Company: ANTX
Filing Date: 2025-03-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-044366
Chunk: 98

Company: AN2 Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 98
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 as long as the products are different drugs, as determined by the FDA. As a result, if any of our product candidates is approved by the FDA and receives orphan drug exclusivity, absent other applicable exclusivities, the FDA can still approve other drugs for use in treating the same indication or disease, which could create a more competitive market for us. The failure to successfully obtain orphan drug exclusivity would adversely affect our business.

Even if we obtain orphan drug exclusivity for a product, that exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from competition because different drugs can be approved for the same disease or condition. Even after an orphan drug is approved, the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authority can subsequently approve the same drug for the same disease or condition if such regulatory authority concludes that the later drug is clinically superior if it is shown to be safer, more effective, or makes a major contribution to patient care. Orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug nor gives the drug any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process. 

We may attempt to seek accelerated approval in the United States for certain of our product candidates. If we are not able to use that pathway, we may be required to conduct additional clinical trials beyond those that are contemplated, which would increase the expense of obtaining, and delay the receipt of, necessary regulatory approvals, if we receive them at all. In addition, even if an accelerated approval pathway is available to us, it may not lead to expedited approval of our product candidates, or approval at all. 

Under the FDCA and implementing regulations, the FDA may grant accelerated approval to a product candidate to treat a serious or life-threatening condition that provides meaningful therapeutic benefit over available therapies, upon a determination that the product has an effect on a surrogate endpoint or intermediate clinical endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit. The FDA considers a clinical benefit to be a positive therapeutic effect that is clinically meaningful in the context of a given disease, such as irreversible morbidity or mortality. For the purposes of accelerated approval, a surrogate endpoint is a marker, such as a laboratory measurement, radiographic image, physical sign or other measure that is thought to predict clinical benefit, but is not itself a measure of clinical benefit. An intermediate clinical endpoint is a clinical endpoint that can be measured earlier than an effect on irreversible morbidity or mortality that is reasonably likely to predict an effect on irreversible morbidity or mortality or other clinical benefit measurement of a therapeutic effect that is considered reasonably likely to predict the clinical benefit of a drug.