Company: IOBT
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-047744
Chunk: 191

Company: IO Biotech, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 191
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 to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel. 

Our ability to compete in the highly competitive biopharmaceutical industry depends upon our ability to attract and retain highly qualified management, research and development, clinical, financial and business development personnel. We are highly dependent on our management, scientific and medical personnel, including Mai Britt Zocca, Ph.D., our Chief Executive Officer, Amy Sullivan, M.B.A., our Chief Financial Officer and Qasim Ahmad, M.D., our Chief Medical Officer. Our senior management may terminate their employment with us at any time. We do not maintain “key person” insurance for any of our employees. 

Recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and clinical personnel and, if we progress the development of any of our product candidates, commercialization, manufacturing and sales and marketing personnel, will be critical to our success. The loss of the services of members of our senior management or other key employees could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives and seriously harm our ability to successfully implement our business strategy. Furthermore, replacing members of our senior management and key employees may be difficult and may take an extended period of time because of the limited number of individuals in our industry with the breadth of skills and experience required to successfully develop, gain regulatory approval of and commercialize our product candidates. Our success also depends on our ability to continue to attract, retain and motivate highly skilled junior, mid-level and senior managers, as well as junior, mid-level and senior scientific and medical personnel. Competition to hire from this limited candidate pool is intense, and we may be unable to hire, train, retain or motivate these key personnel on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for similar personnel. We also experience competition for the hiring of scientific and clinical personnel from universities and research institutions. In addition, we rely on consultants and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist us in formulating our research and development and commercialization strategy. Our consultants and advisors may have commitments under consulting or advisory contracts with other entities that may limit their availability to us. If we are unable to continue to attract and retain high-quality personnel, our ability to pursue our growth strategy will be limited. 

92

We expect to expand our clinical development and regulatory capabilities and potentially implement sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, and as a result, we may encounter difficulties in managing our growth, which could disrupt our operations. 

As of December 31, 2024 we had 80 full-time employees. As our development progresses,