Item 4.02 | Non-Reliance on Previously Issued Financial Statements or a Related Audit Report or Completed Interim Reviews |
Allogene Therapeutics, Inc. (the “Company”) has received two comment letters (“Comment Letters”) from the staff of the Division of Corporation Finance (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) relating to its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 (the “FY 2022 Form 10-K”).
The Comment Letters included comments related to the Company’s accounting for Allogene Overland Biopharm (CY) Limited (“Allogene Overland”), a joint venture established by the Company and Overland Pharmaceuticals (CY) Inc. (“Overland”) pursuant to a Share Purchase Agreement entered into on December 14, 2020 (“Share Purchase Agreement”), and also related to the associated Exclusive License Agreement between the Company and Allogene Overland entered into on December 14, 2020 (“License Agreement”) for the purpose of developing, manufacturing and commercializing certain allogeneic CAR T cell therapies for patients in greater China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore.
Pursuant to the Share Purchase Agreement, the Company acquired Seed Preferred Shares in Allogene Overland representing 49% of Allogene Overland’s outstanding stock (“Seed Preferred Shares”) as partial consideration for the License Agreement, and Overland acquired Seed Preferred Shares representing 51% of Allogene Overland’s outstanding stock for which Overland paid $117.0 million to Allogene Overland, which included an upfront payment and certain quarterly cash payments, to support operations of Allogene Overland. The Company also received $40 million from Allogene Overland as partial consideration for the License Agreement.
The Company’s equity investment in Allogene Overland, as represented by the Seed Preferred Shares, was determined to be an equity method investment and originally recorded at zero. Given that the Seed Preferred Shares were recorded at zero and the Company does not have an obligation to contribute capital to Allogene Overland, the Company did not account for its share of losses incurred by Allogene Overland.
Following the receipt of the Comment Letters and a re-evaluation of the accounting for its Seed Preferred Shares, on February 14, 2024, the Company’s Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of the Company (the “Audit Committee”) determined, based on management’s recommendation and after consultation with Ernst & Young LLP, the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm, that the Seed Preferred Shares should have been initially measured at fair value, and the accounting for the Seed Preferred Shares should be restated. As a result, the Audit Committee also determined that the Company’s financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2021 and 2022, and in each of the Company’s quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC in 2021, 2022 and 2023 (collectively, the “Restatement Periods”), should no longer be relied upon.
The Company expects the restatement will include the recording of the fair value of the Company’s initial investment in the Seed Preferred Shares. The transaction price to determine revenue related to the License Agreement will include the fair value of the Seed Preferred Shares. The Company expects to reflect additional revenues under “License and collaboration revenue – related party” in its consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss. Additionally, the Company expects to record as “Other expenses” in its consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss its share of net losses of Allogene Overland, including when the joint venture recognizes expenses related to the payment and shares issued to the Company for the License Agreement, which is recorded by Allogene Overland as in-process research and development with no alternative future use.
This restatement is non-cash in nature and will have no impact on the Company’s cash flows or cash, cash equivalents and marketable investments.
The preliminary evaluation provided above is subject to the completion of the Company’s restatement analysis and financial close and reporting process, as well as the financial statement audits and reviews for the Restatement Periods.
As a result of the information described above, the Company’s management has concluded that the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures were not effective at the reasonable assurance level and the Company’s internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of the end of each of the periods covered by the restatement, and the Company’s report under Item 9A Management’s Annual Report on Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting as of December 31, 2022 will be revised