Company: NCNA
Filing Date: 2025-03-20
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000950170-25-042709
Chunk: 84

Company: NuCana plc
Filing Date: 2025-03-20
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 84
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 secrets or other proprietary information, of any such employee’s former employer. Litigation may be necessary to defend against these claims.
 In addition, while it is our policy to require our employees and contractors who may be involved in the development of intellectual property to execute agreements assigning such intellectual property to us, we may be unsuccessful in executing such an agreement with each party who in fact develops intellectual property that we regard as our own. Our and their assignment agreements may not be self-executing or may be breached, and we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims they may bring against us, to determine the ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property.
 If we fail in prosecuting or defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in prosecuting or defending against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management.
 If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.
 In addition to seeking patents for some of our technology and product candidates, we also rely on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect these trade secrets, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We seek to protect our confidential proprietary information but enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no right to prevent them, or those to whom they communicate it, from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to or independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position would be harmed.
 

Our proprietary information, or that of our suppliers and any future collaborators, may be lost or we may suffer security breaches.
 In the ordinary course of our business, our CROs and other third parties on which we rely, collect and store sensitive data, including intellectual property, clinical trial data, proprietary business information, personally identifiable information of our employees and, potentially in the future, personally identifiable information