Company: DNLI
Filing Date: 2025-05-06
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001714899-25-000105
Chunk: 202

Company: Denali Therapeutics Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-05-06
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 3
Chunk 202
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 highly competitive biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries depends upon our ability to attract, motivate and retain highly qualified managerial, scientific, and medical personnel. We are highly dependent on our management, particularly our Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ryan Watts, and our scientific and medical personnel. The loss of the services provided by any of our executive officers, other key employees, and other scientific and medical advisors, and our inability to find suitable replacements, could result in delays in the development of our product candidates and harm our business.

We primarily conduct our operations at our facility in South San Francisco, a region that is headquarters to many other biopharmaceutical companies and many academic and research institutions. Competition for skilled personnel is intense and the turnover rate can be high, which may limit our ability to hire and retain highly qualified personnel on acceptable terms or at all. We expect that we may need to recruit talent from outside of our region, and doing so may be costly and difficult.

To induce valuable employees to remain at our company, in addition to salary and cash incentives, we have provided restricted stock and stock option grants that vest over time. The value to employees of these equity grants that vest over time may be significantly affected by movements in our stock price that are beyond our control, and may at any time be insufficient to counteract more lucrative offers from other companies. Our employment agreements provide for at-will employment, which means that any of our employees could leave our employment at any time, with or without notice. We do not maintain “key man” insurance policies on the lives of any of our employees. If we are unable to attract and incentivize quality personnel on acceptable terms, or at all, it may cause our business and operating results to suffer.

We will need to grow the size and capabilities of our organization, and we may experience difficulties in managing this growth.

As of March 31, 2025, we had approximately 443 employees, all of whom were full-time. As our development plans and strategies develop, we must add a significant number of additional managerial, operational, financial, and other personnel. Future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, including recruiting, integrating, and retaining additional employees; managing our internal development efforts; and expanding our controls, reporting systems, and procedures.

Our future financial performance and our ability to continue to develop and, if approved, commercialize our product candidates will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth. Our management may also have to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from