Company: VERA
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-029969
Chunk: 201

Company: Vera Therapeutics, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 201
---
 Japan, India, Israel, Mexico, Macau and Taiwan, and pending in Canada. The 20-year expiration date for patents in this family is in 2036.

In addition, an application co-owned with and licensed from Novartis that is directed to dosing regimens for MAU868 is pending as a U.S. application as well as certain foreign counterparts. The 20-year expiration date for patents in this family is in 2041.

In addition to patents, we may rely upon unpatented trade secrets and know-how and continuing technological innovation to develop and maintain our competitive position. However, trade secrets and know-how can be difficult to protect. We seek to protect our proprietary information, in part, by executing confidentiality agreements with our collaborators and scientific advisors, and 

18

non-solicitation, confidentiality, and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants. We have also executed agreements requiring assignment of inventions with selected scientific advisors and collaborators. The confidentiality agreements we enter into are designed to protect our proprietary information and the agreements or clauses requiring assignment of inventions to us are designed to grant us ownership of technologies that are developed through our relationship with the respective counterparty. We cannot guarantee, however, that we have executed such agreements with all applicable counterparties, such agreements will not be breached, or that these agreements will afford us adequate protection of our intellectual property and proprietary rights. For more information, see “Risk factors—Risks related to our intellectual property.”

Furthermore, we seek trademark protection in the United States and internationally where available and when we deem appropriate.

Manufacturing and supply

We manage a number of external contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) to develop and manufacture our product candidates.

Atacicept is a fully humanized fusion protein that impacts the B cell pathway, which has well characterized implications in immunologic diseases. The human IgG1-Fc was modified to reduce the Fc binding to the C1q component of complement and the interaction with Fc receptors.

Atacicept is manufactured following current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) using a process similar to that used routinely for production of monoclonal antibodies. 

The atacicept drug product is available as a ready-to-use injection solution in a pre-filled syringe (PFS) at strengths of 25 mg/mL, 75 mg/mL, or 150 mg/mL of trial drug. Each atacicept PFS is designed to deliver a 1 mL solution of drug product. All formulation components are pharmacopeia grade