The Company intends to vigorously defend against the allegations in the Supplemental Derivative Complaint, but there can be no assurance that the defense will be successful.
On March 20, 2017, a purported shareholder of the Company, filed a shareholder derivative complaint (the “Guo Complaint”) against certain officers and directors of the Company in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The Guo Complaint generally alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed to the Company by either recklessly or with gross negligence approving or permitting misrepresentations of the Company’s business operations and prospects. The Guo Complaint also alleged claims for waste of corporate assets and unjust enrichment. Finally, the Guo Complaint alleged that certain of the individual defendants violated Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act, by allegedly negligently issuing, causing to be issued, and participating in the issuance of materially misleading statements to stockholders in the Company’s Proxy Statement on Schedule DEF 14A in connection with the 2015 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, held on June 11, 2015. The Guo Complaint sought, among other things, an award of money damages.
On June 19, 2017, the parties filed a joint motion to stay the Guo action pending resolution of the motion to dismiss the Consolidated Derivative Complaint. On June 20, 2017, the court granted the motion to stay.
The Company intends to vigorously defend against the allegations in the Guo Complaint, but there can be no assurance that the defense will be successful.
European Patent Opposition
Two oppositions were filed in the granted European counterpart of the rucaparib camsylate salt/polymorph patent on June 20, 2017. The European Patent Office’s Opposition Division held an oral hearing on December 4, 2018, during which it upheld claims, narrowed from the originally granted patent, to certain crystalline forms of rucaparib camsylate, including, but not limited to, rucaparib S-camsylate Form A, the crystalline form in Rubraca. On February 4, 2019, the Opposition Division issued a written decision confirming its decision at the oral hearing. In June 2019, Clovis and one opponent, Hexal, filed briefs appealing the written decision of the European Opposition Division and responses to the appeal briefs are due by November 4, 2019.
ITEM 2. | MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS |
Forward-Looking Information
This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and the information incorporated herein by reference includes statements that are, or may be deemed, “forward-looking statements.” In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms “believes,” “estimates,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “may,” “could,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “approximately” or, in each case, their negative or other variations thereon or comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. They appear in a number of places throughout this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and include statements regarding our intentions, beliefs, projections, outlook, analyses or current expectations concerning, among other things, the market acceptance and commercial viability of our approved product, the development of our sales and marketing capabilities, the performance of our clinical trial partners, third party manufacturers and our diagnostic partners, our ongoing and planned non-clinical studies and clinical trials, the timing of and our ability to make regulatory filings and obtain and maintain regulatory approvals for our product candidates, including our ability to confirm clinical benefit of our approved product through confirmatory trials and other post-marketing requirements, the degree of clinical utility of our products, particularly in specific patient populations, expectations regarding clinical trial data, expectations regarding sales of our products, our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth and strategies, the industry in which we operate, including our competition and the trends that may affect the industry or us.
By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events, competitive dynamics and industry change and depend on the economic circumstances that may or may not occur in the future or may occur on longer or shorter timelines than anticipated. We caution you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity and the development of the industry in which we operate may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein.