Company: VERA
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-029969
Chunk: 74

Company: Vera Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 74
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 Agreement, we are obligated to make certain milestone payments to Novartis in an aggregate amount of up to $62.0 million based on the achievement of certain clinical development, regulatory and sales milestones. Further, we are required to pay Novartis mid-to high-single digit percentage royalties based on net sales of MAU868 on a country-by-country and product-by-product basis.

Under the Stanford Agreement, we made an upfront license fee payment and are obligated to pay annual license maintenance fees. We are also obligated to make certain milestone payments to Stanford based on the achievement of certain development, regulatory, and commercial milestones. Further, we are required to pay Stanford royalties based on net sales of VT-109 worldwide. In the event we sublicense our rights under the Stanford Agreement, we are obligated to pay Stanford a percentage of specified sublicensing income received.

If milestone or other non-royalty obligations become due, we may not have sufficient funds available to meet our obligations, which will adversely affect our business operations and financial condition.

If the scope of any patent protection we obtain is not sufficiently broad, or if we lose any of our patent protection, our ability to prevent our competitors from commercializing similar or identical product candidates would be adversely affected.

The patent positions of biotechnology companies generally are highly uncertain, involve complex legal and factual questions for which important legal principles remain unsolved and have been the subject of much litigation in recent years. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued which protect atacicept, MAU868, or VT-109, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and product candidates. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. For example, many countries restrict the patentability of methods of treatment of the human body.

Moreover, the coverage claimed in a patent application can be significantly reduced before a patent is issued, and its scope can be reinterpreted after issuance. Legal standards relating to valid and enforceable claim scope are unsettled in the United States and elsewhere and disputes challenging or re-defining scope are common in the biopharmaceutical industry. Even if patent applications we own or in-license currently or in the future issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors or other third parties from competing with us, or otherwise provide us with any