| • | managing our internal development efforts effectively, including the clinical, FDA, EMA and other comparable foreign regulatory agencies’ review process for EDG-5506 and any other product candidates, while complying with any contractual obligations to contractors and other third parties we may have; and |
| • | improving our operational, financial and management controls, reporting systems and procedures. |
Our future financial performance and our ability to successfully develop and, if approved, commercialize EDG-5506 and other product candidates will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth, and our management may also have to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from day-to-day activities in order to devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities.
We currently rely, and for the foreseeable future will continue to rely, in substantial part on certain independent organizations, advisors and consultants to provide certain services, including key aspects of our research and development, clinical development and manufacturing. We cannot assure you that the services of independent organizations, advisors and consultants will continue to be available to us on a timely basis when needed, or that we can find qualified replacements. In addition, if we are unable to effectively manage our outsourced activities or if the quality or accuracy of the services provided by third-party service providers is compromised for any reason, our clinical trials may be extended, delayed or terminated, and we may not be able to obtain marketing approval of EDG-5506 and any other product candidates or otherwise advance our business. We cannot assure you that we will be able to manage our existing third-party service providers or find other competent outside contractors and consultants on economically reasonable terms, or at all.
If we are not able to effectively expand our organization by hiring new employees and/or engaging additional third-party service providers, we may not be able to successfully implement the tasks necessary to further develop and commercialize EDG-5506 and other product candidates and, accordingly, may not achieve our research, development and commercialization goals.
Our computer systems, or those of any of our CROs, manufacturers, other contractors or consultants or potential future collaborators, may fail or suffer security or data privacy breaches or incidents or other unauthorized or improper access to, use of, or destruction of our proprietary or confidential data, employee data, or personal data, which could result in additional costs, loss of revenue, significant liabilities, harm to our brand and material disruption of our operations.
Despite the implementation of security measures in an effort to protect systems that store our information, given their size and complexity and the increasing amounts of information maintained on our internal information technology systems, and those of our third-party CROs, other contractors (including sites performing our clinical trials) and consultants, these systems are potentially vulnerable to breakdown or other damage or interruption from service interruptions, system malfunction, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures, as well as security breaches and incidents from inadvertent or intentional actions by our employees, contractors, consultants, business partners, and/or other third parties, or from cyber-attacks by malicious third parties (including supply chain cyber attacks or the deployment of harmful malware, ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, social engineering and other means to affect service reliability and threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information), which may compromise our system infrastructure or lead to the loss, destruction, alteration, prevention of access to, disclosure, or dissemination of, or damage or unauthorized access to, our data (including trade secrets or other confidential information, intellectual property, proprietary business information, and personal information) or data that is processed or maintained on our behalf, or other assets, which could result in financial, legal, business and reputational harm to us. For example, in 2019, one our CROs experienced a cybersecurity breach which resulted in unauthorized access to certain of our preclinical data. We have received phishing attacks, and companies have, in general, experienced an increase in phishing and social engineering attacks from third parties in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increase in remote working further increases security threats. To the extent that any disruption or security incident were to result in any loss, destruction, unavailability, alteration, disclosure, or dissemination of, or damage or unauthorized access to, our applications, any other data processed or maintained on our behalf or other assets, or for it to be believed or reported that any of these occurred, we could incur liability, financial harm and reputational damage and the development and commercialization of our product candidates could be delayed. We cannot assure you that our data protection efforts and our investment in information technology, or the efforts or investments of CROs, consultants or other third parties, will prevent significant breakdowns or breaches in systems or other cyber incidents that cause loss, destruction, unavailability, alteration or dissemination of, or damage or unauthorized