Company: BOLT
Filing Date: 2025-03-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-043873
Chunk: 65

Company: Bolt Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 65
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 development and commercialization of new drug products is highly competitive. We face competition with respect to our current product candidates and will face competition with respect to any product candidates that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the future, from major pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies among others. We compete in the segments of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other related markets that develop immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. There are other companies working to develop immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer including divisions of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies of various sizes. Some of these competitive products and therapies are based on scientific approaches that are the same as or similar to our approach, and others are based on entirely different approaches. Potential competitors also include academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations that conduct research, seek patent protection and establish collaborative arrangements for research, development, manufacturing and commercialization. 

We are developing our initial product candidates for the treatment of cancer and currently none of these therapies are approved. There are already a variety of available drug therapies marketed for cancer and some of the currently approved drug therapies are branded and subject to patent protection, and others are available on a generic basis. Many of these approved drugs are well established therapies and are widely accepted by physicians, patients and third-party payors. Insurers and other third-party payors may also encourage the use of generic products. We expect that if our product candidates are approved, they will be priced at a significant premium over competitive generic products. This may make it difficult for us to achieve our business strategy of using our product candidates in combination with existing therapies or replacing existing therapies with our product candidates. 	

Competition may further increase as a result of advances in the commercial applicability of technologies for drug discovery and development and greater availability of capital for investment in cancer therapies. Other companies may develop ISACs and toll-like receptors, or TLRs, agonists that may have utility for the treatment of cancer in indications we are targeting. Additionally, companies may utilize a range of other technologies and scientific approaches including ADCs, vaccines, bispecific antibodies and receptor tyrosine kinases inhibitors. Our current product and future product candidates will also compete more generally with companies developing alternative innate and adaptive immune system approaches for the treatment of cancer. 

Our competitors may succeed in developing, acquiring or licensing, on an exclusive basis, products that are more effective or less costly than any product candidate that we may develop. In addition, most of these companies have substantially greater sales, marketing and