Company: NCNA
Filing Date: 2025-03-20
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000950170-25-042709
Chunk: 71

Company: NuCana plc
Filing Date: 2025-03-20
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 71
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 requests for reissuance may not result in the issuance of the new patent and could result in loss of the originally issued patent.
 The risks described here pertaining to our patents and other intellectual property rights also apply to any intellectual property rights that we currently license or may license in the future. In some cases, we may not have control over the prosecution, maintenance or enforcement of the patents that we license, and our licensors may fail to take the steps that we believe are necessary or desirable in order to obtain, maintain and enforce the licensed patents.
 Third parties seeking to acquire intellectual property rights in our technology and products may be successful in securing such rights through the grant of patent applications in the United States and in other jurisdictions; if we are forced to defend our granted intellectual property rights for any of our product candidates, we may become involved in costly litigation or other administrative proceedings before the USPTO or comparable non-U.S. regulatory authorities, which could delay or prevent the development and commercialization of our current or future product candidates.
 Biopharmaceutical drug development is inherently uncertain in a rapidly evolving technological environment such as ours in which there may be numerous patent applications pending in multiple jurisdictions at any given time, many of which are confidential when filed, with regard to the same or similar technologies. Any patents issued to third parties may contain claims that conflict with our patents and that may place restrictions on the commercial viability of our products and technologies. For example, we are aware of several issued, allowed or pending patent applications in several countries, including the United States, filed by BrightGene Bio-Medical Technology Co., Ltd., or BrightGene, a pharmaceutical company based in Suzhou, China, directed to various aspects of a process for the manufacture of Acelarin. While we believe that BrightGene’s process patent filings are invalid, challenging such filings could compel us to engage in costly patent litigation or certain other administrative proceedings before the USPTO, in U.S. federal courts, or in the courts or patent offices of other countries. These activities could result in substantial cost to us and could result in diversion of the efforts of our management and technical personnel.
 In addition, BrightGene has also pursued patent claims to the composition of matter of Acelarin in the United States and several other foreign countries. We believe that their claims to the composition of matter of Acelarin are invalid. BrightGene’s claims to Acelarin in the United States were rejected by the USPTO as lacking novelty over our prior filed patents. Patents have been issued to BrightGene