Company: VERA
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-029969
Chunk: 72

Company: Vera Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 72
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 rights and could harm our ability to commercialize our product candidates. Additionally, certain patents, know-how and proprietary technology of third parties, including certain composition of matter patents, are sublicensed to us and in the event the applicable license agreement terminates, expires or is in dispute, it could result in the loss of significant rights and could harm our ability to commercialize our product candidates.

Disputes may also arise between us and Ares, an affiliate of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, Novartis, Stanford, or any future potential licensors, regarding intellectual property subject to a license agreement, including:

•the scope of rights granted under the license agreement and other interpretation-related issues;

•whether and the extent to which our technology and processes infringe on intellectual property of the licensor that is not subject to the licensing agreement;

•our right to sublicense patent and other rights to third parties under collaborative development relationships;

•our diligence obligations with respect to the use of the licensed technology in relation to our development and commercialization of our product candidates and what activities satisfy those diligence obligations; and

•the ownership of inventions and know-how resulting from the joint creation or use of intellectual property by our licensors and us and our partners.

If disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangements on acceptable terms, we may be unable to successfully develop and commercialize the affected product candidates.

In addition, we acquired worldwide, exclusive rights to atacicept pursuant to the Ares Agreement, and worldwide, exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize MAU868 pursuant to the Amplyx Agreement, pursuant to which we acquired Amplyx’s right, title and interest in the license agreement between Amplyx and Novartis related to MAU868 (the Novartis Agreement). We also entered into an exclusive license agreement with Stanford for rights to VT-109 (the Stanford Agreement). The Ares Agreement, Novartis Agreement, and Stanford Agreement are complex, and certain provisions may be susceptible to multiple interpretations. The resolution of any contract interpretation disagreement that may arise could narrow what we believe to be the scope of our rights to the relevant intellectual property, or increase what we believe to be our financial or other obligations under such agreement, either of which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. Moreover, if disputes over intellectual property that we have licensed prevent or impair our ability to maintain our current licensing arrangement on commercially acceptable terms, we