Company: ATRA
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-035507
Chunk: 157

Company: Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 157
---
 of accumulated state tax attributes. Regulatory changes, such as suspensions on the use of NOLs, or other unforeseen reasons, may cause our existing tax attributes to expire, decrease in value or otherwise be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities. 

78

Business disruptions could seriously harm our future revenues and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses.

Our operations could be subject to earthquakes, power shortages, telecommunications failures, water shortages, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, fires, extreme weather conditions, medical epidemics and other natural or man-made disasters or business interruptions, for which we are predominantly self-insured. Two of our corporate locations are located in California, an area prone to earthquakes and fires. The occurrence of any of these business disruptions could seriously harm our operations and financial condition and increase our costs and expenses. We rely on third-party manufacturers to produce our product candidates. Our ability to obtain clinical supplies of product candidates could be disrupted, if the operations of these suppliers are affected by a man-made or natural disaster or other business interruption, including, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic.

The biopharmaceutical industry is subject to extensive regulatory obligations and policies that are subject to significant and abrupt change, including due to judicial challenges, election cycles, and resulting regulatory updaters and changes in policy priorities.

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion holding that courts reviewing agency action pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “must exercise their independent judgment” and “may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.” The decision will have a significant impact on how lower courts evaluate challenges to agency interpretations of law, including those by the HHS, CMS, FDA and other agencies with significant oversight of the biopharmaceutical industry. The new framework is likely to increase both the frequency of such challenges and their odds of success by eliminating one way in which the government previously prevailed in such cases. As a result, significant regulatory policies will be subject to increased litigation and judicial scrutiny. 

In addition, federal agency priorities, leadership, policies, rulemaking, communications, spending, and staffing may be significantly impacted by election cycles.  For example, the current U.S. presidential administration has committed to significantly reduce government spending through cuts to federal healthcare programs and reductions in the workforces of key government agencies, such as HHS, FDA, and CMS. Efforts by the current administration to limit federal agency budgets or personnel may result in reductions to agency budgets,