Company: VERA
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-029969
Chunk: 86

Company: Vera Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 86
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 against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and distraction to management and other employees.

Patent terms may be inadequate to protect our competitive position on atacicept, MAU868, VT-109, or any future product candidates we may develop for an adequate amount of time.

Patents have a limited lifespan. Generally, issued patents are granted a term of 20 years from the earliest claimed non-provisional filing date. Various extensions may be available, but there can be no assurance that any such extensions will be obtained, and the life of a patent, and the protection it affords, is limited. In certain instances, patent term can be adjusted to recapture a portion of delay by the USPTO in examining the patent application (patent term adjustment) or extended to account for term effectively lost as a result of the FDA regulatory review period (patent term extension), or both. There is a risk that we may take action that detracts from any accrued patent term adjustment. Even if patents covering atacicept, MAU868, VT-109, or any future product candidates we may develop are obtained, once the patent life has expired, we may be open to competition from competitive products. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.

Our earliest in-licensed patents may expire before, or soon after, our first product achieves marketing approval in the United States or foreign jurisdictions. Upon the expiration of our current patents, we may lose the right to exclude others from practicing these inventions. The expiration of these patents could also have a similar material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, prospects and results of operations.

Any of the foregoing could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

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Patent terms may be inadequate to protect our competitive position on our products for an adequate amount of time, and if we do not obtain protection under the Hatch-Waxman Amendments and similar non-United States legislation for extending the term of patents covering each of our product candidates, our business may be significantly harmed.

Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. Depending upon the timing, duration and conditions of FDA