanced, fluctuating Parkinson’s disease, of which eight completed the PK trial per protocol. The crossover design included the following treatment arms: in the AP-CD/LD treatment arm, the AP-CD/LD 50/375 mg was administered b.i.d. for six at home days of treatment with up to an additional three add-on immediate release Carbidopa/Levodopa, as needed, and on day seven, b.i.d. administration of AP-CD/LD 50/375 mg. In the control arm, the patient’s current treatments were administered for six at home days and, on the seventh day, they were given immediate release Carbidopa/Levodopa 18.75/187.5 mg q.i.d., resulting in a total dosage of 75/750 mg. On the seventh day of each treatment regime, we conducted PK testing. Immediately following the PK testing on day seven, the patients were crossed over to the other treatment to repeat the seven day process.

These trials concluded that (i) the PK of AP-CD/LD demonstrated an efficient controlled-release profile, with significantly more stable Levodopa levels; (ii) the Levodopa absorption phase was increased more than six-fold versus the control treatment; (iii) the b.i.d. administration of AP-CD/LD provided daily coverage of therapeutic Levodopa plasma levels; (iv) the peak-to-trough ratio in Levodopa plasma levels was half of those of the control; (v) the morning, or pre-first dose, Levodopa plasma levels of AP-CD/LD, were significantly higher than the control; and (vi) Levodopa’s high bioavailability was preserved when using AP-CD/LD.

The following figure displays the concentrations of Levodopa in plasma of patients over time, comparing AP-CD/LD (pink) to the reference treatment (blue):

AP-CD/LD Phase II clinical trial — more stable Levodopa levels with statistically significant

reduced peak-to-trough fluctuations

The PK results showed that peak to trough ratio, which measures the maximum average concentration relative to the minimum average concentration of LD plasma levels, was reduced from 29.9 to 3.2 with the AP-CD/LD. Cmax/Cmin with the AP-CD/LD was 5.8. The average LD plasma levels during time 0-16 hours was 1,038 ng/ml.

Pharmacodynamics Results

The following figure sets forth the structure of the Phase II clinical trial for Groups 4 and 6:

CD/LD = Carbidopa/Levodopa

Groups 3, 4 and 6 of our Phase II clinical trial examined the pharmacodynamic effects of AP-CD/LD. Each group assessed the effects in patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease; ten, 16 and 18 patients completed the trials per protocol in Groups 3, 4 and 6, respectively. Groups 3 and 4 tested AP-CD/LD in the 50/375 mg strength, administered b.i.d. with additional CD/LD immediate release tablets if needed; Group 6 tested the 50/500 mg strength administered b.i.d. with additional CD/LD immediate release tablets if needed. In these three trials, AP-CD/LD was compared to the patients’ current Levodopa treatment (including a dopamine decarboxylase inhibitor, such as Carbidopa). All three groups were cross-over, with Group 3 receiving the treatments as described above and Groups 4 and 6 receiving each of their current treatment and AP-CD/LD for 21 days, with the second tested treatment starting immediately after completion of the first. In Groups 4 and 6, off time, on time and dyskinesia were assessed by patient-completed home diaries during days 18 through 20 of each arm.

Because Levodopa is usually prescribed for long-term treatment, three weeks of treatment with AP-CD/LD was sufficient to demonstrate statistically significant improvements in the primary endpoint, as well as most of the secondary endpoints. The statistical significance of a result was captured by the associated “p-value”, or the estimated probability that the observed effect was by chance. A “p-value” of less than 0.05 implied that there was less than a 5% probability that the observed effect was by chance, and was generally accepted as a statistically significant event.

These studies demonstrated that (i) total off time was decreased when taking AP-CD/LD versus the control, by 44% and 45% in Groups 4 and 6, respectively (statistically significant p<0.0001); (ii) improvements in off time and on time without troublesome dyskinesia did not come at the expense of an increase of on time with troublesome dyskinesia, and, moreover, with the AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg troublesome dyskinesia was decreased by 0.5 hours (statistically significant p = 0.002); (iii) the effect of AP-CD/LD on total off time and on time with troublesome dyskinesia resulted in a total increase of “good” on time (i.e., without troublesome dyskinesia) of 2.1 and 2.7 hours per day in Groups 4 and 6, respectively (statistically significant p<0.0001); (iv) the improvements in treating symptoms with AP-CD/LD were achieved with fewer daily doses; and (v) the improvements in treating symptoms with AP-CD/LD correlate with stable Levodopa plasma levels throughout the day with appropriate therapeutic levels of the drug.

The figure below reflects the mean total off time in hours over a 24 hour period during days 18 through 20 of Groups 4 and 6. The average total off time was reduced by 1.9 hours and 2.3 hours with AP-CD/LD 50/375 mg (Group 4) and 50/500 mg (Group 6), respectively. This reduction is statistically significant (p<0.0001).

AP-CD/LD – Significant reduction of total off time compared to current Levodopa treatment

The figure below reflects the mean total “good” on time (on time without troublesome dyskinesia) in hours over a 24 hour period during days 18 through 20 of Groups 4 and 6. The average total “good” on time was increased by 2.1 hours and 2.7 hours with AP-CD/LD 50/375 mg (Group 4) and 50/500 mg (Group 6), respectively. This reduction is statistically significant (p<0.0001).

AP-CD/LD – Increase of total “good” on time compared to current Levodopa treatment

The figure below reflects the mean total on time with troublesome dyskinesia in hours over a 24 hour period during days 18 through 20 of Groups 4 and 6. On time with troublesome dyskinesia was not changed and decreased by 0.5 hours (p = 0.002) with AP-CD/LD 50/375 mg (Group 4) and 50/500 mg (Group 6), respectively.

AP-CD/LD – Reduction of total on time with dyskinesia compared to current Levodopa treatment

Finally, the figure below displays the mean number of daily Levodopa administrations of the treatments in Groups 4 and 6.

AP-CD/LD –Number of daily Levodopa administrations* compared to current Levodopa treatment

Demonstration of the clinical benefits of these peak to trough ratios will be further studied and confirmed in the ACCORDANCE study.

Phase I Clinical Trials

We conducted five Phase I clinical trials - four to assess the PK profile of Levodopa when administered in several formulations and one to measure the GR time of our Accordion Pill without an active ingredient.

The first PK trial was conducted with early formulations in 24 healthy volunteers to assess the PK profile of Levodopa when administered in the following three forms: (i) in an Accordion Pill with a dosage of 75/300 mg; (ii) in the immediate release form currently on the market, Sinemet; and (iii) in the controlled release form currently on the market, Sinemet CR. This group underwent a partially randomized open trial compared with immediate release Sinemet and controlled release Sinemet. The trial results indicated a significant prolongation of Levodopa’s mean residence time, or MRT, in the blood when administered with the Accordion Pill compared with the Sinemet and Sinemet CR. Furthermore, the study showed the level of Levodopa received with the Accordion Pill reached treatment-relevant levels.

The second PK trial was conducted with early formulations in 23 healthy volunteers to assess the PK profile of Levodopa when administered in the following two forms: (i) an Accordion Pill in two formulations, 75/300 mg and 50/200 mg; and (ii) in the currently marketed immediate release form, Sinemet. This was a randomized open trial, compared with immediate release Sinemet. The trial results indicated a very significant increase in the MRT of Levodopa in the blood when administered with the Accordion Pill in both formulations, and a very significant prolongation of the absorption phase (up to 12 hours) of Levodopa was demonstrated when administered with the Accordion Pill compared with Sinemet (two hours).

The third PK trial was conducted with the AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg Phase II formulation in 18 healthy volunteers to assess the PK profile of Levodopa when administered in the following two forms: (i) AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg; and (ii) the currently marketed immediate release form, Sinemet. This was a randomized open trial, compared with immediate release Sinemet. The trial results indicated that the absorption phase of Levodopa was increased to approximately ten hours when administered with the Accordion Pill compared to approximately two hours with Sinemet.

The fourth PK trial was conducted in order to determine the performance of the to-be-marketed formulation of AP-CD/LD when dosed three time per day (t.i.d). The objective of this open-label, crossover PK study was to compare the plasma levodopa variability in 12 Parkinson’s disease patients treated with standard levodopa therapy and with AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg t.i.d. On day one, all participants received 1.5 tablets of standard Sinemet 25/100 mg five times at approximately three-hour intervals. Plasma was collected for PK determination at 30-minute intervals for 16 hours in the clinic. This period provided the reference PK profile for Sinemet. On days two through seven, PD patients were treated at home with AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg capsules dosed t.i.d., at approximately five-hour intervals. On day eight, participants returned to the clinic and PK assessments were repeated as described above. The primary outcome measure in this study was the fluctuation index [(Cmax-Cmin)/Cavg] in plasma levodopa concentration at steady state (between hours four and 16.) The key secondary endpoint was the levodopa coefficient of variation. AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg t.i.d. met its primary endpoint demonstrating significantly less variability than standard oral CD/LD when dosed 5x/ day in the levodopa fluctuation index (p<0.005) (see the table below). These results were supported by the findings of significant outcomes on each of the pre-specified sensitivity analyses. Similar results were observed for the key secondary endpoint of coefficient of variation of plasma levodopa levels (p<0.047). AP-CD/LD was very well tolerated with no reported adverse events.

The GR Phase I clinical trial was an MRI study conducted with 17 Parkinson’s patients to measure the GR time of the Accordion Pill without an active pharmaceutical ingredient. This trial was a non-randomized open trial comparison of a few formulations. The results indicated that GR of over 13 hours can be achieved in these patients using all three formulations.

Safety

AP-CD/LD was tested for safety on Göttingen minipigs in accordance with the FDA’s guidelines. The study was 180 days and a subgroup of minipigs were kept for recovery for an additional 30 days without receiving any treatments. This study included the following four arms: AP-CD/LD 50/400 mg three times daily, AP-CD/LD 50/500 mg b.i.d., a Carbidopa/Levodopa reference (Sinemet) and a placebo. The study was completed in March 2014. The study evaluated (i) animal wellbeing as represented by behavior, food consumption and weight, (ii) microscopic and macroscopic organ pathology, (iii) ophthalmic evaluation and (iv) electrocardiograms of the miniature pigs, which is the recording of the electrical activity of the heart. This study’s results form an additional basis regarding the safety of AP-CD/LD.

In the Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, AP-CD/LD was well-tolerated with no serious adverse events that were related to the study drug. Adverse events were generally mild in severity and resolved without intervention. The most common adverse events reported included nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, chest pain and fatigue, which are known adverse events associated with Levodopa treatment.

In the Phase III clinical trial, treatment-emergent adverse effects observed with AP-CD/LD were generally consistent with the known safety profile of CD/LD formulations and no new safety issues were observed throughout the double-blinded study, during the gastroscopy safety sub-study or the 12-month open-label extension study.

Development of Accordion Pills with additional drugs

In August 2016, we announced the initiation of a new clinical development program for the Accordion Pill platform with the two primary cannabinoids contained in Cannabis Sativa, Cannabidiol (CBD) and 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), for treatment of various pain indications. The Cannabis sativa plant is used in treatment of chronic pain and a variety of other indications. Previous clinical studies conducted using the whole plant or specific extracts generated evidence of the cannabis analgesic activity. Furthermore, extracts containing known amounts of the active plant driven compounds (mainly THC and CBD) or diverse synthetic THC derivatives are promising treatments for painful conditions that do not respond properly to currently available treatments, such as chronic, neuropathic, and inflammatory pain.

We believe that AP-Cannabinoids hold the potential to address several major drawbacks of current methods of use and treatment with cannabis and cannabinoids, such as short duration of effect, delayed onset, variability of exposure, variability of the administered dose and adverse events that correlate with peak levels. AP-Cannabinoids are designed to extend the absorption phase of CBD and THC, with the goal of more consistent levels, for an improved therapeutic effect. We believe that the cannabis market has significant commercial potential and is projected to grow to approximately $90 billion by 2026.

In August 2017, we announced the results of a Phase I clinical trial that compared the safety, tolerability and PK of AP-THC/CBD with Sativex^®. This Phase I trial is a single-center, single-dose, randomized, three-way crossover study in Israel to compare the safety, tolerability and PK of two formulations of AP-CBD/THC with Buccal Sativex^® in 21 normal healthy volunteers. The results showed that patients in the Accordion Pill CBD/THC arm demonstrated significant improvements in exposure to CBD (290% to 330%) and THC (25% to 50%) compared with Sativex^®. The median time to peak concentration was 2-3 times longer than Sativex and absorption was significantly higher. Additionally, the formation of THC metabolites was meaningfully reduced, and the drug had a good safety profile and was well-tolerated with no serious adverse events reported. Sativex^® is a commercially available oral buccal spray containing CBD and THC. Following the Phase 1 clinical trial, we evaluated the program and decided as a next step to develop two new Accordion Pills containing only the individual cannabinoid components, namely CBD and THC. In December 2018, we initiated a PK study of AP-THC and the results of the study demonstrate that the custom designed AP delivery system in the AP-THC PK study did not meet our expectations. In December 2020, we initiated a PK clinical trial in Israel evaluating the safety, tolerability and PK of an optimized AP-THC and we expect to report top line results from this study in the second quarter of 2021.

While the ACCORDANCE results were not what we expected, we continue to believe in the potential of the Accordion Pill platform. In December 2018, we reported that we successfully developed an Accordion Pill for a Novartis proprietary compound that met the required in vitro specifications set forth in a feasibility agreement with Novartis. In 2019 we completed the human PK study and its results demonstrated that the AP met the technical requirements set forth by Novartis. In December 2019, Novartis, following an internal and revised commercial strategic assessment, advised us that this program no longer meets Novartis’ mid to long-term strategic goals. Novartis paid us $1.5 million on conclusion of the program. We restructured our clinical manufacturing planned to support this program in order to reduce costs.

In May 2019, we reported entering into a research collaboration agreement with Merck for the development of a custom-designed AP for one of Merck’s proprietary compounds. We met the required in vitro specifications for that compound but do not anticipate an in-vivo study. In October 2020, we entered into a new research collaboration agreement with Merck for another compound. Details of the new agreement are confidential.

In December 2020, we entered into a cannabinoid research collaboration agreement with GW to explore using the AP platform for an undisclosed research program.

In March 2021, we entered into a feasibility agreement on a confidential basis with a pharmaceutical company to develop a custom-designed AP for a rare disease indication.

We successfully completed a Phase II clinical trial for Accordion Pill Zaleplon, or AP–ZP, in November 2011 under an IND that we submitted to the FDA for AP–ZP as a treatment for the induction and maintenance of sleep in patients suffering from insomnia. The FDA also agreed that AP-ZP could also benefit from the streamlined pathway available through filing an NDA pursuant to Section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA. The FDA indicated in written correspondence to us that we may be able to design the development program for AP–ZP in a manner that would allow us to obtain sufficient data for the NDA submission for AP–ZP in one pivotal Phase III clinical trial. The details of such a trial were not determined or confirmed with the FDA. We are not currently developing or seeking a partner to develop AP-ZP and we have not presently budgeted any funds toward its development.

In addition, in March 2016, we completed a Phase I clinical trial for one of our product candidates that is being developed for the prevention and treatment of gastroduodenal and small bowel NSAID induced ulcers. The PK results demonstrated in the Phase I trial were within the well-defined safety levels of the drug. At this time, we have not presently budgeted any funds toward the development of this product candidate.

Manufacturing

Our production and packaging facility is located in Har Hotzvim, in Jerusalem, Israel, in the same building as our offices. This production and packaging facility was granted the Certificate of GMP Compliance of Manufacturer from the Israeli Ministry of Health in August 2018. This certificate applies in Israel, as well as in the EU, in accordance with the Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (CAA) agreement between the EU and Israel. The certificate is valid until August 2021.

Our fully automated assembly line enables us to manufacture approximately two to three million capsules annually. With respect to any future commercialization of the AP-CD/LD, we have decided to rely on a third-party manufacturer. Establishing a manufacturing facility to produce commercial quantities of our products will require a substantial investment by any party intending to manufacture our products.

In March 2018, we entered into a Term Sheet for Manufacturing Services with LTS, for the commercial manufacture of AP-CD/LD, which was subsequently superseded in December 2018 by a Process Development Agreement. Under the agreement, LTS will exclusively manufacture and supply us with AP-CD/LD capsules using our proprietary Accordion Pill production technology in LTS’ manufacturing facility in Andernach, Germany subject to the execution and terms of a manufacturing and supply agreement to be negotiated and entered into between us and LTS. The large-scale automated production line for manufacturing AP-CD/LD capsules, or the Production Line, will be owned by us with LTS operating and maintaining the Production Line and owning the other production equipment for AP-CD/LD. Under the agreement, we are responsible for compensating LTS for certain development activities and we agreed to bear the costs incurred by LTS to acquire the other production equipment for AP-CD/LD, or Production Equipment, which amounted to approximately $7.8 million and was fully paid; however, such amount is required under the agreement to be later reimbursed to us by LTS in the form of a reduction in the purchase price of the AP-CD/LD capsules. In addition, upon our decision to not continue with the project or commercialization of the product, LTS has the right to (i) purchase the Production Equipment from us in which case LTS is required to pay to us the share of the cost of the Production Equipment paid by us less up to two million Euros for upgrade costs of LTS’s facility invested by LTS or (ii) transfer such Production Equipment to us in which case we are required to pay LTS up to two million Euros for upgrade costs of LTS’s facility invested by LTS. The agreement shall continue in force unless earlier terminated or upon the termination of any future manufacturing agreement. The agreement contains several termination rights, including, among others, in the cases of bankruptcy, breach by either party, change of control of either of the parties, or the sale or licensing by us of the Accordion Pill to a third party.

In October 2019, we completed the qualification studies for the commercial scale manufacture of the Accordion Pill and we have initiated the validation and stability studies of certain batches which are expected to serve as the clinical material for the next Phase 3 clinical trial plan. We have suspended further validation and stability studies and we intend to initiate the validation and stability studies of the remaining batches upon partnering the AP-CD/LD program.

We have received Israeli government grants for certain of our research and development activities. The terms of these grants may require us to satisfy specified conditions in order to manufacture products and transfer technologies outside of Israel. With respect to the manufacturing of the AP-CD/LD, the Israel Innovation Authority, or IIA (formerly known as the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Economy and Industry, or the OCS) approved our request to transfer 100% of the manufacturing rights to such product, which was developed under one of the IIA funded programs, to a non-Israeli manufacturer. As a result, we will be required to pay the IIA royalties from revenue generated from the AP-CD/LD product candidate at an increased rate and up to an increased cap amount. The IIA noted that the approval granted was exceptional and that the IIA will not approve manufacturing additional product candidates out of Israel.

The FDA will likely condition granting any marketing and manufacturing approval, if any, on a satisfactory on-site inspection of our manufacturing facilities. See “Item 1A. Risk Factors — Risks Related to the Clinical Development, Manufacturing and Regulatory Approval of Our Product Candidates — Our product candidates are manufactured through a compounding, film casting and assembly process, and if we or one of our materials suppliers encounters problems manufacturing our products or raw materials, our business could suffer.”

Our manufacturing process consists of the following stages: compounding, which includes manufacturing of solutions and/or suspensions; film casting, which involves manufacturing of specific layers of films, including films containing the applicable drug; assembly and capsulation, which is processing and folding the films into an accordion shape and capsulation; and packaging, which entails packaging the pills in plastic bottles or blister packs.

Raw Materials and Supplies

With the exception of three inactive ingredients, we believe the raw materials that we require to manufacture AP-CD/LD and AP–Cannabinoids, as well as the raw materials that we require for our research and development operations relating to our products, are widely available from numerous suppliers and are generally considered to be generic pharmaceutical materials and supplies. Except as described below, we do not rely on a single supplier for the current production of any product in development or for our research and development operations relating to our products.

We usually contract with suppliers in Israel and worldwide to purchase the materials required for the research and development operations of our products. All the materials required in the research and development operations of our products are off-the-shelf pharmaceutical products; special production or special requirements are not required to order these materials. We have no written agreements with most of our suppliers. Rather, we submit purchase orders to our suppliers from time to time and as required.

Three of our inactive ingredients used in our products have only one supplier of each such ingredient. The three suppliers are each large, well-established suppliers (BASF, the Dow Chemical Company and Evonik), and most of the pharmaceutical industry relies on these suppliers when they need to purchase certain pharmaceutical products such as these inactive ingredients. To avoid a shortfall of these materials, we usually purchase sufficient material in advance for a period of at least one year. The pharmaceutical industry usually relies on these three manufacturers as suppliers of specific materials. The prices of these commonly used raw materials are not volatile.

Competition

The pharmaceutical and drug delivery technologies industries are characterized by rapidly evolving technology, intense competition and a highly risky, costly and lengthy research and development process. Adequate protection of intellectual property, successful product development, adequate funding and retention of skilled, experienced and professional personnel are among the many factors critical to success in the pharmaceutical industry.

Assertio Therapeutics, Inc. (formerly known as Depomed Inc.) has several products on the market based on its GR technology. Several companies have reported research projects related to systems designed for GR including Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Avadel Pharmaceuticals, Lyndra Therapeutics, Merrion Pharmaceuticals, Sun Pharma and others, all of which develop products delivered orally that are designed for GR. We are not aware of any approved drug delivery system currently on the market that is similar to the Accordion Pill.

Other drug delivery technologies, other drugs on the market, new drugs under development (including drugs that are in more advanced stages of development in comparison to our product pipeline) and additional drugs that were originally intended for other purposes, but were found effective for the indications we target, may all be competitive to the current products in our pipeline. In fact, some of these drug delivery systems and drugs are well-established and accepted among patients and physicians in their respective markets, are orally bioavailable, can be efficiently produced and marketed, and are relatively safe and inexpensive. Moreover, other companies of various sizes engage in activities similar to ours, including large pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer and Novartis, who have established in-house capabilities for the development of drug delivery technologies. Most, if not all, of our competitors have substantially greater financial and other resources available to them. Competitors include companies with marketed products and/or an advanced research and development pipeline.

Current Treatments on the Market and in Development for Parkinson’s Disease

The current common treatments for Parkinson’s disease include Levodopa (usually used in conjunction with other drugs such as Carbidopa), which is currently the standard and most efficient Parkinson’s medication used, and dopamine agonists, such as bromocriptine, pergolide, pramipexole and ropinirole, as well as MAO inhibitors and COMT inhibitors. However, Levodopa therapy is associated with “wearing-off”, a condition in which a treatment’s effects diminish over time as the disease progresses, and dyskinesia, or involuntary disturbing movements.

We believe our direct competition will include other technologies designed to address the need for more stable Levodopa levels. Our initial approach with the AP-CD/LD program did not meet a statistically significant endpoint against Sinemet, a combination of Levodopa and Carbidopa, which is sold by Merck, as well as generic Sinemet, which is sold by various generic manufacturers. Further clinical work will be required to develop the AP-CD/LD if it is going to be competitive against existing treatments for Parkinson’s. In addition, other technologies and drug delivery systems designed to address the Levodopa blood concentration problem currently exist. To our knowledge, based on publicly-filed documents, press releases and published studies, we believe the companies described below would be the primary competition with respect to AP-CD/LD.

Novartis and Orion combine Levodopa and Carbidopa with Comtan (entacapone), a drug that inhibits the clearance of Levodopa from the blood, thereby slowing the rapid drop in the Levodopa level in the blood. Additional drug candidates that are developed by Bial and Orion are based on the same approach.

Solvay Pharmaceuticals, which has been acquired by AbbVie Inc., introduced a drug delivery system based on implanting a tube in the duodenum area attached to an external pump that releases Levodopa formulation directly to the NAW. This product has been approved for marketing in the United States and Europe. The invasive nature of implanting a tube in patients, most of whom are elderly, as well as various difficulties related to the system, are certain disadvantages of this technology.

Impax Laboratories, which has merged with Amneal Pharmaceuticals, has developed a product, Rytary^TM, or IPX066, a continuous release Levodopa capsule formulation. The product was launched in April 2015. In addition, Amneal is developing IPX203, a new extended-release oral capsule formulation of carbidopa and levodopa, as a potential treatment for symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. IPX203 has commenced a Phase III clinical trial.

Civitas Therapeutics, Inc., which was acquired by Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. in September 2014, has developed a product, INBRIJA^TM, or CVT-301, a self-administered, adjunctive, as needed, inhaled oral Levodopa, for the ability to rapidly and predictably treat “off” episodes as they occur. In December 2018, Acorda announced that the FDA approved INBRIJA^TM for intermittent treatment of OFF episodes in people with Parkinson’s disease treated with carbidopa/levodopa.

NeuroDerm Ltd., which was acquired by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation in October 2017, has the following subcutaneous product candidates, ND0612H and ND0612L for the treatment of patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease. These product candidates have completed Phase II clinical trials. In August 2019, the company announced that it was advancing ND0612 into a Phase III trial.

Other technologies for delivering Levodopa, such as through the skin (transdermal administration) using a patch, injections or inhalations, as well as new formulations and chemical modifications of Levodopa and/or complementary drugs, currently exist and might compete with AP-CD/LD as well, but, to our knowledge, these technologies, formulations and modifications have not yet been submitted for approval.

Government Regulation

In the United States, the FDA regulates pharmaceuticals under Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or the FDCA, and its implementing regulations. These products are also subject to other federal, state, and local statutes and regulations, including federal and state consumer protection laws, laws protecting the privacy of health-related information, and laws prohibiting unfair and deceptive acts and trade practices.

The process required by the FDA before a new drug product may be marketed in the United States generally involves the following: completion of extensive preclinical laboratory tests and preclinical animal studies, performed in accordance with the FDA’s Good Laboratory Practice, or GLP, regulations; submission to the FDA of an IND which FDA must allow to become effective before human clinical trials in the US may begin; performance of adequate and well-controlled human clinical trials to establish the safety and efficacy of the product candidate for each proposed indication; and submission to the FDA of an NDA for the drug, after completion of all pivotal clinical trials. An IND is a request for authorization from the FDA to administer an investigational drug product to humans.

Clinical trials that involve the administration of the investigational drug to human subjects are conducted under the supervision of qualified investigators in accordance with current Good Clinical Practice, or cGCP which is intended to protect the rights, safety and welfare of humans participating in research and assure the quality, reliability and integrity of data collected. A protocol for each clinical trial conducted in the US, or other protocols under IND even not conducted in the US, and any subsequent protocol amendments must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND. Additionally, approval must also be obtained from each clinical trial site’s Institutional Review Board, or IRB, before the trials may be initiated, and the IRB must monitor the trial until completed. There are also requirements governing the reporting of ongoing clinical trials and clinical trial results to public registries.

Clinical trials are usually conducted in three phases. Phase I clinical trials are normally conducted in small groups of healthy volunteers to assess safety and tolerability. After an acceptable dose has been established, the drug is administered to small populations of patients (Phase II) to look for initial signs of efficacy in treating the targeted disease or condition and to continue to assess safety. Phase III clinical trials are usually multi-center, double-blind controlled trials in hundreds or even thousands of subjects at various sites to assess as fully as possible both the safety and effectiveness of the drug.

The FDA, the IRB, or the clinical trial sponsor may suspend or terminate a clinical trial at any time on various grounds, including a finding that the trial subjects are being exposed to an unacceptable health risk. Additionally, some clinical trials are overseen by a data safety monitoring board, or DSMB. This group of experts reviews unblinded data from clinical trials and provides authorization for whether or not a trial may move forward at designated check points. A DSMB may order a trial halted if it believes that the risk to subjects is unacceptable or the product is so effective as to make it unethical to administer placebos or alternate treatments to the non-treatment arms. The sponsor may also suspend or terminate a clinical trial based on evolving business reasons.

Assuming successful completion of all required testing in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements, detailed investigational drug product information is submitted to the FDA in the form of an NDA requesting approval to market the product in the US for one or more indications. The NDA must be accompanied by a substantial user fee, which may be waived in certain circumstances. The application includes all relevant data available from pertinent preclinical and clinical trials, including negative or ambiguous results as well as positive findings, together with detailed information relating to the product’s chemistry, manufacturing, controls and proposed labeling, among other things. FDA has sixty days from the applicant’s submission of an NDA to either accept the NDA for filing or issue a refusal-to-file letter if it finds that the application is not sufficiently complete to permit substantive review.

Once the NDA submission has been accepted for filing, the FDA’s goal is to review standard applications within ten months of filing. However, the review process is often significantly extended by FDA requests for additional information or clarification. The FDA may refer the application to an advisory committee for review, evaluation and recommendation as to whether the application should be approved. The FDA is not bound by the recommendation of an advisory committee, but it typically follows such recommendations.

After the FDA evaluates the NDA and conducts inspections of manufacturing facilities involved in the production of the product, as well as inspections of selected clinical trial sites for data integrity, it may issue an approval letter or, instead, a Complete Response Letter. An approval letter authorizes commercial marketing of the drug with specific prescribing information for specific indications. A Complete Response Letter indicates that the application is not ready for approval in its present form. A Complete Response Letter may require additional clinical data or other significant, expensive and time-consuming requirements related to clinical trials, preclinical studies or manufacturing, or any combination thereof. Even if such additional information is submitted, the FDA may ultimately decide that the NDA does not satisfy the criteria for approval. The FDA could also approve the NDA with restrictive indications, labeling that includes particular risk information, or a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy, or REMS, which could include medication guides, physician communication plans, or elements to assure safe use, such as restricted distribution methods, patient registries and other risk minimization tools. The FDA also may condition approval on, among other things, changes to proposed labeling, development of adequate controls and specifications, or a commitment to conduct one or more post-market studies or clinical trials. Such post-market testing may include Phase IV clinical trials and surveillance to further assess and monitor the product’s safety and effectiveness after commercialization.

After regulatory approval of a drug product is obtained, we would be required to comply with a number of post-approval requirements. As a holder of an approved NDA, we would be required to report, among other things, certain adverse reactions and production problems to the FDA, to provide updated safety and efficacy information, and to comply with requirements concerning advertising and promotional labeling for any of our products. Also, quality control and manufacturing procedures must continue to conform to current Good Manufacturing Practices, or cGMP after approval, which includes, among other things, maintenance of a stability program. The FDA periodically inspects manufacturing facilities to assess compliance with cGMP, which imposes extensive procedural, substantive, and record keeping requirements. In addition, changes to the manufacturing process are strictly regulated, and, depending on the significance of the change, may require prior FDA approval before being implemented. FDA regulations also require investigation and correction of product out of specification results and impose reporting and documentation requirements upon us and any third-party manufacturers that we may decide to use. Accordingly, manufacturers must continue to expend time, money and effort in the area of production and quality control to maintain compliance with cGMP and other aspects of regulatory compliance.

We produce, and expect to continue to produce, the quantities of our product candidates required for our clinical trials, and we do not yet have a need to produce our product candidates for commercial purposes. Future FDA and state inspections may identify compliance issues at our facilities or at the facilities of our contract manufacturers or licensees that may disrupt production or distribution, or require substantial resources to correct. In addition, discovery of previously unknown problems with a product or the failure to comply with applicable requirements may result in restrictions on a product, manufacturer or holder of an approved NDA, including withdrawal or recall of the product from the market or other voluntary withdrawal of the product’s approval, seizure, or FDA-initiated judicial action that could delay or prohibit further marketing. Newly discovered or developed safety or effectiveness data may require changes to a product’s approved labeling, including the addition of new warnings and contraindications, and also may require the implementation of other risk management measures. Also, new government requirements, including those resulting from new legislation, may be established, or the FDA’s policies may change, which could delay or prevent regulatory approval of our products under development.

In addition, as the NDA holder, we will be responsible for legal and regulatory compliance for advertising and promotion of the drug product. We are required to provide to the FDA copies of all drug promotion at the time of first use, and to ensure that all information disseminated conforms to the product’s approved labeling and other FDA regulations and policies.

505(b)(2) Applications

We intend to submit NDAs for our proposed products, assuming that the clinical data justify submission, under Section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA, assuming the FDA agrees with our assessment that a given proposed product qualifies for review under that section. If the FDA disagrees with that assessment or revises its decision at a later date, we would be compelled to file under section 505(b)(1), which is the normal route used for traditional new drugs where the data relied upon for the NDA filing have been developed by the sponsor during its clinical trials. In contrast, Section 505(b)(2) permits the filing of an NDA when at least some of the information required for approval comes from studies not conducted by or for the applicant and for which the applicant has not obtained a right of reference. The applicant may rely on published literature and the FDA’s findings of safety and effectiveness based on certain pre-clinical or clinical studies conducted for an approved product. The FDA may also require companies to perform additional studies or measurements to support the changes from the approved product. The FDA may then approve the new product candidate for all or some of the label indications for which the referenced product has been approved, as well as for any new indication sought by the Section 505(b)(2) applicant. The abbreviated Section 505(b)(2) approval pathway increases the likelihood that the timeframe and costs associated with commercializing products will be lower than under a typical Section 505(b)(1) approval pathway.

Upon approval of an NDA or a supplement thereto, NDA sponsors are required to list with the FDA each patent with claims that cover the applicant’s product or an approved method of using the product. Each of the patents listed by the NDA sponsor is published in the Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (commonly known as the Orange Book) identifies drug products approved on the basis of safety and effectiveness by FDA under the FDCA and related patent and exclusivity information. When an Abbreviated New Drug Application, or ANDA, applicant files its application with the FDA, the applicant is required to certify to the FDA concerning any patents listed for the reference product in the Orange Book, except for patents covering methods of use for which the ANDA applicant is not seeking approval. To the extent that the Section 505(b)(2) applicant is relying on studies conducted for an already approved product, the applicant is required to certify to the FDA concerning any patents listed for the approved product in the Orange Book to the same extent that an ANDA applicant would.

Specifically, the applicant must certify with respect to each patent that:

A certification that the new product will not infringe the already approved product’s listed patents or that such patents are invalid or unenforceable is called a Paragraph IV certification. If the applicant does not challenge the listed patents or indicates that it is not seeking approval of a patented method of use, the ANDA application will not be approved until all the listed patents claiming the referenced product have expired.

If the ANDA applicant has provided a Paragraph IV certification to the FDA, the applicant must also send notice of the Paragraph IV certification to the NDA and patent holders once the ANDA has been accepted for filing by the FDA. The NDA and patent holders may then initiate a patent infringement lawsuit in response to the notice of the Paragraph IV certification. The filing of a patent infringement lawsuit within 45 days after the receipt of a Paragraph IV certification automatically prevents the FDA from approving the ANDA until the earlier of 30 months after the receipt of the Paragraph IV notice, expiration of the patent, or a decision in the infringement case that is favorable to the ANDA applicant. This same procedure that applied to an ANDA applicant also applies to an NDA applicant under Section 505(b)(2).

Patent Term Restoration and Extension

A patent claiming a new drug product may be eligible for a limited patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act, which permits a patent restoration of up to five years for the patent term lost during product development and the FDA regulatory review. The restoration period granted is typically one-half the time between the effective date of an IND and the submission date of an NDA, plus the time between the submission date of an NDA and the ultimate approval date. Patent term restoration cannot be used to extend the remaining term of a patent past a total of 14 years from the product’s approval date. Only one patent applicable to an approved drug product is eligible for the extension, and the application for the extension must be submitted prior to the expiration of the patent in question. A patent that covers multiple drugs for which approval is sought can only be extended in connection with one of the approvals. The USPTO reviews and approves the application for any patent term extension or restoration in consultation with the FDA.

Marketing Exclusivity

A Section 505(b)(2) NDA applicant may be eligible for its own regulatory exclusivity period, such as three-year exclusivity. A Section 505(b)(2) NDA applicant for a new condition of use, or change to a marketed product, such as a new extended release formulation for a previously approved product, may be granted a three-year market exclusivity if one or more clinical studies, other than bioavailability or bioequivalence studies, were essential to the approval of the application and were conducted or sponsored by the applicant. Should this occur, the FDA would be precluded from approving any other application for the same new condition of use or for a change to the drug product that was granted exclusivity until after that three-year exclusivity period has run. Additional exclusivities may also apply.

Reimbursement

We face uncertainties over the pricing of pharmaceutical products. Sales of our product candidates will depend, in part, on the extent to which the costs of our product candidates will be covered by third-party payors, such as federal health programs, commercial insurance and managed care organizations. These third-party payors are increasingly challenging the prices charged for medical products and services. Additionally, the containment of healthcare costs has become a priority of federal and state governments and the prices of drugs have been a focus in this effort. The U.S. government, state legislatures, foreign governments and third-party payors have shown significant interest in implementing cost-containment programs, including price controls, pricing transparency disclosure obligations, restrictions on reimbursement and requirements for substitution of generic products. Adoption of price controls and cost-containment measures, and adoption of more restrictive policies in jurisdictions with existing controls and measures, could further limit our net revenue and results. If these third-party payors do not consider our products to be cost-effective compared to other therapies, they may not cover any of our products after approved as a benefit under their plans or, if they do, the level of payment may not be sufficient to allow us to sell our product candidates on a profitable basis.

Specifically, in both the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory proposals to change the healthcare system in ways that could affect our ability to sell our product candidates profitably. In the United States, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, also called the Medicare Modernization Act, or MMA, changed the way Medicare covers and pays for pharmaceutical products. The legislation expanded Medicare coverage for drug purchases by the elderly and certain others. Prior to MMA, Medicare did not cover most outpatient prescription drugs. MMA created a new voluntary Part D, which covers outpatient drugs for Medicare beneficiaries and is administered by private insurance plans that operate partially at-risk under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS. These private Part D plans have incentives to keep costs down. MMA also introduced a new reimbursement methodology based on average sales prices for physician-administered drugs. In addition, this legislation provided authority for limiting the number of certain outpatient drugs that will be covered in any therapeutic class.

In recent years, Congress has considered further reductions in Medicare reimbursement for drugs administered by physicians. CMS has issued and will continue to issue regulations to implement the law which will affect Medicare, Medicaid and other third-party payors. Medicare, which is the single largest third-party payment program and which is administered by CMS, covers prescription drugs in one of two ways. Medicare part B covers outpatient prescription drugs that are administered by physicians and Medicare part D covers other outpatient prescription drugs, but through private insurers. Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor, is funded jointly by CMS and the states, but is administered by the states; states are authorized to cover outpatient prescription drugs, but that coverage is subject to caps and to substantial rebates. CMS also has the authority to revise reimbursement rates and to implement coverage restrictions for some drugs. Cost reduction initiatives and changes in coverage implemented through legislation or regulation could decrease utilization of and reimbursement for any approved products, which in turn would affect the price we can receive for those products. While the MMA and implementing regulations apply primarily to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private payors often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement rates. Therefore, any reduction in reimbursement that results from federal legislation or regulation may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors.

In March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, or the Affordable Care Act, which was amended by the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act, or collectively, PPACA became law in the United States, a sweeping law intended to broaden access to health insurance, reduce or constrain the growth of healthcare spending, enhance remedies against fraud and abuse, add new transparency requirements for healthcare and health insurance industries, impose new taxes and fees on pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and impose additional health policy reforms. As amended, the PPACA expanded manufacturers’ rebate liability to include covered drugs dispensed to individuals who are enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations, increased the minimum rebate due for innovator drugs (both single source drugs and innovator multiple source drugs) from 15.1% of average manufacturer price, or AMP to 23.1% of AMP or the difference between the AMP and best price, whichever is greater. The total rebate amount for innovator drugs is capped at 100.0% of AMP. The PPACA and subsequent legislation also narrowed the definition of AMP. Furthermore, the PPACA imposes a significant annual, nondeductible fee on companies that manufacture or import certain branded prescription drug products. Substantial new provisions affecting compliance have also been enacted, which may affect our business practices with healthcare practitioners, and a significant number of provisions are not yet, or have only recently become, effective. The PPACA likely will continue to put pressure on pharmaceutical pricing, especially under the Medicare program, and may also increase our regulatory burdens and operating costs. The PPACA remains subject to continuing legislative scrutiny, including efforts by Congress to repeal and amend a number of its provisions, as well as administrative actions delaying the effectiveness of key provisions. In addition, there have been lawsuits filed by various stakeholders pertaining to certain portions of the PPACA that may have the effect of modifying or altering various parts of the law. Efforts to date to amend or repeal the PPACA have generally been unsuccessful.

In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the PPACA was enacted. In August 2011, then President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act of 2011, which, among other things, creates the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to recommend to Congress proposals in spending reductions. The Joint Select Committee did not achieve a targeted deficit reduction of an amount greater than $1.2 trillion for the years 2013 through 2021, triggering the legislation’s automatic reduction to several government programs. This includes aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to healthcare providers of up to 2.0% per fiscal year, starting in 2013. In January 2013, President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several categories of healthcare providers and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. Legislative and regulatory proposals have been made to expand post-approval requirements and restrict sales and promotional activities for pharmaceutical products or to lower drug prices for pharmaceutical products.

In November 2020, Joseph Biden was elected President and, in January 2021, the Democratic Party obtained control of the Senate. We are not able to state with certainty what the impact of potential legislation will be on our business. Various states, such as California, have also taken steps to consider and enact laws or regulations that are intended to increase the visibility of the pricing of pharmaceutical products with the goal of reducing the prices at which we are able to sell our products. Because these various actual and proposed legislative changes are intended to operate on a state-by-state level rather than a national one, we cannot predict what the full effect of these legislative activities may be on our business in the future.

Although we cannot predict the full effect on our business of the implementation of existing legislation, including the PPACA or the enactment of additional legislation pursuant to healthcare and other legislative reform, we believe that legislation or regulations that would reduce reimbursement for or restrict coverage of our products could adversely affect how much or under what circumstances healthcare providers will prescribe or administer our products.

Additionally, in some countries, particularly the countries comprising the EU the pricing of pharmaceuticals and certain other therapeutics is subject to governmental control. In these countries, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after the receipt of marketing approval for a product. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our product candidate to other available therapies.

DEA

Our AP-Cannabinoids product candidates for treatment of various pain indications, uses CBD or THC. These products are quite distinct from crude herbal “medical marijuana,” and we intend to seek FDA approval for these products in accordance with the customary FDA approval process and based on adequate and well-controlled clinical studies. However, the active ingredients in our products are defined as controlled substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, or CSA. Under the CSA, the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice, or DEA, places each drug that has abuse potential into one of five categories. The five categories, referred to as Schedules I-V, carry different degrees of restriction. Each schedule is associated with a distinct set of controls that affect manufacturers, researchers, healthcare providers, and patients. The controls include registration with the DEA, labeling and packaging, production quotas, security, recordkeeping, and dispensing. Schedule I is the most restrictive, covering drugs that have “no accepted medical use” in the United States and that have high abuse potential.

If and when any of our product candidates receive FDA approval, the DEA will make a scheduling determination and place the product in a schedule other than Schedule I in order for it to be prescribed to patients in the United States. Accordingly, our ability to ultimately commercialize the product will depend in part on the ultimate scheduling classification determination by DEA for our product.

The FDA has stated that it will continue to facilitate the work of companies interested in bringing safe, effective, and quality products to market, including scientifically-based research concerning the medical uses of products derived from marijuana and the FDA has approved synthetic compositions of the active ingredients found in marijuana. However, the use and abuse of controlled substances is currently subject to political and social pressures from certain constituencies related to their usage which could result in additional difficulty with respect to the approval of AP-Cannabinoids as a prescription pharmaceutical. For example, the FDA or DEA may require us to generate more clinical data about the potential for abuse than that which is currently anticipated, which could increase the cost and/or delay the launch of our product. In addition, DEA scheduling may limit our ability to achieve market share in the United States due to restricted access and the disinclination of some physicians to prescribe more restrictive scheduled controlled substances. For example, Schedule II drugs may not be refilled without a new prescription. These factors may limit the commercial viability of AP-Cannabinoids in the United States.

Most countries are parties to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, which governs international trade and domestic control of narcotic substances, including the compounds in our AP-Cannabinoids product candidates. Countries may interpret and implement their treaty obligations in a way that creates a legal obstacle to our obtaining approval to market our AP-Cannabinoids product candidates. Approval to market in these countries could require amendments or modifications to existing laws and regulations that such countries would be unwilling to undertake or may cause material delays in any marketing approval.

Other U.S. Healthcare Laws and Compliance Requirements

In the United States, our current and future activities with investigators, healthcare professionals, consultants, third-party payors, patient organizations and customers are subject to healthcare regulation and enforcement by the federal government and the states in which we conduct our business. Applicable federal and state healthcare laws and regulations include the following:

Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations could be costly. Although we believe our business practices are structured to be compliant with applicable laws, it is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our past or present operations, including activities conducted by our sales team or agents, 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, disgorgement, exclusion from third party payor programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, debarment, imprisonment, integrity obligations and other compliance oversight, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. If any of the physicians, providers or entities with whom we do business are found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusion from government funded healthcare programs.

Many aspects of these laws have not been definitively interpreted by the regulatory authorities or the courts, and their provisions are open to a variety of subjective interpretations which increases the risk of potential violations. In addition, these laws and their interpretations are subject to change. Any action against us for violation of these laws, even if we successfully defend against it, could cause us to incur significant legal expenses, divert our management’s attention from the operation of our business, and damage our reputation.

In addition, from time to time in the future, we may become subject to additional laws or regulations administered by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, or by other federal, state, local or foreign regulatory authorities, to the repeal of laws or regulations that we generally consider favorable or to more stringent interpretations of current laws or regulations. We are not able to predict the nature of such future laws, regulations, repeals or interpretations, and we cannot predict what effect additional governmental regulation, if and when it occurs, would have on our business in the future. Such developments could, however, require reformulation of certain products to meet new standards, recalls or discontinuance of certain products not able to be reformulated, additional record-keeping requirements, increased documentation of the properties of certain products, additional or different labeling, additional scientific substantiation, additional personnel or other new requirements. Any such developments could have a material adverse effect on our business.

The growth and demand for electronic commerce, or eCommerce, could result in more stringent consumer protection laws that impose additional compliance burdens on online retailers. These consumer protection laws could result in substantial compliance costs and could interfere with the conduct of our business.

There is currently great uncertainty in many states whether or how existing laws governing issues such as property ownership, sales and other taxes, and libel and personal privacy apply to the Internet and commercial online retailers. These issues may take years to resolve. For example, tax authorities in a number of states, as well as a Congressional advisory commission, are currently reviewing the appropriate tax treatment of companies engaged in online commerce and new state tax regulations may subject us to additional state sales and income taxes. New legislation or regulation, the application of laws and regulations from jurisdictions whose laws do not currently apply to our business, or a change in application of existing laws and regulations to the Internet and commercial online services could result in significant additional taxes on our business. These taxes could have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

Intellectual Property

Our success depends, at least in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property, and to operate without infringing or violating the proprietary rights of others. We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright laws, know-how, intellectual property licenses and other contractual rights (including confidentiality and invention assignment agreements) to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property, including related intellectual property rights.

Patents

As of February 28, 2021, we own or exclusively license five families of patents to use within our field of business (families IN-3, IN-7, IN-11, IN-21 and IN-23). Three of the patent families (IN-3, IN-7 and IN-11) have granted patents registered in various countries, as detailed below. Four families (IN-3, IN-7, IN-11 and IN-23) have active pending application/s under examination. The fifth patent family (IN-23) currently comprises of a pending PCT or application, filed on December 31, 2020. Our patents and patent applications generally relate to gastroretentive drug delivery devices for oral intake, the integration of the drugs into our delivery devices and their production, and our patents and any patents that issue from our pending patent applications are expected to expire at various dates between 2027 and 2041. We also rely on trade secrets to protect certain aspects of our technology. The following discussion describes certain patents/patent applications which we consider to be our material patents and patent applications.

IN-1 and Yissum License Agreement

Members of the patent family, IN-1, that we exclusively licensed from Yissum (i.e., Gastroretentive Controlled Release Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms) pursuant to the license agreement described below, or the License Agreement covers gastroretentive system/device for controlled release of an active ingredient in the GI tract expired in 2020.

In the License Agreement, Yissum granted us an exclusive license for developing, manufacturing and marketing of products based, directly or indirectly, on the IN-1 patent, the know-how and research results defined therein. Under the provisions of the License Agreement, as amended, Yissum may not transfer its rights in the patent without our prior written consent. In consideration of the license, we have undertaken to pay Yissum royalties equaling 3% of the total net revenues from the sale of products based on Yissum’s patent and royalties equal to 15% of any payment or benefit whatsoever received by us from any sublicensee. At the current time we have not commenced sales and have not granted any sublicenses to any third parties. The parties to the License Agreement are entitled to terminate the agreement in case of bankruptcy or receivership of the other party, or a material breach (including in respect of any payment obligations) that is not cured within 30 days. The License Agreement will remain in effect until the later of the expiration date of the patent or 15 years from the first commercial sale on the basis of the license. We have the right to assign our rights in the License Agreement with the prior consent of Yissum, not to be unreasonably withheld, and we are entitled to grant sublicenses under the licensed intellectual property of Yissum to third parties in our sole discretion, and any sublicensee(s) thereunder will not be required to assume any undertaking towards Yissum.

IN-3

An additional patent family (i.e., Method and Apparatus for Forming Delivery Devices for Oral Intake of an Agent), which we refer to as IN-3, covers various methods for making and folding the gastroretentive drug delivery system, and for folding it in an accordion configuration allowing its integration into an ordinary oral capsule, which are suitable for commercial manufacturing in mass quantities. The IN-3 family patents, will expire in 2027, except for the first United States patent of this family, which will expire in 2028. We consider our proprietary process for folding and cutting the films forming the drug delivery system for integration in an accordion-like configuration into an ordinary oral capsule to be material to our business. We have five granted patents in the U.S. and an additional pending patent application in connection with IN-3, as well as granted patents in Israel (four patents), Europe (two granted patents validated in more than 15 countries and a pending divisional application), Canada and Japan. Importantly, the second IN-3 patents granted in the U.S. and in Europe cover a specific embodiment of the Accordion Pill, particularly suitable for insoluble or poorly soluble drugs. Similar divisional applications have been filed in other countries and patents for these have already been granted in Israel and Japan.

IN-7

An additional patent family (for “frameless” Accordion Pill, specifically but not limited to Levodopa as the active drug) that we consider material to our business is referred to as IN-7. The accordion technology covered by our other patents may sometimes need to be specifically adapted for a given drug that might benefit from prolonged gastroretentive release. Thus, the layered structure of an Accordion Pill may be varied and specially designed by reference to factors that are unique to any given drug and indication, such as the quantity of active ingredient desired to be released, the length of time over which the active drug is released, the relative solubility of a particular drug molecule, and other factors. IN-7 patents/patent applications relate to a special Accordion Pill, which is “frameless”, and is suitable for carrying various active drugs, including but not limited to Levodopa, optionally in combination with Carbidopa. The IN-7 patent family relates to the Accordion Pill dosage form, the main feature of which is the uniform inner drug-containing layer, which allows for, but does not require, high load of the drug, while maintaining the requisite structural or mechanical strength of the Accordion Pill. This patent family includes patents/patent applications filed in the United States, the European Patent Office, Japan and several other countries in April 2009. We have four granted U.S. patents for an Accordion Pill with specific claims to Carbidopa/Levodopa as the active ingredient(s) (IN-7), which will be in force until April 17, 2029, and have been granted IN-7 patents in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, Europe, (validated in over 30 countries), Israel, South Africa and South Korea. Application in Europe (divisional) and in India are pending.

An additional patent family, related to IN-7, which we refer to as IN-11, seeks protection for an Accordion Pill containing Levodopa that is specifically formulated for treatment of Parkinson’s disease in a specific treatment regimen. We have been granted two United States patents and one Canadian patent, and have pending applications in the EPO, India and Israel. Any granted patent of IN-11 will expire in November 2031.

IN-21

This patent family is directed to Accordion Pill comprising cannabinoid/s as active drugs (including THC and CBD, separately or in combination) and currently includes pending patent applications in 21 jurisdictions, including the US, EPO, Israel, China, Republic of Korea, Canada, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and others. Patents to be granted on these applications will expire in 2037.

IN-23

This patent family is directed to a novel Accordion Pill, with a new platform for delivering active pharmaceutical agents. A PCT application was filed on December 31, 2020. National phase entry is in July 2022.

General

We intend to submit patent applications for each Accordion Pill and/or drug combination that we develop. The patent outlook for companies like ours is generally uncertain and may involve complex legal and factual questions. Our ability to maintain and consolidate our proprietary position for our technology will depend on our success in obtaining effective claims and enforcing those claims once granted. We do not know whether any of our patent applications or any patent applications that we license will result in the issuance of any patents. Our issued patents and those that may be issued in the future, or patents that we exclusively license, may be challenged, narrowed, circumvented or found to be invalid or unenforceable, which could limit our ability to stop competitors from marketing related products or the length of term of patent protection that we may have for our products. We cannot be certain that we were the first to invent the inventions claimed in our owned patents or patent applications, or that Yissum was the first to invent the invention claimed in the patent that we exclusively license from Yissum. In addition, our competitors may independently develop similar technologies or duplicate any technology developed by us, and the rights granted under any issued patents may not provide us with any meaningful competitive advantages against these competitors. Furthermore, because of the extensive time required for development, testing and regulatory review of a potential product, it is possible that, before any of our products can be commercialized, any related patent may expire or remain in force for only a short period following commercialization, thereby reducing any advantage of the patent.

Trademarks

We rely on trade names, trademarks and service marks to protect our name brands. Our trademark/service mark ACCORDION PILL is registered in Israel in Classes 5, 40 and 42. The ACCORDION PILL trademark/service mark is also registered in the United States and in the UK.

Trade Secrets and Confidential Information

In addition to patents, we rely on trade secrets and know-how to develop and maintain our competitive position. Trade secrets and know-how can be difficult to protect. We rely on, among other things, confidentiality and invention assignment agreements to protect our proprietary know-how and other intellectual property that may not be patentable, or that we believe is best protected by means that do not require public disclosure. For example, we require our employees to execute confidentiality agreements in connection with their employment relationships with us, and to disclose and assign to us inventions conceived in connection with their services to us. However, there can be no assurance that these agreements will be enforceable or that they will provide us with adequate protection. We also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our data, trade secrets and know-how by maintaining physical security of our premises and physical and electronic security of our information technology systems.

We may be unable to obtain, maintain and protect the intellectual property rights necessary to conduct our business, and may be subject to claims that we infringe or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of others, which could materially harm our business. For a more comprehensive summary of the risks related to our intellectual property, see “Item 1A. Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property.”

Insurance

We maintain directors’ and officers’ liability insurance with a coverage limit of $5.0 million for the benefit of our office holders and directors. Such directors’ and officers’ liability insurance contains certain standard exclusions.

We also maintain insurance for our premises for a maximum of NIS 40.0 million, including coverage of equipment and lease improvements against risk of loss (fire, natural hazard and allied perils, excluding damage from theft - hereinafter “named perils”) and business interruption insurance coverage caused by named perils out of which up to NIS 20.0 million for fixed cost. In addition, we maintain the following insurance: employer liability with coverage of NIS 20.0 million and third-party liability with coverage of NIS 20.0 million.

We also procure additional insurance for each specific clinical trial which covers a certain number of trial participants and which varies based on the particular clinical trial. Certain of such policies are based on the Declaration of Helsinki, which is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed for the medical community by the World Medical Association, and certain protocols of the Israeli Ministry of Health.

We believe our insurance policies are adequate and customary for a business of our kind. However, because of the nature of our business, we cannot assure you that we will be able to maintain insurance on a commercially reasonable basis or at all, or that any future claims will not exceed our insurance coverage.

Research Grants

Grants under the Israeli Innovation Law

Under the Encouragement of Research, Development and Technological Innovation in the Industry Law 5744-1984, and the regulations, guidelines, rules, procedures and benefit tracks thereunder, or the Innovation Law, research and development programs that meet specified criteria and are approved by a committee of the IIA are eligible for grants. The grants awarded are typically up to 50% of the project’s expenditures, as determined by the IIA committee and subject to the benefit track under which the grant was awarded. A company that receives a grant from the IIA, or a Participating Company, is typically required to pay royalties to the IIA on income generated from products incorporating know-how developed using such grants (including income derived from services associated with such products), until 100% of the U.S. dollars-linked grant plus annual LIBOR interest (or any other interest rate that the IIA may choose to apply in the future) is repaid. The rate of royalties to be paid may vary between different benefits tracks, as shall be determined by the IIA. Under the regular benefits tracks the rate of royalties varies between 3% to 5% of the income generated from the IIA-supported products. The obligation to pay royalties is contingent on actual income generated from such products and services. In the absence of such income, no payment of such royalties is required.

The terms of the grants under the Innovation Law also (generally) require that the products developed as part of the programs under which the grants were given be manufactured in Israel and that the know-how developed thereunder may not be transferred outside of Israel, unless a prior written approval is received from the IIA (such approval is not required for the transfer of a portion of the manufacturing capacity which does not exceed, in the aggregate, 10% of the portion declared to be manufactured outside of Israel in the applications for funding, in which case only notification is required) and additional payments are required to be made to the IIA. It should be noted, that this does not restrict the export of products that incorporate the funded know-how. See “Item 1A. Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Operations in Israel” for additional information.

The IIA approved our request to transfer 100% of the manufacturing rights of AP-CD/LD that was developed under one of the IIA funded programs to LTS. As a result, we will be required to pay the IIA royalties from revenue generated from the AP-CD/LD product candidate at an increased rate and up to an increased cap amount. The IIA noted that the approval granted was exceptional and that the IIA will not approve manufacturing additional product candidates out of Israel.

We received from the IIA grants in the total amount of approximately NIS 42.3 million (approximately $11.3 million) for research and development programs in the years 2009 through 2016. We did not apply for any grants from the IIA since January 1, 2017. For more information see note 6c in our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Environmental Matters

We are subject to various environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing air emissions, water and wastewater discharges, noise emissions, the use, management and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes and the cleanup of contaminated sites. In addition, all of our laboratory personnel participate in instruction on the proper handling of chemicals, including hazardous substances before commencing employment, and during the course of their employment with us. In addition, all information with respect to any chemical substance that we use is filed and stored as a Material Safety Data Sheet, as required by applicable environmental regulations. Based on information currently available to us, we do not expect environmental costs and contingencies to have a material adverse effect on us. The operation of our facilities, however, entails risks in these areas. Significant expenditures could be required in the future if we are required to comply with new or more stringent environmental or health and safety laws, regulations or requirements.

We hold a business license from the Jerusalem Municipality with respect to manufacturing pharmaceutical products at 12 Hartom Street, Har Hotzvim in Jerusalem. The license is currently valid until December 31, 2023. The business license was granted after an inspection of our raw materials inventory, which we are permitted to maintain in our facilities and warehouses located at 12 Hartom Street. We also hold a toxic substance permit from July 26, 2018, which is valid until July 30, 2021.

We believe that our business, operations and facilities are being operated in compliance in all material respects with applicable environmental and health and safety laws and regulations.

Human Capital Management

As of December 31, 2020, we had 45 employees, 36 of whom are full-time employees, four of whom were employed in management, six of whom were employed in finance and administration, 29 of whom were employed in research and development and operations, one of whom were employed in clinical trials and regulatory affairs and five of whom were employed in quality assurance. As of December 31, 2020, all of these employees are located in Israel or the United States, where our U.S. subsidiary employs two employees.

Israeli labor laws principally govern the length of the workday, minimum wages for employees, procedures for hiring and dismissing employees, determination of severance pay, annual leave, sick days, advance notice of termination of employment, equal opportunity and anti-discrimination laws and other conditions of employment. Subject to certain exceptions, Israeli law generally requires severance pay upon the retirement, death or dismissal of an employee, and requires us and our employees to make payments to the National Insurance Institute, which is similar to the U.S. Social Security Administration. Our employees have defined benefit pension plans that comply with applicable Israeli legal requirements, which also include the mandatory pension payments required by applicable law and allocations for severance pay.

While none of our employees are party to any collective bargaining agreements, certain provisions of the collective bargaining agreements between the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel) and the Coordination Bureau of Economic Organizations (including the Industrialists’ Associations) are applicable to our employees by extension orders issued by the Israel Ministry of Economy and Industry. These provisions primarily concern the length of the workweek, pension fund benefits for all employees and for employees in the industry section, insurance for work-related accidents, travel expenses reimbursement, holiday leave, convalescent payments and entitlement for vacation days. We generally provide our employees with benefits and working conditions beyond the required minimums.

The success of our business is fundamentally connected to the well-being of our people. Accordingly, we are committed to the health and safety of our employees. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented changes that we determined were in the best interest of our employees, as well as the communities in which we operate, and which comply with government regulations. This includes having employees work from home, while implementing additional safety measures for employees continuing critical on-site work.

We have never experienced any employment-related work stoppages and believe our relationship with our employees is good.

Available Information

We maintain a corporate website at www.intecpharma.com. Copies of our reports on Forms 10-K, Forms 10-Q and Forms 8-K, may be obtained, free of charge, electronically through our corporate website at www.intecpharma.com as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such material electronically with, or furnish to, the SEC. All of our SEC filings are also available on our website at http://www.intecpharma.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after having been electronically filed or furnished to the SEC. The public may read and copy any materials filed by us with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Room 1580, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov. The information on our website is not, and will not be deemed, a part of this Annual Report or incorporated into any other filings we make with the SEC.

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

In March 2021, Intec Israel entered into a Merger Agreement with Decoy, pursuant to which, subject to the approval of Intec Israel shareholders and the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement, Decoy would become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intec Parent, a successor entity to Intec Israel following redomestication to Delaware. If the merger is completed, which is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2021, the business of Decoy will become the business of Intec. You should carefully consider the factors described below, together with all of the other information contained in this Annual Report, including the Intec Israel audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in this Annual Report beginning on page F-1, before deciding whether to invest in our ordinary shares. If any of the risks discussed below actually occur, Intec Israel’s business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially adversely affected. The risks described below are not the only risks facing us. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial also may impair our business operations. This could cause the trading price of our ordinary shares to decline, and you may lose all or part of your investment.

Summary Risk Factors

The principal factors and uncertainties that make investing in our ordinary shares risky, include, among others:

Risks Related to the Proposed Merger

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Capital Requirements

Risks Related to Intec Israel Business and Operations

Risks Related to the Clinical Development, Manufacturing and Regulatory Approval of Our Product Candidates

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

Risks Related to Ownership of Our Ordinary Shares

Risks Related to Our Operations in Israel

Risks Related to the Proposed Merger

There can be no assurance that the Merger will be completed in a timely manner or at all. If the Merger is not consummated, our business could suffer materially and our stock price could decline.

The Closing is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of a number of closing conditions, as described in the Merger Agreement, including, among other things, (i) consummation of the Domestication Merger, (ii) approval of certain matters related to the Merger by the shareholders of Intec Israel and approval of the Merger by the stockholders of Decoy, (iii) the effectiveness of the Registration Statement, (iv) the continued listing of Intec Israel’s ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market (and following the Domestication Merger, the shares of Intec Parent Common Stock) and the authorization for listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market of the Merger Shares, (v) the receipt of a tax ruling from the Israel Tax Authority with respect to the Domestication Merger, (vi) the sale or other disposition of the Accordion Pill business, and (vii) a closing financing by Intec Israel or Intec Parent such that upon Closing (taking into account of the proceeds to be received with respect to such financing), the combined net cash of Intec Parent shall be not less than $30 million and not more than $50 million, and which represents an agreed minimum valuation derived from the exchange ratio for Intec Parent following the Closing. If the conditions are not satisfied or waived, the Merger may be materially delayed or abandoned. If the Merger is not consummated, our ongoing business may be adversely affected and, without realizing any of the benefits of having consummated the Merger, we will be subject to a number of risks, including, but not limited to, the following:

If the Merger is not consummated, these risks may materialize and may adversely affect our business, financial condition and the market price of our common stock.

If the Merger is not completed, we may be unsuccessful in completing an alternative transaction on terms that are as favorable as the terms of the Merger with Decoy, or at all.

While we have entered into the Merger Agreement with Decoy, the closing of the Merger may be delayed or may not occur at all and there can be no assurance that the Merger will deliver the anticipated benefits we expect or enhance shareholder value. If we are unable to consummate the Merger, our Board may elect to pursue an alternative strategy, one of which may be a strategic transaction similar to the Merger. Attempting to complete an alternative transaction like the Merger will be costly and time consuming, and we can give no assurances that such an alternative transaction would occur at all. Alternatively, our board of directors may elect to continue advancing the preclinical and clinical development of the Accordion Pill platform, which would require that we obtain additional funding, and to continue our efforts to seek potential collaborative, partnering or other strategic arrangements for our programs, including a sale or other divestiture of our program assets, or our board of directors could instead decide to pursue a dissolution and liquidation of our company. In such an event, the amount of cash available for distribution to our shareholders will depend heavily on the timing of such decision, and with the passage of time the amount of cash available for distribution will be reduced as we continue to fund our operations. In addition, if our board of directors were to approve and recommend, and our shareholders were to approve, a dissolution and liquidation of our company, we would be required to pay our outstanding obligations, as well as to make reasonable provision for contingent and unknown obligations, prior to making any distributions in liquidation to our shareholders. Our commitments and contingent liabilities may include severance obligations, liabilities to the Israel Innovation Authority, and fees and expenses related to the Merger. As a result of this requirement, a portion of our assets may need to be reserved pending the resolution of such obligations. In addition, we may be subject to litigation or other claims related to a dissolution and liquidation. If a dissolution and liquidation were pursued, our board of directors, in consultation with its advisors, would need to evaluate these matters and make a determination about a reasonable amount to reserve. Accordingly, holders of our ordinary shares could lose all or a significant portion of their investment in the event of a liquidation, dissolution or winding up of the company.

The issuance of shares of common stock of Intec Parent to Decoy’s stockholders in the Merger will significantly dilute the voting power of our current shareholders.

If the Merger is completed, each outstanding share of Decoy common stock will be converted into the right to receive a number of shares of our common stock of Intec Parent equal to the exchange ratio set forth in the Merger Agreement. Under the exchange ratio formula in the Merger Agreement, without taking into consideration the effect of the respective levels of cash and liabilities of each of Intec Israel and Decoy, following the Closing, the former Decoy stockholders immediately before the Merger are expected to own approximately 75% of the aggregate number of the outstanding securities of Intec Parent, and the shareholders of Intec Israel immediately before the Merger are expected to own approximately 25% of the aggregate number of the outstanding securities of Intec Israel, calculated on a fully-diluted basis. The actual allocation will be subject to adjustment based on, among other things, Decoy’s and Intec Israel’s net cash balance (including, in the case of Intec Pharma, any proceeds from any disposition of the Accordion Pill business), subject to certain exceptions. The Closing is conditioned on completion of a closing financing, which will dilute securityholders of both Intec Israel and Decoy on a pro-rata basis. The issuance of shares of our common stock to Decoy’s stockholders in the Merger will significantly reduce the relative voting power of each share of our common stock held by our current shareholders. Consequently, our shareholders as a group will have significantly less influence over the management and policies of the combined company after the Merger than prior to the Merger.

The exchange ratio is not adjustable based on the market price of Intec Israel ordinary shares, so the merger consideration at the Closing may have a greater or lesser value than at the time the Merger Agreement was signed.

The Merger Agreement has set an exchange ratio formula that is based on the fully-diluted outstanding capital stock of Intec Israel and Decoy, after taking into account each company’s outstanding options and warrants, irrespective of the exercise prices of such options and warrants, and Intec Israel’s and Decoy’s net cash balances, in each case a few days prior to the Closing. Any changes in the market price of Intec Israel’s ordinary shares before the completion of the Merger will not affect the number of shares of Intec Parent common stock issuable to Decoy’s stockholders pursuant to the Merger Agreement. Therefore, if before the completion of the Merger, the market price of Intec Israel ordinary shares declines from the market price on the date of the Merger Agreement, then Decoy’s stockholders could receive merger consideration with substantially lower value than the value of such merger consideration on the date of the Merger Agreement. Similarly, if before the completion of the Merger the market price of Intec Israel ordinary shares increases from the market price of Intec Israel ordinary shares on the date of the Merger Agreement, then Decoy’s stockholders could receive merger consideration with substantially greater value than the value of such merger consideration on the date of the Merger Agreement. The Merger Agreement does not include a price-based termination right. Because the exchange ratio does not adjust as a result of changes in the market price of Intec Israel ordinary shares, for each one percentage point change in the market price of Intec Israel ordinary shares, there is a corresponding one percentage point rise or decline, respectively, in the value of the total merger consideration payable to Decoy’s stockholders pursuant to the Merger Agreement.

The net cash balances of Intec Israel and Decoy at the Closing could result in their respective securityholders owning a smaller or larger percentage of Intec Parent.

The estimates of the respective ownership percentages of the securityholders of Intec Israel and Decoy contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are subject to adjustment prior to the Closing, based on, among other things, the final net cash positions of the companies at the Closing. Each of the companies’ net cash positions depend on several factors including, among other things, the amount of permitted pre-closing financing raised, the proceeds, if any, that Intec Israel receives from the sale or other disposition of the Accordion Pill business, and the cash burn rate from signing of the Merger Agreement through to the Closing Date. In particular, since the sale or other disposition of the Accordion Pill business is a condition to Closing in connection with the Merger, Intec Israel may not realize the full value of the Accordion Pill business which would have the effect of reducing Intec Israel’s net cash.

Uncertainty about the Merger may adversely affect the relationship of Intec Israel with Intec Israel’s third party collaborators and manufacturer which could have a materially adverse effect on Intec Israel’s business, financial condition and results of operation.

In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, Intec Israel agreed that prior to the Closing Date it would use commercially reasonable efforts to enter into one or more agreements providing for the sale, transfer or assignment or that it would otherwise take steps related to the divestment or disposal and satisfaction of liabilities of Intec Israel’s Accordion Pill business, to be effected immediately after the Closing. In response to the announcement of the Merger, Intec Israel’s third party collaborators and manufacturer may seek to change the terms or otherwise terminate their relationship with Intec Israel. Any such change in terms or termination could adversely impact Intec Israel’s ability to enter into any such agreement to sell or otherwise dispose of the Accordion Pill business and/or reduce the value at which the According Pill business is sold, which in turn could result in the exchange ratio being less beneficial to Intec Israel shareholders. If Intec Israel is unable to enter into an agreement to sell or otherwise dispose of the Accordion Pill business, then Intec Israel may be forced to initiate steps towards the liquidation of the Accordion Pill business. If the Merger is not completed, any change in terms or termination of the relationship with a third party collaborator or manufacturer may have a material adverse effect on the ongoing viability of the Accordion Pill business, which would have a material adverse effect on Intec Israel’s business, financial condition and results of operations.

Failure to complete the Merger may result in Intec Israel or Decoy paying a termination fee or, in the case of Intec Israel, forfeit a deposit to Decoy and could significantly harm the market price of Intec Israel’s ordinary shares and negatively affect the future business and operations of each company.

If the Merger is not completed and the Merger Agreement is terminated under certain circumstances, Intec Israel and Decoy may be required to pay the other party a termination fee of $1,000,000 and, in the case of Intec Israel, forfeit a deposit in the amount of $350,000 in favor of Decoy to cover transaction expenses. Even if a termination fee is not payable or the deposit is not forfeited in connection with a termination of the Merger Agreement, each of Intec Israel and Decoy will have incurred significant fees and expenses, such as legal and accounting fees, which must be paid whether or not the Merger is completed. Further, if the Merger is not completed, it could significantly harm the market price of Intec Israel’s ordinary shares. In addition, if the Merger Agreement is terminated and the board of directors of Intec Israel determines to seek another business combination, there can be no assurance that Intec Israel will be able to find a partner and close an alternative transaction on terms that are as favorable or more favorable than the terms set forth in the Merger Agreement.

The Merger may be completed even though certain events occur prior to the Closing that materially and adversely affect Intec Israel or Decoy.

The Merger Agreement provides that either Intec Israel or Decoy can refuse to complete the Merger if there is a material adverse change affecting the other party between March 15, 2021, the date of the Merger Agreement, and the Closing. However, certain types of changes do not permit either party to refuse to complete the Merger, even if such change could be said to have a material adverse effect on Intec Israel or Decoy, including:

If adverse changes occur and Intec Israel and Decoy still complete the Merger, the market price of the Intec Parent’s common stock may suffer. This in turn may reduce the value of the Merger to the shareholders of Intec Israel, Decoy or both.

Even if the Merger is completed, Intec Parent will need to raise additional capital by issuing securities or debt or through licensing or similar arrangements, which may cause significant dilution to Intec Parent’s stockholders, restrict Intec Parent’s operations or require Intec Parent to relinquish proprietary rights. Future issuances of Intec Parent’s common stock pursuant to options and warrants outstanding following the Merger and its equity incentive plans could result in additional dilution.

Following the completion of the Merger, Intec Israel expects Intec Parent will need to raise additional capital in the future to funds its operations. Additional financing may not be available to Intec Parent when it needs it or may not be available on favorable terms. To the extent that Intec Parent raises additional capital by issuing equity securities, the terms of such an issuance may cause more significant dilution to the combined company’s stockholders’ ownership, and the terms of any new equity securities may have preferences over the combined organization’s common stock. Any debt financing of the combined organization may involve covenants that restrict its operations. These restrictive covenants may include limitations on additional borrowing and specific restrictions on the use of the combined organization’s assets, as well as prohibitions on its ability to create liens, pay dividends, redeem its stock or make investments. In addition, if Intec Parent raises additional funds through licensing or similar arrangements, it may be necessary to relinquish potentially valuable rights to current product candidates and potential products or proprietary technologies, or grant licenses on terms that are not favorable to the combined organization. In addition, the exercise of some or all of Intec Parent’s outstanding options or warrants could result in additional dilution in the percentage ownership interest of Intec Israel or Decoy shareholders.

Some Intec Israel and Decoy officers and directors have interests in the Merger that are different from yours and that may influence them to support or approve the Merger without regard to your interests.

Certain officers and directors of Intec Israel and Decoy participate in arrangements that provide them with interests in the Merger that are different from yours, including, among others, the continued service as an officer or director of the combined organization, severance benefits, stock option vesting.

In addition, and for example, Decoy’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Michael Newman is expected to become a director and the Chief Scientific Officer of Intec Parent upon the Closing, and Intec Israel’s directors and executive officers are entitled to certain indemnification and liability insurance coverage pursuant to the terms of the Merger Agreement. These interests, among others, may influence the officers and directors of Intec Israel and Decoy to support or approve the Merger.

The market price of Intec Israel’s ordinary shares following the Merger may decline as a result of the Merger.

The market price of Intec Israel’s ordinary shares, or Intec Parent’s shares of common stock after the Domestication Merger, may decline as a result of the Merger for a number of reasons including if:

Intec Israel and Decoy shareholders may not realize a benefit from the Merger commensurate with the ownership dilution they will experience in connection with the Merger.

If the combined organization is unable to realize the strategic and financial benefits currently anticipated from the Merger, Intec Israel’s and Decoy’s shareholders will have experienced substantial dilution of their ownership interests in their respective companies without receiving the expected commensurate benefit, or only receiving part of the commensurate benefit to the extent the combined organization is able to realize only part of the expected strategic and financial benefits currently anticipated from the Merger.

During the pendency of the Merger, Intec Israel and Decoy may not be able to enter into a business combination with another party at a favorable price, if at all, because of restrictions in the Merger Agreement, which could adversely affect their respective businesses.

Covenants in the Merger Agreement impede the ability of Intec Israel and Decoy to make acquisitions, subject to certain exceptions relating to fiduciary duties or to complete other transactions that are not in the ordinary course of business pending completion of the Merger. As a result, if the Merger is not completed, the parties may be at a disadvantage to their competitors during such period. In addition, while the Merger Agreement is in effect, each party is generally prohibited from soliciting, initiating, encouraging or entering into certain extraordinary transactions, such as a merger, sale of assets (other than the sale or other disposition of the Accordion Pill business, in the case of Intec Israel), or other business combination outside the ordinary course of business with any third party, subject to certain exceptions relating to fiduciary duties. Any such transactions could be favorable to such party’s shareholders.

Certain provisions of the Merger Agreement may discourage third parties from submitting alternative takeover proposals, including proposals that may be superior to the arrangements contemplated by the Merger Agreement.

The terms of the Merger Agreement prohibit each of Intec Israel and Decoy from soliciting alternative takeover proposals or cooperating with persons making unsolicited takeover proposals, except in limited circumstances when such party’s board of directors determines in good faith that an unsolicited alternative takeover proposal is or is reasonably likely to lead to a superior takeover proposal and that failure to cooperate with the proponent of the proposal would be reasonably likely to be inconsistent with the board of directors’ fiduciary duties.

Because the lack of a public market for Decoy’s capital stock makes it difficult to evaluate its, the stockholders of Decoy may receive shares of Intec Parent common stock in the Merger that have a value that is less than, or greater than, the fair market value of Decoy’s capital stock.

The outstanding capital stock of Decoy is privately held and is not traded in any public market. The lack of a public market makes it extremely difficult to determine the fair market value of Decoy. Because the percentage of Intec Parent common stock to be issued to Decoy’s stockholders was determined based on negotiations between the parties, it is possible that the value of Intec Parent’s common stock to be received by Decoy’s stockholders will be less than the fair market value of Decoy, or Intec Parent may pay more than the aggregate fair market value for Decoy.

Lawsuits may be filed against us and the members of our board of directors arising out of the Merger, which may delay or prevent the Merger.

Putative securityholder complaints, including securityholder class action complaints, and other complaints may be filed against us, our board of directors, Decoy, Decoy’s board of directors and others in connection with the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement. The outcome of litigation is uncertain, and we may not be successful in defending against any such future claims. Lawsuits that may be filed against us, our board of directors, Decoy, or Decoy’s board of directors could delay or prevent the Merger, divert the attention of our management and employees from our day-to-day business and otherwise adversely affect us financially.

The combined organization may become involved in securities class action litigation that could divert management’s attention and harm the combined organization’s business and insurance coverage may not be sufficient to cover all costs and damages.

In the past, securities class action or shareholder derivative litigation often follows certain significant business transactions, such as the sale of a business division or announcement of a merger. The combined organization may become involved in this type of litigation in the future. Litigation is often expensive and diverts management’s attention and resources, which could adversely affect the combined organization’s business.

We are substantially dependent on our remaining employees to facilitate the consummation of the Merger.

As of March 15, 2021, we had 44 employees, 36 of whom are full-time employees. Our ability to successfully complete the Merger depends in large part on our ability to retain certain remaining personnel. Despite our efforts to retain these employees, one or more may terminate their employment with us on short notice. The loss of the services of certain employees could potentially harm our ability to run our day-to-day business operations, as well as to fulfill our reporting obligations as a public company.

Your rights as a shareholder will change as a result of the Domestication Merger.

In accordance with the Merger Agreement, we have agreed to re-domesticate Intec Israel from the State of Israel to the State of Delaware. Due to the differences between Delaware law and Israeli law and the differences between the governing documents of Intec Israel and Intec Parent, we are unable to adopt governing documents for Intec Parent that are identical to the governing documents for Intec Israel. We have sought to preserve in the certificate of incorporation and bylaws of Intec Parent a similar allocation of rights and powers between the shareholders and our board of directors that exists under Intec Israel’s articles of association and Israeli law. Nevertheless, Intec Parent’s proposed certificate of incorporation and bylaws differ from Intec Israel’s articles of association, both in form and substance, and your rights as a shareholder will change.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Capital Requirements

We are a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company with a history of operating losses, are not currently profitable, do not expect to become profitable in the near future and may never become profitable.

We are a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that was incorporated in 2000. Since our incorporation, we have primarily focused our efforts on research and development and clinical trials. We are not profitable and have incurred losses since inception, principally as a result of research and development, clinical trials and general administrative expenses in support of our operations. We have not generated any revenue, expect to incur substantial losses for the foreseeable future and may never become profitable. Regardless of whether the Merger is completed, we also expect to incur significant operating and capital expenditures and anticipate that our expenses and losses may increase substantially in the foreseeable future if we:

We may out-license our ability to generate revenue from one or more of our product candidates, depending on a number of factors, including our ability to:

For the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, we had net losses of $47.6 million and $14.1 million, respectively, and we expect such losses to continue for the foreseeable future. As a result, we will ultimately need to generate significant revenues in order to achieve and maintain profitability. We may not be able to generate these revenues or achieve profitability in the future. If our product candidates do not advance to further clinical trials, fail in clinical trials or do not gain regulatory clearance or approval, or if our product candidates do not achieve market acceptance, we may never become profitable. Our failure to achieve or maintain profitability, or substantial delays in achieving profitability, could negatively impact the value of our ordinary shares and our ability to raise additional financing. A substantial decline in the value of our ordinary shares would also affect the price at which we could sell shares to secure future funding, which could dilute the ownership interest of current shareholders.

Even if we achieve profitability in the future, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Accordingly, it is difficult to evaluate our business prospects. Moreover, our prospects must be considered in light of the proposed Merger, the negative outcome of the ACCORDANCE study, the discontinuation of the Novartis program, and the general uncertainty regarding our development programs and the risks and uncertainties encountered by an early-stage company in highly regulated and competitive markets, such as the biopharmaceutical market, where regulatory approval and market acceptance of our products are uncertain. There can be no assurance that our efforts will ultimately be successful or result in revenues or profits. As a result, our 2020 annual consolidated financial statements note that there is a substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.

Our independent registered public accounting firm has expressed substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern.

We believe that we have adequate cash to fund our ongoing activities through the completion of the Merger and into the first quarter of 2022. However, changes may occur that would cause us to consume our existing cash prior to that time, including the costs to consummate the Merger. Prior to closing of the Merger we agreed, among other things, that we would use commercially reasonable efforts to enter into one or more agreements providing for the sale, transfer or assignment or that we would otherwise take steps related to the divestment or disposal and satisfaction of liabilities of our Accordion Pill business, to be effected immediately after Closing. Although we have entered into the Merger Agreement and intend to consummate the Merger, there is no assurance that it will be able to successfully complete the Merger on a timely basis, or at all. If, for any reason, the Merger is not consummated and we are unable to continue to operate the Accordion Pill business or identify and complete an alternative strategic transaction like the Merger, we may be required to dissolve and liquidate our assets. In such case, we would be required to pay all of our debts and contractual obligations, and to set aside certain reserves for potential future claims, and there can be no assurances as to the amount or timing of available cash left to distribute to our shareholders after paying our debts and other obligations and setting aside funds for reserves. We are also closely monitoring ongoing developments in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in disruptions to our partnering efforts and may negatively impact our commercial prospects and our ability to raise capital. As of the date of this Annual Report, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may materially impact our financial condition, liquidity, or results of operations is uncertain. Our independent registered public accounting firm has issued its report on our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020 and included an explanatory paragraph stating that the Company has suffered recurring losses from operations and negative cash outflows from operating activities. As a result, there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. The consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty. The perception that we might be unable to continue as a going concern may make it more difficult for us to obtain financing for the continuation of our operations and could result in the loss of confidence by investors, suppliers and employees. If we cannot successfully continue as a going concern, our shareholders may lose their entire investment in our ordinary shares.

Our business is subject to risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic which has impacted and continues to impact our business.

Public health epidemics or outbreaks could adversely impact our business. In late 2019, a novel strain of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, was reported in Wuhan, China. While initially the outbreak was largely concentrated in China, it has now spread to countries across the globe, including in Israel and the United States. Many countries around the world, including in Israel and the United States, have implemented significant governmental measures to control the spread of the virus, including temporary closure of businesses, severe restrictions on travel and the movement of people, and other material limitations on the conduct of business. We implemented remote working and work place protocols for our employees in accordance with government requirements. The implementation of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in disruptions to our partnering efforts which depend, in part, on attendance at in-person meetings, industry conferences and other events. It is not possible at this time to estimate the full impact that the COVID-19 pandemic could have on our operations, as the impact will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, including the duration and severity of the outbreak, and the actions that may be required to contain COVID-19 or treat its impact. In particular, the continued spread of COVID-19 globally could materially adversely impact our operations and workforce, including our research and development, partnering efforts, and our ability to raise capital, each of which in turn could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operation.

We will need substantial, additional capital in the future. If additional capital is not available, we will have to delay, reduce or cease operations.

We will need to raise substantial, additional capital to complete the research and development of all of our product candidates and for working capital and for general corporate purposes. In addition, we may choose to expand our current research and development focus, or other clinical operations. There is no assurance, however, that we will be successful in obtaining the level of financing needed for our operations and the research and development of our product candidates. As of December 31, 2020, we had cash and cash equivalents of $14.7 million.

In addition, our future capital requirements may be substantial and will depend on many factors including:

Under General Instruction I.B.6 to Form S-3, or the Baby Shelf Rule, the amount of funds we can raise through primary public offerings of securities in any 12-month period using our registration statement on Form S-3 is limited to one-third of the aggregate market value of the ordinary shares held by non-affiliates of the Company. As of March 5, 2021, our public float was approximately $17.8 million, based on 4,481,501 ordinary shares held by non-affiliates and a price of $3.97 per share, which was the last reported sale price of our ordinary shares on the Nasdaq Capital Market on March 5, 2021. We therefore are limited by the Baby Shelf Rule as of the filing of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, until such time as our public float exceeds $75 million. If we are required to file a new registration statement on another form, we may incur additional costs and be subject to delays due to review by the SEC Staff.

Additional funds may not be available when we need them, on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all. If adequate funds are not available to us on a timely basis, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate preclinical studies, clinical trials or other research and development activities for one or more of our product candidates or delay, limit, reduce or terminate our establishment of sales and marketing capabilities or other activities that may be necessary to commercialize our product candidates.

We may incur substantial costs in pursuing future capital financing, including investment banking fees, legal fees, accounting fees, securities law compliance fees, printing and distribution expenses and other costs. We may also be required to recognize non-cash expenses in connection with certain securities we issue, such as convertible notes and warrants, which may adversely impact our financial condition.

Because of our limited operating history, we may not be able to successfully operate our business or execute our business plan.

We have a limited operating history upon which to evaluate our proposed business and prospects. Our proposed business operations will be subject to numerous risks, uncertainties, expenses and difficulties associated with early-stage enterprises. Such risks include, but are not limited to, the following:

Because we are subject to these risks, evaluating our business may be difficult, our business strategy may be unsuccessful and we may be unable to address such risks in a cost-effective manner, if at all. If we are unable to successfully address these risks our business could be harmed.

We have incurred and could incur further impairment charges of our long-lived assets that could negatively affect our results of operations.

We periodically evaluate whether events and circumstances have occurred that require an impairment assessment. In July 2019, we announced top-line results from our ACCORDANCE study which did not meet its target endpoints. We determined that the clinical trial results constituted a triggering event that required us to undertake an impairment test and as a result we recorded an impairment charge of approximately $13.7 million with respect to our production line and related production equipment for commercial scale manufacturing of AP-CD/LD. In the third quarter ended September 30, 2019, we recorded for the first time an impairment charge of approximately $9.8 million which was updated in the fourth quarter by approximately $3.9 million following a new impairment assessment performed at December 31, 2019 following changes in management assumptions. As of December 31, 2020, we performed an additional impairment test which determined that there is no need to record an additional impairment charge. Although no impairment charge was recorded in 2020, we could incur further impairment charges if we determine that the carrying value of our long-lived assets is reduced. In addition, any changes in the actual market conditions versus the assumptions used in the model to determine impairment charges could result in further impairment charges in the future. In the event that we determine that our long-lived assets are impaired, we may be required to record a non-cash charge that could adversely affect our results of operations.

Risks Related to Intec Israel Business and Operations

We have not yet commercialized any products or technologies, and we may never become profitable.

We have not yet commercialized any products or technologies, and we may never be able to do so. We do not know when or if we will complete any of our product development efforts, obtain regulatory approval for any product candidates incorporating our technologies or successfully commercialize any approved products. Due to the negative outcome of the ACCORDANCE study, the discontinuation of the Novartis program, and the general uncertainty regarding our development programs, we do not anticipate commercializing any products or technologies in the near future. Even if we are successful in developing products that are approved for marketing, we will not be successful unless these products gain market acceptance for appropriate indications at favorable reimbursement rates. The degree of market acceptance of these products will depend on a number of factors, including, but not limited to:

Physicians, patients, third-party payors or the medical community in general may be unwilling to accept, utilize or recommend, and in the case of third-party payors, cover payment for, any of our current or future products or products incorporating our technologies. As a result, we are unable to predict the extent of future losses or the time required to achieve profitability, if at all. Even if we successfully develop one or more products that incorporate our technologies, we may not become profitable.

We seek to partner with third-party collaborators with respect to the development and commercialization of AP-CD/LD and for new custom-designed APs, and we may not succeed in establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships, which may significantly limit our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates successfully, if at all.

Our business strategy relies on partnering with pharmaceutical companies to complement our internal development efforts. In July 2019, we announced top-line results from our ACCORDANCE study in which the ACCORDANCE study did not meet its target endpoints. We have completed the analysis of the full data set and we are currently seeking to partner AP-CD/LD as the basis for the strategy for AP-CD/LD moving forward. In addition, we entered into a research collaboration agreement with Merck for the development of a custom-designed AP for one of Merck’s proprietary compound and entered into a cannabinoid research collaboration agreement with GW to explore using the AP platform for an undisclosed research program. We are seeking partners for the development of new custom-designed APs. We will be competing with many other companies as we seek partners for AP-CD/LD and for any new custom-designed APs and we may not be able to compete successfully against those companies. If we are not able to enter into collaboration arrangements for AP-CD/LD or for any new custom-designed APs, we may be required to undertake and fund further development, clinical trials, manufacturing and commercialization activities solely at our own expense and risk. If we are unable to finance and/or successfully execute those expensive activities, or we delay such activities due to capital availability, our business could be materially and adversely affected, and potential future product launch could be materially delayed, be less successful, or we may be forced to discontinue clinical development of these product candidates. Furthermore, if we are unable to enter into a commercial agreement for the development and commercialization of the custom-designed AP for Merck and GW’s programs, then this could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

The process of establishing and maintaining collaborative relationships is difficult, time-consuming and involves significant uncertainty, including:

Any collaborative partners we enter into agreements within the future may shift their priorities and resources away from our product candidates or seek to renegotiate or terminate their relationships with us. For example, in December 2019, we discontinued the development of a custom designed AP for a Novartis proprietary compound following an internal and revised commercial strategic assessment, in which Novartis advised us that this program no longer meets Novartis’ mid to long-term strategic goals. If any collaborator fails to fulfill its responsibilities in a timely manner, or at all, our research, clinical development, manufacturing or commercialization efforts related to that collaboration could be delayed or terminated, or it may be necessary for us to assume responsibility for expenses or activities that would otherwise have been the responsibility of our collaborator. If we are unable to establish and maintain collaborative relationships on acceptable terms or to successfully transition terminated collaborative agreements, we may have to delay or discontinue further development of one or more of our product candidates, undertake development and commercialization activities at our own expense or find alternative sources of capital.

If we are unable to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities or enter into successful relationships with third parties to perform these services, we may not be successful in commercializing our product candidates if and when they are approved.

We do not have a sales or marketing infrastructure and have no experience in the sale, marketing or distribution of products. To achieve commercial success for any product for which we have obtained marketing approval, we will need to establish a sales and marketing infrastructure or to out-license the product.

In the future, we may consider building a focused sales and marketing infrastructure to market AP-CD/LD and potentially other product candidates in the United States, if and when they are approved. There are risks involved with establishing our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities. For example, recruiting and training a sales force could be expensive and time consuming and could delay any product launch. If the commercial launch of a product candidate for which we recruit a sales force and establish marketing capabilities is delayed or does not occur for any reason, we would have prematurely or unnecessarily incurred these commercialization expenses. This may be costly, and our investment would be lost if we cannot retain or reposition our sales and marketing personnel.

Factors that may inhibit our efforts to commercialize our products on our own include:

If we are unable to establish our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities or enter into successful arrangements with third parties to perform these services, our product revenues and our profitability, may be materially adversely affected.

In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to sell, market and distribute our product candidates inside or outside of the United States or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. We likely will have little control over such third parties, and any of them may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell and market our products effectively. If we do not establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities successfully, either on our own or in collaboration with third parties, we will not be successful in commercializing our product candidates.

The members of our management team are important to the efficient and effective operation of our business, and we may need to add and retain additional leading experts. Failure to retain our management team and add additional leading experts could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our executive officers and our management team are important to the efficient and effective operation of our business. Our failure to retain our management personnel, who have developed much of the technology we utilize today, or any other key management personnel, could have a material adverse effect on our future operations. Our success is also dependent on our ability to attract, retain and motivate highly-trained technical and management personnel, among others, to continue the development and commercialization of our current and future products.

As such, our future success highly depends on our ability to attract, retain and motivate personnel required for the development, maintenance and expansion of our activities. There can be no assurance that we will be able to retain our existing personnel or attract additional qualified personnel. The loss of personnel or the inability to hire and retain additional qualified personnel in the future could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation.

We expect to face significant competition. If we cannot successfully compete with new or existing products, our marketing and sales will suffer and we may never be profitable.

If any of our product candidates are approved, we expect to compete against fully-integrated pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and smaller companies that are collaborating with pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations. In addition, many of these competitors, either alone or together with their collaborative partners, operate larger research and development programs than we do, and have substantially greater financial resources than we do, as well as significantly greater experience in:

Our competitors are likely to include companies with marketed products and/or an advanced research and development pipeline. The development of different formulations or new chemical entities may remove any competitive advantage a product formulated with the Accordion Pill platform technology may present. Other companies are engaged in research and development of gastric retention technologies that may become competitive to or even superior to the capabilities of the Accordion Pill platform Technology.

There is a substantial risk of product liability claims in our business. We currently do not maintain product liability insurance and a product liability claim against us could adversely affect our business.

We may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our products in response to product liability lawsuits, which may result in substantial losses.

Any of our product candidates could cause adverse events, including injury, disease or adverse side effects. These adverse events may or may not be observed in clinical trials, but may nonetheless occur in the future. If any of these adverse events occur, they may render our product candidates ineffective or harmful in some patients, and our sales would suffer, materially adversely affecting our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, potential adverse events caused by our product candidates could lead to product liability lawsuits. If product liability lawsuits are successfully brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit the marketing and commercialization of our product candidates. Our business exposes us to potential product liability risks, which are inherent in the testing, manufacturing, marketing and sale of pharmaceutical products. We may not be able to avoid product liability claims. Product liability insurance for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries is generally expensive, if available at all. We do not have product liability insurance (and currently have insurance coverage for each specific clinical trial, which covers a certain number of trial participants and which varies based on the particular clinical trial) and if we are unable to obtain sufficient insurance coverage on reasonable terms or to otherwise protect against potential product liability claims, we may be unable to clinically test, market or commercialize our product candidates. A successful product liability claim brought against us in excess of our insurance coverage, if any, may cause us to incur substantial liabilities, and, as a result, our business, liquidity and results of operations would be materially adversely affected. In addition, the existence of a product liability claim could affect the market price of our ordinary shares.

We face continuous technological change, and developments by competitors may render our products or technologies obsolete or non-competitive. If our new or existing product candidates are rendered obsolete or non-competitive, our marketing and sales will suffer and we may never be profitable.

If our competitors develop and commercialize products faster than we do, or develop and commercialize products that are superior to our product candidates, our commercial opportunities could be reduced or eliminated. The extent to which any of our product candidates achieve market acceptance will depend on competitive factors, many of which are beyond our control. Competition in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industry is intense and has been accentuated by the rapid pace of technology development. Our potential competitors include large integrated pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies that currently have drug and target discovery efforts, universities, and public and private research institutions. Almost all of these entities have substantially greater research and development capabilities and financial, scientific, manufacturing, marketing and sales resources than we do. These organizations also compete with us to:

Our competitors may succeed in developing and commercializing products earlier and obtaining regulatory approvals from the FDA more rapidly than we do. Our competitors may also develop products or technologies that are superior to those we are developing, and render our product candidates or technologies obsolete or non-competitive. If we cannot successfully compete with new or existing products, our marketing and sales could suffer and we may never be profitable.

We have reduced the size of our organization, and we may encounter difficulties in managing our business as a result of this reduction, or the attrition that may occur following this reduction, which could disrupt our operations. In addition, we may not achieve anticipated benefits and savings from the reduction.

Following the negative outcome of the ACCORDANCE study, we reduced the size of our headcount by approximately 50%, designed to focus our cash resources mainly on research and development and business development activities. The restructuring, and the attrition thereafter, resulted in the loss of longer-term employees, the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise and the reallocation and combination of certain roles and responsibilities across the organization, all of which could adversely affect our operations. The restructuring and possible additional cost containment measures may yield unintended consequences, such as attrition beyond our intended reduction in headcount and reduced employee morale. In addition, the restructuring may result in employees who were not affected by the reduction in headcount seeking alternate employment, which would result in us seeking contract support at unplanned additional expense. In addition, we may not achieve anticipated benefits from the restructuring. Due to our limited resources, we may not be able to effectively manage our operations or recruit and retain qualified personnel, which may result in weaknesses in our infrastructure and operations, risks that we may not be able to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, loss of business opportunities, loss of employees and reduced productivity among remaining employees. We may also determine to take additional measures to reduce costs, which could result in further disruptions to our operations and present additional challenges to the effective management of our company. If our management is unable to effectively manage this transition and restructuring and additional cost containment measures, our expenses may be more than expected, and we may not be able to implement our business strategy.

If we are unable to obtain adequate insurance, our financial condition could be adversely affected in the event of uninsured or inadequately insured loss or damage. Our ability to effectively recruit and retain qualified officers and directors could also be adversely affected if we experience difficulty in obtaining adequate directors’ and officers’ liability insurance.

We may not be able to obtain insurance policies on terms affordable to us that would adequately insure our business and property against damage, loss or claims by third parties. To the extent our business or property suffers any damages, losses or claims by third parties, which are not covered or adequately covered by insurance, our financial condition may be materially adversely affected.

We may be unable to maintain sufficient insurance as a public company to cover liability claims made against our officers and directors. If we are unable to adequately insure our officers and directors, we may not be able to retain or recruit qualified officers and directors to manage our Company.

If we acquire or license additional technologies or product candidates, we may incur a number of additional costs, have integration difficulties and/or experience other risks that could harm our business and results of operations.

We may acquire and in-license additional product candidates and technologies. Any product candidate or technologies we in-license or acquire will likely require additional development efforts prior to commercial sale, including extensive preclinical or clinical testing, or both, and approval by the FDA and applicable foreign regulatory authorities, if any. All product candidates are prone to risks of failure inherent in pharmaceutical product development, including the possibility that the product candidate or product developed based on in-licensed technology will not be shown to be sufficiently safe and effective for approval by regulatory authorities. In addition, we cannot assure you that any product candidate that we develop based on acquired or licensed technology that is granted regulatory approval will be manufactured or produced economically, successfully commercialized or widely accepted or competitive in the marketplace. Moreover, integrating any newly acquired or in-licensed product candidates could be expensive and time-consuming. If we cannot effectively manage these aspects of our business strategy, our business may not succeed.

A security breach or disruption or failure in a computer or communications systems could adversely affect us.

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

Global economic, capital market and political conditions could affect our ability to raise capital and could disrupt or delay the performance of our third-party contractors and suppliers.

Our ability to raise capital may be adversely affected by changes in global economic conditions and geopolitical risks, including credit market conditions, levels of consumer and business confidence, exchange rates, levels of government spending and deficits, trade policies, political conditions, actual or anticipated default on sovereign debt, emergence of a pandemic, or other widespread health emergencies (or concerns over the possibility of such an emergency, including for example, the recent COVID-19 pandemic), and other challenges that could affect the global economy. These economic conditions affect businesses such as ours in a number of ways. Tightening of credit in financial markets could adversely affect our ability to obtain financing. Similarly, such tightening of credit may adversely affect our supplier base and increase the potential for one or more of our suppliers to experience financial distress or bankruptcy. Our global business is also adversely affected by decreases in the general level of economic activity, such as decreases in business and consumer spending.

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

Natural disasters could severely disrupt our operations and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects. If a natural disaster, power outage, health epidemic or other event occurred that prevented us from using all or a significant portion of our office, manufacturing and/or lab spaces, that damaged critical infrastructure, such as the manufacturing facilities of our third-party contract manufacturers, CROs, clinical sites, third parties ongoing activities and schedules or that otherwise disrupted operations, it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible for us to continue our plans and business for a substantial period of time.

The disaster recovery and business continuity plan we have in place may prove inadequate in the event of a serious disaster or similar event. We may incur substantial expenses as a result of the limited nature of our disaster recovery and business continuity plans, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks Related to the Clinical Development, Manufacturing and Regulatory Approval of Our Product Candidates

Our product candidates are at various stages of development and may never be commercialized.

The progress and results of any future preclinical testing or future clinical trials are uncertain, and the failure of our product candidates and additional product candidates which we may license, acquire or develop in the future to receive regulatory approvals could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition to the extent we are unable to commercialize any such products. For example, the negative outcome of our ACCORDANCE study had a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. None of our product candidates have received regulatory approval for commercial sale. In addition, we face the risks of failure inherent in developing therapeutic products. All our product candidates are not expected to be commercially available for several years, if at all.

Our product candidates are subject to extensive regulation and are at various stages of regulatory development and may never obtain regulatory approval.

Our product candidates must satisfy certain standards of safety and efficacy for a specific indication before they can be approved for commercial use by the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities. The FDA and foreign regulatory authorities have full discretion over this approval process. We will need to conduct significant additional research, including testing in animals and in humans, before we can file applications for product approval. Typically, in the pharmaceutical industry, there is a high rate of attrition for product candidates in preclinical testing and clinical trials. Also, even though we believe that some of our product candidates may be eligible for FDA review under Section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA, the FDA may not agree with that assessment, and may require us to submit the application under Section 505(b)(1) which usually requires more comprehensive clinical data than applications submitted under Section 505(b)(2). Even under Section 505(b)(2), satisfying FDA’s requirements typically takes many years, is dependent upon the type, complexity and novelty of the product and requires the expenditure of substantial resources. Success in preclinical testing and early clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials will be successful. For example, a number of companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including biotechnology companies, have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials, even after promising results in earlier trials. In addition, delays or rejections may be encountered based upon additional government regulation, including any changes in legislation or FDA policy, during the process of product development, clinical trials and regulatory reviews. After clinical trials are completed, the FDA has substantial discretion in the drug approval process and may require us to conduct additional preclinical and clinical testing or to perform post-marketing studies.

In order to receive FDA approval or approval from foreign regulatory authorities to market a product candidate or to distribute our products, we must demonstrate through preclinical testing and through human clinical trials that the product candidate is safe and effective for its intended uses (e.g., treatment of a specific condition in a specific way subject to contradictions and other limitations). We anticipate that some foreign regulatory agencies will have different testing and approval requirements from those of the FDA. Even if we comply with all FDA requests, the FDA may ultimately reject or decline to approve one or more of our new drug applications, or it may grant approval for a narrowly intended use that is not commercially feasible. We might not obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates in a timely manner, if at all. Failure to obtain FDA approval of any of our product candidates in a timely manner or at all could severely undermine our business by delaying or halting commercialization of our products, imposing costly procedures, diminishing competitive advantages and reducing the number of saleable products and, therefore, corresponding product revenues.

If the FDA does not conclude that a given product candidate using our Accordion Pill technology satisfies the requirements for approval under the Section 505(b)(2) regulatory approval pathway, or if the requirements for approval of our product candidates under Section 505(b)(2) are not as we expect, the approval pathway will likely take significantly longer, cost significantly more and entail significantly greater complications and risks than anticipated, and in any case may not be successful.

We intend to seek FDA approval for our product candidates implementing our Accordion Pill technology through the Section 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway. Pursuant to Section 505(b)(2) of the FDCA, a NDA under Section 505(b)(2) is permitted to reference safety and effectiveness data submitted by the sponsor of a previously approved drug as part of its NDA, or rely on FDA’s prior conclusions regarding the safety and effectiveness of that previously approved drug, or rely in part on data in the public domain. Reliance on data collected by others may expedite the development program for our product candidates by potentially decreasing the amount of clinical data that we would need to generate in order to obtain FDA approval. If the FDA does not allow us to pursue the Section 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway as anticipated, we may need to conduct additional clinical trials, provide additional data and information, and meet additional standards for product approval. If this were to occur, the time and financial resources required to obtain FDA approval, and complications and risks associated with regulatory approval of our product candidates, would likely substantially increase. Moreover, our inability to pursue the Section 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway may result in new competitive products reaching the market more quickly than our product, which would likely materially adversely impact our competitive position and prospects. Even if we are able to utilize the Section 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway, there is no guarantee this will ultimately lead to accelerated product development or earlier approval. A 505(b)(2) applicant may rely on the FDA’s finding of safety and effectiveness for a previously approved drug only to the extent that the proposed product in the Section 505(b)(2) application shares characteristics (e.g., active ingredient, dosage form, route of administration, strength, indication, conditions of use) in common with the previously approved drug. To the extent that the previously approved drug and the drug proposed in the Section 505(b)(2) application differ (e.g., a product with a different dosage form or route of administration), the Section 505(b)(2) application must include sufficient data to support those differences.

In addition, the pharmaceutical industry is highly competitive, and Section 505(b)(2) NDAs are subject to special requirements designed to protect the patent rights of sponsors of previously approved drugs that may be referenced in a Section 505(b)(2) NDA. These requirements may give rise to patent litigation and mandatory delays in approval of our NDA for up to 30 months or longer depending on the outcome of any litigation. Further, it is not uncommon for a manufacturer of an approved product to file a citizen petition with the FDA seeking to delay approval of, or impose additional approval requirements for, pending competing products. If successful, such petitions can significantly delay, or even prevent, the approval of a new product. Even if the FDA ultimately denies such a petition, the FDA may substantially delay approval while it considers and responds to the petition. Amendments to the FDCA attempt to limit the delay that can be caused by a citizen petition to 150 days, although court action by a dissatisfied petitioner is a possibility and this could, in theory, adversely affect the approval process.

Moreover, even if product candidates implementing our Accordion Pill technology are approved under Section 505(b)(2), the approval may be subject to limitations on the indicated uses for which the products may be marketed or to other conditions of approval, or may contain requirements for costly post-marketing testing and surveillance to monitor the safety or efficacy of the products.

We might be unable to develop any of our product candidates to achieve commercial success in a timely and cost-effective manner, or ever.

Even if regulatory authorities approve any of our product candidates, they may not be commercially successful. Our product candidates may not be commercially successful because government agencies or other third-party payors may not provide reimbursement for the costs of the product or the reimbursement may be too low to be commercially successful. In addition, physicians and others may not use or recommend our products candidates, even following regulatory approval. A product approval, even if issued, may limit the uses for which such product may be distributed, which could adversely affect the commercial viability of the product. Moreover, third parties may develop superior products or have proprietary rights that preclude us from marketing our products. We also expect that our product candidates, if approved, will generally be more expensive than the non-Accordion Pill version of the same medication available to patients. Physician and patient acceptance of, and demand for, any product candidates for which we obtain regulatory approval or license will depend largely on many factors, including, but not limited to, the extent, if any, of reimbursement of costs by government agencies and other third-party payors, pricing, competition, the effectiveness of our marketing and distribution efforts, the safety and effectiveness of alternative products, and the prevalence and severity of side effects associated with such products. If physicians, government agencies and other third-party payors do not accept the use or efficacy of our products, we will not be able to generate significant revenue, if any.

Our product candidates and future product candidates will remain subject to ongoing regulatory requirements even if they receive marketing approval, and if we fail to comply with these requirements, we may not obtain such approvals or could lose those approvals that have been obtained, and the sales of any approved commercial products could be suspended.

Even if we receive regulatory approval to market a particular product candidate, any such product will remain subject to extensive regulatory requirements, including requirements relating to manufacturing, labeling, packaging, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion, distribution and record keeping. Even if regulatory approval of a product is granted, the approval may be subject to limitations on the uses for which the product may be marketed or the conditions of approval, or may contain requirements for costly post-marketing testing and surveillance to monitor the safety or efficacy of the product, which could negatively impact us or our collaboration partners by reducing revenues or increasing expenses, and cause the approved product candidate not to be commercially viable. In addition, as clinical experience with a drug expands after approval, typically because it is used by a greater number and more diverse group of patients after approval than during clinical trials, side effects and other problems may be observed over time after approval that were not seen or anticipated during pre-approval clinical trials or other studies. Any adverse effects observed after the approval and marketing of a product candidate could result in limitations on the use of or withdrawal of FDA approval of any approved products from the marketplace. Absence of long-term safety data may also limit the approved uses of our products, if any. If we fail to comply with the regulatory requirements of the FDA and other applicable U.S. and foreign regulatory authorities, or previously unknown problems with any approved commercial products, manufacturers or manufacturing processes are discovered, we could be subject to administrative or judicially imposed sanctions or other setbacks, including, without limitation, the following:

suspension or imposition of restrictions on the products, manufacturers or manufacturing processes, including costly new manufacturing requirements;

If we or our collaborators are slow to adapt, or are unable to adapt, to changes in existing regulatory requirements or adoption of new regulatory requirements or policies, marketing approval for our product candidates may be lost or cease to be achievable, resulting in decreased revenue from milestones, product sales or royalties, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Clinical trials are very expensive, time-consuming and difficult to design and implement, and, as a result, we may suffer delays or suspensions to current or future trials, which would have a material adverse effect on our ability to advance products and generate revenues.

Human clinical trials are very expensive and difficult to design and implement, in part because they are subject to rigorous regulatory requirements. Regulatory authorities, such as the FDA, may preclude clinical trials from proceeding. Additionally, the clinical trial process is time-consuming, failure can occur at any stage of the trial and we may encounter problems that cause us to abandon or repeat clinical trials. The commencement and completion of clinical trials may be delayed by several factors, including, but not limited to:

As noted above, we, regulatory authorities, IRBs or DSMBs may suspend our clinical trials at any time if it appears that we are exposing participants to unacceptable health risks or if the regulatory authorities find deficiencies in our regulatory submissions or conduct of these trials. Any suspension of clinical trials will delay possible regulatory approval, if any, and adversely impact our ability to develop products and generate revenue.

We may be forced to abandon development of certain products altogether, which will significantly impair our ability to generate product revenues.

Upon the completion of any clinical trial, if at all, the results of these trials might not support the claims sought by us. Further, success in preclinical testing and early clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials will be successful, and the results of later clinical trials may not replicate the results of prior clinical trials and preclinical testing. For example, our Phase III ACCORDANCE study failed to meet its target endpoints despite positive Phase II data. The clinical trial process may fail to demonstrate that our product candidates are safe for humans and effective for its indicated uses. Any such failure may cause us to abandon a product candidate and may delay development of other product candidates. Any delay in, or termination or suspension of, our clinical trials will delay the requisite filings with the FDA and, ultimately, our ability to commercialize our product candidates and generate product revenues. If the clinical trials do not support our drug product claims, the completion of development of such product candidates may be significantly delayed or abandoned, which would significantly impair our ability to generate product revenues and would materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Positive results in the previous clinical trials of one or more of our product candidates may not be replicated in future clinical trials of such product candidate, which could result in development delays or a failure to obtain marketing approval.

Positive results in the previous clinical trials of one or more of our product candidates may not be predictive of similar results in future clinical trials for such product candidate. For example, our Phase III ACCORDANCE study failed to meet its target endpoints despite positive Phase II data. Also, interim results during a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. We along with a number of companies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have suffered significant setbacks in late-stage clinical trials even after achieving promising results in early-stage development. Accordingly, the results from the completed preclinical studies and clinical trials for our product candidates may not be predictive of the results we may obtain in later stage trials of such product candidates. Our clinical trials may produce negative or inconclusive results, and we may decide, or regulators may require us, to conduct additional clinical trials. Clinical trial results may be inconclusive, or contradicted by other clinical trials, particularly larger clinical trials. Moreover, clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain FDA or European Medicines Agency, or other applicable regulatory agency, approval for their products.

Our product candidates are manufactured through a compounding, film casting and assembly process, and if we or one of our materials suppliers encounters problems manufacturing our products or raw materials, our business could suffer.

We and our contract manufacturers, if any, are, and will be, subject to extensive governmental regulation in connection with the manufacture of any pharmaceutical products. The FDA and foreign regulators require manufacturers to register manufacturing facilities. The FDA and foreign regulators also inspect these facilities to confirm compliance with cGMP or similar requirements that the FDA or foreign regulators establish. We and our contract manufacturers must ensure that all of the processes, methods and equipment are compliant with cGMP for drugs on an ongoing basis, as mandated by the FDA and other regulatory authorities, and conduct extensive audits of vendors, contract laboratories and suppliers. The FDA will likely condition grant of any marketing approval, if any, on a satisfactory on-site inspection of our manufacturing facilities.

We currently manufacture our product candidates used in clinical testing and we order certain materials from single-source suppliers. If the supply of any of these single-sourced materials is delayed or ceases, we may not be able to produce the related product in a timely manner or in sufficient quantities, if at all, causing us to be unable to further develop our product candidates or bring them to market or continue to develop our technology, which could materially and adversely affect our business. In addition, a single-source supplier of a key component of one or more of our product candidates could potentially exert significant bargaining power over price, quality, warranty claims or other terms relating to the single-sourced materials. Our materials suppliers may face manufacturing or quality control problems causing product production and shipment delays or a situation where the supplier may not be able to maintain compliance with the FDA’s cGMP requirements, or those of foreign regulators, necessary to continue manufacturing our drug substance or raw materials. Drug manufacturers are subject to ongoing periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA, the DEA, and corresponding foreign regulatory agencies to ensure strict compliance with cGMP requirements and other governmental regulations and corresponding foreign standards. Any failure by us or our suppliers to comply with DEA requirements or FDA or foreign regulatory requirements could adversely affect our clinical research activities and our ability to market and develop our products.

We intend to rely on a third-party manufacturer to manufacture commercial quantities of AP-CD/LD, if approved, and we may rely on other third-party manufacturers for other product candidates and any failure by a third-party manufacturer or supplier may delay or impair our ability to commercialize our product candidates.

We have manufactured our product candidates for our preclinical studies, Phase I clinical trials, Phase II clinical trials and Phase III clinical trial in our own manufacturing facility. Completion of any future clinical trial and commercialization of our product candidates will require access to, or development of, facilities to manufacture a sufficient supply of our product candidates. Although we believe our facilities are sufficient to manufacture our product candidate needs for clinical trials, we may be incorrect and we may not have the resources or facilities to manufacture our product candidates for clinical trials.

With respect to any future commercialization of the AP-CD/LD, we have decided to rely on LTS, a third-party contract manufacturer. LTS will be the sole source of production of AP-CD/LD and the establishment of a manufacturing facility to produce commercial quantities of AP-CD/LD requires substantial investment. Producing products in commercial quantities requires developing and adhering to complex manufacturing processes that are different from the manufacture of products in smaller quantities for clinical trials, including adherence to regulatory standards. Although we believe that we have developed processes and protocols that will enable LTS to manufacture commercial-scale quantities of products at acceptable costs, we cannot provide assurance that such processes and protocols will enable us to manufacture in quantities that may be required for commercialization of AP-CD/LD with yields and at costs that will be commercially attractive. If LTS is unable to establish or maintain commercial manufacture of AP-CD/LD or are unable to do so at costs that we currently anticipate, our business could be adversely affected. Furthermore, if our current and future manufacturing and supply strategies are unsuccessful, we may be unable to conduct and complete any future Phase III clinical trials or commercialize our product candidates in a timely manner, if at all.

We have relied, and we expect to continue to rely, on third-party manufacturers for certain raw materials (excipients, solvents and active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs), and for the commercial manufacturing of our AP-CD/LD. Our reliance on third parties for the manufacture of these items increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of these items or will not be able to obtain such quantities at an acceptable cost or quality, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts. If the third-party manufacturers on whom we rely fail to supply these items and we need to enter into alternative arrangements with a different supplier, it could delay our product development activities, as we would have to requalify the casting and assembly processes pursuant to FDA requirements. If this failure of supply were to occur after we received approval for and commenced commercialization of AP-CD/LD, we might be unable to meet the demand for this product and our business could be adversely affected. In addition, because we do not have any control over the process or timing of the supply of the APIs used in AP-CD/LD, there is greater risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of these APIs at an acceptable cost or quality, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.

Manufacturing our product candidates is subject to extensive governmental regulation. Our failure or the failure of these third parties in any respect (including noncompliance with governmental regulations) could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Manufacturing our product candidates is subject to extensive governmental regulation. See “Item 1. Business - Government Regulation.” Future FDA, state and foreign inspections may identify compliance issues at our facilities or at the facilities of our contract manufacturers. Failure by our third-party manufacturers to pass such inspections and otherwise satisfactorily complete the FDA or foreign regulatory agency approval regimen with respect to our product candidates may result in regulatory actions such as the issuance of Form FDA 483 notices of observations or any foreign counterpart, warning letters or injunctions or the loss of operating licenses. Based on the severity of the regulatory action, our clinical or commercial supply of the items manufactured by third-party manufacturers could be interrupted or limited, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, discovery of previously unknown problems with a product or the failure to comply with applicable requirements may result in restrictions on a product, manufacturer or holder of an approved NDA, including withdrawal or recall of the product from the market or other voluntary, FDA or foreign regulatory agency-initiated or judicial action that could delay or prohibit further marketing. Newly discovered or developed safety or effectiveness data may require changes to a product’s approved labeling, including the addition of new warnings and contraindications, and also may require the implementation of other risk management measures. Also, new government requirements, including those resulting from new legislation, may be established, or the FDA’s or foreign regulatory agency’s policies may change, which could delay or prevent regulatory approval of our products under development. The FDA will likely condition grant of any marketing approval, if any, on a satisfactory on-site inspection of our manufacturing facilities.

If we are unable to use our manufacturing facility for any reason, the manufacture of clinical supplies of our candidates would be delayed, which would harm our business.

We currently able to manufacture all clinical supply of all our product candidates at our own manufacturing facility. If we were to lose the use of our facility or equipment, our manufacturing facility and manufacturing equipment would be difficult to replace and could require substantial replacement lead time and substantial additional funds. Our facility may be affected by natural disasters, such as floods or fire, or we may lose the use of our facility due to manufacturing issues that arise at our facility, such as contamination or regulatory concerns following a regulatory inspection of our facility. We do not currently have back-up capacity. In the event of a loss of the use of all or a portion of our facility or equipment for the reasons stated above or any other reason, we would be unable to manufacture any of our product candidates until such time as our facility could be repaired, rebuilt or we are able to address other manufacturing issues at our facility. Although we currently maintain property insurance with personal property limits of up to NIS 40.0 million and business interruption insurance coverage of up to NIS 20.0 million for damage to our property and the disruption of our business from fire and other casualties, such insurance may not cover all occurrences of manufacturing disruption or be sufficient to cover all of our potential losses in the event of occurrences that are covered and may not continue to be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all.

We are subject to extensive and costly government regulation.

The products we are developing and planning to develop in the future are subject to extensive and rigorous domestic government regulation, including regulation by the FDA, the CMS, the HHS, including its Office of Inspector General, the Office of Civil Rights, which administers the privacy provisions of HIPAA, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, to the extent our products are paid for directly or indirectly by those departments, state and local governments, and their respective foreign equivalents. The FDA regulates the research, development, preclinical and clinical testing, manufacture, safety, effectiveness, record keeping, reporting, labeling, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale, distribution, import and export of pharmaceutical products under various regulatory provisions. If any drug products we develop are tested or marketed abroad, they will also be subject to extensive regulation by foreign governments, whether or not we have obtained FDA approval for a given product and its uses. Such foreign regulation may be equally or more demanding than corresponding U.S. regulation.

Government regulation substantially increases the cost and risk of researching, developing, manufacturing, and selling our products. Our failure to comply with these regulations could result in, by way of example, significant fines, criminal and civil liability, product seizures, recalls, withdrawals, withdrawals of approvals, and exclusion and debarment from government programs. Any of these actions, including the inability of our proposed products to obtain and maintain regulatory approval, would have a materially adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

In addition to government regulation, rules and policies of professional and other quasi and non-governmental bodies and organizations may impact the prescription of products, as well as the manner of their promotion, marketing, and education. Examples of such bodies are the American Medical Association, the Accreditation Council of Continuing Medical Education, American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Elections in the United States could result in significant changes in, and uncertainty with respect to, legislation, regulation and government policy. While it is not possible to predict whether and when any such changes will occur, changes at the federal level could significantly impact our business and the health care industry; we are currently unable to predict whether any such changes would have a net positive or negative impact on our business. To the extent that such changes have a negative impact on us or the health care industry, including as a result of related uncertainty, these changes may materially and adversely impact our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and the trading price of our ordinary shares.

We are subject to additional federal, state and local laws and regulations relating to our business, and our failure to comply with those laws could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial conditions.

In the United States, our current and future activities with investigators, healthcare professionals, consultants, third-party payors, patient organizations and customers are subject to healthcare regulation and enforcement by the federal government and the states in which we conduct or will conduct our business. The laws that may affect our ability to operate include, but are not limited to, the following:

Further, the PPACA, among other things, amended the intent requirement of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and criminal healthcare fraud statutes. A person or entity can now be found guilty of fraud or false claims under PPACA without actual knowledge of the statute or specific intent to violate it. In addition, PPACA provides that the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statue constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the false claims statutes. Possible sanctions for violation of these anti-kickback laws include monetary fines, civil and criminal penalties, exclusion from Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs, imprisonment, and forfeiture of amounts collected in violation of such prohibitions. Any violations of these laws, or any action against us for violation of these laws, even if we successfully defend against it, could result in a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, results of operations and financial condition.

PPACA also contains legislation commonly known as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, or Sunshine Act, which requires applicable drug and device manufacturers of covered pharmaceutical, biological, device and medical supplies to annually report to CMS information regarding payments and transfers of value made to physicians and teaching hospitals and certain ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members, and for CMS to annually collect and display information reported by device and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Pursuant to the Sunshine Act, CMS created the federal Open Payments Program, under which data collected for each calendar year is published by CMS in June of the following calendar year. For example, data that was submitted by applicable manufacturers for the 2019 calendar year was published on June 30, 2020. Failure to submit required information may result in civil monetary penalties for all payments, transfers of value or ownership or investment interests that are not reported.

Since its enactment, there have been judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the PPACA. If a law is enacted, many if not all, of the provisions of the PPACA may no longer apply to prescription drugs. While we are unable to predict what changes may ultimately be enacted, to the extent that future changes affect how any future products are paid for and reimbursed by government and private payers, our business could be adversely impacted. On December 14, 2018, a federal district court in Texas ruled that the PPACA is unconstitutional as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the federal income tax reform legislation previously passed by Congress and signed by President Trump on December 22, 2017, that eliminated the individual mandate portion of the PPACA. The case, Texas, et al, v. United States of America, et al., (N.D. Texas), is an outlier, but in 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently upheld the lower court decision which was then appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal on an expedited basis and so no decision is expected until the next Supreme Court term in early 2021. We are not able to state with any certainty what will be the impact of this court decision on our business pending further court action and possible appeals. In November 2020, Joseph Biden was elected President and, in January 2021, the Democratic Party obtained control of the Senate. As a result of these electoral developments, it is unlikely that continued legislative efforts will be pursued to repeal PPACA. Instead, it is possible that legislation will be pursued to enhance or reform PPACA. We are not able to state with certainty what the impact of potential legislation will be on our business.

In addition, there has been a recent trend of increased federal, state and local regulation of payments made to physicians for marketing. Some states, such as California, Massachusetts and Vermont, mandate implementation of corporate compliance programs, along with the tracking and reporting of gifts, compensation and other remuneration to physicians, and some states limit or prohibit such gifts. Various trade associations, such as the Advanced Medical Technology Association for devices and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America for drugs, have adopted voluntary standards of ethical behavior that limit the amount of and circumstances under which payments made be made to physicians. Additionally, there are state and local laws that require pharmaceutical sales representatives to register or obtain a license with the state or locality and to disclose or report certain information about their interactions with physicians.

The scope and enforcement of these laws is uncertain and subject to change in the current environment of healthcare reform, especially in light of the lack of applicable precedent and regulations. We cannot predict the impact on our business of any changes in these laws. Federal or state regulatory authorities may challenge our current or future activities under these laws. Any such challenge could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business, results of operations, and financial condition. Any state or federal regulatory review of us, regardless of the outcome, would be costly and time-consuming.

We are subject to anti-kickback laws and regulations. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations could have adverse consequences to us.

There are extensive U.S. federal and state laws and regulations prohibiting fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry that can result in significant criminal and civil penalties. These federal laws include: the Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits certain business practices and relationships, including the payment or receipt of compensation for the referral of patients whose care will be paid by Medicare or other federal healthcare programs; the physician self-referral prohibition, commonly referred to as the Stark Law; the anti-inducement law, which prohibits providers from offering anything to a Medicare or Medicaid beneficiary to induce that beneficiary to use items or services covered by either program; the civil False Claims Act in 1986, or the False Claims Act, which prohibits any person from knowingly presenting or causing to be presented false or fraudulent claims for payment by the federal government, including the Medicare and Medicaid programs; and the Civil Monetary Penalties Law, which authorizes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to impose civil penalties administratively for fraudulent or abusive acts. In addition, the Sunshine Act requires device and drug manufacturers to report to the government any payments to physicians for consulting services, research activities, educational programs, travel, food, entertainment and the like.

Sanctions for violating these federal laws include criminal and civil penalties that range from punitive sanctions, damage assessments, monetary penalties, imprisonment, integrity obligations and other oversight, denial of Medicare and Medicaid payments or exclusion from the Medicare and Medicaid programs, or both, and debarment. As federal and state budget pressures continue, federal and state administrative agencies may also continue to escalate investigation and enforcement efforts to reduce or eliminate waste and to control fraud and abuse in governmental healthcare programs. Private enforcement of healthcare fraud has also increased, due in large part to amendments to the False Claims Act that were designed to encourage private persons, known as relators, to file qui tam actions on behalf of the government. The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 further encouraged whistleblowers to file suit under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. A violation of any of these federal and state fraud and abuse laws and regulations could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and financial condition. An investigation into the use by physicians of any of our products, if ever commercialized, may dissuade physicians from either purchasing or using them, and could have a material adverse effect on our ability to commercialize those products.

In addition, we are subject to analogous foreign laws and regulations, which may apply to sales or marketing arrangements and claims involving healthcare items or services reimbursed by non-governmental third-party payors, including private insurers; foreign laws that require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government or otherwise restrict payments that may be made to healthcare providers; foreign laws that require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures; and foreign laws governing the privacy and security of health information in certain circumstances. Many of these laws differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.

Our AP-CBD/THC, AP-THC and AP-CBD product candidates (collectively “AP-Cannabinoids”) use Cannabidiol and 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol individually or in combination, which are subject to U.S. and international controlled substance laws and regulations; our ability to commercialize any product containing these substances will depend, in part, on the ultimate classification of the product under these laws and regulations.

Our AP-Cannabinoids product candidates for treatment of various pain indications, use pharmaceutically pure CBD, and THC, the latter of which is synthetically derived. These products are quite distinct from crude herbal “medical marijuana,” and we intend to seek FDA approval for these products in accordance with the customary FDA approval process and based on adequate and well-controlled clinical studies. However, the active ingredients in our products are defined as controlled substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Under the CSA, the DEA may place each drug that has abuse potential into one of five categories. The five categories, referred to as Schedules I-V, carry different degrees of restriction. Each schedule is associated with a distinct set of controls that affect manufacturers, researchers, healthcare providers, and patients. The controls include registration with the DEA, labeling and packaging, production quotas, security, recordkeeping, and dispensing. Schedule I is the most restrictive, covering drugs that have “no accepted medical use” in the United States and that have high abuse potential.

If and when any of our product candidates receive FDA approval, the DEA will make a scheduling determination and place the product in a schedule other than Schedule I in order for it to be prescribed to patients in the United States. Accordingly, our ability to ultimately commercialize the product will depend in part on the ultimate scheduling classification determination by DEA for our product.

The FDA has stated that it will continue to facilitate the work of companies interested in bringing safe, effective, and quality products to market, including scientifically-based research concerning the medical uses of products derived from marijuana and the FDA has approved synthetic compositions of the active ingredients found in marijuana. However, the use and abuse of controlled substances is currently subject to political and social pressures from certain constituencies related to their usage which could result in additional difficulty with respect to the approval of AP-Cannabinoids as a prescription pharmaceutical. For example, the FDA or DEA may require us to generate more clinical data about the potential for abuse than that which is currently anticipated, which could increase the cost and/or delay the launch of our product. In addition, DEA scheduling may limit our ability to achieve market share in the United States due to restricted access and the disinclination of some physicians to prescribe more restrictive scheduled controlled substances. For example, Schedule II drugs may not be refilled without a new prescription. These factors may limit the commercial viability of AP-Cannabinoids in the United States.

Most countries are parties to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, which governs international trade and domestic control of narcotic substances, including the compounds in our AP-Cannabinoids product candidates. Countries may interpret and implement their treaty obligations in a way that creates a legal obstacle to our obtaining approval to market our AP-Cannabinoids product candidates. Approval to market in these countries could require amendments or modifications to existing laws and regulations that such countries would be unwilling to undertake or may cause material delays in any marketing approval.

Reimbursement may not be available for our products, which could make it difficult for us to sell our products profitably.

Market acceptance and sales of our products will depend on coverage and reimbursement policies and may be affected by healthcare reform measures. Government authorities and third-party payors, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which products they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for our products. We also cannot be sure that the amount of reimbursement available, if any, will not reduce the demand for, or the price of, our products. If reimbursement is not available or is available only at limited levels, we may not be able to successfully compete through sales of our proposed products.

Specifically, in both the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory proposals to change the healthcare system in ways that could affect our ability to sell our products profitably. In the United States, MMA, changed the way Medicare covers and pays for pharmaceutical products. The legislation expanded Medicare coverage for drug purchases by the elderly and certain others. Prior to MMA, Medicare did not cover most outpatient prescription drugs. MMA created a new voluntary Part D, which covers outpatient drugs for Medicare beneficiaries and is administered by private insurance plans that operate partially at-risk under contract with the CMS. These private Part D plans have incentives to keep costs down. MMA also introduced a new reimbursement methodology based on average sales prices for physician-administered drugs. In addition, this legislation provided authority for limiting the number of certain outpatient drugs that will be covered in any therapeutic class. As a result of this legislation and the expansion of federal coverage of drug products, we expect that there will be additional pressure to contain and reduce costs. These and future cost-reduction initiatives could decrease the coverage and price that we receive for our products, if approved, and could seriously harm our business. While the MMA applies only to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private payors often follow Medicare coverage policies and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement rates, and any reduction in reimbursement under Medicare may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors.

In March 2010, PPACA became law in the United States. The goal of PPACA is to reduce the cost of healthcare and substantially change the way healthcare is financed by both governmental and private insurers. Among other measures, PPACA imposes increased rebates on manufacturers for certain covered drug products reimbursed by state Medicaid programs. The PPACA remains subject to continuing legislative scrutiny, including efforts by Congress to repeal and amend a number of its provisions, as well as administrative actions delaying the effectiveness of key provisions. In addition, there have been lawsuits filed by various stakeholders pertaining to certain portions of the PPACA that may have the effect of modifying or altering various parts of the law. Efforts to date to amend or repeal the PPACA have generally been unsuccessful. We ultimately cannot predict with any assurance the ultimate effect of the PPACA or changes to the PPACA on our Company, nor can we provide any assurance that its provisions will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and the trading price of our ordinary shares. In addition, we cannot predict whether new proposals will be made or adopted, when they may be adopted or what impact they may have on us if they are adopted.

We expect to experience pricing pressures in connection with the sale of our products generally due to the trend toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations, and additional legislative proposals. If we fail to successfully secure and maintain adequate coverage and reimbursement for our future products or are significantly delayed in doing so, we will have difficulty achieving market acceptance of our products and our business will be harmed.

We expect the healthcare industry to face increased limitations on reimbursement, rebates and other payments as a result of healthcare reform, which could adversely affect third-party coverage of our products and how much or under what circumstances healthcare providers will prescribe or administer our products.

In both the United States and other countries, sales of our products will depend in part upon the availability of reimbursement from third-party payors, which include governmental authorities, managed care organizations and other private health insurers. Third-party payors are increasingly challenging the price and examining the cost effectiveness of medical products and services.

Increasing expenditures for healthcare have been the subject of considerable public attention in the United States. Both private and government entities are seeking ways to reduce or contain healthcare costs. Numerous proposals that would effect changes in the U.S. healthcare system have been introduced or proposed in Congress and in some state legislatures, including reducing reimbursement for prescription products and reducing the levels at which consumers and healthcare providers are reimbursed for purchases of pharmaceutical products.

In the United States, the MMA changed the way Medicare covers and pays for pharmaceutical products. The legislation expanded Medicare coverage for drug purchases by the elderly and introduced a new reimbursement methodology based on average sales prices for physician-administered drugs. In recent years, Congress has considered further reductions in Medicare reimbursement for drugs administered by physicians. CMS has issued and will continue to issue regulations to implement the law which will affect Medicare, Medicaid and other third-party payors. Medicare, which is the single largest third-party payment program and which is administered by CMS, covers prescription drugs in one of two ways. Medicare part B covers outpatient prescription drugs that are administered by physicians and Medicare part D covers other outpatient prescription drugs, but through private insurers. Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor, is funded jointly by CMS and the states, but is administered by the states; states are authorized to cover outpatient prescription drugs, but that coverage is subject to caps and to substantial rebates. CMS also has the authority to revise reimbursement rates and to implement coverage restrictions for some drugs. Cost reduction initiatives and changes in coverage implemented through legislation or regulation could decrease utilization of and reimbursement for any approved products, which in turn would affect the price we can receive for those products. While the MMA and implementing regulations apply primarily to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private payors often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement rates. Therefore, any reduction in reimbursement that results from federal legislation or regulation may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors.

In March 2010, President Obama signed into law the PPACA, a sweeping law intended to broaden access to health insurance, reduce or constrain the growth of healthcare spending, enhance remedies against fraud and abuse, add new transparency requirements for healthcare and health insurance industries, impose new taxes and fees on pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and impose additional health policy reforms. As amended, the PPACA expanded manufacturers’ rebate liability to include covered drugs dispensed to individuals who are enrolled in Medicaid managed care organizations, increased the minimum rebate due for innovator drugs (both single source drugs and innovator multiple source drugs) from 15.1% of average manufacturer price, or AMP, to 23.1% of AMP or the difference between the AMP and best price, whichever is greater. The total rebate amount for innovator drugs is capped at 100.0% of AMP. The PPACA and subsequent legislation also narrowed the definition of AMP. Furthermore, the PPACA imposes a significant annual, nondeductible fee on companies that manufacture or import certain branded prescription drug products. Substantial new provisions affecting compliance have also been enacted, which may affect our business practices with healthcare practitioners, and a significant number of provisions are not yet, or have only recently become, effective. The PPACA likely will continue to put pressure on pharmaceutical pricing, especially under the Medicare program, and may also increase our regulatory burdens and operating costs. We ultimately cannot predict with any assurance the ultimate effect of the PPACA or changes to the PPACA on our Company, nor can we provide any assurance that its provisions will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and the trading price of our ordinary shares. In addition, we cannot predict whether new proposals will be made or adopted, when they may be adopted or what impact they may have on us if they are adopted.

In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the PPACA was enacted. In August 2011, then President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act of 2011, which, among other things, creates the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to recommend to Congress proposals in spending reductions. The Joint Select Committee did not achieve a targeted deficit reduction of an amount greater than $1.2 trillion for the years 2013 through 2021, triggering the legislation’s automatic reduction to several government programs. This includes aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to healthcare providers of up to 2.0% per fiscal year, starting in 2013. In January 2013, President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to several categories of healthcare providers and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, signed into law on November 2, 2015, increased the rebates that generic drug manufacturers are obligated to pay under the Medicaid program by applying an inflation-based rebate formula to generic drugs that previously only applied to brand name drugs. If we ever obtain regulatory approval and commercialization of any of our product candidates, these new laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which could have a material adverse effect on our customers and accordingly, our financial operations. Legislative and regulatory proposals have been made to expand post-approval requirements and restrict sales and promotional activities or to lower prices for pharmaceutical products. We cannot be sure whether additional legislative changes will be enacted, or whether the FDA regulations, guidance or interpretations will be changed, or what the impact of such changes on the marketing approvals of our product candidates may be.

In November 2020, Joseph Biden was elected President and, in January 2021, the Democratic Party obtained control of the Senate. We are not able to state with certainty what the impact of potential legislation will be on our business.

Various states, such as California, have also taken steps to consider and enact laws or regulations that are intended to increase the visibility of the pricing of pharmaceutical products with the goal of reducing the prices at which we are able to sell our products. Because these various actual and proposed legislative changes are intended to operate on a state-by-state level rather than a national one, we cannot predict what the full effect of these legislative activities may be on our business in the future.

Although we cannot predict the full effect on our business of the implementation of existing legislation, including the PPACA or the enactment of additional legislation pursuant to healthcare and other legislative reform, we believe that legislation or regulations that would reduce reimbursement for or restrict coverage of our products could adversely affect how much or under what circumstances healthcare providers will prescribe or administer our products. This could materially and adversely affect our business by reducing our ability to generate revenue, raise capital, obtain additional collaborators and market our products. In addition, we believe the increasing emphasis on managed care in the United States has and will continue to put pressure on the price and usage of pharmaceutical products, which may adversely impact product sales.

Governments outside the United States tend to impose strict price controls, which may adversely affect our revenues, if any.

In some countries, particularly the countries comprising the EU, the pricing of pharmaceuticals and certain other therapeutics is subject to governmental control. In these countries, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after the receipt of marketing approval for a product. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our product candidate to other available therapies. If reimbursement of our products is unavailable or limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at unsatisfactory levels, our business could be materially harmed.

Changes in regulatory requirements and guidance or unanticipated events during our clinical trials may occur, which may result in necessary changes to clinical trial protocols, which could result in increased costs to us, delay our development timeline or reduce the likelihood of successful completion of our clinical trials.

Changes in regulatory requirements and guidance or unanticipated events during our clinical trials may occur, as a result of which we may need to amend clinical trial protocols. Amendments may require us to resubmit our clinical trial protocols to IRBs for review and approval, which may adversely affect the cost, timing and successful completion of a clinical trial. If we experience delays in the completion of, or if we terminate, any of our clinical trials, the commercial prospects for our affected product candidates would be harmed and our ability to generate product revenue would be delayed, possibly materially.

We may be subject to extensive environmental, health and safety, and other laws and regulations in multiple jurisdictions.

Our business involves the controlled use, directly or indirectly through our service providers, of hazardous materials, various biological compounds and chemicals; therefore, we, our agents and our service providers may be subject to various environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing air emissions, water and wastewater discharges, noise emissions, the use, management and disposal of hazardous, radioactive and biological materials and wastes and the cleanup of contaminated sites. The risk of accidental contamination or injury from these materials cannot be eliminated. If an accident, spill or release of any regulated chemicals or substances occurs, we could be held liable for resulting damages, including for investigation, remediation and monitoring of the contamination, including natural resource damages, the costs of which could be substantial. We are also subject to numerous environmental, health and workplace safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures, exposure to blood-borne pathogens and the handling of biohazardous materials and chemicals. Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover the costs and expenses that may be incurred because of injuries to our employees resulting from the use of these materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. Additional or more stringent federal, state, local or foreign laws and regulations affecting our operations may be adopted in the future. We may incur substantial capital costs and operating expenses and may be required to obtain consents to comply with any of these or certain other laws or regulations and the terms and conditions of any permits or licenses required pursuant to such laws and regulations, including costs to install new or updated pollution control equipment, modify our operations or perform other corrective actions at our respective facilities or the facilities of our service providers. For instance, we have undergone inspections and obtained approvals from various governmental agencies. We hold a business license with respect to testing, developing, storing and manufacturing pharmaceutical products at our current location from the municipality of Jerusalem, which is accompanied by additional terms and conditions approved by the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, or the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Our business license is valid until December 31, 2023 and we also hold a toxic substances permit from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (the Hazardous Material Division) and a Certificate of GMP Compliance of a Manufacturer from the Israeli Ministry of Health – Pharmaceutical Administration. Failure to renew any of the foregoing licenses and permits may harm our on-going and future operations. In addition, fines and penalties may be imposed for noncompliance with environmental, health and safety and other laws and regulations or for the failure to have, or comply with the terms and conditions of our business license or, required environmental or other permits or consents.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

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

We license our core intellectual property from Yissum, an affiliate of Hebrew University and may need to obtain additional licenses from others to advance our research and development activities or allow the commercialization of the Accordion Pill. We initially entered into an exclusive license agreement with Yissum in 2000 and, in 2004 and 2005, we amended the license, which we refer to, as amended, as the License Agreement. According to the License Agreement, we hold an exclusive license for developing, manufacturing and/or world marketing of products that are directly or indirectly based on the patent owned by Yissum and/or other related intellectual property (including any information, research results and related know-how). Yissum is not permitted to transfer such intellectual property to third parties without our prior written consent. Yissum may obtain future financing from other entities for its research, provided that such entities will not be granted rights in its results (including other intellectual property rights) in a way prejudicing the rights granted to us in accordance with the License Agreement. We are entitled to grant perpetual sublicenses of this intellectual property to third parties, and such third parties will not be required to assume any undertaking towards Yissum. We are obligated to research and develop products that are based on the intellectual property of Yissum and to pay Yissum from the date of first sale an amount equal to 3% of our net sales of products based on the intellectual property and 15% from all other payments or benefits received from any such sublicense. In addition, also in consideration of the exclusive license granted to us pursuant to the License Agreement, we issued 5,618 ordinary shares to Yissum. As of the date of this Annual Report, no payments were paid and/or are due under the License Agreement. The License Agreement will be in effect until 15 years from the date of the first commercial sale. We also contracted with Yissum for laboratory services. In January 2008, we signed an addendum to the License Agreement to conduct an additional joint development and study regarding a technology, different from the Accordion Pill, for GR, of a drug. This addendum provides that the intellectual property rights produced as a result of the joint development and study will be jointly owned and we are entitled to receive a license for Yissum’s share in these rights in return for payment of royalties. One patent application has been filed by Yissum and us as a result of the development related to that joint project, but this patent application was abandoned.

The License Agreement imposes certain payment, reporting, confidentiality and other obligations on us. In the event that we were to breach any of our obligations under the License Agreement and fail to cure such breach, Yissum would have the right to terminate the License Agreement upon 30 days’ notice. In addition, Yissum has the right to terminate the License Agreement upon our bankruptcy or receivership.

In spite of our efforts, Yissum or any future licensor might conclude that we have materially breached our obligations under such license agreements and might therefore terminate the license agreements, thereby removing or limiting our ability to develop and commercialize products and technology covered by these license agreements. Most of our current product candidates are partly based on the intellectual property licensed under the License Agreement, and therefore if the License Agreement with Yissum was terminated, we may be required to cease our development and commercialization of the Accordion Pill. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Moreover, disputes may arise regarding intellectual property subject to a licensing agreement, including:

If we fail to adequately protect, enforce or secure rights to the patents which were licensed to us or any patents we own or may own in the future, the value of our intellectual property rights would diminish and our business and competitive position would suffer.

Our success, competitive position and future revenues, if any, depend in part on our ability to obtain and successfully leverage intellectual property covering our products and product candidates, know-how, methods, processes and other technologies, to protect our trade secrets, to prevent others from using our intellectual property and to operate without infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties.

The risks and uncertainties that we face with respect to our intellectual property rights include, but are not limited to, the following:

If patent rights covering our products and methods are not sufficiently broad, they may not provide us with any protection against competitors with similar products and technologies. Furthermore, if the USPTO, or foreign patent offices issue patents to us or our licensors, others may challenge the patents or design around the patents, or the patent office or the courts may invalidate the patents. Thus, any patents we own or license from or to third parties may not provide any protection against our competitors.

We cannot be certain that patents will be issued as a result of any pending applications, and we cannot be certain that any of our issued patents or patents licensed from Yissum (or any other third party in the future), will give us adequate protection from competing products. For example, issued patents, including the patents licensed by us, may be circumvented or challenged, declared invalid or unenforceable, or narrowed in scope.

In addition, since publication of discoveries in the scientific or patent literature often lags behind actual discoveries, we cannot be certain that we were the first to make our inventions or to file patent applications covering those inventions.

It is also possible that others may obtain issued patents that could prevent us from commercializing our products or require us to obtain licenses requiring the payment of significant fees or royalties in order to enable us to conduct our business. As to those patents that we have licensed, our rights depend on maintaining our obligations to the licensor under the applicable license agreement, and we may be unable to do so.

In addition to patents and patent applications, we depend upon trade secrets and proprietary know-how to protect our proprietary technology. We require our employees, consultants, advisors and collaborators to enter into confidentiality agreements that prohibit the disclosure of confidential information to any other parties. We also require our employees and consultants to disclose and assign to us their ideas, developments, discoveries and inventions. These agreements may not, however, provide adequate protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information in the event of any unauthorized use or disclosure.

Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for noncompliance with these requirements.

Periodic maintenance fees on any issued patent are due to be paid to the USPTO and foreign patent agencies in several stages over the lifetime of the patent. The USPTO and various foreign governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. While an inadvertent lapse can in many cases be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. Noncompliance events that could result in abandonment or lapse of a patent or patent application include, but are not limited to, failure to respond to official actions within prescribed time limits, non-payment of fees and failure to properly legalize and submit formal documents. In such an event, our competitors might be able to enter the market, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Costly litigation may be necessary to protect our intellectual property rights, and we may be subject to claims alleging the breach of license or other agreements that we have entered into with third parties or the violation of the intellectual property rights of others.

We may face significant expense and liability as a result of litigation or other proceedings relating to patents and other intellectual property rights of ours and others. In the event that another party has also filed a patent application or been issued a patent relating to an invention or technology claimed by us in pending applications, we may be required to participate in an interference proceeding declared by the USPTO to determine priority of invention, which could result in substantial uncertainties and costs for us, even if the eventual outcome were favorable to us. We, or our licensors, also could be required to participate in interference proceedings involving issued patents and pending applications of another entity. An adverse outcome in an interference proceeding could require us to cease using the technology or to license rights from prevailing third parties.

We have entered into license and collaboration agreements with other parties, including other pharmaceutical companies, and intend to continue to do so in the future. We and our counterparties to these agreements have granted and may grant each other, and have or may claim against each other, certain rights with respect to the other party’s intellectual property and the intellectual property that we have or may jointly develop, including rights of co-ownership and rights of first refusal in the event that we or our counterparties seek to subsequently license or sell such intellectual property. For instance, a former partner under a terminated collaboration agreement previously indicated to us after the termination of such agreement that it believed it had a right of first offer with respect to a future license by us of certain intellectual property that existed in 2008 and is contained in AP-CD/LD. We do not believe that this party has any such right. However, the cost to us of any litigation or other proceeding relating to our license and collaboration agreements, our licensed patents or patent applications or other intellectual property, even if resolved in our favor, could be substantial, divert management’s resources and attention and delay or impair our ability to license or sell such intellectual property. Our ability to enforce our intellectual property protection could be limited by our financial resources, and may be subject to lengthy delays. A third party may claim that we are using inventions claimed by their intellectual property and may go to court to stop us from engaging in our normal operations and activities, such as research, development and the sale of any future products. Such lawsuits are expensive and would consume time and other resources. There is a risk that the court will decide that we are infringing the third party’s intellectual property and will order us to stop the activities claimed by the intellectual property, redesign our products or processes to avoid infringement or obtain licenses (which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all). In addition, there is a risk that a court will order us to pay the other party damages for having infringed their patents. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. There could also be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions, or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a material adverse effect on the price of our ordinary shares.

Moreover, there is no guarantee that any prevailing patent or other intellectual property owner would offer us a license so that we could continue to engage in activities claimed by the patent or other intellectual property, or that such a license, if made available to us, could be acquired on commercially acceptable terms. In addition, third parties may, in the future assert other intellectual property infringement claims against us with respect to our product candidates, technologies or other matters. Any claims of infringement or other breach of license or collaboration agreement asserted against us, whether or not successful, may have a material adverse effect on us.

Third-party claims of intellectual property infringement may prevent or delay our development and commercialization efforts.

Our commercial success depends in part on our avoiding infringement of the patents and proprietary rights of third parties. However, our research, development and commercialization activities may be subject to claims that we infringe or otherwise violate patents or other intellectual property rights owned or controlled by third parties. There is a substantial amount of litigation, both within and outside the United States, involving patent and other intellectual property rights in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, including patent infringement lawsuits, interferences, oppositions and inter parties re-examination proceedings before the USPTO, and corresponding foreign patent offices. Numerous U.S. and foreign issued patents and pending patent applications, which are owned by third parties, exist in the fields in which we are pursuing development candidates. As the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries expand and more patents are issued, the risk increases that the Accordion Pill or our product candidates may be subject to claims of infringement of the patent rights of third parties.

Third parties may assert that we are employing their proprietary technology without authorization. There may be third-party patents or patent applications with claims to materials, formulations, methods of manufacture or methods for treatment related to the use or manufacture of the Accordion Pill or our product candidates. Because patent applications can take many years to issue, there may be currently pending patent applications which may later result in issued patents that the Accordion Pill or our product candidates may infringe. In addition, third parties may obtain patents in the future and claim that use of our technologies infringes upon these patents. If any third-party patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover the patents protecting the Accordion Pill or our product candidates, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to commercialize such product candidate unless we obtained a license under the applicable patents, or until such patents expire.

Similarly, if any third-party patents were held by a court of competent jurisdiction to cover aspects of our formulations, processes for manufacture or methods of use, including combination therapy, the holders of any such patents may be able to block our ability to develop and commercialize the applicable product candidate unless we obtained a license or until such patent expires. In either case, such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or it may be non-exclusive, which could result in our competitors gaining access to the same intellectual property.

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

Parties making claims against us may be able to sustain the costs of complex patent litigation more effectively than we can because they have substantially greater resources. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation or administrative proceedings, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure. In addition, any uncertainties resulting from the initiation and continuation of any litigation could have material adverse effect on our ability to raise additional funds or otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

Patent terms may be inadequate to protect our competitive position on our product candidates for an adequate amount of time.

Patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States, if all maintenance fees are timely paid, the natural expiration of a patent is generally 20 years from its earliest U.S. non-provisional filing date. Various extensions may be available, but the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. Even if patents covering our product candidates are obtained, once the patent life has expired, we may be open to competition from competitive products, including generics or biosimilars. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours. For example, the patent family, IN-1, which we exclusively license from Yissum (i.e., Gastroretentive Controlled Release Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms), has expired in November 2020. This patent family relates to the foldable pharmaceutical gastroretentive drug delivery system for the controlled release of an active agent in the GI tract, which can be folded into a single capsule.

If we are not able to obtain patent term extension or non-patent exclusivity in the United States under the Hatch-Waxman Act and in foreign countries under similar legislation, thereby potentially extending the term of our marketing exclusivity for the Accordion Pill or any product candidates, our business may be materially harmed.

Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of FDA marketing approval, one of the U.S. patents covering our product candidates or the use thereof may be eligible for up to five years of patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act. The Hatch-Waxman Act allows a maximum of one patent to be extended per FDA approved product as compensation for the patent term lost during the FDA regulatory review process. A patent term extension cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the date of product approval and only those claims covering such approved drug product, a method for using it or a method for manufacturing it may be extended. Patent term extension also may be available in certain foreign countries upon regulatory approval of our product candidates. Nevertheless, we may not be granted patent term extension either in the United States or in any foreign country because of, for example, failing to exercise due diligence during the testing phase or regulatory review process, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents or otherwise failing to satisfy applicable requirements. Moreover, the term of extension, as well as the scope of patent protection during any such extension, afforded by the governmental authority could be less than we request.

If we are unable to obtain patent term extension or restoration, or the term of any such extension is less than we request, the period during which we will have the right to exclusively market our product may be shortened and our competitors may obtain approval of competing products following our patent expiration sooner, and our revenue could be reduced, possibly materially.

It is possible that we will not obtain patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act for a U.S. patent covering any of our product candidates even where that patent is eligible for patent term extension, or if we obtain such an extension, it may be for a shorter period than we had sought. Further, for our licensed patents, we do not have the right to control prosecution, including filing with the USPTO, a petition for patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act. Thus, if one of our licensed patents is eligible for patent term extension under the Hatch-Waxman Act, we may not be able to control whether a petition to obtain a patent term extension is filed, or obtained, from the USPTO.

Also, there are detailed rules and requirements regarding the patents that may be submitted to the FDA for listing in the Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations, or the Orange Book. We may be unable to obtain patents covering our product candidates that contain one or more claims that satisfy the requirements for listing in the Orange Book. Even if we submit a patent for listing in the Orange Book, the FDA may decline to list the patent, or a manufacturer of generic drugs may challenge the listing. If one of our product candidates is approved and a patent covering that product candidate is not listed in the Orange Book, a manufacturer of generic drugs would not have to provide advance notice to us of any abbreviated new drug application filed with the FDA to obtain permission to sell a generic version of such product candidate.

Issued patents covering our product candidates could be found invalid or unenforceable if challenged in court.