Company: TVRD
Filing Date: 2025-02-14
Form Type: S-4/A
Source: 0001104659-25-013053
Chunk: 123

Company: Tvardi Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-14
Form: S-4/A
Chunk 123
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pliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations may be expensive, and current or future environmental laws and regulations may impair Cara’ research, product development and manufacturing efforts.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

#### Risks Related to Intellectual Property
It is difficult and costly to protect Cara’s proprietary rights and as a result Cara may not be able to ensure their protection and all patents will eventually expire.

Cara’s commercial success will depend in part on obtaining and maintaining patent protection and trade secret protection for difelikefalin and, should Cara resume development activities in the future, for any other product candidates that Cara may develop, license or acquire and the methods Cara uses to manufacture them, as well as successfully defending these patents and trade secrets against third-party challenges. Cara will only be able to protect its technologies from unauthorized use by third parties to the extent that valid and enforceable patents or trade secrets cover them.

The patent prosecution process is expensive and time-consuming, and Cara may not be able to file and prosecute to issuance all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. It is also possible that Cara may fail to identify patentable aspects of its R&D output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. Moreover, should Cara enter into additional collaborations it may be required to consult with or cede control to collaborators regarding the prosecution, maintenance and enforcement of its patents. Therefore, these patents and applications may not be successfully prosecuted to issuance and enforced in a manner consistent with the best interests of Cara’s business. The patent positions of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies can be highly uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions for which important legal principles remain unresolved. No consistent policy regarding the breadth of claims allowed in pharmaceutical or biotechnology patents has emerged to date in the United States. The patent situation outside the United States is also uncertain. Changes in either the patent laws or in interpretations of patent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of Cara’s intellectual property. Accordingly, Cara cannot predict the breadth of claims that may be allowed or enforced in its patents or in third-party patents. The degree of future protection for Cara’s proprietary rights is uncertain, because legal means afford only limited protection and may not adequately protect Cara’s rights or permit Cara to gain or keep its competitive advantage. Moreover, the patent application process is also subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that Cara or any of its future development partners will be successful in protecting difelikefalin and, should Cara