In addition, we rely on collaborators, consultants, and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist us in formulating our research and development and commercialization strategy. Our collaborators, consultants, and advisors are generally employed by employers other than us and may have commitments under agreements with other entities that may limit their availability to us.
The loss or extended illness of a key employee, the failure of a key employee to perform in his or her current position, or our inability to attract and retain skilled employees could result in our inability to continue to grow our business or to implement our business strategy.
We rely on highly skilled personnel in a broad array of disciplines and if we are unable to hire, retain, or motivate these individuals, or maintain our corporate culture, we may not be able to maintain the quality of our services or grow effectively.
Our performance, including our research and development programs and laboratory operations, largely depends on our continuing ability to identify, hire, develop, motivate, and retain highly skilled personnel for all areas of our organization. Competition in our industry for qualified employees is intense, and we may not be able to attract or retain qualified personnel in the future, including bioinformatic scientists, bioinformatic engineers, software engineers, statisticians, variant curators, clinical laboratory scientists, and genetic counselors, due to the competition for qualified personnel among life science businesses, technology companies, as well as universities and public and private research institutions, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. All of our U.S. employees are at-will, which means that either we or the employee may terminate their employment at any time. In addition, our compensation arrangements, such as our equity award programs, may not always be successful in attracting new employees and retaining and motivating our existing employees for reasons that may include movements in our stock price. If we are not able to attract and retain the necessary personnel to accomplish our business objectives, we may experience constraints that could adversely affect our ability to scale our business and support our research and development efforts and our laboratory operations. We believe that our corporate culture fosters innovation, creativity, and teamwork. However, as our organization grows, we may find it increasingly difficult to maintain the beneficial aspects of our corporate culture. This could negatively impact our ability to retain and attract employees and our future success.
We may not be able to manage our future growth effectively, which could make it difficult to execute our business strategy.
Our expected future growth could create a strain on our organizational, administrative, and operational infrastructure, including facilities, laboratory operations, quality control, customer service, marketing and sales, and management. We may not be able to maintain the quality of or expected turnaround times for our tests, or satisfy customer demand as our test volume grows. Our ability to manage our growth properly will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial, and management controls, as well as our reporting systems and procedures. As a result of our growth, our operating costs may escalate even faster than planned, and some of our internal systems may need to be enhanced or replaced. If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, it may be difficult for us to execute our business strategy and our business could be harmed.
We may acquire businesses or assets, form joint ventures, or make investments in other companies or technologies that could harm our operating results, dilute our stockholders’ ownership, or cause us to incur debt or significant expense.
As part of our business strategy, we may pursue acquisitions of complementary businesses or assets, as well as technology licensing arrangements. We may also pursue strategic alliances that leverage our core technology and industry experience to expand our offerings or distribution, or make investments in other companies. As an organization, we have limited experience with respect to acquisitions as well as the formation of strategic alliances and joint ventures. We may not identify or complete these transactions in a timely manner, on a cost-effective basis, or at all, and we may not realize the anticipated benefits of any acquisition, technology license, strategic alliance, joint venture or investment, and their consideration may be distracting to our management or
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