Company: DARE
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001401914-25-000012
Chunk: 246

Company: Dare Bioscience, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 246
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•we may not effectively integrate the acquired or in-licensed assets, businesses, personnel, intellectual property or business relationships;

•we may underestimate the development and regulatory approval challenges, costs and timelines and overestimate the market opportunity for the potential product candidates and technologies; and

•during development, the acquired or in-licensed product candidates may not prove to be safe or effective in their targeted indications. 

We may fail to realize the anticipated value of any strategic transaction and the costs of a transaction may outweigh the benefits we realize from it. In addition, we have used shares of our common stock as consideration in strategic transactions and we may do so in the future, which may result in significant dilution to our stockholders. Any strategic transaction we pursue may not produce the outcomes and benefits we originally anticipated and may adversely impact our operating results and financial condition and be detrimental to our company in general.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we and our licensors are unable to obtain and maintain sufficient intellectual property protection, competitors could develop and commercialize or make available products similar or identical to ours, which could significantly limit the commercial potential of our products and product candidates and materially harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. 

Our success depends in part on our ability, and the ability of our licensors, to obtain, maintain, enforce, and defend patent rights, proprietary know-how, and trademarks of sufficient scope in the U.S. and other countries with respect to our products, product candidates and proprietary technologies. If we are unable to obtain, maintain, enforce and defend sufficient intellectual property protection, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed.

We depend heavily on patent rights and other intellectual property in-licensed to us from third parties to protect most of the products and technologies we develop. For some such rights, our third-party licensors control patent strategy and prosecution and we have little, if any, influence or control over such patent strategy and prosecution, and our licensors may not always act in our best interest.  

Due to evolving legal standards relating to the patentability, validity and enforceability of patents covering pharmaceutical inventions and the scope of claims made under these patents, our ability, and that of our licensors, to obtain or enforce patents is uncertain and involves complex legal and factual questions for which important legal principles are unresolved. As a result, the validity and enforceability of patents cannot be predicted with certainty. In addition, we do not know whether we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions covered by