Company: DNLI
Filing Date: 2025-08-11
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001714899-25-000170
Chunk: 332

Company: Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-08-11
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part II, Item 1A
Chunk 332
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 Related to Our Intellectual Property.”

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Our biologic, or large molecule, product candidates for which we intend to seek approval may face competition sooner than anticipated.

Even if we are successful in achieving regulatory approval to commercialize a product candidate faster than our competitors, our large molecule product candidates may face competition from biosimilar products. In the United States, our large molecule product candidates, including DNL310, are regulated by the FDA as biologic products. We have sought approval for DNL310 pursuant to the biologics license application ("BLA") pathway and may do so for other large molecule product candidates in our pipeline. The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (the "BPCIA"), created an abbreviated pathway for the approval of biosimilar and interchangeable biologic products. The abbreviated regulatory pathway establishes legal authority for the FDA to review and approve biosimilar biologics, including the possible designation of a biosimilar as “interchangeable” based on its similarity to an existing brand product. Under the BPCIA, an application for a biosimilar product cannot be approved by the FDA until 12 years after the original branded product was approved under a BLA. The law is complex and is still being interpreted and implemented by the FDA. As a result, its ultimate impact, implementation, and meaning are subject to uncertainty. While it is uncertain when such processes intended to implement BPCIA may be fully adopted by the FDA, any such processes could have a material adverse effect on the future commercial prospects for our large molecule product candidates.

We believe that any of our large molecule product candidates approved as a biologic product under a BLA should qualify for the 12-year period of exclusivity. However, there is a risk that this exclusivity could be shortened due to congressional action or otherwise, or that the FDA will not consider our product candidates to be reference products for competing products, potentially creating the opportunity for generic competition sooner than anticipated. Moreover, the extent to which a biosimilar product, once approved, will be substituted for any one of our reference products in a way that is similar to traditional generic substitution for non-biologic products is not yet clear, and will depend on a number of marketplace and regulatory factors that are still developing. In addition, a competitor could decide to forego the biosimilar approval path and submit a full BLA after completing its own preclinical studies and clinical trials. In such cases, any exclusivity to which we may be eligible under the BPCIA would not prevent the competitor