UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
| ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 | |||||
For the fiscal year ended December 31 , 2021
OR
| TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 | |||||
For the transition period from __________ to __________
Commission file number 001-39482
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
| (State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) | ||||
| (Address of Principal Executive Offices) | (Zip Code) | ||||
(800 ) 298-6470
Registrant's telephone number, including area code
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
| Title of each class | Trading Symbol(s) | Name of each exchange on which registered | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes o No x
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No x
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports); and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):
| Large accelerated filer | o | Accelerated filer | o | ||||||||
| x | Smaller reporting company | ||||||||||
| Emerging growth company | |||||||||||
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7252(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. o
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes o No x
The aggregate market value of voting common stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant (assuming for purposes of this calculation, without conceding, that all executive officers and directors are “affiliates”) was approximately $515 million as of June 30, 2021, based on the closing sale price of such stock as reported on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
The registrant had outstanding 244,959,781 shares of Class A common stock as of March 7, 2022.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Page | |||||
PART III | |||||
Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance | |||||
Item 11. Executive Compensation | |||||
Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owner and Management and Related Stockholder Matters | |||||
Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence | |||||
Item 14. Principal Accounting Fees and Services | |||||
EXPLANATORY NOTE
Unless otherwise stated in this report or the context otherwise requires, references to the “Company,” “Sema4” and “we,” “us” and “our” refer to (i) Mount Sinai Genomics, Inc. d/b/a as Sema4, or Legacy Sema4, prior to the consummation of our business combination with CM Life Sciences, Inc., or CMLS, on July 22, 2021 and (ii) Sema4 Holdings Corp. and its consolidated subsidiaries following the consummation of our business combination.
In addition, as described in more detail elsewhere in this report, on January 14, 2022, we and our subsidiaries, Orion Merger Sub I, Inc., or Merger Sub I, and Orion Merger Sub II, LLC, or Merger Sub II entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger and Reorganization, or the Merger Agreement, with GeneDx, Inc., or GeneDx, a New Jersey corporation and a wholly-owned subsidiary of OPKO Health, Inc., GeneDx Holding 2, Inc., or Holdco, and OPKO, pursuant to which we will acquire 100% of GeneDx from OPKO, which we refer to herein as the “Acquisition”. In connection with the Acquisition, we entered into certain related agreements, including subscription agreements with certain institutional investors that provide for a $200 million private placement of shares of our Class A common stock, which we refer to herein as the Acquisition PIPE Investment. Unless stated otherwise in this report, all forward-looking information contained in this report does not take into account or give any effect to the impact of the Acquisition or the Acquisition PIPE Investment.
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Certain matters discussed in this report, including matters discussed under the caption “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” may constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “may,” “expect” and similar expressions are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including, without limitation, those discussed under the captions “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and elsewhere in this report, as well as other factors which may be identified from time to time in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, or in the documents where such forward-looking statements appear. All written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to us are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:
•our estimates of the sufficiency of our existing capital resources combined with future anticipated cash flows to finance our operating requirements
•our expected losses;
•our expectations for incurring capital expenditures to expand our research and development and manufacturing capabilities;
•unforeseen circumstances or other disruptions to normal business operations, including supply chain interruptions and manufacturing constraints, arising from or related to COVID-19;
•our ability to consummate the Acquisition and the other transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement and the related Acquisition PIPE Investment;
•our expectations for generating revenue or becoming profitable on a sustained basis;
•our expectations or ability to enter into service, collaboration and other partnership agreements;
•our expectations or ability to build our own commercial infrastructure to scale market and sell our products;
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•actions or authorizations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or, the FDA, or other regulatory authorities;
•risks related to governmental regulation and other legal obligations, including privacy, data protection, information security, consumer protection, and anti-corruption and anti-bribery;
•our ability to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for our product candidates;
•our ability to compete against existing and emerging technologies;
•our stock price and its volatility;
•our ability to attract and retain key personnel;
•third-party payor reimbursement and coverage decisions;
•our reliance on third-party laboratories and service providers for our test volume in connection with our diagnostic solutions and data programs;
•our expectations for future capital requirements; and
•our ability to successfully implement our business strategy.
The forward-looking statements contained in this report reflect our views and assumptions only as of the date that this report is signed. Except as required by law, we assume no responsibility for updating any forward-looking statements.
We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. In addition, with respect to all of our forward-looking statements, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
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Part I
Item 1. Business
Overview
Who We Are
We are a patient-centered, health intelligence company with a mission to use artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning to enable personalized medicine for all. Our integrated information platform leverages longitudinal patient data, AI-driven predictive modeling, and genomics in combination with other molecular and high-dimensional data in our efforts both to deliver better outcomes for patients and to transform the practice of medicine, including how disease is diagnosed, treated, and prevented.
We have established one of the largest, most comprehensive, and fastest growing integrated health information platforms, collecting and leveraging genomic and clinical data in partnership with patients, healthcare providers and an extensive ecosystem of life science industry contributors. We are now generating and processing over 47 petabytes of data per month, growing by more than 1 petabyte per month, and maintaining a database that includes approximately 12 million de-identified clinical records, including more than 500,000 with genomic profiles, integrated in a way that enables physicians to proactively diagnose and manage disease. This expanding database is a virtuous cycle of data: new data enables us to further develop, train, and refine predictive models and drive differentiated insights, which models and insights we deploy through our next generation diagnostic and research solutions and portals to support clinicians and researchers and engage patients, all of which interactions generate more data to continue the cycle.
Today, by providing differentiated insights through diagnostic testing solutions to physicians and patients across the United States, or U.S., in areas such as reproductive health, or Women’s Health, population health, and oncology, or Oncology, we are reimbursed by payors, providers, and patients for providing these services. In collaboration with pharmaceutical and biotech, or Biopharma, companies, we receive payments for a broad range of services relating to the aggregated data on our information platform, such as consenting and recontacting patients, the development and implementation of a wide range of predictive models, including drug discovery programs, conducting real-world evidence studies, and aiding in the identification and recruitment of patients into clinical trials. Over the next several years, we expect to focus on expanding the revenue from our health system and Biopharma partners, while also working to continue to grow the volumes and revenues from our diagnostics test solutions.
While there are many companies seeking to harness the potential of “big data” to address the challenges within the healthcare ecosystem, we believe that few have the scale of our company combined with our revenue-generating diagnostics testing business and origins as a company conceived and nurtured within a world-class health system. These characteristics have enabled us to build a significant and highly differentiated technological and informational asset positioned to drive precision medicine solutions into the standard of care in an unparalleled way.
Our World Class Team and Unique Origins
Sema4 was founded by Eric Schadt, Ph.D. as part of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology. Dr. Schadt is a world-renowned expert on constructing predictive models of disease that link molecular data to physiology to enable clinical medicine. He has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals, with a public citation or h-index of 137, and contributed to discoveries relating to the genetic basis of common human diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer’s disease. As of December 31, 2021, we have approximately 1200 employees, including over 160 Ph.D.-level data scientists whose collective work has been recognized in areas such as data science, network modeling, multiscale biotechnology and genomics.
Sema4 was established out of the Mount Sinai Health System (which we refer to together with our related entities as Mount Sinai) and commenced operations in June 2017 as a commercial entity that could effectively engage diverse patient populations and health care institutions at scale, founded on the idea that more information,
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deeper AI-driven learning, and increased engagement of patients and their providers will improve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. We have since established and deployed our comprehensive and integrated genomics and information platforms, and intend to continue to expand our scale and reach through organic and inorganic growth.
Our Purpose-Built, Flexible Platforms Address Immediate and Untapped Market Opportunities
With the rapid decline in next generation sequencing costs and the increased accessibility of large scale, commoditized computer hardware and storage information products through the cloud, we expect that our core information platform, Centrellis®, supported and fueled by our genomic analysis platform, Traversa™, will be well-positioned to drive improved clinical outcomes competitively in the healthcare market.
Our information platform was built to be highly adaptable to different data types and different diseases and health conditions, with the aim to deliver precision medicine and improved health outcomes across a patient’s entire life cycle. Accordingly, we expect our platforms to capitalize on a wide range of growth opportunities, and we intend to apply capital over time to make targeted acquisitions to accelerate our ability to reach a wider range of patients, integrate more deeply into clinical workflows, and address the significant, unaddressed white space for health intelligence in the healthcare ecosystem. These include a broad range of therapeutic segments, beyond our existing focus of our diagnostics solutions for Women’s Health, and Oncology, where we believe there is an immediate need for precision medicine solutions such as in autoimmune disorders, where medical care represented over $100 billion of spend in the U.S. in 2011, rare diseases, which is estimated to cost the U.S. healthcare system over $400 billion annually, and cardiovascular disease, where direct medical spend represents approximately $200 billion annually.
By combining our data-driven approach and our deep understanding of health system workflows, we have developed a holistic health information platform, Centrellis, to transform the disease diagnosis and treatment paradigm for the entire healthcare ecosystem: patients, physicians, health systems, payers, and Biopharma companies. The Centrellis platform is comprised of a data management backend that supports a wide array of databases, data warehouses, and knowledge bases, a data analytics layer to mine the data and construct predictive models that provide differentiated insights, and a series of application programmable interfaces to enable tool and software applications to access the data and models. Centrellis serves as the underlying foundation of our precision medicine solution and comprises a sophisticated data management and analytics engine. In the data management layer, our platform processes and stores data in a highly structured and accessible way, which is then analyzed by an advanced insights engine in the analytics layer that deploys state-of-the-art AI, probabilistic causal reasoning and machine learning approaches, and complementary analytics capabilities to deliver increasingly accurate insights to patients, providers, and researchers across a broad range of applications. Centrellis is designed to transform treatment decisions across multiple therapeutic areas by engaging large-scale, high-dimensional data and querying the predictive models of disease and wellness using patient-specific data to derive highly personalized, clinically actionable insights. Centrellis supports various applications, such as delivery of personalized and actionable treatment insights into clinical reports, clinical trial matching, real-world evidence trials and clinical decision support, through an advanced programmable interface, or API, layer.
We have also developed a comprehensive genomic platform, Traversa™, to serve as the backbone of our screening and diagnostic products and with the capacity to deliver molecular data that can be re-accessed, analyzed and delivered throughout a patient’s lifetime. Traversa is designed to simultaneously assay at clinical-grade coverage all known medically relevant regions of the genome, as well as survey the entirety of the human genome, to surface signals that might be medically relevant to a patient in the future. Traversa is integrated with the Centrellis information platform and is designed to adapt at the rate of learning and to match the significant pace of information and knowledge growth, especially in the genomics arena, to allow us to provide actionable, accurate, and cutting-edge insights from complex and comprehensive data assets. We also expect this platform to enable us to scale our operations and to improve our margins in generating secondary insights for patients and providers.
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We Are Building Richer Longitudinal Data Through Deeper Patient and Provider Engagement
We engage with patients, physicians, and health systems as partners and based on principles of transparency, choice, and consent. Driven by our direct engagement with patients and strategic relationships with multiple health systems, the database we have built contains extensive electronic medical record, or EMR, data, totaling approximately 12 million de-identified clinical records, many with genomic profiles, and has been designed to enable Centrellis to draw from our extensive data assets in a way that enables physicians to proactively diagnose and manage disease. We expect our current and targeted strategic relationships will provide us with access to additional active patient cohorts and datasets to fuel this growth and perpetuate our iterative, data-driven business model, including by rapidly scaling our diagnostic test solutions franchise with physicians and patients through direct engagement with multiple health system partners.
In addition to providing a majority of our current revenue and generating hundreds of thousands of genomic profiles, our established diagnostic test solutions also allow us to engage patients directly as partners, both as part of their clinical care and also acting on their behalf, with appropriate informed consent, to acquire, organize and manage any health data generated on them through the course of their care, all of which contributes to the further development of our genomics and information platforms. Further, we have demonstrated patients’ willingness to partner with us. For example, over 80% of diagnostics solutions patients and users who engaged with our patient portal have given us their informed consent to retrieve, organize, and manage their health records and data, and to facilitate their access to and sharing of that data, as well as additional data that patients share and create through their use of our expanding suite of digital experience products.
Our Established Diagnostic Solutions Are Scaling Rapidly
We currently operate a mature diagnostic business that generates revenue and engages with patients through our varied and sophisticated diagnostics and screening offerings. Our population health offerings are designed to run through our Traversa platform and give us the ability to inform on thousands of diseases and conditions, from rare disorders, to drug safety, to risk profiles across a broad range of common human diseases of significant public health concern. We have developed an array of diagnostic and screening solutions to inform across a patient’s life course, ranging from reproductive health and newborn screening to drug safety and oncology. Our Women’s Health solutions sequence and analyze an industry-leading number of genes, and use Centrellis’ interpretive information tools to translate raw sequencing and clinical data efficiently and accurately into digestible clinical reports that guide decision making by patients and physicians. Our Oncology diagnostic solutions feature both somatic tumor profiling and hereditary cancer screenings, along with a foundational whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing approach.
Centrellis enables the complex interpretations of these data to identify key driver genes, activated and suppressed pathways, molecular subtypes, therapeutic interventions and matching to clinical trials. We believe our array of diverse diagnostic solutions, built on our differentiated grounding in scientific excellence and coupled with an end-to-end full-service model, have led to our rapidly growing customer bases in Women’s Health and Oncology and increasing traction with health systems, as well as deep, trusting engagement with patients.
We Are Embedding Our Solutions Through Innovative, Deep Relationships
Our origins in and subsequent work with Mount Sinai have provided us with an extensive understanding of health systems, patient, and physician workflows as well as the complex interconnectivities that define patient-physician relationships. We have used this knowledge to develop our integrated health system collaboration model, where we have the capabilities necessary to integrate across health system workflows as a holistic health intelligence partner in order to deploy our comprehensive genomics and information platforms, our data curation and harmonization capabilities, and our patient and provider engagement software applications. Our solutions support our health system partners across their operations, helping them integrate a new standard of care and creating a deep relationship with us that helps both partners realize the potential of the relationship. In addition to creating diagnostic revenue and a clinical relationship with our health system partners and their patients, this engagement provides us with access to insights informed by analyzed and processed EMRs from the health system, as well as the expansive molecular information we generate from our genomics platform as the health system’s precision medicine
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partner. Learning from our long-standing relationship with Mount Sinai, we have refined a health system engagement model that is both operational and economic and designed to maximize both our and our health system partner’s value from the relationship.
We are currently activating and expanding our relationships with several leading health systems that will expand our access to data and that we expect will position our platforms for rapid growth and broad commercial opportunities, and have recently signed contracts with three new health systems in support of this strategy. These systems include: AdventHealth, Avera Health, and Northshore University HealthSystem.
Our AdventHealth partnership builds upon the current AdventHealth Genomics and Personalized Health Program to offer genomic solutions to patients across a number of services and specialties. Together, we will conduct data structuring and curation of the combined genomic and clinical data to enable clinicians and scientists to advance research and discovery to improve patient care. We are initially focused on accelerating research in the central Florida division, which includes 18 hospitals and emergency departments, and accounts for more than two million patient visits annually. Nationally, AdventHealth has 51 hospitals and over 100 care sites across 9 states.
Our Avera Health partnership initially focuses on advancing oncology care, enabling Avera Health’s providers and patients to benefit from data-driven insights that inform targeted cancer treatments. Avera Health’s providers will be able to leverage Centrellis, to curate, structure and integrate clinical and genomic data to support both cancer research and clinical care at Avera Health. We will deliver predictive disease network models and clinically actionable insights, empowering Avera Health’s providers to further improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer for their patients. We are also offering digital tools, which give Avera Health’s providers the ability to readily search for cohorts of patients based on clinical criteria, view a patient’s treatment history that is contained in the curated data as an interactive timeline, and more systematically match patients to clinical trials.
At NorthShore University HealthSystem, we are enabling a data-driven genomics program to help clinicians and patients detect, and treat diseases at an early stage, when they are most treatable. As part of the program, NorthShore University HealthSystem’s clinicians and patients will have access to our information-rich genomic solutions for hereditary cancer, population health, pharmacogenomics, and rare expanded carrier screening. Importantly, by combining clinical information with genomic analysis, physicians will be better positioned to administer more personalized, holistic care plans by both drawing insights on how genetic variants will impact patients’ chances of developing disease and determining the most appropriate treatment options. In addition to guiding clinicians, the program is expected to make it easier for NorthShore University HealthSystem patients to understand the implications of genomic findings.
Centered on Centrellis and Traversa, we have also established and continue to seek strategic relationships with Biopharma companies to enable innovation across the entire drug lifecycle, from next generation drug discovery and development, to post-market efficacy surveillance, to informing on bioavailability, toxicity, tolerability, and other features critical to drug development. We have demonstrated the ability to integrate across all aspects of the next generation therapeutic and drug development process, including: biomarker identification as part of early stage drug discovery; identification, validation and prioritization of drug targets; clinical trial patient recruitment; real-world evidence studies; and identifying new markets and indications for existing assets. We believe our solutions allow our Biopharma partners to harness the potential of big data to enable the development of next generation precision medicine therapeutics.
Centrellis: Our Health Information Platform Solution
By combining our data-driven approach and our deep understanding of health system workflows, we have developed a holistic health information platform, Centrellis, to transform the disease diagnosis and treatment paradigm for the entire healthcare ecosystem: patients, physicians, health systems, payers, and Biopharma companies. Centrellis is the culmination of our critical competencies and goals as a company:
•technologies aimed at patient and provider engagement,
•the generation, aggregation and standardization of multi-dimensional data, and
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•the modeling and generation of differentiated, domain-specific insights
Driven by the virtuous cycle and interconnection of our clinical diagnostics products, rich data assets, database engineering and data science applications, we continue to evolve and deploy our platform to facilitate a better understanding of disease and wellness and improve the standard of care through information driven knowledge and understanding.
Provider Engagement Technologies: Our Next Generation Tools
We have built comprehensive solutions in Centrellis that enable clinicians, researchers, and patients to engage with the relevant structured health data and to leverage our predictive models of disease and wellness and produce clinically actionable insights.
For clinicians and researchers, we have designed Centrellis’s adaptive learning capabilities and tools to enable health systems and clinicians to manage their patient care, research, and health data in one place and to adapt to rapidly changing scientific and clinical norms through an advanced programmable interface, or API, layer, including:
•Integration and on-boarding for health systems and practices that connects data from EMRs and disparate and varied databases,
•Searching and analyzing cohorts of patients, allowing an assessment of their patient populations and quality of care in real-time,
•Enabling clinical decision support and personalized and actionable treatment insights into clinical reports,
•Identifying patients who are candidates for certain clinical genomic analyses,
•Managing the clinical analysis ordered for their patients, from ordering, tracking, resulting, and reanalyzing based on new findings,
•Supporting clinical care and research by matching patients to available clinical trials based on highly personalized inclusion and exclusion metrics, and
•Informing on administrative decisions including as they relate to patient growth, total cost of care, and risk identification and mitigation.
Patient Engagement Technologies: Building Trust and Providing Value Through Clinical Partnership
We are dedicated to giving patients control of their own health data, and in support of this goal, we have designed patient access to Centrellis through our patient portal. Patients have demonstrated their trust by engaging with us and providing consent for us to collect and store their EMR data. After creating an account, patients are able to manage and track the clinical analysis that we are performing for them, including by being able to track, receive, and understand the initial insights into their clinical tests and data (including expanded carrier screening, or ECS, tests, and hereditary cancer tests), and to access our supporting clinical services, such as genetic counseling. Our patient portal also provides patients with the opportunity to partner with us to collect, manage, and regularly update their health data from their disparate healthcare providers, and help participants engage with their data through user-friendly applications, such as their genomic ancestry, personalized residual risk calculations, and other clinical and educational insights and information through important health events, like their pregnancy journey. For patients who have indicated their willingness to participate in research studies, our platform also provides integrated digital informed consenting and research program participation, through transparent, institutional review board approved processes, including targeted clinical trials offerings that provide relevant alternatives and access to the latest scientific trials.
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Activating Data Through Generation, Curation and Engineering
We designed Centrellis to create an accessible and usable database that can support interpretation consistently across patient populations represented within the broad healthcare ecosystem. Centrellis aggregates large-scale and diverse data, abstract and structure informative unstructured data, and finally integrate the data into an accessible, web-scalable data warehouse that employs a common data model across a broad series of databases. Unstructured data derived from EMR and associated data are run through multiple pipelines leveraging machine learning-enabled natural language processing, augmented as needed by human annotators, to extract information and knowledge from that data and then structure and implement extensive quality assurance processes for the resulting annotations. Our multiscale, integrative strategy allows us to connect the processed EMR data with complex biological data from many sources, such as the genome, proteome, transcriptome, epigenome, and microbiome. Our standardization of the genomic and EMR data also allows us to pursue strategic relationships in the Biopharma industry, connecting Biopharma companies with clinicians and researchers to create computational models of disease, discover and validate targets and biomarkers, help design clinical trials and recruit patients, and support the collection of real-world data and evidence.
We not only collect data from external sources, but also generate clinical-grade genomic datasets in our clinical and research processes, which further fuels the richness of the data from which Centrellis draws. Our genomic infrastructure enables us to convert bio-samples into datasets that span a range of genomic modalities, from DNA and RNA sequencing to epigenomic profiling, as well as different next generation sequencing technologies, including long-read, single molecule sequencing, low pass whole genome sequencing, and additional transformative technologies. Together with our diagnostic solutions, we use this multi-technology approach to ensure we generate data to comprehensively cover clinically actionable insights from and common variation in the genome, enabling the diagnosis of rare conditions and diseases or risk of passing on mutations to offspring that may cause severe disease, predicting risks of developing diseases such as cancer, predicting tolerability of various therapeutics, and creating broad genomic health profiles through the use of polygenic risk scores.
Our Advanced Domain-Specific AI Informatics for Insight Generation
Finally, we believe our informatics and analysis capabilities form a meaningful connection between the web of databases that we have created in our data warehouse and the utility of Centrellis to our users. Based on our informatics engine, Centrellis generates deep interpretive insights derived from large-scale, multi-omic data, taking advantage of our deeper data generation capabilities, and provides actionable treatment recommendations and innovative research findings. These insights are provided to patients, clinicians, researchers, and partners through the tools described above.
We are also continuing to develop these models and insights. Our researchers have developed a methodology to integrate diverse multi-omics data, including genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data, into causal probabilistic networks that help us to understand disease processes and identify key biomarkers through advanced network analysis. Our scientists have pioneered the use of DNA variation information to statistically infer causal relationships among any number of traits that have common genetic variance components. These approaches allow our teams to infer directed causal relationships among a pair of traits with shared genetic variance components, which then can be more systematically applied to traits to infer probabilistic causal network structures that can be mined for a broad range of discoveries. We also designed Centrellis with a high degree of flexibility to allow the platform to adjust to the rapidly changing and advancing health information landscape, highlighted by our Traversa genomic analysis platform, which we believe will lead to improved cost profiles over time as assays transition to whole genome sequencing at increasing resolutions.
As we collect and analyze additional datasets, our platform enables the virtuous cycle of data, and we are able to further refine our products and hone our capabilities to provide enhanced analysis of these data. More data and more insights generate further data and insights to support our models. We have constructed automated pipelines to continuously search the literature and research repositories to expand and distill our knowledge graphs, which are in turn queried to provide the interpretations and insights delivered to users of our systems. To support our interpretations and insights, we utilize internal experts as needed to help resolve conflicting findings to improve upon the actionable insights we deliver to physicians and patients.
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Traversa: Our Genomics Platform for Optimizing Screening and Diagnostic Genomics Products and Population Health Initiatives
Traversa is our comprehensive genomics platform that has been designed to serve as the backbone of our genomic analysis products, and we are in the process of transitioning all of our genomic analyses to this platform. For products on the Traversa platform, we generate data on all known medically relevant regions of the genome at clinical-grade coverage, as well as low-pass whole genome data to span all common variation in the genome. We also ask for the patient’s consent to biobank the corresponding samples for future clinical testing. While we report on the specific genes analyzed at the request of the clinician and patient, these baseline data and bio-banked samples allow us to respond to requests for additional analysis quickly by generating “in silico” interpretations on genomic data already existing on a patient and to surface signals that might be medically relevant across a patient’s life course.
When deployed at across an entire health system, as we intend with our health system partners, Traversa will enable data driven collaborations and initiatives with health systems by establishing comprehensive clinical and genomic data profiles with patient consent. Particularly where integrated with EMR data, Traversa provides health systems with a unique opportunity to deploy population health management programs because of the robust data from which those programs will draw and because of the efficiencies it will create across the health ecosystem by eliminating the repetition of the most time-consuming and costly aspects of genomic analysis, including sample collection and preparation and the generation of sequence data. Using Traversa, clinicians and health systems will have the freedom to advance patient care by allowing clinicians to establish clinical utility and drive adoption of new analysis products, which we believe will consequently expedite improved reimbursements against lower total production costs for those offerings.
We Collect and Manage Rich, Longitudinal Data Built from Diverse Sources
The health information database that we have created draws from many complementary sources, which we manage in accordance with patient consent and preferences, our regulatory obligations, and our transparent privacy policy and practices. These data are housed in a complex, cloud-based data lake that allows us to manage the various rights and obligations for each dataset at a granular level, including patient-specific requests with regard to their data.
This database includes data generated in the performance of our clinical services to patients and clinicians, including Women’s Health and Oncology testing, as well as additional data that patients provide to us through their engagement with our patient portal and research programs. In addition, we participate in health information exchanges and public database programs, including through the National Institutes of Health. We also generate and collect data by collaborating with our research partners and provide sequencing and analysis services in connection with research programs. We further leverage the data rights provided by patients and secured through our strategic relationships, such as our oncology information partnership with VieCure that by the end of 2022 is expected to provide us with access to multiple cancer centers and data from all of their active cancer patients, with the number of newly diagnosed active cancer patients growing substantially each year. Additionally, we support health systems and other clinical service providers by applying our Centrellis tools to their clinical workflows and medical record databases, and we receive certain rights to work with anonymized datasets and to partner with the health systems in their ongoing clinical and research programs. We have provided such services extensively for Mount Sinai and are in the process of expanding this program with additional health systems, including Advent Health, Avera and NorthShore. For more information regarding our data arrangements with Mount Sinai, see “Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions—Related Party Transactions—Sema4”.
Our Established Diagnostics Solutions
Our existing diagnostics solutions business centers around Women’s Health and Oncology and our industry-leading diagnostic solutions are powered by Centrellis and delivered through a full-service model that efficiently integrates into provider workflows. Currently, we derive the majority of our revenue from these established diagnostic test solutions.
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Our Elements Women’s Health Solutions
Our deep foundation in Women’s Health began before Sema4’s formation within Mount Sinai, where our lab—then called the “Mount Sinai Genetics Testing Lab”—pursued the goal of providing compassionate patient care to a highly diverse population while advancing science through education, research, and outreach. We pioneered accurate and precise pre-conception genetic screening, and we have continued to build upon that work, expanding our focus into a multi-generational and pan-ethnic view of the health of individual women and their families. Sema4 Elements™, our portfolio of data-science driven products and services to support reproductive and generational health, highlights our continued focused effort to accelerate the expansion of genomic diagnostic solutions, secondary insights, platform solutions and enriching health system value to drive continued growth in our Women’s Health business, including by leveraging our state-of-the-art genomic infrastructure and Centrellis platform.
Carrier Screening: Deriving population-health insights from genomic data to differentiate our industry-leading tests
Our Expanded Carrier Screen, or ECS, test is one of the most comprehensive and accurate carrier screening tests available in the market, covering up to 502 genes. We provide a comprehensive solution to physician practices to enable them not only to deliver sophisticated differential insights and care management guidance in support of the clinician’s care plan for the patient, but to also do so with minimal impact on the practice’s operation, helping to ensure physician offices are not overwhelmed by the amount of information and follow up that can be necessitated by carrier screening.
Our ECS solution uses proprietary technology to identify a patient’s molecular ancestry on a genome-wide level for personalized residual risk assessments by analyzing patient-specific genealogical information that is critical to better understand a patient’s chance for passing on inherited disease. This technology has been designed to increase the accuracy of the residual risks reported to patients, in comparison to competing products that determine residual risk based on using self-reported ancestry information that does not reflect the population groups represented in the patient’s genome. Our solution also provides patients with personalized residual risk education, along with the option to view their molecular ancestry report in the Sema4 patient portal.
Our Non-invasive Prenatal Testing Solutions
Our Noninvasive Prenatal Testing is a comprehensive noninvasive prenatal test, that screens for autosomal and sex chromosome aneuploidies. Our advanced sequencing technology has been designed to provide reliable results down to approximately 2% fetal fraction, the amount of fetal cell-free DNA in the maternal blood sample, and has been designed to have a low failure rate, which helps reduce the need for redraws, limits unnecessary invasive procedures, and improves time to results.
Expansive development in prenatal screening allows our team to advance scientific efforts to deliver Genome Wide Screening and includes the ability to detect additional whole chromosome aneuploidies and copy number variations, or CNVs. We believe an updated bioinformatics pipeline will help to further reduce false positives. We expect to release new versions of our code in 2022, which we believe will help improve the positive predictive value for CNV calling through fetal fraction enrichment and CNV normalization through nucleosome positioning and fragment characteristics.
We are developing these future test versions to enable the detection of single gene disorders, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. This testing may be used for at risk couples to screen a pregnancy for genomic analysis of a specific disorder or as a general screening tool with a panel of diseases. We believe these code enhancements will also facilitate validation of polyploidy, fetal zygosity and molar pregnancy detection, all of which are important aspects of screening pregnancies for chromosomal abnormalities and are not widely available through non-invasive testing.
Our Natalis Newborn Screening Solutions
Our Natalis test is an extension of our screening portfolio allowing for detection of heritable conditions from pre-conception, pregnancy and childhood. Newborn Screening, or NBS, detects heritable conditions that are amenable to medical management in newborns and young children. Natalis screens for 193 conditions where
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knowledge of the condition by the pediatrician may result in prescribing treatment with medications, dietary modifications, or other therapies to improve the baby’s health. All positives are confirmed using biochemical and molecular analysis. Natalis screens for up to five times as many conditions as the newborn screening programs run by certain state governments.
Our Signal Precision Oncology Solutions
We believe that our Centrellis platform, combined with our comprehensive whole exome and whole transcriptome tumor profiling and hereditary cancer and pharmacogenomics genomic testing solutions, will make a meaningful difference in transforming cancer care. We have developed the “Sema4 Signal®” portfolio to be leveraged individually or as part of a holistic solution for precision oncology care. The Sema4 Signal portfolio features the integration of our germline and somatic tests with our informatics and data science tools, enabled by customized services to meet patient and provider needs to help drive more personalized care. The Sema4 Signal products include our oncology genomic test solutions, our molecular and clinical data curation and annotation capabilities to inform on the genomic information in the context of the patient’s previous and current medical records, and various software applications to enable engagement of these data and complex results to facilitate clinical decisions, research discoveries and drug development.
The Sema4 Signal Hereditary Cancer Solution
Our Sema4 Signal Hereditary Cancer solution determines if a patient carries an inherited genetic change that increases the risk of cancer or informs on cancer treatment. It is used to inform personalized medical management decisions to aid early detection and prevention of cancer, as well as to determine the most appropriate treatment approaches if cancer occurs, and strategies to reduce risk of additional cancers.
We offer one of the most comprehensive sets of panels on the U.S. market, and deliver this solution supported by the Traversa platform to enable us to adapt our panels as new discoveries on clinically actionable variants are made, so we can adapt at the rate of learning. Our solution includes tools to enable testing at the point of care or outside the office, including a digital family screening questionnaire to identify individuals who would benefit from testing, digital ordering via an EMR portal, video-based education, saliva procurement in the patient’s home, proactive billing investigation, pre-and post-test genetic counselling and family outreach to enable cascade testing.
Our Hereditary Cancer Solution is a unique product in our portfolio in that it is sold in connection with our Oncology, Women's Health and population health solutions. For affected cancer patients, integrating hereditary cancer with our Sema4 Signal Whole Exome and Transcriptome and our informatics offerings, which incorporating real world evidence, integrates available data needed to better personalized clinical care decisions. For unaffected patients, our Sema4 Signal Hereditary Cancer solution is incorporated into both our Women’s Health and Population Health products and services to support early identification and treatment of cancer risk.
Our Signal Whole Exome and Transcriptome Solution
We believe our Sema4 Signal Whole Exome and Transcriptome solution is one of the most comprehensive molecular profiling solutions from a commercial entity to receive New York State approval. Our profiling platform integrates tumor-normal matched whole exome sequencing, or “WES”, with whole transcriptome sequencing, or WTS, to deliver clinically actionable information about somatic and germline alterations in solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. This solution provides for access to a holistic view of a patient’s genome and insights into novel fusions, splice variants, and molecular pathways. It also provides for germline findings for cancer and non-cancer genes, as per American College of Medical Genetics guidelines, with relevance to comorbidities, such as familial hypercholesterolemia, and certain drug interactions.
We deliver the WES/WTS solution using a number of proprietary tools housed in Centrellis, including our cancer knowledge-base, which contains comprehensive structured data and learnings on clinically relevant variants, including curated maps that link relevant clinical trials to variants that serve as eligibility biomarkers for the trials, as annotated by Ph.D. oncology experts. Our variant interpretation station for oncology automates clinical reporting by managing the variant curation process and recommending suitable therapies. This AI-driven genomic platform is
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updated regularly with recent medical literature and prioritizes clinically-significant variants, enabling providers to quickly review and leverage actionable insights.
Sema4 Signal Informatics Solutions
To complement the genomics diagnostic solutions, the Sema4 Signal products leverage Centrellis’s provider engagement technologies, described above, including to automatically abstract, annotate, and combine oncology specific datasets, including clinical medical record data, imaging, and genomics. This clinical-genomic data set is provided back to health systems and providers and is powered by our digital applications to drive better personalized care for patients, including clinical trial recruitment, improved system-wide quality of care and increased financial and research activity.
Regulatory and Payer Relations Strategy
We have developed and are advancing our strategy to drive increased reimbursement and higher average selling prices, or ASPs, for our Sema4 Signal Oncology solutions. As part of this strategy, we will take advantage of a Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC), National Government Services (NGS), update to a Local Coverage Decision (LCD) titled Genomic Sequence Analysis Panels in the Treatment of Solid Organ Neoplasms under which qualifying CGP tests are covered for patients insured by Medicare, who are living with advanced cancer and meet other clinical criteria.
In addition, we are expanding our presence in select markets where Palmetto GBA is the MAC and the MolDx program they administer provides opportunities to apply for coverage under existing or future LCDs. Specifically, we have, or intend to, submit Technical Assessments for coverage and reimbursement of WES/WTS and other tumor profiling solutions based on existing MolDx LCDs.
Beyond the testing, we are exploring the regulatory and market access landscape as it relates to the governance and reimbursement of real-world evidence and AI driven clinical decision-making tools. As we demonstrate the clinical utility of information driven solutions, these emerging areas will become relevant.
Our COVID-19 Testing Initiative
In response to the outbreak of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, in the first quarter of 2020, we rapidly leveraged our existing technologies and infrastructure capabilities, supplemented by a requisite set of technologies and services, to offer a comprehensive COVID-19 diagnostic testing service for our customers. However, on December 15, 2021, we announced that we decided to discontinue COVID-19 testing services by March 31, 2022 and began notifying our COVID-19 testing solutions customers of this decision. Nationwide and regional lab capacity for COVID-19 testing has increased since we entered the market for COVID-19 testing in the first half of 2020. Management believes it is the appropriate time to discontinue this line of services and dedicate all of our efforts and resources to our core mission to transform healthcare by using artificial intelligence to enable the delivery of precision medicine as the standard of care.
Our Solution for Health Systems and Providers
Our origins within a large academic medical center helped us establish our integrated health system collaboration model, where we seek to integrate our platform across numerous health system workflows to enable precision medicine solutions using Centrellis, from Women’s Health, to Oncology, to patient wellness. Our provider and health system engagement offerings include patient and provider portals, facilitating scheduling of patient appointments, patient consenting, pre-test and post-test genetic counseling, results delivery and patient record management, among other tools and applications that are designed to allow physicians to better engage contextualized information around their patients to improve decision making.
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Our Health System Engagement Model
We believe we have developed a compelling value proposition for our initial health system partners, with distinguishing features including our focus on serving local community populations, our track-record of delivering digital or technology-enabled standards of care, and our investment in precision medicine and adoption of genomic diagnostic solutions, with our desire to have predictive insights permeate all service lines and the general patient experience in their system. In addition to our deep relationship with Mount Sinai, we have contracted to deploy Centrellis in additional health systems, which we expect will expand our impact and reach.
We have refined a health system engagement model designed to maximize both our and our partner health system’s value from the relationship. We balance clinical-grade and research-based projects in order to deliver value in an economically sustainable manner and establish health and economic performance metrics that form the basis of quarterly steering committee reviews with the program’s executive sponsors. Our model focuses on:
•Embedding our genomic analyses as a standard of care for Women’s Health, Oncology and/or specific diseases, which includes our full-service model including patient and provider education, patient engagement, genetic counseling and integration with the health systems’ clinical workflow and EMR,
•Enhancing existing health system data sets by leveraging our data curation capabilities for both structured and unstructured data to identify clinical utility that can be used by health system providers, researchers and administration,
•Developing software applications to facilitate deeper engagement of the enhanced health system data we produce, such as reconstructing and visualizing patient health journeys, identifying patient cohorts based on any number of filter criteria, and characterizing outcomes of patients in response to different treatments prescribed,
•Establishing population health programs where health system patients are invited to broad population genetic screening, and
•Developing mutually beneficial research collaboration programs that leverage the strengths of our and our health system partners.
Our Solutions Create Mutually Beneficially Value for Us and Our Health System Partners
We pursue strategic relationships with health systems that evaluate financial returns on a holistic basis. We evaluate success on a long-term basis and recognize that the primary aim of every health system is to provide superior patient care with improved health economics. As such, we continue to use the proceeds from our July 2021 business combination and related private placement financing (which we refer to as the “Prior PIPE Investment”) to accelerate growth in our health system relationships by further investing in research-oriented projects, as well as data curation, platform integrations, and building standards of care to operationalize our testing programs. Starting with Mount Sinai and extending throughout our network, we intend to cross-validate and scale our technologies across health systems, as we seek to enable patients by leveraging data and tools across systems and patient populations in a network model so each partner can benefit from what is being learned across the healthcare ecosystem.
We Act as a Broker and Catalyst for Commercial Engagement Between Health System and Biopharma Companies
While health systems and Biopharma companies have an established ability to collaborate effectively and will continue to partner directly, we believe that our network in both segments of the healthcare ecosystem and ability to add value to these relationships through data engineering makes us well-positioned as a valued collaborator for both types of organizations. Biopharma collaborations are often not the focus for health systems, as they have high start-up costs to develop relationships that extend to patient care. We can support our health system partners by working more collaboratively with them to understand their capabilities and how those capabilities are complemented by our enhancement of a health systems’ data assets and clinical-genomic data generation capabilities, and by facilitating solutions that can be provided jointly to Biopharma companies.
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Our Biopharma Solutions Engage and Enable Our Partners
We have established and continue to seek strategic relationships with Biopharma companies to enable drug discovery, development, and commercialization. We have demonstrated the ability to integrate across the pharmaceutical life cycle as a result of the unique data and patient and provider engagements developed in our health system relationships and information-driven diagnostics solutions, combined with our powerful analytics capabilities and software solutions.
The Biopharma industry has become increasingly competitive as it moves toward the more precise targeting of patients in crowded disease segments, and we believe this trend positions us as a key partner for Biopharma companies to build a competitive advantage by unlocking the power of big data and enabling next generation precision medicine.
We Strive for Interconnected Strategic Relationships
We serve our Biopharma customers through a unique combination of clinical testing services, clinical and research study design and execution, and advanced data and analytics capabilities.
Our competitive advantage in this space comes from leveraging comprehensive data generated via testing, integrating these deep molecular profiles with clinical patient information, and representing this comprehensive patient data in the Centrellis platform. This enables us to create direct and real time integration of clinical and genetic data with providers connected to drug discovery research, real world evidence studies, and other therapy development opportunities. We are also able to utilize our solutions and unique data assets to enroll patients into clinical trials and to connect Biopharma partners to patient populations matching eligibility criteria for their trials, to facilitate patients receiving novel therapies still under development, and to perform broad genomic and transcriptomic sequencing on health system partner sample banks in collaboration with Biopharma partners.
In our engagement with Biopharma customers, we are focused on a range of disease conditions, including oncology, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, and rare diseases. Our disease-agnostic approach provides us with the flexibility to support our Biopharma partners across varied therapeutic areas. We continue to work with our Biopharma partners to identify their specific needs and broaden the scope of our disease coverage accordingly.
We believe that, because of our core capabilities and differentiated approach, we are well-positioned to support next-generation drug discovery, development, and commercialization. We further believe our ability to generate deep, clinical-grade multi-omic datasets renders us a valuable genomic testing solution provider for precision medicine Biopharma products. Through direct engagement of providers and patients, we assist Biopharma partners in a patient-centric approach to research and clinical development. By obtaining and curating high-dimensional data in our Centrellis platform, we deliver novel insights that help to de-risk the development of next generation therapeutics, provide for pharmacologic proof of concept via the integration of genomic and clinical data support, reduce development costs, enhance the patient experience, and increase speed to market.
Sema4’s Solutions for BioPharma Customers
We engage with our Biopharma customers to develop and deliver unique goods and services for the particular issues that each customer faces. We believe that our Biopharma partners can realize significant value when collaborating with our team to utilize a more integrated, end-to-end solution that leverages our core set of capabilities, including longitudinal patient data, AI-driven predictive modeling, and genomics. We have demonstrated the ability to develop these deep, integrated strategic relationships with Biopharma companies. For example, our five-year collaborative study with Sanofi S.A., or Sanofi, is centered on discovery of new insights into the biological mechanisms and other factors implicated in asthma to help drive Sanofi’s next generation of asthma targets as well as to enhance Sanofi’s understanding of the relevant populations for both its current and in-development therapies and the therapies marketed by others. This asthma study is currently recruiting nearly 1,200 patients, and involves comprehensive clinical characterization of patients and controls, longitudinal monitoring of patient conditions through various applications and devices, collection of biological samples for molecular profiling and generation and integration of DNA and RNA sequencing data with clinical and device acquired data. The study is also leveraging the integrated, longitudinal data to construct models of asthma to stratify patients into subtypes,
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and seeking to better understand treatments relevant to different subtypes or where there is unmet need for further drug discovery efforts. Along with Sanofi, we will collect traditional clinical data, genomics, immunological, environmental, and sensor data from mobile devices to enable sophisticated analyses and to include advanced causal network modeling.
In general, our Biopharma strategy focuses on three main offering areas:
•Genomic Testing and Analysis Solutions: We serve as a comprehensive clinical testing lab, offering a broad menu of molecular, cytogenic and biochemical testing services for our Biopharma partners. Our technology development group enables us to apply innovative profiling technologies such as long-read, single-cell and spatial molecular profiling approaches to help address our Biopharma partners’ challenges. The data generated by these capabilities, when combined with our analytics services, can produce insights that inform on disease biology, improve and accelerate the drug development process, and help ensure that patients can be made aware of relevant treatment options.
•Data and Analytics Solutions: Centrellis enables us to provide our Biopharma partners with unique, data-driven insights that can help to accelerate the development of precision medicines, utilizing HIPAA-compliant, de-identified datasets. Using advanced analytics and causal network modeling, we work with partners to organize high-dimensional data in ways that facilitate the identification of statistically-inferred causal relationships that enable the identification, validation and prioritization of biomarkers and targets; identify molecular subtypes of disease; and predict patient disease progression, prognosis, drug response, adverse events, and other clinical outcomes. We believe that one of our particular strengths is our data science team, which is comprised of experts published in leading scientific journals. We work with collaborators, researchers, and key opinion leaders to build new models of disease and deliver insights to Biopharma partners that can further optimize their operations.
•Clinical Trial Enablement Solutions: We believe that Centrellis, combined with our active, direct engagement of patients and providers in our Women’s Health and, by extension, rare disorders, Oncology, and population health solutions, positions us well to assist Biopharma partners in their clinical development activities. We have developed a number of software as a service, or SaaS, products to enable Biopharma clinical development, including a clinical trial patient matching product and a clinical trial design product that work with our longitudinal clinic-genomic dataset. Given our patient consent structure, we have the ability to re-contact patients who may benefit from a Biopharma sponsor’s trial. We have developed novel, technology-enabled workflows and solutions that allow us to search for and identify relevant patients in a manner that fully maintains patient confidentiality, and work with providers to assess and enroll these patients in clinical trials. The breadth of search and precision of this method of patient recruitment can substantially improve trial timelines versus traditional recruitment methods. We also assist prominent Biopharma partners seeking to use high-quality genomic analysis to assess patient eligibility for clinical trials. We believe our clinical testing services and data solutions make us a key partner for supporting efficient clinical trials.
Research and Development
We have invested a substantial amount of time and expense into research and development for our technology and test offerings, which requires the continuous improvement of software capabilities to analyze data and process customer orders. Our research and development efforts focus on several key areas, including multiscale biotechnology, assay development across sequencing technologies, data science and engineering, and the development of network-based models. We expect our research and development activities to increase as we innovate and expand the application of our current and future platforms including Traversa and Centrellis.
Our internationally recognized research team includes leaders in data science, network modeling, multiscale biotechnology and genomics. As noted above, our CEO, Eric Schadt, is a world-renowned expert on constructing predictive models of disease that link molecular biology to physiology to enable clinical medicine. He has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals, with a public citation or “h-” index of 137, and has contributed to discoveries relating to the genetic basis of common human diseases such as cancer, diabetes,
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obesity, and Alzheimer’s disease. Under the leadership of our CEO, our research team comprises more than 160 Ph.D.-level scientists, complemented by additional physician scientists and certified technicians as of December 31, 2021. Ongoing collaborations with scientists and clinicians at the Mount Sinai and other healthcare systems allows our research to remain patient-centered and clinically relevant.
Intellectual Property
We have intellectual property rights pertaining to all elements of our platforms and solutions. Our success and ability to compete depend in part on securing and preserving enforceable patent, trade secret, trademark and other intellectual property rights; operating without having competitors infringe, misappropriate or otherwise circumvent these rights; operating without infringing the proprietary rights of others; and obtaining and maintaining licenses for technology development or product commercialization.
Patents
The fields of genomic and health information analysis present limited opportunities for patent protection, based on well-known legal precedents. As result, our patent protection strategy is to protect our non-gene specific technology and our specific biomarkers. In this regard, as of December 31, 2021, we have four pending utility patent applications and one provisional patent application. The pending utility patent applications include a U.S. patent application related to a genome annotation software platform for annotating genomic intervals that are clinically relevant for analysis, a U.S. patent application related to a genetic carrier screening process, and U.S. and European patent applications related to therapeutic treatment for subjects having certain polymorphic markers associated with specific human leukocyte antigen alleles. If patents are issued from the currently pending applications, the earliest patents will begin expiring in 2040, subject to potential extensions of the patent term that will be calculated based on the length of the patent examination process.
Trade Secrets
We have a trade secrecy program to prevent disclosure of our trade secrets to others, except under stringent conditions of confidentiality when disclosure is critical to our business. We protect trade secrets and know-how by establishing confidentiality agreements and invention assignment agreements with our employees, consultants, scientific advisors, contractors, and collaborators. These agreements provide that all confidential information developed or made known during the course of an individual or entities’ relationship with us must be kept confidential during and after the relationship. These agreements also provide that all inventions resulting from work performed for us or relating to our business and conceived or completed during the period of employment or assignment, as applicable, will be our exclusive property. In addition, we take other appropriate precautions, such as physical and technological security measures, to guard against misappropriation of our proprietary information by third parties.
Although we take steps to protect our proprietary information and trade secrets, including through contractual means with our employees and consultants, third parties may independently develop substantially equivalent proprietary information and techniques or otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or disclose our technology. Accordingly, we may not be able to meaningfully protect our trade secrets. For more information regarding the risks related to our intellectual property, see the section entitled “Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property.”
Trademarks
We own various trademarks, applications and unregistered trademarks in the U.S and other commercially important markets, including our company name, product and service names and other trade or service marks. Our trademark portfolio is designed to protect the brands for our products and services, both current and in the pipeline.
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Regulation
Reimbursement
Patients who have diagnostic tests ordered or are prescribed treatments by providers performing the prescribed services, generally rely on third-party payors to reimburse all or part of the associated healthcare costs. Sales of our products and services will therefore depend substantially on the extent to which the costs of our products and services will be paid by third-party payors, including health maintenance, managed care and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by government health administration authorities, such as Medicare and Medicaid and private health insurers.
In the United States, our ability to commercialize and the commercial success of our product and service offerings will depend in part on the extent to which governmental payor programs at the federal and state levels, including Medicare and Medicaid, private health insurers and other third-party payors provide coverage for and establish adequate reimbursement levels for these offerings. Government authorities, private health insurers and other organizations generally decide which devices they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels for healthcare. Medicare is a federally funded program for the elderly and disabled managed by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, through local contractors that administer coverage and reimbursement for certain healthcare items and services. Medicaid is an insurance program for certain categories of patients whose income and assets fall below state defined levels, and is funded jointly by federal and state governments and managed by each state. Similarly, the federal government manages other healthcare programs, including the Veterans Health Administration, the Indian Health Service, and Tricare, the healthcare program for military personnel, retirees, and related beneficiaries. Many states have also created pharmacy assistance programs for individuals who do not qualify for federal programs. In the U.S., private health insurers and other third-party payors often provide reimbursement for products and services based in part on the coverage and payment rates set by the Medicare or Medicaid programs.
Federal programs in the U.S. also sometimes impose price controls through mandatory ceiling prices on purchases by federal agencies and federally funded hospitals and clinics and mandatory rebates on retail pharmacy prescriptions paid by Medicaid and Tricare. These restrictions and limitations influence the purchase of healthcare services and products. Legislative proposals to reform healthcare or reduce costs under government programs may result in lower reimbursement for our products and services or exclusion of our products and services from coverage. In addition, government programs like Medicaid include what are in effect substantial penalties for increasing commercial prices of certain products over the rate of inflation which can affect realization and return on investment.
Increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and level of reimbursement for newly approved healthcare products. At the state level, legislatures are increasingly passing legislation and implementing regulations designed to control pharmaceutical and biological program pricing, including price or patient reimbursement constraints, discounts, restrictions on certain product access and marketing cost disclosure and transparency measures, and, in some cases, designed to encourage importation from other countries and bulk purchasing.
As a result of the above trends, we may need to conduct expensive studies in order to demonstrate the medical necessity and cost effectiveness of our products and services, in addition to the costs required to obtain FDA approvals. Our products and services may not be considered medically necessary or cost effective, or the discount percentages required to secure coverage may not yield an adequate margin over cost.
Many hospitals implement a controlled and defined process for covering and approving diagnostic tests and medical devices. Any marketing efforts that are determined to have violated such policies could result in the denial or removal of our products from that hospital’s list of approved products.
Moreover, a payor’s decision to provide coverage for a diagnostic product does not imply that an adequate reimbursement rate will be approved. Adequate third-party reimbursement may not be available to enable us to maintain price levels sufficient to realize an appropriate return on our investment in device development. Legislative proposals to reform healthcare or reduce costs under government insurance programs may result in lower
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reimbursement for our products and services or exclusion of our products and services from coverage. The cost containment measures that healthcare payor and providers are instituting and any healthcare reform could significantly reduce our revenue from the sale of any approved products and services. We cannot provide any assurances that we will be able to obtain and maintain third-party coverage or adequate reimbursement for our products and services in whole or in part.
In addition, amendments to the False Claims Act impose severe penalties for the knowing and improper retention of overpayments collected from governmental payors. Within 60 days of identifying and quantifying an overpayment, a provider is required to notify CMS or the Medicare contractor of the overpayment and the reason for it and return the overpayment. These amendments could subject our procedures for identifying and processing payments to greater scrutiny. Overpayments may occur from time to time in the healthcare industry without any fraudulent intent. For example, overpayments may result from mistakes in reimbursement claim forms or from improper processing by governmental payor. We maintain protocols intended to identify any overpayments. From time to time, we may identify overpayments and be required to refund those amounts to governmental payors.
Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act
Our clinical reference laboratories in Connecticut are required to hold certain federal certificates to conduct our business. Under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1988, or CLIA, we are required to hold a certificate applicable to the type of laboratory examinations we perform and to comply with standards covering personnel, facilities administration, inspections, quality control, quality assurance and proficiency testing.
As of December 31, 2021, we have a current certificate under CLIA to perform testing at our laboratory locations in Stamford and Branford, Connecticut. To renew this CLIA certificate, we are subject to survey and inspection every two years to assess compliance with program standards. Moreover, CLIA inspectors may make random inspections of our clinical reference laboratories. The regulatory and compliance standards applicable to the testing we perform may change over time, and any such changes could have a material effect on our business.
If our clinical reference laboratory is out of compliance with CLIA requirements, we may be subject to sanctions such as suspension, limitation or revocation of our CLIA certificate, as well as directed plan of correction, state on-site monitoring, civil money penalties, civil injunctive suit or criminal penalties. We must maintain CLIA compliance and certification to be eligible to bill for diagnostic services provided to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. If we were to be found out of compliance with CLIA requirements and subjected to sanction, our business could be harmed.
State Laboratory Testing
We are is required to maintain a license to conduct testing in Connecticut. Connecticut laws establish standards for day-to-day operations of our laboratories in Stamford and Branford, Connecticut. If our clinical reference laboratories are out of compliance with Connecticut standards, the Connecticut Department of Health Services, or CDHS, may suspend, restrict or revoke our license to operate our clinical reference laboratories, assess substantial civil money penalties, or impose specific corrective action plans. Any such actions could materially affect our business. As of December 31, 2021, we maintain a current license in good standing with CDHS. However, we cannot provide assurance that CDHS will at all times in the future find us to be in compliance with all such laws.
Several states require the licensure of out-of-state laboratories that accept specimens from those states. For example, New York requires a laboratory to hold a permit which is issued after an on-site inspection and approval of testing methodology and has various requirements over and above CLIA and the College of American Pathologists, or CAP, Laboratory Accreditation Program, including those for personnel qualifications, proficiency testing, physical facility, equipment, and quality control standards. Our laboratory holds the required licenses for California, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Each of our clinical reference laboratories in Connecticut is required to be licensed on a test-specific basis by New York State as an out of state laboratory and our products, as laboratory-developed tests, or LDTs, must be approved by the New York State Department of Health, or NYDOH, before they are performed on samples from New York. Each Sema4 laboratory is licensed by New York, and we are currently approved for testing samples from
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New York. We are subject to periodic inspection by the NYDOH and we are required to demonstrate ongoing compliance with NYDOH regulations and standards.
Other states may adopt similar licensure requirements in the future, which may require us to modify, delay or stop our operations in such jurisdictions. Complying with licensure requirements in new jurisdictions may be expensive, time-consuming, and subject us to significant and unanticipated delays. If we identify any other state with such requirements, or if we are contacted by any other state advising us of such requirements, we intend to follow instructions from the state regulators as to how we should comply with such requirements.
Food and Drug Administration
Laboratory Developed Tests
We provide our tests as LDTs. CMS and certain state agencies regulate the performance of LDTs (as authorized by CLIA and state law, respectively). Historically, the FDA, has exercised enforcement discretion with respect to most LDTs and has not required laboratories that furnish LDTs to comply with the agency's requirements for medical devices (e.g., establishment registration, device listing, quality systems regulations, premarket clearance or premarket approval, and post-market controls). Nevertheless, the FDA may decide to regulate certain LDTs on a case-by-case basis at any time.
Legislative proposals addressing the FDA's oversight of LDTs have been introduced in previous Congresses, and we expect that new legislative proposals will be introduced from time-to-time. The likelihood that Congress will pass such legislation and the extent to which such legislation may affect the FDA's plans to regulate certain LDTs as medical devices is difficult to predict at this time.
If the FDA ultimately regulates certain LDTs as medical devices, whether via final guidance, final regulation, or as instructed by Congress, our tests may be subject to certain additional regulatory requirements. Complying with the FDA's requirements for medical devices can be expensive, time-consuming, and subject us to significant or unanticipated delays. Insofar as we may be required to obtain premarket clearance or approval to perform or continue performing an LDT, we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain such authorization. Even if we obtain regulatory clearance or approval where required, such authorization may not be for the intended uses that we believe are commercially attractive or are critical to the commercial success of our tests. As a result, the application of the FDA's medical device requirements to our tests could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Failure to comply with applicable FDA regulatory requirements may trigger a range of enforcement actions by the FDA including warning letters, civil monetary penalties, injunctions, criminal prosecution, recall or seizure, operating restrictions, partial suspension or total shutdown of operations, and denial of or challenges to applications for clearance or approval, as well as significant adverse publicity.
Pre-Market Approval
We may obtain FDA premarket approval, or PMA, for some of our tests including its matched whole exome sequencing, or WES, and whole transcriptome sequencing, or WTS, tests. Devices subject to FDA regulation must undergo premarket review prior to commercialization unless the device is exempt from such review, and we expect that we will be required to perform non-inferiority studies showing comparable results between the Sema4 Signal WES/WTS LDT and third party, FDA-approved tests with regard to certain therapeutic drugs prescribed to ovarian cancer patients, colorectal cancer patients, and non-small cell lung cancer patients. We are currently evaluating an updated pre-submission letter to the FDA with regard to the studies necessary for ovarian cancer and is working to secure access to the subjects necessary to perform this study. With regard to the studies necessary for colorectal cancer patients and non-small cell lung cancer patients, we submitted our pre-submission package and held a pre-submission meeting with the FDA in 2020, and are working to secure access to the subjects necessary to perform this study. Further, the regulations governing the approvals place substantial restrictions on how the tests will be marketed and sold, specifically, by prescription only. In addition, as a condition of Sema4’s FDA approval, we may be required to conduct post-approval studies.
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Additionally, manufacturers of medical devices must comply with various regulatory requirements under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA, and regulations thereunder, including, but not limited to, quality system regulations, unless they are exempt, facility registration, product listing, labeling requirements, and certain post-market surveillance requirements. Entities that fail to comply with FDA requirements can be liable for criminal or civil penalties, such as recalls, detentions, orders to cease manufacturing, and restrictions on labeling and promotion, among other potential sanctions.
We may develop new diagnostic products and services that are regulated by the FDA as medical devices. The regulatory review and approval process for medical devices can be costly, timely, and uncertain. This process may involve, among other things, successfully completing additional clinical trials and submitting a premarket clearance notice or filing a premarket approval application with the FDA. If premarket review is required by the FDA, there can be no assurance that our tests will be cleared or approved on a timely basis, if at all. In addition, there can be no assurance that the labeling claims cleared or approved by the FDA will be consistent with our current claims or adequate to support continued adoption of and reimbursement for our products. Ongoing compliance with FDA regulations could increase the cost of conducting our business, subject us to FDA inspections and other regulatory actions, and potentially subject us to penalties in the event we fail to comply with such requirements.
HIPAA and HITECH
Under the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued regulations that establish uniform standards governing the conduct of certain electronic healthcare transactions and protecting the privacy and security of protected health information used or disclosed by most healthcare providers and other covered entities and their business associates, including the business associates' subcontractors. We perform activities that may implicate HIPAA, such as providing clinical laboratory testing services and entering into specific kinds of relationships with covered entities and business associates of covered entities. As a covered entity and as a business associate of other covered entities (with whom we have entered into business associate agreements), we are required to comply with the four principal regulations with which have been issued in final form under HIPAA and HITECH: privacy regulations, security regulations, the breach notification rule, and standards for electronic transactions, which establish standards for common healthcare transactions.
The HITRUST CSF was developed to address the multitude of security, privacy, and regulatory challenges facing organizations. By including federal and state regulations, standards, frameworks, and incorporating a risk-based approach, the HITRUST CSF helps organizations address these challenges through a comprehensive and flexible framework of prescriptive and scalable security and privacy controls. The HITRUST CSF Includes, harmonizes, and cross-references existing, globally recognized standards, regulations, and business requirements, including ISO, EU GDPR, NIST, and PCI. On December 10, 2021, we met the HITRUST Assurance Program requirements for the CSF v9.4 Risk-based, 2-year (r2) certification criteria for our Centrellis Platform, for hosting and curating Patient data.
The privacy regulations cover the use and disclosure of protected health information by covered entities as well as business associates, which are defined to include subcontractors that create, receive, maintain, or transmit protected health information on behalf of a business associate. They also set forth certain rights that an individual has with respect to his or her protected health information maintained by a covered entity, including the right to access or amend certain records containing protected health information, or to request restrictions on the use or disclosure of protected health information. The security regulations establish requirements for safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of protected health information that is electronically transmitted or electronically stored. HITECH, among other things, established certain health information security breach notification requirements. A covered entity must notify any individual whose protected health information is breached according to the specifications set forth in the breach notification rule. The HIPAA privacy and security regulations establish a uniform federal "floor" and do not supersede state laws that are more stringent or provide individuals with greater rights with respect to the privacy or security of, and access to, their records containing protected health information or insofar as such state laws apply to personal information that is broader in scope than
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protected health information as defined under HIPAA. Massachusetts, for example, has a state law that protects the privacy and security of personal information of Massachusetts residents.
There are significant civil and criminal fines and other penalties that may be imposed for violating HIPAA. A covered entity or business associate is also liable for civil money penalties for a violation that is based on an act or omission of any of its agents, including a downstream business associate, as determined according to the federal common law of agency. Additionally, to the extent that we submit electronic healthcare claims and payment transactions that do not comply with the electronic data transmission standards established under HIPAA and HITECH, payments to us may be delayed or denied.
Federal and State Fraud and Abuse Laws
In the U.S., there are various fraud and abuse laws with which we must comply, and we are potentially subject to regulation by various federal, state and local authorities, including CMS, other divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services including the Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Department of Justice, and individual U.S. Attorney offices within the Department of Justice, and state and local governments.
In the U.S., the federal Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits, among other things, knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting or receiving remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly, covertly, in cash or in kind to induce or in return for the furnishing, arranging for the furnishing of, purchasing, leasing, ordering or arranging for or recommending purchasing, leasing or ordering of any good, facility, service or item for which payment may be made in whole or in part by a federal healthcare program. Courts have stated that a financial arrangement may violate the Anti-Kickback Statute if any one purpose of the arrangement is to encourage patient referrals or other federal healthcare program business, regardless of whether there are other legitimate purposes for the arrangement. The definition of "remuneration" has been broadly interpreted to include anything of value, including gifts, discounts, credit arrangements, payments of cash, consulting fees, waivers of co-payments, ownership interests, and providing anything at less than its fair market value.
Although the Anti-Kickback Statute contains several exceptions, it is broad and may technically prohibit many innocuous or beneficial arrangements within the healthcare industry. Further, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a series of regulatory "safe harbors." These safe harbor regulations set forth certain provisions, which, if met, will assure healthcare providers and other parties that they will not be prosecuted under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Although full compliance with the statutory exceptions or regulatory safe harbors ensures against prosecution under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the failure of a transaction or arrangement to fit within a specific statutory exception or regulatory safe harbor does not necessarily mean that the transaction or arrangement is illegal or that prosecution under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute will be pursued. Penalties for federal anti-kickback violations are severe, and include imprisonment, criminal fines, civil money penalties, and exclusion from participation in federal healthcare programs. Many states also have anti-kickback statutes, some of which may apply to items or services reimbursed by any third-party payor, including commercial insurers.
There are also federal laws related to healthcare fraud and false statements, among others, relating to healthcare matters. The healthcare fraud statute prohibits knowingly and willfully executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program, including private payors. A violation of this statute is a felony and may result in fines, imprisonment, or exclusion from governmental payor programs such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The false statements statute prohibits knowingly and willfully falsifying, concealing, or covering up a material fact, or making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement in connection with the delivery of or payment for healthcare benefits, items, or services. A violation of this statute is a felony and may result in fines, imprisonment, or exclusion from governmental payor programs.
Another development affecting the healthcare industry is the increased enforcement of the federal False Claims Act and, in particular, actions brought pursuant to the False Claims Act's "whistleblower" or "qui tam" provisions. The False Claims Act imposes liability on any person or entity that, among other things, knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment by a federal governmental payor program. The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act allow a private individual to bring actions on behalf of the federal government alleging that the defendant has defrauded the federal government by submitting a false claim to the
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federal government and permit such individuals to share in any amounts paid by the entity to the government in fines or settlement. When an entity is determined to have violated the False Claims Act, it may be required to pay up to three times the actual damages sustained by the government, plus civil penalties ranging from $5,500 to $11,000 for each false claim.
In addition, various states have enacted false claim laws analogous to the federal False Claims Act, although many of these state laws apply where a claim is submitted to any third-party payor and not merely a governmental payor program.
Additionally, the civil monetary penalties statute imposes penalties against any person or entity that, among other things, is determined to have presented or caused to be presented a claim to a federal health program that the person knows or should know is for an item or service that was not provided as claimed or for a claim that is false or fraudulent. This law also prohibits the offering or transfer of remuneration to a Medicare or state healthcare program beneficiary if the person knows or should know it is likely to influence the beneficiary's selection of a particular provider, practitioner, or supplier of services reimbursable by Medicare or a state healthcare program, unless an exception applies.
On October 25, 2018, the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promoted Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act of 2018, or the SUPPORT Act, was enacted. The SUPPORT Act included the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018, or EKRA, which establishes an all-payor anti-kickback prohibition that extends to arrangements with recovery homes, clinical laboratories and clinical treatment facilities. EKRA includes a number of statutory exceptions, and directs agencies to develop further exceptions. Current exceptions in some cases reference and in others differ from the Anti-Kickback Statute safe harbors. Significantly, the prohibitions apply with respect to the soliciting or receipt of remuneration for any referrals to recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, or clinical laboratories, whether or not related to treating substance use disorders. Further, the prohibitions cover the payment or offer of remuneration to induce a referral to, or in exchange for, an individual using the services of, such providers. This law creates additional risk that relationships with referral sources could be problematic.
Physician Referral Prohibitions
Under a federal law directed at "self-referral," commonly known as the "Stark Law," there are prohibitions, with certain exceptions, on referrals for certain designated health services, including laboratory services, that are covered by the Medicare program by physicians who personally, or through an immediate family member, have a financial relationship with the entity to which the referrals for designated health services are made. The prohibition also extends to payment for any testing referred in violation of the Stark Law. A person who engages in a scheme to circumvent the Stark Law's referral prohibition may be fined up to $100,000 for each such arrangement or scheme. In addition, any person who presents or causes to be presented a claim to the Medicare program in violation of the Stark Law is subject to civil monetary penalties of up to $15,000 per service, an assessment of up to three times the amount claimed and possible exclusion from participation in federal healthcare programs. In addition, any person who presents or causes to be presented a claim to the Medicare program in violation of the Stark Law is subject to civil monetary penalties of up to $15,000 per service, an assessment of up to three times the amount claimed, and possible exclusion from participation in federal or state health care programs. Bills submitted in violation of the Stark Law may not be paid by Medicare, and any person collecting any amounts with respect to any such prohibited bill is obligated to refund such amounts. Many states have comparable laws that are not limited to Medicare referrals. The Stark Law also prohibits state receipt of Federal Medicaid matching funds for prohibited referrals, but this provision of the Stark Law has not been implemented by regulations. In addition, some courts have held that the submission of claims to Medicaid that would be prohibited as self-referrals under the Stark Law for Medicare could implicate the False Claims Act.
Corporate Practice of Medicine
Numerous states have enacted laws prohibiting business corporations, such as Sema4, from practicing medicine and employing or engaging physicians to practice medicine, generally referred to as the prohibition against the corporate practice of medicine. These laws are designed to prevent interference in the medical decision-making
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process by anyone who is not a licensed physician. For example, California's Medical Board has indicated that determining what diagnostic tests are appropriate for a particular condition and taking responsibility for the ultimate overall care of the patient, including providing treatment options available to the patient, would constitute the unlicensed practice of medicine if performed by an unlicensed person. Violation of these corporate practice of medicine laws may result in civil or criminal fines, as well as sanctions imposed against us and/or the professional through licensure proceedings. Typically, such laws are only applicable to entities that have a physical presence in the state.
Genetic Privacy and Testing Laws
We are subject to myriad laws designed to establish safeguards regarding the conduct of genomic testing and analysis and to protect against the misuse of genetic information and human biological specimens, collectively, “samples”, from which genetic information can be derived. These laws vary in their scope and in the nature of their requirements and restrictions. For example, certain genetic privacy laws prohibit the retention of samples after performing a genomic analysis in addition to prohibiting the use or disclosure of genetic information for certain purposes, such as research, without appropriate informed consent from the individual or without sufficient anonymization. The applicability of such informed consent requirements may also depend on the identifiability of the genetic information or sample and the purposes of which it is used. Other laws may impose additional requirements, including requirements regarding institutional review board review and approval for certain research uses of genetic information or samples requirements to implement certain security controls in connection with the transfer of genetic information. We must comply with such genetic privacy and testing laws in our collection, use, disclosure, and retention of genetic information and samples.
Other Health and Medical Regulations
The federal physician payment transparency requirements, or Physician Payments Sunshine Act, and its implementing regulations, which requires applicable manufacturers of covered drugs, devices, biologics and medical supplies for which payment is available under Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, with certain exceptions, to annually report to HHS information related to certain payments or other transfers of value made or distributed to physicians, defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors, and teaching hospitals, or to entities or individuals at the request of, or designated on behalf of, the physicians and teaching hospitals, as well as ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members. The SUPPORT Act, under a provision entitled “Fighting the Opioid Epidemic with Sunshine,” extends the Physician Payments Sunshine Act to payments and transfers of value to physician assistants, nurse practitioners and other mid-level healthcare providers, with reporting requirements going into effect in 2022 for payments and transfers of value made to these practitioners in 2021.
In addition to its comprehensive regulation of health and safety in the workplace in general, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has established extensive requirements aimed specifically at laboratories and other healthcare-related facilities. In addition, because our operations require employees to use certain hazardous chemicals, we also must comply with regulations on hazard communication and hazardous chemicals in laboratories. These regulations require us, among other things, to develop written programs and plans, which must address methods for preventing and mitigating employee exposure, the use of personal protective equipment, and training.
Our commercialization activities subject us to regulations of the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that apply to the surface and air transportation of clinical laboratory specimens.
We are also subject to applicable state billing laws. Some states require that payment be made only to the person or entity who performed or supervised the service, while other states have passed anti-mark up and disclosure laws, an alternative but less enforceable approach to direct billing. Under these laws the non-performing person or entity is allowed to bill the client, but is prohibited from marking up the service, and required to disclose each charge to the patient, or patient’s insurer. Additionally, some states have strictly passed disclosure laws that require the non-performing person or entity to disclose to patients or the patient’s insurer the actual charges for all laboratory services.
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Privacy and Data Protection Laws
There are a growing number of jurisdictions all over the world that have privacy and data protection laws. These laws are typically triggered by a company’s establishment or physical location in the jurisdiction, data processing activities that take place in the jurisdiction, and/or the processing of personal information about individuals located in that jurisdiction. Certain international privacy and data protection laws, such as those in the European Union, can be more restrictive and prescriptive than those in the U.S., while other jurisdictions can have laws less restrictive or prescriptive than those in the U.S. Enforcement of these laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with a variety of civil or criminal penalties, or private rights of action.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, took effect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR extraterritorially applies to a business outside the European Union that offers goods or services to, or monitors the behavior of individuals who are located in the European Union. The GDPR imposes strict requirements on controllers and processors of personal data, including enhanced protections for “special categories” of personal data, which includes sensitive information such as health and genetic information of data subjects in the European Union. The GDPR also grants individuals various rights in relation to their personal data including the rights of access, rectification, objection to certain processing and deletion. The GDPR provides an individual with an express right to seek legal remedies if the individual believes his or her rights have been violated. Failure to comply with the requirements of the GDPR or the related national data protection laws of the member states of the European Union, which may deviate from or be more restrictive than the GDPR, may result in significant administrative fines issued by European Union regulators.
As of December 31, 2020, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or UK, are no longer subject to EU law. Therefore, the GDPR will be brought into UK law as the ‘UK GDPR’ via a statutory instrument which will make technical amendments to the GDPR so that it works in a UK-only context. In Europe, there are also national laws that provide additional controls around the processing of health data.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS, was issued by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council and establishes industry standards for the processing of payment card information. While the PCI DSS requirements do not have the force of law, the penalties for noncompliance could include exclusion from payment card systems. To the extent that we collect payment card information when receiving payments of insurance premiums or payments for our products or services, we comply with PCI DSS as applicable to our payment environment and PCI DSS merchant level, which is determined by our volume of payment card transactions per year.
FTC Act
As an entity regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, we are subject to the FTC’s enforcement power under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, or FTC Act. The FTC has policed privacy and data security through its broad power under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Under Section 5, “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful.” Deceptive trade practices are defined by the FTC as material representations, omissions or practices that are likely to mislead a consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances to the consumer’s detriment. The FTC defines an “unfair” trade practice as one that “causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers which is not reasonably avoidable by consumers themselves and is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.”
The FTC has refrained from providing a checklist of uniformly acceptable data security practices or focusing on one single practice as actionable. Instead, the FTC has taken a holistic approach and relied on industry standards and other norms to identify a particular set of practices that, taken together, constitute adequate security practices for companies collecting personal information. In evaluating whether a data security practice is unfair, the FTC focuses largely on “substantial injury to consumers.” The harm need not be monetary or physical, though such injuries are commonly considered “substantial.” Further, the harm can consist of a risk rather than an actual loss.
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CAN-SPAM Act
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, or CAN-SPAM Act, establishes rules for commercial electronic mail messages, gives recipients the right to opt out of certain messages, and establishes penalties for violations. We comply with the CAN-SPAM Act in connection with our transmittal of commercial electronic mail messages, or Commercial Email Messages. Commercial Email Messages do not include emails that are informational or are transactional or relationship messages.
TCPA
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, or TCPA, restricts the making of telemarketing calls and the use of automatic telephone dialing systems, artificial or prerecorded voice messages, SMS text messages, and facsimile transmissions. It also specifies several technical requirements for fax machines, autodialers, and voice messaging systems, principally with provisions requiring identification and contact information of the entity using the device to be contained in the message. We comply with TCPA in connection with our transmittal of automated, artificial, or prerecorded phone calls, SMS text messages, facsimile transmissions, and push notifications.
California Consumer Privacy Act
The California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, is a comprehensive consumer privacy law that took effect on January 1, 2020, and regulates how certain for-profit businesses that do business in California collect, use, and disclose the personal information of consumers who reside in California. Among other things, the CCPA confers to California consumers the right to receive notice of the categories of personal information to be collected by a business, how the business will use and share the personal information, and the third parties who will receive the personal information; the rights to access, delete, or transfer personal information; and the right to receive equal service and pricing from a business after exercising a consumer right granted by the CCPA. In addition, the CCPA allows California consumers the right to opt out of the “sale” of their personal information, which the CCPA defines broadly as any disclosure of personal information to a third party in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration. The CCPA also requires a business to implement reasonable security procedures to safeguard personal information against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.
The CCPA does not apply to personal information that is Protected Health Information under HIPAA. The CCPA also does not apply to a HIPAA Covered Entity to the extent that the Covered Entity maintains patient information in the same manner as Protected Health Information. We are subject to the CCPA with respect to personal information we collect from California consumers that is neither PHI under HIPAA nor patient information that we maintain in the same manner as Protected Health Information.
The California Attorney General has authority to enforce the CCPA and its implementing regulations against covered businesses beginning on July 1, 2020. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as private right of action for data breaches that result from a business’ failure to implement reasonable security procedures.
Competition
Our competitors include companies that offer molecular genetic testing and other clinical diagnostic, life science research, drug discovery services, data services and healthcare analytics, and consumer genetics products. Principal competitors include companies such as Myriad Genetics, Inc., Ambry Genetics Corporation, Color Genomics, Inc., Invitae Corporation, Natera, Inc., Tempus Labs, Inc., Quest Diagnostics, Inc., Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (or LabCorp), Exact Sciences Corp., 10x Genomics, Inc., Guardant Health, Inc., and Adaptive Biotechnologies, Twist Biosciences Corp., and Schrödinger, Inc., as well as other commercial and academic diagnostic and analytic service providers. In addition to the companies that currently offer traditional genetic testing services and research centers, other established and emerging healthcare, information technology and service companies may commercialize competitive products including informatics, analysis, integrated genetic tools and services for health and wellness.
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We believe the principal competitive factors in our market are:
•Patient-centric approach;
•Breadth, depth, and quality of data assets;
•Price and quality of tests;
•Turnaround time of testing results;
•Coverage and reimbursement arrangements with third-party payors;
•Depth and clinical applicability of interpretive insights;
•Degree of utility of patient and provider facing applications;
•Breadth of interpretive insights beyond just one episode of care;
•Convenience of testing;
•Brand recognition of test provider;
•Additional value-added services and informatics tools;
•Accessibility of results;
•Client service;
•Quality of website content; and
•Reliability
We believe that we compare favorably with our competitors on the basis of these factors. However, many of our competitors and potential competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition and market penetration, substantially greater financial, technological and research and development resources and selling and marketing capabilities, more experience dealing with third-party payors. As a result, they may be able to respond more quickly to changes in customer requirements, devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their tests than Sema4 does, or sell their tests at prices designed to win significant levels of market share. We may not be able to compete effectively against these organizations.
Environmental Matters
Sema4’s operations require the use of hazardous materials (including biological materials) that subject it to a variety of federal, state, and local environmental and safety laws and regulations. Some of these regulations provide for strict liability, holding a party potentially liable without regard to fault or negligence. We could be held liable for damages and fines as a result of our, or our partners’, business operations should contamination of the environment or individual exposure to hazardous substances occur. We cannot predict how changes in laws or new regulations will affect our business operations or the cost of compliance.
Raw Materials and Suppliers
We rely on a limited number of suppliers, or, in some cases, sole suppliers, including Agilent Technologies, Inc., Illumina, Inc., Life Technologies Corporation, Agena Biosciences, Inc., MRC-Holland, Asuragen Inc., PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc., Fisher Scientific, Integra Biosciences Corporation, Thomas Scientific, Qiagen Inc., USA Scientific, Inc., Promega Corporation, Integrated DNA Technologies Incorporated, and Kapa Biosystems Inc., for certain laboratory reagents, as well as sequencers and other equipment and materials which we use in our laboratory operations. Our laboratory operations could be interrupted if we encounter delays or difficulties in securing these reagents, sequencers or other equipment or materials, and if we cannot obtain an acceptable substitute. Any such interruption could significantly affect our business, financial condition, results of operations
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and reputation. We believe that there are only a few other manufacturers that are currently capable of supplying and servicing the equipment necessary for our laboratory operations, including sequencers and various associated reagents. The use of equipment or materials provided by these replacement suppliers would require us to alter our laboratory operations. Transitioning to a new supplier would be time consuming and expensive, may result in interruptions in our laboratory operations, could affect the performance specifications of its laboratory operations or could require that we revalidate our tests. We cannot assure you that we would be able to secure alternative equipment, reagents, and other materials, or bring such equipment, reagents, and materials online and revalidate them without experiencing interruptions in our workflow. If we encounter delays or difficulties in securing, reconfiguring, or revalidating the equipment and reagents we require for our tests, our business and reputation could be adversely affected.
Customers
We provide our health information products and services to a broad range of customers, including health plans (including managed care organizations and other health insurance providers); clinicians; hospitals; employers; patients; federally qualified health centers; and Biopharma companies. In addition, during 2020 and 2021, the customers for our COVID-19 tests included state governments.
Depending on the billing arrangement and applicable law, the clinician or healthcare entity that orders our products or services may not be responsible for paying for the products or services ordered for their patients. In certain circumstances, the patient may be responsible for payment, and in others we seek payment from third party payers, such as a commercial health insurance company, Medicare or a Medicaid program, pursuant to contracts established between us and such third parties.
During 2021, reimbursement from health plans represented 79% and 76% of our diagnostic test revenue and total revenue, respectively. In 2021, two health plans each represented 10% or more of our consolidated total revenue, and no other health plans or other customers represented 10% or more of our consolidated total revenue.
Human Capital
Sema4 is mission driven. Our employees are passionate about changing healthcare and impacting lives. We attract entrepreneurs who are comfortable with ambiguity and thrive on innovation and thoughtful discourse. We empower our employees to iterate and rapidly execute on ideas.
It is our People Team’s mission to connect people to purpose. We achieve this through enablement of excellence across the employment journey, through stewardship of an engaged and inclusive culture, by growing individual, team and organizational capability, in delivering simplification and innovation, and by sharing data-driven people insights that transform our organization. All of this is in service of driving our business forward and optimizing patient health outcomes.
We are delivering a competitive package of compensation and benefits that aims to attract and retain strong talent, in a very competitive talent marketplace. As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 1,200 employees, of which 54% are women and 46% are men. Our headcount grew by approximately 33% in 2021, and we hired approximately 500 employees in that timeframe, as a part of scaling our operations in connection with our transition to a public company and meeting our strategic priorities.
Our Diversity and Inclusion Council seeks to improve diversity, inclusion, equality, and global understanding by promoting dialogue, encouraging respectful understanding, providing information, participating in policy development, overseeing diversity education and training, and helping to foster respect for all employees. In 2022, we will be hosting our inaugural BIPOC Initiative Genomics Symposium, inviting select Ph.D. students and post doctorates for a two-day research symposium to strengthen our diverse hiring practices. Each attendee will present their original research, and will learn about science and career opportunities at Sema4.
We believe that our corporate culture fosters innovation, creativity, and teamwork. In this past year, we launched several programs and processes, which intend to help build a driven culture of alignment, development, compliance, and respect. We are in our second year of formal performance management processes, which are used
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to drive organizational alignment and includes tracking top-down business priorities and people development goals. The launch of two promotion cycles focus and enable employee career growth and mobility. We also implemented formal people manager learning, in order to build stronger people management skills for our leaders. We have optimized processes and transformed our people management solution in order to have greater systems capability, access to robust reporting, and to strengthen our analytical horsepower.
We have implemented a comprehensive compliance infrastructure, which advises Sema4 individuals and business affiliates on how to prevent, detect, report, and resolve matters of fraud, waste, threats, and abuse related to institutional policies and federal, state, and local laws and regulations. We have implemented various committees, councils and boards such as the Diversity & Inclusion Council, Data Governance Board, and IRB Review Board. These groups provide guidance for our employees, to empower them to perform according to our legal and ethical standards. We observe legal, regulatory, and industry trends and comprehensively adapt internal policies and practices as needed. We educate our Board members, executives, and other key employees about conflicts of interest and advise how to prevent and detect potential or actual conflicts of interest to safeguard from inappropriate external influence or impropriety.
We look to further strengthen our people infrastructure in 2022 through enhanced engagement surveys, values and behaviors programming, and formal talent reviews, with development planning.
Available Information
We make our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to these reports, as well as our other SEC filings, available on our website, free of charge, as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. Our website address is www.sema4.com. The information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference in this document.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
You should carefully review and consider the following risk factors and the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K as well as in our other filings with the SEC as well as in our other filings with the SEC before deciding whether to invest in our securities. We cannot assure you that any of the events discussed below will not occur. These events could have a material and adverse impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Unless otherwise indicated, references to our business being harmed in these risk factors will include harm to our business, reputation, financial condition, results of operations, net revenue and future prospects. In such event, the trading price of our securities could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment. This discussion does not address all of the risks that we face and we may face additional risks and uncertainties that are not presently known to us, or that we currently deem immaterial, which may also impair our business or financial condition. The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included herein.
Risk Factors Summary
Our business is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those risks discussed at length below. These risks include, among others, the following:
•The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected and may further materially and adversely affect our business and financial results.
•We face intense competition. If we do not continue to innovate and provide products and services that are useful to users, we may not remain competitive, which could harm our business and operating results.
•If third-party payors, including managed care organizations, private health insurers and government health plans, do not provide adequate reimbursement for our tests, or seek to amend or renegotiate their fee reimbursement schedules, or if we are unable to comply with their requirements for reimbursement, our commercial success could be negatively affected.
•We have limited experience with the development and commercialization of our databases and our health information and genomic platforms.
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•If we fail to comply with federal and state laboratory licensing requirements or standards, we could lose the ability to perform our tests or experience disruptions to our business.
•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.
•We need to scale our infrastructure in advance of demand for our products and services, and our failure to generate sufficient demand for our products and services would have a negative impact on our business and our ability to attain profitability.
•We rely on a limited number of suppliers or, in some cases, single suppliers, for some of our laboratory instruments and materials and may not be able to find replacements or immediately transition to alternative suppliers or service providers.
•We rely on a limited number of product and service providers for data infrastructure and analytics capabilities, and any disruption of, or interference with, our use of data and workflow services could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations, and we may not be able to find replacements or immediately transition to alternative products or service providers.
•Our projections are subject to significant risks, assumptions, estimates and uncertainties, including assumptions regarding adoption of our products and services. As a result, our projected revenues, market share, expenses and profitability may differ materially from our expectations in any given quarter or fiscal year.
•Uncertainty in the development and commercialization of our enhanced or new tests or services could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
•We currently use, and in the future expect to increase our use of, information and rights from customers, strategic partners, and collaborators for several aspects of our operations, and if we cannot maintain current and enter new relationships with these parties with adequate access and authorization to such information, our business will suffer.
•Our operating results could be subject to significant fluctuation, which could increase the volatility of our stock and warrant prices and cause losses to our stockholders.
•We may need to raise additional capital to fund our existing operations, develop additional products and services, commercialize new products and services or expand our operations and may have difficulties raising capital depending on financial market conditions.
•We expect to make significant investments in our continued research and development of new products and services, which may not be successful.
•We have identified material weaknesses, some of which have a pervasive effect across the organization, and may identify additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies, in our internal controls over financial reporting. Our failure to remedy these matters could result in a material misstatement of our financial statements and we will incur increased costs and demands on management as a result of compliance with internal control requirements, which could harm our operating results.
•We rely on third-party laboratories to perform certain elements of our service offerings.
•Future changes in FDA enforcement discretion for LDTs could subject our operations to much more significant regulatory requirements.
•For each product and service we are developing that may require FDA premarket review prior to marketing, the FDA may not grant clearance, authorization or premarket approval and failure to obtain necessary approvals for our future products and services would adversely affect our ability to grow our business.
•Compliance with the HIPAA security, privacy and breach notification regulations may increase our costs.
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•We face uncertainty related to healthcare reform, pricing, coverage and reimbursement, which could reduce our revenue.
•Our inability to effectively protect our proprietary products, processes, and technologies, including the confidentiality of our trade secrets, could harm our competitive position.
•Security breaches, privacy issues, loss of data and other incidents could compromise sensitive, protected, or personal information related to our business, could prevent it from accessing critical information, and could expose it to regulatory liability, which could adversely affect our business.
•We will incur increased costs and demands on management as a result of compliance with laws and regulations applicable to public companies, which could harm our operating results.
Risks Related to Our Business, Industry and Operations
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected and may further materially and adversely affect our business and financial results.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, together with related precautionary measures in response to the initial outbreak and resurgences, materially disrupted our business during certain periods in 2020 and 2021 and may continue to disrupt our business for an unknown period of time. Since the initial outbreak, the territories in which we market, sell, distribute and perform our tests and performs our health information and data science services continue to address the COVID-19 pandemic in varying ways, including stay-at-home orders, temporarily closing businesses, restricting gatherings, restricting travel, and mandating social distancing, face coverings and proof of vaccination. Despite recent progress in the administration of vaccines, the future impact and the level and nature of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be unpredictable, may be cyclical and long-lasting and may vary from location to location, and the emergence of new variant strains of COVID-19, including Delta and Omicron, in regions that have reopened have necessitated, and may in the future necessitate, renewed government restrictions. As a result, we experienced a significant impact to our 2020 and 2021 operating results, including our order volumes, revenues, margins, and cash utilization, among other measures and may experience further impacts in future periods depending on the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, both we and our partners undertook a number of precautionary measures in response to the virus, including requiring employees to work remotely, restricting travel and limiting interactions in person, and we expect to adjust our precautionary measures at our various locations based on local recovery levels, vaccination rates and applicable governmental regulations. For example, a portion of our sales force has recommenced field-based interactions, although access to healthcare providers remains impaired and the industry continues to resume normal activities. Our business could be negatively affected in the future if it takes excessive, ineffective or inadequate precautions
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has materially impacted our business in 2020 and 2021 and may continue to impact our business for an unknown period of time. Such impacts have included and may include the following:
•Healthcare providers or patients have canceled or delayed scheduling, and for an extended period of time may continue to cancel or delay scheduling, standard wellness visits and other non-emergency appointments and procedures (including oncology and pregnancy-related screenings), contributing to a decline in orders for our products or services;
•Restrictions on travel, commerce and shipping may prevent patients and pathologists from shipping samples to our clinical laboratories;
•Illnesses, quarantines, financial hardships, restrictions on travel, commerce and shipping, or other consequences of the pandemic, may disrupt our supply chain or other business relationships, and we or other parties may assert rights under force majeure clauses to excuse performance;
•We have experienced, and for an extended period of time may continue to experience, reduced volumes at our clinical laboratories and we may need to suspend operations at some or all of our clinical laboratories;
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•We have taken, and may take additional, cost cutting measures, which may hinder our efforts to commercialize our products or delay the development of future products and services. Further, we might not realize all of the cost savings we expect to achieve as a result of those efforts;
•We and our partners have postponed or cancelled clinical studies, which may delay or prevent our launch of future products and services;
•Some or all of our workforce, much of which continues to work remotely in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19, may be infected by the virus or otherwise distracted;
•A combination of factors, including infection from the virus, supply shortfalls, and inability to obtain or maintain equipment, could adversely affect our lab capacity and our ability to meet the demand for our testing services; and
•We may inaccurately estimate the duration or severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, which could cause us to misalign our staffing, spending, activities and precautionary measures with current or future market conditions.
Despite our efforts, the ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, or the impact of the emergence of new strains of the virus and any future resurgences of COVID-19 or variant strains, depends on factors beyond our knowledge or control, including availability and distribution of effective medical treatments and vaccines, the duration and severity of the pandemic, third-party actions taken to contain its spread and mitigate its public health effects and short- and long-term changes in the behaviors of medical professionals and patients resulting from the pandemic.
Additionally, the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have, and may continue to, adversely impacted financial markets, resulting in high share price volatility, reduced market liquidity, and substantial declines in the market prices of the securities of many publicly traded companies. Volatile or declining markets for equities could adversely affect our ability to raise capital in the future when needed through the sale of shares of common stock or other equity or equity-linked securities. If these market conditions persist when and if we need to raise capital, and if we are able to sell shares of our common stock under then prevailing market conditions, we might have to accept lower prices for our shares and issue a larger number of shares than might have been the case under better market conditions, resulting in significant dilution of the interests of our stockholders.
Due to the high degree of uncertainty regarding the implementation and impact of the CARES Act and other legislation related to COVID-19, there can be no assurance that we will be able to comply with the applicable terms and conditions of the CARES Act and retain such assistance.
On March 27, 2020, the CARES Act was signed into law, aimed at providing emergency assistance and health care for individuals, families, and businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and generally supporting the U.S. economy. The CARES Act, among other things, includes provisions relating to refundable payroll tax credits, deferment of employer social security payments, net operating loss carryback periods, alternative minimum tax credit refunds, and modifications to the net interest deduction limitations. The CARES Act and similar legislation intended to provide assistance related to the COVID-19 pandemic also authorized $175.0 billion in funding to be distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or the HHS, to eligible health care providers. This funding, known as the Provider Relief Fund, is designated to fund eligible healthcare providers’ healthcare-related expenses or lost revenues attributable to COVID-19. On December 27, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 was signed into law, which adds $3.0 billion to the Provider Relief Fund. Payments from the Provider Relief Fund are subject to certain eligibility criteria, as well as reporting and auditing requirements, but do not need to be repaid to the U.S. government if recipients comply with the applicable terms and conditions.
In 2020, we received $5.4 million as part of the stimulus, comprised of $2.6 million received under the Provider Relief Fund, or PRF, distribution and $2.8 million received under the Employee Retention Credit, or ERC, distribution. In 2021, we received an additional $5.6 million under the PRF distribution. PRF distributions to healthcare providers are not loans and will not be required to be repaid; however, as a condition to receiving these
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payments, providers must agree to certain terms and conditions and submit sufficient documentation demonstrating that the funds are being used for healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. ERC distributions are refundable tax credits for 50% of qualified wages paid to employees during the pandemic. A company is eligible for the ERC if it has not received a Paycheck Protection Program loan under the Cares Act and (1) its operations have been fully or partially suspended because of COVID-19 or (2) its gross receipts in a calendar quarter in 2020 declined by more than 50% from the same period in 2019. At the time of applying for the ERC, we concluded that the eligibility requirements were met. However, subsequent to the filing of the application, our revenue was revised due to a change in estimate as a result of finalizing our accounting records, which impacted the applicable periods and calculations for determining eligibility, and may no longer meet the eligibility requirements. As such, we have deferred the recognition of the ERC distribution and recorded the proceeds in other liabilities on the balance sheets as of December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020.
Due to the high degree of uncertainty regarding the implementation of the CARES Act, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 and other stimulus legislation, and due to our revenue revisions, there can be no assurance that the terms and conditions of the PRF, ERC or other relief programs will not change or be interpreted in ways that affect our ability to comply with such terms and conditions in the future, which could affect our ability to retain such assistance. We will continue to monitor our compliance with the terms and conditions of the PRF, including demonstrating that the distributions received have been used for healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue attributable to COVID-19, and the ERC. If we are unable to comply with current or future terms and conditions, our ability to retain some or all of the distributions received may be impacted, and we may be subject to actions including payment recoupment, audits and inquiries by governmental authorities, and criminal, civil or administrative penalties.
Other companies or institutions may develop and market novel or improved technologies, which may make our technologies less competitive or obsolete.
We operate in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive industry. There are a number of private and public companies that offer products or services or have announced that they are developing products or services that compete, or may one day compete, with our products or services. Some of our current and potential competitors possess greater brand recognition, financial and other resources and development capabilities than we do. As the fields of genomic analysis and health information become more widely known to the public, we anticipate that competition will further increase. We expect to compete with a broad range of organizations in the U.S. and other countries that are engaged in the development, production and commercialization of genetic screening products, including women’s health and oncology screening products, health information services, and analytics, and data science services, and other diagnostic products. These competitors include:
•companies that offer clinical, research and data clinical services, molecular genetic testing and other clinical diagnostics, life science research and drug discovery services, data services and healthcare analytics, and consumer genetics products;
•academic and scientific institutions;
•governmental agencies; and
•public and private research organizations.
We may be unable to compete effectively against our competitors either because their products and services are superior or because they may have more expertise, experience, financial resources, or stronger business relationships. These competitors may have broader product lines and greater name recognition than we do. Furthermore, we must compete successfully in our existing markets, including women’s health and oncology, but also in any new markets we expand into. Even if we successfully develop new marketable products or services, our current and future competitors may develop products and services that are more commercially attractive than ours, and they may bring those products and services to market earlier or more effectively than we are able to. If we are unable to compete successfully against current or future competitors, we may be unable to increase market
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acceptance for and sales of our tests and services, which could prevent us from increasing or sustaining our revenues or achieving sustained profitability.
We face intense competition. If we do not continue to innovate and provide products and services that are useful to users, we may not remain competitive, which could harm our business and operating results.
Our business environment is rapidly evolving and intensely competitive. Our businesses face changing technologies, shifting provider and patient needs, and frequent introductions of rival products and services. To compete successfully, we must accurately anticipate technology developments and deliver innovative, relevant and useful products, services, and technologies in a timely manner. As our businesses evolve, the competitive pressure to innovate will encompass a wider range of products and services. We must continue to invest significant resources in research and development, including through acquisitions and collaborations (such as the pending Acquisition on GeneDx discussed herein), joint ventures and partnerships, in order to enhance our current diagnostics and health information and data science technologies, and existing and new products and services based off these technologies.
We have many competitors in different industries. Our current and potential domestic and international competitors range from large and established companies to emerging start-ups in addition to academic and scientific institutions, and public and private research organizations. Some competitors have longer operating histories in various sectors. They can use their experience and resources in ways that could affect our competitive position, including by making acquisitions, continuing to invest heavily in research and development and in talent, initiating intellectual property claims (whether or not meritorious), and continuing to compete aggressively for our customers and partners in the market for health information and data science products and services. Our competitors may be able to innovate and provide products and services faster than we can or may foresee the need for products and services before we do.
Our operating results may also suffer if our products and services are not responsive to the needs of our customers and partners. As technologies continue to develop, our competitors may be able to offer products and services that are, or that are seen to be, substantially similar to or better than our current products and services. This may force us to compete in different ways and expend significant resources in order to remain competitive. If our competitors are more successful than us in developing compelling products and services for or in attracting and retaining customers or partners in the market for health information and data science products and services, our operating results could be harmed.
If third-party payors, including managed care organizations, private health insurers and government health plans, do not provide adequate reimbursement for our tests, or seek to amend or renegotiate their fee reimbursement schedules, or if we are unable to comply with their requirements for reimbursement, our commercial success could be negatively affected.
Our ability to increase the number of billable tests and our revenue therefrom will depend on our success in achieving reimbursement for our tests from third-party payors. Reimbursement by a payor may depend on a number of factors, including a payer’s determination that a test is appropriate, medically necessary, cost-effective and has received prior authorization. The commercial success of our current and future products, if approved, will depend on the extent to which our customers receive coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payors, including managed care organizations and government payers (e.g., Medicare and Medicaid).
Since each payer makes its own decision as to whether to establish a policy or enter into a contract to cover our tests, as well as the amount it will reimburse for a test, seeking these approvals is a time-consuming and costly process. In addition, the determination by a payer to cover and the amount it will reimburse for our tests will likely be made on an indication-by-indication basis and may consider our billing practices and reimbursements from other payors and from our patient billing programs. To date, we have obtained policy-level reimbursement approval or contractual reimbursement for some indications for our tests from most of the large commercial third-party payors in the United States, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, provides reimbursement for our multi-gene tests for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer-related disorders as well as other tests. We believe that establishing adequate reimbursement from Medicare is an important factor in gaining adoption from healthcare providers. Our claims for reimbursement from third-party payors may be denied upon submission, and we must
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appeal the claims. The appeals process is time consuming and expensive and may not result in payment. In cases where there is not a contracted rate for reimbursement, there is typically a greater coinsurance or copayment requirement from the patient, which may result in further delay or decreased likelihood of collection.
A significant portion of the payments for our tests are paid or reimbursed under insurance programs with third-party payors. To contain reimbursement and utilization rates, third-party payors often attempt to, or do in fact, amend or renegotiate their fee reimbursement schedules. Loss of revenue caused by third-party payor cost containment efforts or an inability to negotiate satisfactory reimbursement rates could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and results of operations.
Furthermore, in cases where we or our partners have established reimbursement rates with third-party payors, we face additional challenges in complying with their procedural requirements for reimbursement. These requirements often vary from payer to payer and are reassessed by third party payors on a regular basis, and we have needed additional time and resources to comply with them. We have also experienced, and may continue to experience, delays in or denials of coverage if we do not adequately comply with these requirements. Our third-party payors have also requested, and in the future may request, audits of the amounts paid to us. We have been required to repay certain amounts to payers as a result of such audits, and we could be adversely affected if we are required to repay other payers for alleged overpayments due to lack of compliance with their reimbursement policies. In addition, we have experienced, and may continue to experience, delays in reimbursement when we transition to being an in-network provider with a payer.
We expect to continue to focus our resources on increasing adoption of, and expanding coverage and reimbursement for, our current tests and any future tests we may develop or acquire. If we fail to expand and maintain broad adoption of, and coverage and reimbursement for, our tests, our ability to generate revenue could be harmed and our future prospects and our business could suffer.
We have limited experience with the development and commercialization of our databases and our health information and genomic platforms.
We have limited experience with the development or commercialization of clinical or research products in connection with the databases we manage and to which we have access, including our Centrellis and Traversa platforms. Our partners’ usage of an advanced machine learning engine for therapeutic decision-making are at an early stage of development and usage under current and proposed collaborations, and we are continuing to develop new processes that may support the development of new therapeutics applications such as the delivery of personalized clinically actionable insights into clinical reports, clinical trial matching, real-world evidence trials, and clinical decision support, via an advanced programmable interface layer. Although our partners have invested significant financial resources to develop and utilize new technologies to support preclinical studies and other early research and development activities, and provide general and administrative support for these operations, our future success is dependent on our current and future partners’ ability to successfully derive actionable insights from the database and our platform, and our partners’ ability, where applicable, to obtain regulatory approval for new therapeutic solutions based off existing models or to obtain regulatory approval and marketing for, and to successfully commercialize, new therapeutics. The use of our platform and the databases it manages and to which it has access for these purposes will require additional regulatory investments for Centrellis, such as “good practice” quality guidelines and regulations, or GxP, and data quality and integrity controls.
Ethical, legal and social concerns related to the use of genomic medicine and health information analysis could reduce demand for our tests.
Genomic medicine and health information analysis has raised ethical, legal and social issues regarding privacy rights and the appropriate uses of the resulting information. Domestic and international governmental and regulatory authorities could, for social or other purposes, such as data privacy, limit or regulate the use of health information or health information testing or prohibit testing for specific information derived from health information testing, including, for example, data on genetic predisposition to certain conditions, particularly for those that have no known cure. Similarly, these concerns may lead patients to refuse to use, or clinicians to be reluctant to order, genomic tests as part of health information assessment even if permissible, or lead patients to withhold or withdraw
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consent for our use of their data. These and other ethical, legal and social concerns may limit market acceptance of our tests or services or reduce the potential markets for our tests, or services either of which could have an adverse effect on our business, research, financial condition or results of operations.
If we fail to comply with federal and state laboratory licensing requirements or standards, we could lose the ability to perform our tests or experience disruptions to our business.
We are subject to Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, or CLIA, a federal law that regulates clinical laboratories that perform testing on specimens derived from humans for the purpose of providing information for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of disease. CLIA regulations establish specific standards with respect to personnel qualifications, facility administration, proficiency testing, quality control, quality assurance and inspections. CLIA certification is also required in order for us to be eligible to bill state and federal healthcare programs, as well as many private third-party payors, for our tests. We have current CLIA, CAP, and other certifications to conduct our tests at our laboratories in Connecticut. To renew these certifications, we are subject to survey and inspection on a regular basis and at the request of the certifying bodies. Moreover, CLIA inspectors may make random inspections of our clinical reference laboratories.
We would also be required to maintain in-state licenses if we were to conduct testing in other states. Several states require the licensure of out-of-state laboratories that accept specimens from certain states.
In addition to having laboratory licenses in New York, our clinical reference laboratories are approved on test-specific bases for the tests they run as laboratory-developed tests, or LDTs, by the New York State Department of Health, or NYDOH. Other states may adopt similar licensure requirements in the future, which may require us to modify, delay or stop our operations in such jurisdictions. We may also be subject to regulation in foreign jurisdictions as we seek to expand international utilization of our tests or such jurisdictions adopt new licensure requirements, which may require review of our tests in order to offer them or may have other limitations such as restrictions on the transport of samples necessary for us to perform our tests that may limit our ability to make our tests available outside of the United States. Complying with licensure requirements in new jurisdictions may be expensive, time-consuming, and subject us to significant and unanticipated delays.
Failure to comply with applicable clinical laboratory licensure requirements or standards may result in a range of enforcement actions, including license suspension, limitation, or revocation, directed plan of action, onsite monitoring, civil monetary penalties, criminal sanctions, and cancellation of the laboratory’s approval to receive Medicare and Medicaid payment for our services, as well as significant adverse publicity. Any sanction imposed under CLIA, its implementing regulations, or state or foreign laws or regulations governing clinical laboratory licensure, or our failure to renew our CLIA certifications, a state or foreign license, or accreditation, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Even if we were able to bring our laboratory back into compliance, we could incur significant expenses and potentially lose revenue in doing so.
The College of American Pathologists, or CAP, maintains a clinical laboratory accreditation program. CAP asserts that its program is “designed to go well beyond regulatory compliance” and helps laboratories achieve the highest standards of excellence to positively impact patient care. While not required to operate a CLIA-certified laboratory, many private insurers require CAP accreditation as a condition to contracting with clinical laboratories to cover their tests. In addition, some countries outside the United States require CAP accreditation as a condition to permitting clinical laboratories to test samples taken from their citizens. We have CAP accreditations for our laboratories. Failure to maintain CAP accreditation could have a material adverse effect on the sales of our tests and the results of our operations.
Risks Related to Our Business Model
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.
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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, including software developers, geneticists, biostatisticians, bioinformaticians, data scientists, certified laboratory directors and technicians and other scientific and technical personnel to process and interpret our tests and related data. In addition, we may need to continue to expand our sales force with qualified and experienced personnel. Competition in our industry for qualified employees is intense, and we may not be able to attract or retain qualified personnel in the future due to the competition for qualified personnel among life science and technology businesses as well as universities and public and private research institutions, particularly in the New York City and the tri-state area. Further, we may be unable to obtain the necessary visas for foreign personnel to work in the United States. 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. 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, support our research and development efforts and our clinical laboratories. 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.
The loss of any member or change in structure of our senior management team could adversely affect our business.
Our success depends in large part upon the skills, experience and performance of members of our executive management team and others in key leadership positions. The efforts of these persons will be critical to us as we continue to develop our technologies and test processes and focus on scaling our business. If we were to lose one or more key executives, including our founder and CEO, Dr. Eric Schadt, we may experience difficulties in competing effectively, developing our tests and technologies and implementing our business strategy. Only certain of our executives have employment contracts, and the majority of our employees are at-will, which means that either we or any employee may terminate their employment at any time or in the notice period set forth in an executive’s contract. We do not carry key person insurance for any of our executives or employees. In addition, we do not have a long-term retention agreement in place with our CEO. Furthermore, we compete against other leading companies in the diagnostics, health information, and data sciences markets for top talent. If such competitors offer better compensation or opportunities, there is no guarantee that we would be able to retain our key executives.
Our founder and CEO, Eric Schadt, and certain other of our employees have performed, and will continue to perform, duties for or on behalf of Mount Sinai.
Our founder CEO, Eric Schadt, and certain of our other employees continue to perform duties for or on behalf of the Mount Sinai Health System, which refer to together with its related entities as Mount Sinai. In the case of Dr. Schadt, in addition to serving as our CEO and as a director, Dr. Schadt also serves as the Dean for Precision Medicine and a professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, or ISMMS. We expect Dr. Schadt to continue to devote a substantial amount of time to the obligations of managing a public company while maintaining certain duties for Mount Sinai. Though we do not expect Dr. Schadt’s role as a CEO and a director to conflict with his roles at Mount Sinai, there can be no guarantee that such conflicts will not occur in the future.
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 data and 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 products or services, or satisfy customer demand as it grows. We may need to continue expanding our sales force to facilitate our growth, and we may have difficulties locating, recruiting, training and retaining sales personnel. Our ability to manage our growth effectively will require us to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, as well as our reporting systems and procedures. As we grow, any failure of our controls or interruption of our facilities or systems could have a negative impact on our business and financial operations. We plan to develop and launch new versions of our Centrellis and Traversa platforms and our core diagnostic products, which will affect
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a broad range of business processes and functional areas. The time and resources required to implement these new systems is uncertain, and failure to complete these activities in a timely and efficient manner could adversely affect our operations. Future growth in our business could also make it difficult for it to maintain our corporate culture. 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 need to scale our infrastructure in advance of demand for our products and services, and our failure to generate sufficient demand for our products and services would have a negative impact on our business and our ability to attain profitability.
Our success depends in large part on our ability to extend our market position, to provide customers with high-quality health reports and health information and data science services in a manner that differentiates us from our competitors, and to deploy technologies and achieve sufficient volumes to realize economies of scale. In order to execute our business model, we intend to continue to invest heavily in order to significantly scale our infrastructure, including our lab infrastructure and testing capacity and our information and computing systems, expand our commercial operations, customer service, billing and systems processes and enhance our internal quality assurance program. We will also need to enhance our capacity for data privacy management as we scale our infrastructure. We expect that much of this growth will be in advance of both demand for our products and services as well as our ability to diversify our offerings, including services related to Centrellis and Traversa and the databases we manage and to which we have access, and our ability to find appropriate partners through collaborations and acquisitions. Our current and future expense levels are to a large extent fixed and are largely based on our investment plans and our estimates of future revenue. Because the timing and amount of revenue from our products and services are difficult to forecast, when revenue does not meet our expectations, we may not be able to adjust our spending promptly or reduce our spending to levels commensurate with our revenue. Even if we are able to successfully scale our infrastructure and operations while successfully diversifying our offering, we cannot assure you that demand for our products and services, including our Centrellis platform, will increase at levels consistent with the growth of our infrastructure. If we fail to generate demand commensurate with this growth or if we fail to scale our infrastructure sufficiently in advance of demand to successfully meet such demand, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
International expansion of our business could expose us to business, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks associated with doing business outside of the United States.
When cleared, authorized or approved, we and our collaborators may market, sell, and distribute our products and services outside of the United States, and our business would be subject to risks associated with doing business outside of the United States, including an increase in our expenses and diversion of our management’s attention from the development of future products and services. Accordingly, our business and financial results in the future could be adversely affected due to a variety of factors, including:
•multiple, conflicting and changing laws and regulations such as privacy, security and data use regulations, tax laws, export and import restrictions, economic sanctions and embargoes, employment laws, anticorruption laws, regulatory requirements, reimbursement or payer regimes and other governmental;
•approvals, permits and licenses;
•failure by us, our collaborators or our distributors to obtain regulatory clearance, authorization or approval for the use of our products and services in various countries;
•additional potentially relevant third-party patent rights;
•complexities and difficulties in obtaining intellectual property protection and enforcing our intellectual property;
•difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations, including repatriating foreign earned profits;
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•complexities associated with managing multiple payer reimbursement regimes, government payers or patient self-pay systems;
•difficulties in negotiating favorable reimbursement negotiations with governmental authorities;
•logistics and regulations associated with shipping samples, including infrastructure conditions and transportation delays;
•limits in our ability to penetrate international markets if we are not able to conduct our clinical diagnostic services locally;
•financial risks, such as longer payment cycles, difficulty collecting accounts receivable, the impact of local and regional financial crises on demand and payment for our products and services and exposure to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations;
•international regulations and license requirements that may restrict foreign investment in and operation of the internet, IT infrastructure, data centers and other sectors, and international transfers of data;
•natural disasters, political and economic instability, including wars, terrorism and political unrest, and outbreak of disease;
•boycotts, curtailment of trade and other business restrictions; and
•regulatory and compliance risks that relate to maintaining accurate information and control over sales and distributors’ activities that may fall within the purview of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, or FCPA, its books and records provisions, or its anti-bribery provisions or laws similar to the FCPA in other jurisdictions in which we may in the future operate, such as the United Kingdom’s Bribery Act of 2010 and anti-bribery requirements of member states in the European Union, or EU.
Any of these factors could significantly harm our future international expansion and operations and, consequently, our revenue and results of operations.
Unfavorable U.S. or global economic conditions could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.
Our results of operations could be adversely affected by general conditions in the global economy and financial markets. A severe or prolonged economic downturn or increase in inflation rates could result in a variety of risks to our business, including weakened demand for our products and services and our ability to raise additional capital when needed on favorable terms, if at all. A weak declining or inflationary economy could strain our collaborators and suppliers, possibly resulting in supply disruption, or cause delays in their payments to us. Any of the foregoing could harm our business and we cannot anticipate all of the ways in which the current economic climate and financial market conditions could adversely impact our business.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers or, in some cases, single suppliers, for some of our laboratory instruments and materials and may not be able to find replacements or immediately transition to alternative suppliers or service providers.
We have sourced and will continue to source components of our diagnostic testing workflow, including sequencers and other laboratory equipment, reagents, lab supplies and other laboratory services and materials and related services, from third parties.
Our failure to maintain a continued supply of our sequencers and other laboratory equipment, reagents, lab supplies and other laboratory services and materials, along with the right to use certain hardware and software and related services, would adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations. In particular, while we are seeking to validate our tests on additional sequencing platforms we have not, to date, validated a viable alternative sequencing platform on which our testing could be run in a commercially viable manner. These efforts
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will require significant resources, expenditures and time and attention of management, and there is no guarantee that we will be successful in implementing any such sequencing platforms in a commercially sustainable way. We also cannot guarantee that we will appropriately prioritize or select alternative sequencing platforms on which to focus our efforts, in particular given our limited product and research and development resources and various business initiatives, which could result in increased costs and delayed timelines or otherwise adversely impact our business and results of operations.
Because we rely on third-party manufacturers, we do not control the manufacture of these components, including whether such components will meet our quality control requirements, nor the ability of our suppliers to comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. In many cases, our suppliers are not contractually required to supply these components to the quality or performance standards that we require. If the supply of components we receive does not meet our quality control or performance standards, we may not be able to use the components, or if we use them not knowing that they are of inadequate quality, which occasionally occurs with respect to certain reagents, our tests may not work properly or at all, or may provide erroneous results, and we may be subject to significant delays caused by interruption in production or manufacturing or to lost revenue from such interruption or from spoiled tests. In addition, any natural or other disaster, acts of war or terrorism, shipping embargoes, labor unrest, political instability, outbreak of disease or similar events at our third-party manufacturers' facilities that cause a loss of manufacturing capacity would heighten the risks that it faces.
In the event of any adverse developments with our sole suppliers, or if any of our sole suppliers modifies any of the components they supply to us, our ability to supply our products may be interrupted, and obtaining substitute components could be difficult or require us to re-design or re-validate our products. Our failure to maintain a continued supply of components, or a supply that meets our quality control requirements, or changes to or termination of our agreements or inability to renew our agreements with these parties or enter into new agreements with other suppliers could result in the loss of access to important components of our tests and impact our test performance or affect our ability to perform our tests in a timely manner or at all, which could impair, delay or suspend our commercialization activities. In the event that we transition to a new supplier from any of our sole suppliers, doing so could be time-consuming and expensive, may result in interruptions in our ability to supply our products to the market, could affect the performance of our tests or could require that we re-validate our affected tests using replacement equipment and supplies, which could delay the performance of our tests, impact diagnostic solutions and heath information derived from such tests, and result in increased costs. Any of these occurrences could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We rely on a limited number of product and service providers for data infrastructure and analytics capabilities, and any disruption of, or interference with, our use of data and workflow services could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations, and we may not be able to find replacements or immediately transition to alternative products or service providers.
We currently rely upon third-party services for data storage and workflow management, including cloud storage solution providers, such as Amazon Web Services, or AWS, and Google Cloud Platform, or GCP. We rely on each of AWS and GCP features to complete several vital workflows in our health information and data science service delivery. To varying degrees some of those services are proprietary to how each platform performs in connection with our current usage of the services. Further, we have also built several proprietary workflows with our vendor and partner Command Health where we maintain versions of developed software on such platforms.
Nearly all of our data storage and analytics are conducted on, and the data and content we generate on our platforms are processed through, servers hosted by these providers, particularly AWS and GCP. We also rely on email service providers, bandwidth providers, internet service providers and mobile networks to deliver communications to patients, physicians and partners and to allow patients, physicians and our partners to access various offerings from our platforms. If our third-party vendors are unable or unwilling to provide the services necessary to support our business, or if our agreements with such vendors are terminated, our operations could be significantly disrupted. Some of our vendor agreements may be unilaterally terminated by the licensor for convenience, including with respect to AWS or GCP, and if such agreements are terminated, we may not be able to enter into similar relationships in the future on reasonable terms or at all.
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Any damage to, or failure of, our systems or the systems of our third-party data centers or our other third-party providers could result in interruptions to the availability or functionality of database and platforms. As a result, we could lose health information data and miss opportunities to acquire and retain patients, physicians and partners including health systems and pharmaceutical and biotech companies, which could result in decreased revenue. If for any reason our arrangements with our data centers or third-party providers are terminated or interrupted, such termination or interruption could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. We exercise little control over these providers, which increases our vulnerability to problems with the services they provide. We could incur additional expense in arranging for new or redesigned facilities, technology, services and support. In addition, the failure of our third-party data centers or any other third-party providers to meet our capacity needs or any system failure as a result of reliance on third parties, including network, software or hardware failure, which causes a delay or interruption in our services and products, including our ability to handle existing or increased processing of data on our platforms, could have a material adverse effect on our business, revenues, operating results and financial condition.
Our current and future products and services may never achieve significant commercial market acceptance.
Our success depends on the market’s confidence that we can provide data-driven research and diagnostic products and services that improve clinical outcomes, lower healthcare costs and enable better product development by pharmaceutical and biotech, or Biopharma, companies. Failure of our products and services, or those jointly developed with our collaborators, to perform as expected or to be updated to meet market demands could significantly impair our operating results and our reputation. We believe patients, health systems, clinicians, academic institutions and Biopharma companies are likely to be particularly sensitive to defects, errors, inaccuracies and delays with our products and services. Furthermore, inadequate performance of these products or services may result in lower confidence in our Centrellis platform in general.
We and our collaborators may not succeed in achieving significant commercial market acceptance for our current or future products and services due to a number of factors, including:
•Our ability to demonstrate the utility of our platforms including Centrellis and Traversa, and related products and services and their potential advantages over existing clinical artificial intelligence technology, life sciences research, clinical diagnostic and drug discovery technologies to academic institutions, Biopharma companies and the medical community;
•Our ability, and that of our collaborators, to perform clinical trials or other research to gather adequate evidence and/or to secure and maintain FDA and other regulatory clearance authorization or approval for our products or products developed based off our platform;
•the agreement by third-party payors to reimburse our products or services, the scope and extent of which will affect patients’ willingness or ability to pay for our products or services and will likely heavily influence physicians’ decisions to recommend our products or services;
•the rate of adoption of our platforms and related products and services by academic institutions, clinicians, patients, key opinion leaders, advocacy groups and Biopharma companies; and
•the impact of our investments in product and services, and technological innovation and commercial growth.
Additionally, our customers and collaborators, including Mount Sinai, may decide to decrease or discontinue their use of our products and services due to changes in their research and development plans, failures in their clinical trials, financial constraints, the regulatory environment, negative publicity about our products and services, competing products or the reimbursement landscape, all of which are circumstances outside of our control. We may not be successful in addressing these or other factors that might affect the market acceptance of our products, services and technologies. Failure to achieve widespread market acceptance of our platform and related products and services would materially harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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Our projections are subject to significant risks, assumptions, estimates and uncertainties, including assumptions regarding adoption of our products and services. As a result, our projected revenues, market share, expenses and profitability may differ materially from our expectations in any given quarter or fiscal year.
We operate in rapidly changing and competitive industries and our projections are subject to the risks and assumptions made by our management with respect to these industries. Operating results are difficult to forecast as they generally depend on our assessment of the timing of adoption of our current and future products and services, which is uncertain. Furthermore, as we invest in the continued development of new businesses that have yet to achieve significant commercial success, whether because of competition or otherwise, we may not recover the often substantial up-front costs of developing and marketing those products and services or recover the opportunity cost of diverting management and financial resources away from other products or services. Additionally, our business may be affected by reductions in customer or partner demand as a result of a number of factors which may be difficult to predict. Similarly, our assumptions and expectations with respect to margins and the pricing of our products and services may not prove to be accurate as a result of competitive pressures or customer or partner demands. This may result in decreased revenue, and we may be unable to adopt measures in a timely manner to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in revenue. This inability could cause our operating results in a given quarter or year to be higher or lower than expected. Any failure to achieve our projected operating results could harm the trading price of our securities and our financial position.
We have estimated the sizes of the markets for our current and future products and services, and these markets may be smaller than we estimate.
Our estimates of the annual addressable markets for our current products and services and those under development are based on a number of internal and third-party estimates, including, without limitation, the number of patients who have developed one or more of a broad range of cancers, the number of individuals who are at a higher risk for developing one or more of a broad range of cancers, the number of individuals who have developed or are at a higher risk of developing certain disorders, the number of individuals with certain infectious diseases. The estimates also depend on whether we or our collaborators are able to engage, diagnose or treat patients through or using our products and services, the number of potential clinical tests utilized per treatment course per patient, the ongoing engagement by patients, physicians and health systems on our platforms, and the assumed prices at which we can sell our current and future products and services for markets that have not been established. While we believe our assumptions and the data underlying our estimates are reasonable, these assumptions and estimates may not be correct and the conditions supporting our assumptions or estimates may change at any time, thereby reducing the predictive accuracy of these underlying factors. As a result, our estimates of the annual addressable market for our current or future products and services may prove to be incorrect. If the actual number of patients who would benefit from our products or services, the price at which we can sell future products and services or the annual addressable market for our products or services is smaller than we have estimated, it may impair our sales growth and have an adverse impact on our business.
Uncertainty in the development and commercialization of our enhanced or new tests or services could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our success will depend in part on our ability to effectively introduce enhanced or new offerings. The focus of our research and development efforts has expanded beyond our current products and services, focused substantially on women’s health and oncology, as we are now also applying our expertise in processing and analyzing new areas, such as rare diseases. In recent years we have developed and/or launched several new products or enhanced versions of existing products, including products leveraging alternative sequencing technologies, and we expect to continue our efforts in all of these areas and more. The development and launch of enhanced or new tests requires the completion of certain clinical development and commercialization activities that are complex, costly, time-intensive and uncertain, and requires us to accurately anticipate patients', clinicians', payors' and other counterparties' attitudes and needs as well as emerging technology and industry trends. This process is conducted in various stages, and each stage presents the risk that we will not achieve our goals.
We have relatively limited experience developing and commercializing products and services outside of the fields of women’s health and oncology diagnostics, and we may not be successful in our current or future efforts to
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do so. We also have limited experience forecasting our future financial performance from our new products and services, and our actual results may fall below our financial guidance or other projections, or the expectations of analysts or investors, which could cause the price of our common stock and warrants to decline. We may experience research and development, regulatory, marketing and other difficulties that could delay or prevent our introduction of enhanced or new tests and result in increased costs and the diversion of management's attention and resources from other business matters, such as from our current product and service offerings, which currently represent the significant majority of our current revenues. For example, any tests that we may enhance or develop may not prove to be clinically effective in clinical trials or commercially, or may not meet our desired target product profile, be offered at acceptable cost and with the sensitivity, specificity and other test performance metrics necessary to address the relevant clinical need or commercial opportunity; our test performance in commercial experience may be inconsistent with our validation or other clinical data; we may not be successful in achieving market awareness and demand, whether through our own sales and marketing operations or through collaborative arrangements; healthcare providers may not order or use, or third-party payors may not reimburse for, any tests that we may enhance or develop; or we may otherwise have to abandon a test or service in which we have invested substantial resources. For example, we are subject to the risk that the biological characteristics of the genetic mutations we seek to target, and upon which our technologies rely, are uncertain and difficult to predict. We may also experience unforeseen difficulties when implementing updates to our processes.
We cannot assure you that we can successfully complete the development of any new or enhanced product, or that we can establish or maintain the collaborative relationships that may be essential to our collaborators’ goals, including clinical development or commercialization efforts. For example, clinical development requires large numbers of patient specimens and, for certain products, may require large, prospective, and controlled clinical trials. We may not be able to identify and help enroll patients or collect a sufficient amount of appropriate health data in a timely manner; or we may experience delays during data analysis process due to slower than anticipated supplies of patient data, or due to changes in study design or inputs, or other unforeseen circumstances; or we or our collaborators may be unable to afford or manage the large-sized clinical trials that some of our planned future products may require. Further, the publication of clinical data in peer-reviewed journals is a crucial step in commercializing and obtaining reimbursement for certain diagnostic solutions such as the ones offered by us, and our inability to control when, if ever, results are published may delay or limit our ability to derive sufficient revenues from any diagnostic solution that is the subject of or component in a study. Peer-reviewed publications regarding our products may be limited by many factors, including delays in the completion of, poor design of, or lack of compelling data from, clinical studies, as well as delays in the review, acceptance and publication process. If our diagnostic solutions or the technology underlying our current and future diagnostic solutions do not receive sufficient favorable exposure in peer-reviewed publications, the rate of clinician adoption of our diagnostic solutions and positive reimbursement coverage determinations for our diagnostic solutions could be negatively affected.
In addition, development of the data necessary to obtain regulatory clearance and approval of tests is time-consuming and carries with it the risk of not yielding the desired results. The performance achieved in published studies may not be repeated in later studies that may be required to obtain premarket clearance or approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA. Limited results from earlier-stage verification studies may not predict results from studies in larger numbers of subjects drawn from more diverse populations over longer periods of time. Unfavorable results from ongoing preclinical and clinical studies may delay, limit or prevent regulatory approvals or clearances or commercialization of our product candidates, or could result in delays, modifications or abandonment of ongoing analytical or future clinical studies, or abandonment of a product development program, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition.
These and other factors beyond our control could result in delays or other difficulties in the research and development, approval, production, launch, marketing or distribution of enhanced or new tests and could adversely affect our competitive position and results of operations.
We currently use, and in the future expect to increase our use of, information and rights from customers, strategic partners, and collaborators for several aspects of our operations, and if we cannot maintain current and enter new relationships with these parties with adequate access and authorization to such information, our business will suffer.
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Accessing, combining, curating, and analyzing health information, including longitudinal patient medical history data and genetic data, are core features of the Centrellis platform and key elements of our long term business model. The regulatory landscape around the storage, processing and deidentification of genetic data is evolving globally and greatly impacts the ability of us, our strategic partners and collaborators to process and use the data in connection with our products and services.
We have limited resources to conduct our health information services, data analysis, life sciences research, clinical diagnostics and drug discovery operations and have not yet fully established infrastructure for sales, marketing or distribution in connection with our products and services. Accordingly, we have entered into service and collaboration agreements under which our partners, including health systems, have provided, and may in the future provide, funding, data access, and other resources for developing and potentially commercializing our products and services. These collaborations may result in us incurring significant expenses in pursuit of potential products and services, and we may not be successful in identifying, developing or commercializing any potential products or services.
Our future success depends in part on our ability to maintain and grow our existing relationships, including with Mount Sinai, and to establish new relationships. Many factors may impact the success of such collaborations, including our ability to perform our obligations, our collaborators’ satisfaction with our products and services, our collaborators’ performance of their obligations to us, our collaborators’ internal priorities, resource allocation decisions and competitive opportunities, the ability to obtain regulatory approvals, disagreements with collaborators, the costs required of either party to the collaboration and related financing needs, and operating, legal and other risks in any relevant jurisdiction. Our ability to support such collaborations may also depend on factors outside of our control including the willingness of patients to engage with us and share their data, societal perspectives on privacy, and the willingness of health systems to establish collaborations, relationships and programs utilizing their data, all of which may impact the utility of these databases and the insights we will be able to generate from expanding datasets. In addition to reducing our revenue or delaying the development of our future products and services, the loss of one or more of these relationships may reduce our access to research, longitudinal patient health data, clinical trials or computing technologies that facilitate the collection and incorporation of new information into the databases we manage and to which we have access. All of the risks relating to product and service development, regulatory clearance, authorization or approval and commercialization described herein apply to us derivatively through the activities of our collaborators. We engage in conversations with companies regarding potential collaborations on an ongoing basis. These conversations may not result in a commercial agreement. Even if an agreement is reached, the resulting relationship may not be successful, and any products and services developed as part of the collaboration may not produce successful outcomes. Speculation in the industry about our existing or potential collaborations can be a catalyst for adverse speculation about us, or our products or services, which can adversely affect our reputation and our business.
If our products and services do not perform as expected, we may not realize the expected benefits of such products and services.
The success of our products depends on the market’s confidence that we can provide reliable products and services that enable high quality diagnostic testing and health information services with high sensitivity and specificity and short turnaround times. There is no guarantee that the accuracy and reproducibility we have demonstrated to date will continue as our product deliveries increase and our product and service portfolio expands.
Our products and services use a number of complex and sophisticated biochemical and bioinformatics processes, many of which are highly sensitive to external factors. An operational, technological or other failure in one of these complex processes or fluctuations in external variables may result in sensitivity or specificity rates that are lower than we anticipate or result in longer than expected turnaround times. In addition, labs are required to validate their processes before using our products for clinical purposes. These validations are outside of our control. If our products do not perform, or are perceived to not have performed, as expected or favorably in it to competitive products, our operating results, reputation, and business will suffer, and we may also be subject to legal claims arising from product limitations, errors, or inaccuracies.
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If our sales and development or other collaborations and commercial relationships are not successful and we are not able to offset the resulting impact through our own efforts or through agreements with new partners, our commercialization activities may be impaired and our financial results could be adversely affected.
Part of our business strategy is to develop relationships with health systems, biopharma companies, and other partners to utilize our products and to provide access to data. Developing and commercializing products with third parties reduces our control over such development and commercialization efforts and subjects us to the various risks inherent in a joint effort with a third party, such as delays, operational issues, technical difficulties and other contingencies outside of our influence or control. The financial condition of these third parties could weaken, or they could terminate their relationship with us and/or stop sharing data or other information; reduce their marketing efforts relating to our products; develop and commercialize, or otherwise utilize competing products in addition to or in lieu of our tests; merge with or be acquired by a competitor of us or a company that chooses to de-prioritize the efforts to utilize our products or provide us with adequate data; or otherwise breach their agreements with us. Further, we must expend resources to operationalize our existing collaborations with our health system partners, which requires substantial effort in areas such as integrations for testing workflow, EMR, consents, marketing, and billing. To the extent, we are not successful at operationalizing existing collaborations with health partners, we may not be able to further improve or pursue new agreements with additional partners. Furthermore, our partners may misappropriate our trade secrets or use our proprietary information in such a way as to expose us to litigation and potential liability; and our compliance risk may increase to the extent that we are responsible for our partners' activities. Disagreements or disputes with our health systems and other partners, including disagreements over customers, proprietary or other rights or our or their compliance with financial or other contractual obligations, might cause delays or impair the development or commercialization of our products, services, and technologies, lead to additional responsibilities for us with respect to new products, services and technologies, or result in litigation or arbitration, any of which would divert management attention and resources and be time-consuming and expensive. As is typical for companies in our industry, it is continually evaluating and pursuing various strategic or commercial relationships, some of which may involve the sale and issuance of our common stock, which could result in additional dilution of the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause the price of our common stock and warrants to decline.
If our relationships are not successful, our ability to develop and improve of products, services and technologies, and to successfully execute our commercial strategy regarding such products, services and technologies, could be compromised.
We may seek to grow our business through acquisitions of complementary products or technologies, and the failure to manage acquisitions, or the failure to integrate them with our existing business, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.
From time to time, we may consider opportunities to acquire other products or technologies that may enhance our product platform or technology, expand the breadth of our markets or customer base, or advance our business strategies. Potential acquisitions involve numerous risks, including:
•problems assimilating the acquired products or technologies;
•issues maintaining uniform standards, procedures, controls and policies;
•unanticipated costs associated with acquisitions;
•diversion of management’s attention from our existing business;
•risks associated with entering new markets in which we have limited or no experience; and
•increased legal and accounting costs relating to the acquisitions or compliance with regulatory matters.
For example, we are exposed to these and other risks in connection with the pending Acquisition of GeneDx. See “—Risks Related to the Acquisition”. We do not know if we will be able to identify any other acquisitions we deem suitable, whether we will be able to successfully complete any acquisitions on favorable terms or at all, or whether we will be able to successfully integrate any acquired products or technologies. Our potential inability to
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integrate any acquired products or technologies effectively may adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.
If we are unable to deploy and maintain effective sales, marketing and medical affairs capabilities, we will have difficulty achieving market awareness and selling our products and services.
To achieve commercial success for our tests and our future products and services, we must continue to develop and grow our sales, marketing and medical affairs organizations to effectively explain to healthcare providers the reliability, effectiveness and benefits of our current and future products and services as compared to alternatives. We may not be able to successfully manage our dispersed or inside sales forces or our sales force may not be effective. Because of the competition for their services, we may be unable to hire, partner with or retain additional qualified sales representatives or marketing or medical affairs personnel, either as our employees or independent contractors or through independent sales or other third-party organizations. Market competition for commercial, marketing and medical affairs talent is significant, and we may not be able to hire or retain such talent on commercially reasonable terms, if at all.
Establishing and maintaining sales, marketing and medical affairs capabilities will be expensive and time-consuming. Our expenses associated with maintaining our sales force may be disproportionate to the revenues we may be able to generate on sales of the certain tests or any future products or services.
We may never become profitable.
Sema4 has incurred losses since Sema4 was formed and we expect to continue to generate significant operating losses for the foreseeable future. As of December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020, we have an accumulated deficit of approximately $575.4 million and $330.1 million, respectively. We expect to continue investing significantly toward development and commercialization of our health information technology and other products and services. If our revenue does not grow significantly, we will not be profitable. We cannot be certain that the revenue from the sale of any products or services based on our technologies will be sufficient to make us profitable.
Our operating results could be subject to significant fluctuation, which could increase the volatility of our stock and warrant prices and cause losses to our stockholders.
Our revenues and results of operations may fluctuate significantly, depending on a variety of factors, including the following:
•our success in marketing and selling, and changes in demand for, our tests, and the level of reimbursement and collection obtained for such tests;
•seasonal and environmental variations affecting healthcare provider recommendations for our tests and patient compliance with healthcare provider recommendations, including without limitation holidays, weather events, and circumstances such as the outbreak of coronavirus or influenza that may limit patient access to medical practices for diagnostic tests and preventive services;
•our success in collecting payments from third-party payors, patients and collaborative partners, variation in the timing of these payments and recognition of these payments as revenues;
•the pricing of our tests, including potential changes in CMS or other reimbursement rates;
•circumstances affecting our ability to provide our tests, including weather events, supply shortages, or regulatory or other circumstances that adversely affect our ability to manufacture our tests or process tests in our clinical laboratories;
•circumstances affecting our ability to provide health information and data science services to biopharma partners, including software or hardware failures, insufficient capacity, regulatory changes or other circumstances that adversely affect the ability of us to deliver these services;
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•fluctuations in the amount and timing of our selling and marketing costs and our ability to manage costs and expenses and effectively implement our business;
•our research and development activities, including the timing of clinical trials; and
•our ability to collect, use, and commercialize data in a changing regulatory environment at a time when the public is growing increasingly concerned about privacy.
Our revenue growth rate could decline over time, and it may experience downward pressure on our operating margins in the future.
Our revenue growth rate could decline over time as a result of a number of factors, including increasing competition and the continued expansion of our business into a variety of new fields. Changes in geographic mix and product and service mix and an increasing competition for tests may also affect our revenue growth rate. We may also experience a decline in our revenue growth rate as our revenues increase to higher levels, if there is a decrease in the rate of adoption of our products, services, and technologies, among other factors.
In addition to a decline in our revenue growth rate, we may also experience downward pressure on our gross operating margins resulting from a variety of factors, such as the continued expansion of our business into new fields, including new products and services, as well as significant investments in new areas, all of which may have margins lower than those that we generate from testing. We may also experience downward pressure on our gross operating margins from increasing competition and increased costs for many aspects of our business. We may also pay increased fees to our partners as well as increased acquisition costs. We may also face an increase in infrastructure costs, supporting other businesses. Additionally, our expenditures to promote new products and services or to distribute certain products and services or increased investment in our innovation efforts across our Centrellis platform may affect our operating margins.
Due to these factors and the evolving nature of our business, our historical projected revenue growth rate and historical gross operating margins may not be indicative of our future performance.
We may need to raise additional capital to fund our existing operations, develop additional products and services, commercialize new products and services or expand our operations.
Sema4 has incurred net losses and negative cash flows from operations since its inception, including net losses of $245.4 million, $241.3 million and $29.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. As of December 31, 2021, we had an accumulated deficit of $575.4 million. We expect to continue to generate significant operating losses for the foreseeable future, and we may therefore also seek to sell common or preferred equity or convertible debt securities, enter into a credit facility or another form of third-party funding or seek other debt financing.
We may also consider raising additional capital in the future to expand our business, to pursue strategic investments, to take advantage of financing opportunities or for other reasons, including to:
•increase our sales and marketing efforts to drive market adoption of our current and future products and services;
•fund development efforts for our current and future products and services;
•expand our products and services into other disease indications and clinical applications;
•acquire, license or invest in technologies;
•acquire or invest in complementary businesses or assets; and
•finance capital expenditures and general and administrative expenses.
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In particular, in connection with the pending Acquisition of GeneDx, we have entered into subscription agreements with certain institutional investors pursuant to which we have agreed to issue and sell to the investors, in private placements to close substantially concurrently with the closing of the Acquisition, an aggregate of 50 million shares of our common stock at $4.00 per share, for an aggregate gross purchase price of $200 million, before fees and expenses (which we refer to as the “Acquisition PIPE Investment”).
Our present and future funding requirements will depend on many factors, including:
•our ability to achieve revenue growth;
•our rate of progress in establishing payer coverage and reimbursement arrangements with commercial third-party payors and government payers;
•the cost of expanding our laboratory operations and offerings, including our sales and marketing efforts;
•our rate of progress in, and cost of the sales and marketing activities associated with, establishing adoption of our Centrellis solution;
•our rate of progress in, and cost of research and development activities associated with, products and services in research and early development;
•the effect of competing technological, product and market developments;
•costs related to international expansion; and
•the potential cost of and delays in product development as a result of any regulatory oversight applicable to our products and services.
The various ways we could raise additional capital carry potential risks. If we raise funds by issuing equity securities, like in the acquisition PIPE Investment, dilution to our stockholders could result. Any preferred equity securities issued also could provide for rights, preferences or privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. If we raise funds by issuing debt securities, those debt securities would have rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. The terms of debt securities issued or borrowings pursuant to a credit agreement could impose significant restrictions on our operations. If we raise funds through collaborations and licensing arrangements, we might be required to relinquish significant rights to our technologies or products and services or grant licenses on terms that are not favorable to us.
We expect to make significant investments in our continued research and development of new products and services, which may not be successful.
We are seeking to leverage and deploy our Centrellis and Traversa platforms to develop a pipeline of future disease-specific research, diagnostic and therapeutic products and services. For example, we are attempting to extend current products into additional indications and sample types, and we are developing our population health program, and our pharmacogenomics solutions with a view toward advancing the development of tests designed to identify genetic variants for drug response that are associated with medically actionable and clinically relevant data to make more informed treatment decisions. We expect to incur significant expenses to advance these development efforts, but they may not be successful.
Developing new products and services is a speculative and risky endeavor. Products or services that initially show promise may fail to achieve the desired results or may not achieve acceptable levels of analytical accuracy or clinical utility. We may need to alter our products in development and repeat analysis or clinical studies before we identify a potentially successful product or service. Product development is expensive, may take years to complete and can have uncertain outcomes. Failure can occur at any stage of the development. If, after development, a product or service appears successful, we or our collaborators may, depending on the nature of the product or service, still need to obtain FDA and other regulatory clearances, authorizations or approvals before we can market it. In the case of clinical products, the FDA’s clearance, authorization or approval pathways are likely to involve significant time,
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as well as additional research, development and clinical study expenditures. The FDA may not clear, authorize or approve any future product or service we develop. Even if we develop a product or service that receives regulatory clearance, authorization or approval, or succeeds in initial product testing, we or our collaborators would need to commit substantial resources to commercialize, sell and market it before it could be profitable, and the product or service may never be commercially successful. Additionally, development of any product or service may be disrupted or made less viable by the development of competing products or services.
New potential products and services may fail at any stage of development or recalled after commercialization and if we determine that any of our current or future products or services are unlikely to succeed, we may abandon them without any return on our investment. If we are unsuccessful in developing additional products or services, our potential for growth may be impaired.
We have identified material weaknesses, some of which have a pervasive effect across the organization, and may identify additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies, in our internal controls over financial reporting. Our failure to remedy these matters could result in a material misstatement of our financial statements.
In the course of preparing Legacy Sema4’s financial statements for 2020, 2019 and 2018, we identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2020, which could, if not remediated, result in material misstatements in our financial statements. These material weaknesses had not been fully remediated as of December 31, 2021. In addition, during 2021, management identified a misclassification related to certain costs included within cost of services for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019. A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. The material weaknesses identified related to the fact that we did not design and maintain accounting policies, procedures and controls to ensure complete, accurate and timely financial reporting in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Specifically, the material weaknesses identified included the following:
•We did not design and maintain accounting policies, processes and controls to analyze, account for and report our revenue arrangements in accordance with ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, and ASC 605, Revenue Recognition.
•We did not design and maintain formal accounting policies, procedures and controls to achieve complete, accurate and timely financial accounting, reporting and disclosures, including controls over the preparation and review of account reconciliations and journal entries; the accounting for cost capitalization policies in accordance with ASC 330, Inventory, and ASC 350-40, Intangibles – Goodwill and Other – Internal-Use Software; and the application of ASC 840, Leases.
•We had not developed and effectively communicated to our employees our accounting policies and procedures, which resulted in inconsistent practices. Since these entity level programs have a pervasive effect across the organization, management has determined that these circumstances constitute a material weakness.
•Our accounting and operating systems lacked controls over access, and program change management that are needed to ensure access to financial data is adequately restricted to appropriate personnel.
•We do not have sufficient, qualified finance and accounting staff with the appropriate U.S. GAAP technical accounting expertise to identify, evaluate and account for accounting and financial reporting, and effectively design and implement systems and processes that allow for the timely production of accurate financial information in accordance with internal financial reporting timelines, commensurate with our size and the nature and complexity of our operations. As a result, we did not design and maintain formal accounting policies, processes and controls related to complex transactions necessary for an effective financial reporting process.
Our management is in the process of implementing a remediation plan that is expected to include policies and procedures to support internal control over financial reporting for a public company as well as supplementing the accounting and finance function with robust technical accounting and financial reporting experience and training.
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However, we cannot guarantee that the steps we have taken or may subsequently take have been or will be sufficient to remediate the material weaknesses or ensure that our internal controls are effective. For a discussion of our remediation plan and actions, see “Item 9A. Controls and Procedures.” However, as noted above, as of December 31, 2021, the material weaknesses have not yet been fully remediated.
Furthermore, as a public company, we are required to comply with certain rules and requirements related to our disclosure controls and procedures and our internal control over financial reporting. Any failure to develop or maintain effective controls as a public company, any deficiencies found in the technology system we use to support our controls, or any difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement, could harm our operating results or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods. For more information, see “Risks Related to Being a Public Company—Our internal controls over financial reporting may not be effective and our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to certify as to their effectiveness, which could have a significant and adverse effect on our business and reputation.”
Our ability to use our net operating loss carry forwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.
At December 31, 2021, our total gross deferred tax assets were $160.5 million. Due to our lack of earnings history, future deductible temporary differences related to compensation and uncertainties surrounding our ability to generate future taxable income, our net deferred tax assets have been fully offset by a valuation allowance. The deferred tax assets are primarily comprised of federal and state tax net operating losses and tax credit carryforwards, stock-based compensation and other tax deductible temporary differences.
Furthermore, under Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Internal Revenue Code, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards, or NOLs, and other pre-change tax attributes (such as research tax credits) to offset its future taxable income may be limited. In general, an “ownership change” occurs if there is a cumulative change in its ownership by “5% shareholders” that exceeds 50 percentage points over a rolling three-year period. Our existing NOLs and tax credit carryovers may be subject to limitations arising from previous ownership changes, and if we undergo one or more ownership changes in connection with completed acquisitions, including the business combination or the pending Acquisition, or future transactions in our stock, our ability to utilize NOLs and tax credit carryovers could be further limited by Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code. As a result, if we earn future taxable income, our ability to use our pre-change net operating loss and tax credit carryforwards to offset U.S. federal taxable income may be subject to limitations, which could potentially result in increased future tax liability to us. In addition, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act limits the deduction for NOLs to 80% of current year taxable income and eliminates NOL carrybacks. Further, there may also be periods during which the use of NOLs is suspended or otherwise limited, which could accelerate or permanently increase state liability.
Risks Related to Our Key Relationships
We rely on third-party laboratories to perform certain elements of our service offerings.
A limited but meaningful portion of our genomic analysis services is performed by third-party laboratories and service providers, while the remaining portion is performed in our laboratories. The third-party laboratories are subject to contractual obligations to perform these services for us, but are not otherwise under our control. We therefore do not control the capacity and quality control efforts of these third-party laboratories other than through our ability to enforce contractual obligations on volume and quality systems, and we have no control over such laboratories’ compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. We also have no control over the timeliness of such laboratories’ performance of their obligations to us, and the third-party laboratories that we have contracted with have in the past had, and occasionally continue to have, issues with delivering results to us or resolving issues with us within the time frames we expected or established in our contracts with them, which sometimes results in longer than expected turnaround times for, or negatively impacts the performance of, these tests and services. In the event of any adverse developments with these third-party laboratories or their ability to perform their obligations in a timely manner and in accordance with the standards that we and our customers expect, our ability to service customers may be delayed, interrupted or otherwise adversely affected, which could result in a loss
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of customers and harm to our reputation. Furthermore, when these issues arise, we have had to expend time, management’s attention and other resources to address and remedy such issues.
We may not have sufficient alternative backup if one or more of the third-party laboratories that we contract with are unable to satisfy their obligations to us with sufficient performance, quality and timeliness, including as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Any natural or other disaster, acts of war or terrorism, shipping embargoes, labor unrest, political instability, outbreaks of disease or similar events at one or more of these third-party laboratories’ facilities that causes a loss of capacity would heighten the risks that we face. Changes to or termination of agreements or inability to renew agreements with these third-party laboratories or enter into new agreements with other laboratories that are able to perform such portions of our service offerings could impair, delay or suspend our efforts to market and sell these services. In addition, certain third-party payors, including some state Medicaid payers, that we are under contract with may take the position that sending out testing to third-party laboratories and billing for such tests is contrary to the terms of its provider agreement and may refuse to pay us for the testing. If any of these events occur, our business, financial condition and results of operations could suffer. Further, some state laws impose anti-markup restrictions that prevent an entity from realizing a profit margin on outsourced testing. If we are unable to markup outsourced testing, our revenues and operating margins may suffer.
We rely on Mount Sinai, a related party, and its clinicians for a portion of our test volume in connection with our diagnostic solutions and for data programs, and we have entered into certain other arrangements with Mount Sinai.
We rely on Mount Sinai, which is a related party, and its clinicians for a portion of our test volumes in connection with our diagnostic solutions and for a significant portion of the de-identified clinical records in our databases. In addition, we sublease certain facilities from Mount Sinai, we provide certain research and data services to Mount Sinai, and we and Mount Sinai have entered into certain collaborative and commercial arrangements. Furthermore, we may in the future enter into other contracts for services or other engagements with Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai is primarily made up of not-for-profit hospitals, a medical and graduate school and employed clinicians. The charitable missions of the Mount Sinai entities include patient care, teaching and research. As such, the Mount Sinai entities are required to deal with us strictly on an arms-length, fair market value basis, and the interests of Mount Sinai may not necessarily be aligned with our interests or those of our other stockholders.
We are subject to risks as a result of our reliance on Mount Sinai, and if our transactions and relationship with Mount Sinai were to cease, our business could be disrupted and it could have a material adverse effect on our business, research, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, ISMMS is one of our significant stockholders. ISMMS has entered into a support agreement in connection with the Acquisition, whereby ISMMS has agreed to, among other things, be bound by certain transfer restrictions. Following the expiration of these transfer restrictions, ISMMS may choose to dispose of some or all of the shares of our common stock held by it. Any disposal of shares of common stock by ISMMS, or the perception that these sales could occur, could cause the market price of our stock or warrants to decline.
We rely on commercial courier delivery services to transport samples to our facilities in a timely and cost-efficient manner and if these delivery services are disrupted, our business could be harmed.
Our core business depends on our ability to quickly and reliably deliver test results to our customers. We typically receive blood, saliva, or tissue samples for analysis at our laboratory facilities within days of collection from the patient. Disruptions and errors in these delivery service and accessioning errors and breaches, whether due to error by the courier service, labor disruptions, bad weather, natural disaster, terrorist acts or threats, outbreaks of disease or for other reasons, could adversely affect specimen integrity, our ability to process or store samples in a timely manner and to service our customers, and ultimately our reputation and our business. In addition, if we are unable to continue to obtain expedited delivery services on commercially reasonable terms, our operating results may be adversely affected.
Risks Related to Legal, Regulatory and Compliance
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We may be subject to increased compliance risks as a result of our rapid growth, including our dependence on our sales, marketing and billing efforts.
We have had to expand our training and compliance efforts in line with our increasing reliance on personnel in our sales, marketing and billing functions, and our expansion of these functions in line with the overall growth in our business. We continue to monitor our personnel, but we have in the past experienced, and may in the future experience, situations in which employees fail to strictly adhere to our policies. In addition, sales and marketing activities in the healthcare space are subject to various rules and regulations. Moreover, our billing and marketing messaging can be complex and nuanced, and there may be errors or misunderstandings in our employees' communication of such messaging. Furthermore, we utilize text messaging, email, phone calls and other similar methods to communicate with patients who are existing or potential users of our products for various business purposes. These activities subject us to laws and regulations relating to communications with consumers, such as the CAN-SPAM Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, violations of which could subject us to claims by consumers, who may seek actual or statutory damages, which could be material in the aggregate. As we continue to scale up our sales and marketing efforts in line with the growth in our business, in particular our increased pace of product launches as well as further geographical expansion, we face an increased need to continuously monitor and improve our policies, processes and procedures to maintain compliance with a growing number and variety of laws and regulations, including with respect to consumer marketing. To the extent that there is any violation, whether actual, perceived or alleged, of our policies or applicable laws and regulations, we may incur additional training and compliance costs, may receive inquiries from third-party payors or other third parties, or be held liable or otherwise responsible for such acts of non-compliance. Any of the foregoing could adversely affect our cash flow and financial condition.
If we use hazardous materials in a manner that causes injury, we could be liable for resulting damages.
Our activities currently require the use of hazardous chemicals and biological material. We cannot eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or injury to employees or third parties from the use, storage, handling or disposal of these materials. In the event of contamination or injury, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources or any applicable insurance coverage we may have. Additionally, we are subject on an ongoing basis to federal, state and local laws and regulations governing the use, storage, handling and disposal of these materials and specified waste products. The cost of compliance with these laws and regulations may become significant, and our failure to comply may result in substantial fines or other consequences, and either could negatively affect our operating results.
We and our partners will have to maintain compliance with FDA requirements for research, products and services and failure to maintain compliance with FDA requirements may prevent or delay the marketing of our products and services.
Even if we have obtained marketing authorization, we will have to comply with the scope of that clearance, authorization or approval. Failure to secure and to comply with clearance, authorization or approval or the additional, extensive and ongoing post-marketing obligations imposed by the FDA or other regulatory requirements of other regulatory agencies could result in unanticipated compliance expenditures, a range of administrative enforcement actions, injunctions and criminal prosecution. FDA post-market obligations include, among other things, compliance with the FDA QSR, establishing registration and device listings, labeling requirements, reporting of certain adverse events and malfunctions, and reporting of certain recalls. In addition, circumstances may arise that cause us to recall equipment used in connection with our research, products and services. Such recalls could have an adverse effect on our ability to provide those products and services, which in turn would adversely affect our financial condition. our collaborators will also be required to maintain FDA clearance, authorization or approval for the products and services that we jointly develop. Any failure by us or our collaborators to maintain such clearance, authorization or approval could impair or cause a delay in our ability to profit from these collaborations.
Future changes in FDA enforcement discretion for LDTs could subject our operations to much more significant regulatory requirements.
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We currently offer a laboratory-develop test, or LDT, version of certain tests. The FDA has a policy of enforcement discretion with respect to, or LDTs, whereby the FDA does not actively enforce its medical device regulatory requirements for such tests. However, in October 2014, the FDA issued two draft guidance documents stating that the FDA intended to modify its policy of enforcement discretion with respect to LDTs in a risk-based manner consistent with the existing classification of medical devices. Although the FDA halted finalization of the guidance in November 2016 to allow for further public discussion on an appropriate oversight approach to LDTs and to give Congressional authorizing committees the opportunity to develop a legislative solution, it is unclear if Congress or the FDA will modify the current approach to the regulation of LDTs in a way that would subject our current or future services marketed as LDTs to the enforcement of FDA regulatory requirements. The FDA Commissioner and the Director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, or CDRH, have expressed significant concerns regarding disparities between some LDTs and in vitro diagnostics that have been reviewed, cleared, authorized or approved by the FDA. If the FDA were to determine that certain tests offered by us as LDTs are not within the policy for LDTs for any reason, including new rules, policies or guidance, or due to changes in statute, our tests may become subject to extensive FDA requirements or our business may otherwise be adversely affected. If the FDA were to disagree with our LDT status or modify our approach to regulating LDTs, we could experience reduced revenue or increased costs, which could adversely affect our business, prospects, results of operations and financial condition. If required, the regulatory marketing authorization process required to bring our current or future LDTs into compliance may involve, among other things, successfully completing additional clinical validations and submitting to and obtaining clearance from the FDA for a premarket clearance (510(k)) submission or authorization for a de novo or approval of a PMA. Furthermore, pending legislative proposals, if passed, such as the VALID Act, could create new or different regulatory and compliance burdens on us and could have a negative effect on our ability to keep products on the market or develop new products, which could have a material effect on our business. In the event that the FDA requires marketing authorization of our LDTs in the future, the FDA may not ultimately grant any clearance, authorization or approval requested by us in a timely manner, or at all. In addition, if the FDA inspects our laboratory in relation to the marketing of any FDA-authorized test, any enforcement action the FDA takes might not be limited to the FDA-authorized test carried by us and could encompass our other testing services.
Recently, the FDA has also taken a more active role in certain diagnostic areas, including the oversight of pharmacogenetic, or PGx, and COVID-19 tests. In 2019, the FDA contacted several laboratories to demand changes to PGx test reports and marketing materials. In February 2020, the FDA issued a statement indicating that it continues to have concerns about the claims that certain clinical laboratories make with respect to their PGx tests, and published tables that list PGx associations for which the FDA has determined that the data support therapeutic management recommendations, a potential impact on safety or response, or a potential impact on pharmacokinetic properties only, respectively. To date, however, the FDA has not provided any general guidance on the types of claims or other characteristics that will cause a PGx test to fall outside FDA’s enforcement discretion. As such, the extent to which the FDA will allow any laboratory to offer PGx tests in their current form without meeting FDA regulatory requirements for medical devices is unclear at this time.
For each product and service we are developing that may require FDA premarket review prior to marketing, the FDA may not grant clearance, authorization or premarket approval and failure to obtain necessary approvals for our future products and services would adversely affect our ability to grow our business.
Before we begin to manufacture, label and market additional clinical diagnostic products for commercial diagnostic use in the United States, we may be required to obtain either clearance, marketing authorization or approval from the FDA, unless an exemption applies or the FDA exercises its enforcement discretion and refrains from enforcing its requirements. For example, the FDA currently has a policy of refraining from enforcing its medical device requirements with respect to LDTs, which the FDA considers to be a type of in vitro diagnostic test that is designed, manufactured and used within a single properly licensed laboratory.
The process of obtaining PMA is much more rigorous, costly, lengthy and uncertain than the 510(k) clearance process. In the PMA approval process, the FDA must determine that a proposed device is safe and effective for its intended use based, in part, on extensive data, including, but not limited to, technical, preclinical, clinical trial, manufacturing and labeling data. Conversely, in the 510(k) clearance process, the FDA must determine that a
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proposed device is “substantially equivalent” to a legally marketed “predicate” device in order for the product to be cleared for marketing. To be “substantially equivalent,” the proposed device must have the same intended use as the predicate device, and either have the same technological characteristics or if it has different technological characteristics as the predicate device, the proposed device must be as safe and effective as, and not raise different questions of safety or effectiveness than, the predicate device. Clinical data is sometimes required to support substantial equivalence. For lower-risk devices that would otherwise automatically be placed into Class III, which require a PMA because no predicate device is available and the devices do not fall within an existing 510(k)-exempt classification, an applicant may submit a de novo request to down classify the device into Class II or Class I, which would not require a PMA. In the de novo process, the FDA must determine that general and special controls are sufficient to provide reasonable assurance of the safety and effectiveness of a device, which is low to moderate risk and has no predicate. In other words, the applicant must justify the “down-classification” to Class I or II for a new product type that would otherwise automatically be placed into Class III, but is lower risk. Clinical data may be required. For laboratory tests for which FDA clearance, authorization or approval is required, the FDA may also require data to support analytical and clinical validity.
The 510(k), de novo and PMA processes can be expensive and lengthy and require the payment of significant fees, unless an exemption applies. The FDA’s 510(k) clearance pathway usually takes from three to nine months from submission, but it can take longer for a novel type of product. The FDA’s de novo classification pathway usually takes from six to 12 months, but for many applicants can take up to 18 months or more.
The process of obtaining a PMA generally takes from one to three years, or even longer, from the time the PMA is submitted to the FDA until an approval is obtained. Any delay or failure to obtain necessary regulatory clearances, authorizations or approvals would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and prospects.
The FDA can delay, limit or deny clearance, authorization or approval of a device for many reasons, including:
•the inability to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FDA that the products are safe or effective for their intended uses;
•the disagreement of the FDA with the design, conduct or implementation of the clinical trials or the analysis or interpretation of data from preclinical studies, analytical studies or clinical trials;
•serious and unexpected adverse device effects experienced by participants in clinical trials;
•the data from preclinical studies, analytical studies and clinical trials may be insufficient to support clearance, authorization or approval, where required;
•the inability to demonstrate that the clinical and other benefits of the device outweigh the risks;
•an advisory committee, if convened by the FDA, may recommend against approval of a PMA or other application or may recommend that the FDA require, as a condition of approval, additional preclinical studies or clinical trials, limitations on approved labeling or distribution and use restrictions, or even if an advisory committee makes a favorable recommendation, the FDA may still not approve the product;
•the FDA may identify deficiencies in our marketing application;
•the FDA may identify deficiencies in our or our collaborators’ manufacturing processes, facilities or analytical methods;
•the potential for policies or regulations of the FDA or applicable foreign regulatory bodies to change significantly in a manner rendering clinical data or regulatory filings insufficient for clearance, authorization or approval; and
•the FDA or foreign regulatory authorities may audit clinical trial data and conclude that the data is not sufficiently reliable to support a PMA.
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There are numerous FDA personnel assigned to review different aspects of marketing submissions, which can present uncertainties based on their ability to exercise judgment and discretion during the review process. During the course of review, the FDA may request or require additional data and information, and the development and provision of these data and information may be time-consuming and expensive. The process of obtaining regulatory clearances, authorizations or approvals to market a medical device can be costly and time-consuming, and we may not be able to obtain these clearances, authorizations or approvals on a timely basis, or at all for our products in development. If we are unable to obtain clearance, authorization or approval for any products for which it plans to seek clearance, authorization or approval, our business may be harmed.
Modifications to our products with FDA marketing authorization may require new FDA clearances, authorizations or approvals, or may require it to cease marketing or recall the modified clinical diagnostic products or future clinical products until clearances are obtained.
Any modification to a 510(k)-cleared device that significantly affects its safety or effectiveness, or that constitutes a major change in its intended use, could require a new 510(k) clearance, a new de novo authorization or approval of a PMA. The FDA requires every manufacturer to make this determination in the first instance, but the FDA may review any manufacturer’s decision. The FDA may not agree with our decisions regarding whether new clearances, authorizations or approvals are necessary.
For any product approved pursuant to a PMA, we would be required to seek supplemental approval for many types of modifications to the approved product. The FDA requires manufacturers in the first instance to determine whether a PMA supplement or other regulatory filing is needed or whether the change may be reported via the PMA Annual Report, but may disagree with a company’s assessment.
If the FDA disagrees with our determination, which it may not review until we submit an annual report or the FDA conducts an inspection or other inquiry, and requires us to seek new clearances, authorizations or approvals for modifications to our previously cleared, authorized or approved clinical diagnostic products for which we have concluded new clearances, authorizations or approvals are unnecessary, we may be required to cease marketing or distribution of these clinical diagnostic products or to recall the modified products until we obtain clearance, authorization or approval. We may also be subject to enforcement action, including, among other things, significant regulatory fines or penalties.
In addition, for example, we plan to match our test reports for certain indications to identified mutations with FDA-approved targeted therapies or relevant clinical trials of targeted therapies. If a patient or physician who orders a test using one of our products is unable to obtain, or be reimbursed for the use of, targeted therapies because they are not indicated in the FDA-approved label for treatment, the patient is unable to enroll in an identified clinical trial due to the enrollment criteria of the trial, or some other reason, the ordering physician may conclude the test report does not contain actionable information. If physicians do not believe our products consistently generate actionable information about their patients’ disease or condition, they may be less likely to use our products.
Furthermore, we cannot provide assurance that customers will always use these products in the manner in which they are intended. Any intentional or unintentional misuse of these products by customers could lead to substantial civil and criminal monetary and non-monetary penalties, and could result in significant legal and investigatory fees.
Our business is subject to various complex laws and regulations applicable to clinical diagnostics. We could be subject to significant fines and penalties if we or our partners fail to comply with these laws and regulations.
As a provider of clinical diagnostic products and services, we and our partners are subject to extensive and frequently changing federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations governing various aspects of our business.
In particular, the clinical laboratory and healthcare industry is subject to significant governmental certification and licensing regulations, as well as federal, state and foreign laws regarding:
•test ordering and billing practices;
•marketing, sales and pricing practices;
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•health information privacy and security, including HIPAA and comparable state laws;
•insurance;
•anti-markup legislation;
•fraud and abuse; and
•consumer protection.
We are also required to comply with FDA regulations, including with respect to our labeling and promotion activities. In addition, advertising and marketing of our clinical products are subject to regulation by the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, and advertising of laboratory services is regulated by certain state laws. Violation of any FDA requirement could result in enforcement actions, such as seizures, injunctions, civil penalties and criminal prosecutions, and violation of any FTC or state law requirement could result in injunctions and other remedies, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. Most states also have similar regulatory and enforcement authority for devices. Additionally, most foreign countries have authorities comparable to the FDA and processes for obtaining marketing approvals. Obtaining and maintaining these approvals, and complying with all laws and regulations, may subject us to similar risks and delays as those we could experience under FDA, FTC and state regulation. We incur various costs in complying and overseeing compliance with these laws and regulations. The growth of our business and sales organization, the acquisition of additional businesses, such as the pending Acquisition of GeneDx, or products and services and our expansion outside of the U.S. may increase the potential of violating these laws, regulations or our internal policies and procedures.
Healthcare policy has been a subject of extensive discussion in the executive and legislative branches of the federal and many state governments and healthcare laws and regulations are subject to change. Development of the existing commercialization strategy for our tests and planned development of products in our pipeline has been based on existing healthcare policies. We cannot predict what additional changes, if any, will be proposed or adopted or the effect that such proposals or adoption may have on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we or our partners, fail to comply with these laws and regulations, it could incur significant fines and penalties and our reputation and prospects could suffer. Additionally, any such partners could be forced to cease offering our products and services in certain jurisdictions, which could materially disrupt our business. An adverse outcome could include us being required to pay treble damages, incur civil and criminal penalties, paying attorneys’ fees, entering into a corporate integrity agreement, being excluded from participation in government healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and other adverse actions that could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Compliance with the HIPAA security, privacy and breach notification regulations may increase our costs.
The HIPAA privacy, security and breach notification regulations, including the expanded requirements under HITECH, establish comprehensive federal standards with respect to the uses and disclosures of protected health information, or PHI, by health plans, healthcare providers and healthcare clearinghouses, in addition to setting standards to protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of PHI. The regulations establish a complex regulatory framework on a variety of subjects, including:
•the circumstances under which uses and disclosures of PHI are permitted or required without a specific authorization by the patient, including but not limited to treatment purposes, activities to obtain payments for our services, and our healthcare operations activities;
•a patient’s rights to access, amend and receive an accounting of certain disclosures of PHI;
•requirements to notify individuals if there is a breach of their PHI;
•the contents of notices of privacy practices for PHI;
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•administrative, technical and physical safeguards required of entities that use or receive PHI;
•deidentification of PHI; and
•the protection of computing systems maintaining electronic PHI.
We have implemented practices intended to meet the requirements of the HIPAA privacy, security and breach notification regulations, as required by law. We are required to comply with federal privacy, security and breach notification regulations as well as varying state privacy, security and breach notification laws and regulations, which may be more stringent than federal HIPAA requirements. In addition, for healthcare data transfers from other countries relating to citizens and/or residents of those countries, we must comply with the laws of those countries. The federal privacy regulations under HIPAA restrict our ability to use or disclose patient identifiable data, without patient authorization, for purposes other than payment, treatment, healthcare operations and certain other specified disclosures such as public health and governmental oversight of the healthcare industry.
HIPAA provides for significant fines and other penalties for wrongful use or disclosure of PHI, including potential civil and criminal fines and penalties. Computer networks are always vulnerable to breach and unauthorized persons may in the future be able to exploit weaknesses in the security systems of our computer networks and gain access to PHI. Additionally, we share PHI with third-parties who are legally obligated to safeguard and maintain the confidentiality of PHI. Unauthorized persons may be able to gain access to PHI stored in such third-parties computer networks. Any wrongful use or disclosure of PHI by us or such third-parties, including disclosure due to data theft or unauthorized access to us or our third-parties computer networks, could subject it to fines or penalties that could adversely affect our business and results of operations. Although the HIPAA statute and regulations do not expressly provide for a private right of damages, we could also be liable for damages under state laws to private parties for the wrongful use or disclosure of confidential health information or other private personal information.
Some of our activities may subject it to risks under federal and state laws prohibiting ‘kickbacks’ and false or fraudulent claims.
In addition to FDA marketing and promotion restrictions, several other types of state and federal healthcare fraud and abuse laws have been applied in recent years to restrict certain marketing practices in the healthcare product and service industry and to regulate billing practices and financial relationships with healthcare providers, hospitals and other healthcare providers. These laws include a federal law commonly known as the Medicare/Medicaid anti-kickback law, and several similar state laws, which prohibit payments intended to induce healthcare providers or others either to refer patients or to acquire or arrange for or recommend the acquisition of healthcare products or services. While the federal law applies only to referrals, products or services for which payment may be made by a federal healthcare program, state laws often apply regardless of whether federal funds may be involved. These laws constrain the sales, marketing and other promotional activities of manufacturers of medical devices and providers of laboratory services by limiting the kinds of financial arrangements, including sales programs, that may be used with hospitals, healthcare providers, laboratories and other potential purchasers or prescribers of medical devices and laboratory services. Other federal and state laws generally prohibit individuals or entities from knowingly presenting, or causing to be presented, claims for payment from Medicare, Medicaid, or other third-party payors that are false or fraudulent, or are for items or services that were not provided as claimed.
In 2018, Congress passed the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act, or EKRA, as part of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act. Similar to the Medicare/Medicaid anti-kickback law, EKRA imposes criminal penalties for knowing or willful payment or offer, or solicitation or receipt, of any remuneration, whether directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, in exchange for the referral or inducement of laboratory testing (among other healthcare services) unless a specific exception applies. However, unlike the Medicare/Medicaid anti-kickback law, EKRA is not limited to services covered by federal or state healthcare programs but applies more broadly to services covered by “healthcare benefit programs,” including commercial insurers. As currently drafted, EKRA potentially expands the universe of arrangements that could be subject to government enforcement under federal fraud and abuse laws. In addition, while the Medicare/Medicaid anti-kickback law includes certain exceptions that are widely relied upon in the
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healthcare industry, including compensating employees on a percentage basis, not all of those same exceptions apply under EKRA. EKRA expressly does not protect employee compensation that varies by the number of individuals referred to a laboratory, the number of tests performed by a laboratory, or the amount billed to or received from a health benefit program from individuals referred to a laboratory. Because EKRA is a relatively new law, there is no agency guidance and only one court has addressed the application of EKRA. That case was decided by the United States District Court of Hawaii and involved a lawsuit between a laboratory and an employee. The Court ruled that the commission-based compensation provisions of the laboratory employee’s contract did not violate EKRA. Although this may be a favorable interpretation of EKRA for laboratory compensation structures, we cannot be assured that courts in our jurisdiction will reach the same conclusion or that the decision will not be overturned if there is an appeal. Because EKRA is a relatively new law, there is no agency guidance or court precedent to indicate how and to what extent it will be applied and enforced. We cannot assure you that our relationships with healthcare providers, hospitals, customers, our own sales representatives, or any other party will not be subject to scrutiny or will survive regulatory challenge under EKRA.
Additionally, to avoid liability under federal false claims laws, we or our partners must carefully and accurately code claims for reimbursement, proactively monitor the accuracy and appropriateness of claims and payments received, diligently investigate any credible information indicating that we or our partners may have received an overpayment, and promptly return any overpayments. Medicare payments are subject to audit, including through the Comprehensive Error Rate Testing, or CERT, program, and payments may be recouped by CMS if it is determined that they were improperly made. Currently, a small percentage of our revenues are generated by payments from Medicare. The federal anti-kickback statute and certain state-level false claims laws prescribe civil and criminal penalties (including fines) for noncompliance that can be substantial. In addition, various states have enacted false claim laws analogous to the federal laws that apply where a claim is submitted to any third-party payor and not only a governmental payer program. While we continually strive to comply with these complex requirements, interpretations of the applicability of these laws to marketing and billing practices are constantly evolving and even an unsuccessful challenge could cause adverse publicity and be costly to respond to, and thus could harm our business and prospects. Our failure to comply with applicable laws could result in various adverse consequences that could have a material adverse effect upon our business, including the exclusion of our products and services from government programs and the imposition of civil or criminal sanctions.
Our business could be harmed by the loss, suspension or other restriction on a license, certification or accreditation, or by the imposition of a fine or penalties, under CLIA, our implementing regulations or other state, federal and foreign laws and regulations affecting licensure or certification, or by future changes in these laws or regulations.
Federal law requires virtually all clinical laboratories to comply with CLIA, which generally involves becoming certified by the federal and state government for the testing that will be performed and complying with various operational, personnel, facilities administration, quality and proficiency testing requirements intended to ensure that testing services are accurate and reliable. CLIA certification is also a prerequisite to be eligible to bill state and federal healthcare programs, as well as many private third-party payors, for laboratory research and clinical diagnostic testing services. For example, as a condition of our CLIA certification, a laboratory may be subject to survey and inspection every other year, additional random inspections and surprise inspections based on complaints received by state or federal regulators. The biennial survey and inspection is conducted by CMS, a CMS agent or, if the laboratory holds a CLIA certificate of accreditation, a CMS-approved accreditation organization, such as CAP. Sanctions for failure to comply with CLIA requirements, including proficiency testing violations, may include suspension, revocation or limitation of a laboratory’s CLIA certificate, which is necessary to conduct business, as well as the imposition of significant civil, administrative or criminal sanctions against the lab, its owners and other individuals. In addition, we are subject to regulation under certain state laws and regulations governing laboratory licensure. Some states have enacted laboratory licensure and compliance laws that are more stringent than CLIA. Changes in state licensure laws that affect our ability to offer and provide research and diagnostic products and services across state or foreign country lines could materially and adversely affect our business. In addition, state and foreign requirements for laboratory certification may be costly or difficult to meet and could affect our ability to receive specimens from certain states or foreign countries.
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Any sanction imposed under CLIA, its implementing regulations or state or foreign laws or regulations governing licensure, or our failure to renew a CLIA certificate, a state or foreign license or accreditation, could have a material adverse effect on our business.
We may never obtain approval in the EU or in any other foreign country for any of our products or services and, even if we do, we or our partners and collaborators may never be able to commercialize them in another jurisdiction, which would limit our ability to realize their full market potential.
In order to eventually market any of our current or future products and services in any particular foreign jurisdiction, we must establish compliance with numerous and varying regulatory requirements on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis regarding quality, safety, performance, privacy and efficacy. In addition, clinical trials or clinical investigations conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries, and regulatory clearance, authorization or approval in one country does not guarantee regulatory clearance, authorization or approval in any other country. Approval processes vary among countries and can involve additional product testing and validation and additional administrative review periods.
Seeking foreign regulatory clearance, authorization or approval could result in difficulties and costs for us and our collaborators and require additional preclinical studies, clinical trials or clinical investigations which could be costly and time-consuming. Regulatory requirements and ethical approval obligations can vary widely from country to country and could delay or prevent the introduction of our products and services in those countries. The foreign regulatory clearance, authorization or approval process involves all of the risks and uncertainties associated with FDA clearance, authorization or approval. We currently have limited experience in obtaining regulatory clearance, authorization or approval in international markets. If we or our collaborators fail to comply with regulatory requirements in international markets or to obtain and maintain required regulatory clearances, authorizations or approvals in international markets, or if those approvals are delayed, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of our products and services will be unrealized.
Complying with numerous statutes and regulations pertaining to our business is an expensive and time-consuming process, and any failure to comply could result in substantial penalties.
Our operations are subject to other extensive federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations, all of which are subject to change. These laws and regulations currently include, among others:
•HIPAA, which establishes comprehensive federal standards with respect to the privacy and security of protected health information and requirements for the use of certain standardized electronic transactions;
•amendments to HIPAA under HITECH, which strengthen and expand HIPAA privacy and security compliance requirements, increase penalties for violators and expand vicarious liability, extend enforcement authority to state attorneys general, and impose requirements for breach notification;
•the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which imposes strict privacy and security requirements on controllers and processors of European personal data, including enhanced protections for “special categories” of personal data, including sensitive information such as health and genetic information of data subjects;
•the CCPA, which, among other things, regulates how subject businesses may collect, use, disclose and/or sell the personal information of consumers who reside in California, affords rights to consumers that they may exercise against businesses that collect their information, and requires implementation of reasonable security measures to safeguard personal information of California consumers;
•the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting or receiving remuneration, directly or indirectly, overtly or covertly, in cash or in kind, to induce or in return for the referral of an individual, for the furnishing of or arrangement for the furnishing of any item or service for which payment may be made in whole or in part by a federal healthcare program, or the purchasing, leasing, ordering, arranging for, or recommend purchasing, leasing or ordering, any good,
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facility, item or service for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under a federal healthcare program;
•EKRA, which prohibits payments for referrals to recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, and laboratories and reaches beyond federal health care programs, to include private insurance;
•the federal physician self-referral law, known as the Stark Law, which prohibits a physician from making a referral to an entity for certain designated health services covered by the Medicare program, including laboratory and pathology services, if the physician or an immediate family member has a financial relationship with the entity unless an exception applies, and prohibits an entity from billing for designated health services furnished pursuant to a prohibited referral;
•the federal false claims law, which imposes liability on any person or entity that, among other things, knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment to the federal government;
•the federal Civil Monetary Penalties Law, which prohibits, among other things, the offering or transfer of remuneration to a Medicare or state healthcare program beneficiary if the person knows or should know it is likely to influence the beneficiary’s selection of a particular provider, practitioner or supplier of services reimbursable by Medicare or a state healthcare program, unless an exception applies;
•the HIPAA fraud and abuse provisions, which create new federal criminal statutes that prohibit, among other things, defrauding health care benefit programs, willfully obstructing a criminal investigation of a healthcare offense and falsifying or concealing a material fact or making any materially false statements in connection with the payment for healthcare benefits, items or services;
•other federal and state fraud and abuse laws, such as anti-kickback laws, prohibitions on self-referral, fee-splitting restrictions, insurance fraud laws, anti-markup laws, prohibitions on the provision of tests at no or discounted cost to induce physician or patient adoption, and false claims acts, which may extend to services reimbursable by any third-party payer, including private insurers;
•the 21st Century Cures Act information blocking prohibition, which prohibits covered actors from engaging in certain practices that are likely to interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information;
•the Physician Payments Sunshine Act and similar state laws that require reporting of certain payments and other transfers of value made by applicable manufacturers, directly or indirectly, to or on behalf of covered recipients including physicians (defined to include doctors, dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors) and teaching hospitals as well as ownership and investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members.
•Beginning in 2022, applicable manufacturers also will be required to report such information regarding its relationships with physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified registered nurse anesthetists and certified nurse midwives during the previous year;
•state laws that limit or prohibit the provision of certain payments and other transfers of value to certain covered healthcare providers;
•the prohibition on reassignment of Medicare claims, which, subject to certain exceptions, precludes the reassignment of Medicare claims to any other party;
•state laws that prohibit other specified practices, such as billing clinicians for testing that they order; waiving coinsurance, copayments, deductibles and other amounts owed by patients; billing a state Medicaid program at a price that is higher than what is charged to one or more other payers;
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•similar foreign laws and regulations that may apply to us in the countries in which we operate or may operate in the future; and
•laws that relate to maintaining accurate information and control over activities that may fall within the purview of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, its books and records provisions, or anti-bribery provisions.
We have adopted policies and procedures designed to comply with these laws and regulations. In the ordinary course of our business, we conduct internal reviews of our compliance with these laws. Our compliance may also be subject to governmental review. The growth of our business and our expansion outside of the United States may increase the potential of violating these laws or our internal policies and procedures. The risk of us being found in violation of these or other laws and regulations is further increased by the fact that many have not been fully interpreted by the regulatory authorities or the courts, and their provisions are open to a variety of interpretations. Any action brought against us for violation of these or other laws or regulations, even if we successfully defend against it, could cause us to incur significant legal expenses and divert our management’s attention from the operation of our business. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws and regulations, we may be subject to any applicable penalty associated with the violation, including significant administrative, civil and criminal penalties, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in Federal healthcare programs, refunding of payments received by us and curtailment or cessation of our operations, which may impact existing contracts with key payors, collaborators, health systems, and commercial partners. Any of the foregoing consequences could seriously harm our business and our financial results.
We face uncertainty related to healthcare reform, pricing, coverage and reimbursement, which could reduce our revenue.
Healthcare reform laws, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or ACA, and the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, or PAMA, are significantly affecting the U.S. healthcare and medical services industry. Existing legislation, and possible future legal and regulatory changes, including potential repeal or modification of the ACA, elimination of penalties regarding the individual mandate for coverage, or approval of health plans that allow lower levels of coverage for preventive services, could materially change the structure and finances of the health insurance system and the methodology for reimbursing medical services, drugs and devices, including our current and future products and services. The ACA has also been the subject of various legal challenges and in December 2018, a federal district court in Texas found that the ACA’s “individual mandate” was unconstitutional such that the whole of the ACA is invalid. The decision was appealed, and in December 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed certain portions of the district court’s decision but remanded to the district court to determine if any portions of the ACA may still be valid. If the plaintiffs in this case, or in any other case challenging the ACA, are ultimately successful, insurance coverage for our tests could be materially and adversely affected. Any change in reimbursement policy could result in a change in patient cost-sharing, which could adversely affect a provider’s willingness to prescribe and patient’s willingness and ability to use our tests and any other product or service we may develop. Healthcare reforms, which may intend to reduce healthcare costs, may have the effect of discouraging third-party payors from covering certain kinds of medical products and services, particularly newly developed technologies, or other products or tests we may develop in the future. We cannot predict whether future healthcare reform initiatives will be implemented at the federal or state level or the effect any such future legislation or regulation will have on it. The taxes imposed by new legislation, cost reduction measures and the expansion in the government’s role in the U.S. healthcare industry may result in decreased profits to us, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
PAMA presents significant uncertainty for future CMS reimbursement rates for our tests. Because Medicare currently covers a significant number of patients, any reduction in the CMS reimbursement rate for our tests would negatively affect our revenues and our business prospects. Under PAMA, CMS reimbursement rates for clinical diagnostic laboratory tests are updated every three years, or annually for clinical laboratory tests that are considered "advanced diagnostic laboratory tests". The CMS reimbursement rates for clinical diagnostic laboratory tests are updated based on the volume-weighted median of private payer rates for each clinical diagnostic laboratory test based on data submitted by certain applicable laboratories. Further, laboratories that fail to report or erroneously report required payment information may be subject to substantial civil money penalties. There can be no assurance
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under PAMA that adequate CMS reimbursement rates will continue to be assigned to our tests. Congress could modify or repeal PAMA in the future or CMS could modify regulations under PAMA, and any such action could have the effect of reducing the CMS reimbursement rate for our tests. Further, it is possible that Medicare or other federal payers that provide reimbursement for our tests may suspend, revoke or discontinue coverage at any time, may require co-payments from patients, or may reduce the reimbursement rates payable to us. Any such action could have a negative impact on our revenues.
Coverage of our screening products that we may develop may also depend, in whole or in part, on whether payers determine, or courts and/or regulatory authorities determine, coverage is required under applicable federal or state laws mandating coverage of certain cancer screening services.
Several states have laws mandating coverage for preventive services, such as certain cancer screening services, applicable to certain health insurers. However, not all of these laws apply to our current tests and not all of these laws presently mandate coverage for patients within the certain age ranges. We and payers may disagree about how these mandates apply to our tests and we may find the mandates difficult to enforce. Further, if the ACA is repealed, replaced or overturned, or even if it is not, states may decide to modify their laws, which may include repeal of those coverage mandates that we believe currently apply to our oncology tests.
Outside of the U.S., we would largely depend on public or government-controlled payers for coverage of our oncology tests. As compared to many more routine diagnostic tests, our oncology tests are more complicated, expensive and are performed in a central, specialized lab. In order to accommodate the unique characteristics of our diagnostic products, public payers in certain non-U.S. markets have designed reimbursement frameworks specifically for each test type. These payers could decide to modify or discontinue these special frameworks, potentially leading to lower reimbursement prices or the impossibility of providing the test in the market. These changes could also impose additional administrative burdens on us, if it were to ever sell our tests in foreign jurisdictions, including complex public tendering procedures, or on ordering physicians, which could adversely affect the number of payers covering the test or the number of orders placed. Public payers could condition reimbursement of our tests upon performance of our tests locally or, even in laboratories owned or operated by the payers. Any such change would adversely affect our ability to continue to serve those patients through our labs. We may develop future oncologic tests that could be performed locally by laboratory partners and in hospitals around the world, however those developments efforts may be unsuccessful and any such tests that we may develop may not be approved by regulators or accepted by payers or patients.
Product and professional liability suits against us could result in expensive and time-consuming litigation, payment of substantial damages and increases in our insurance rates.
The sale and use of our solutions, products and services could lead to product or professional liability claims, including class action lawsuits. We may also be subject to liability for errors in the test results including health information it provides to healthcare providers or patients or for a misunderstanding of, or inappropriate reliance upon, the information it provides. Claims could also arise out of clinical studies we may conduct or any of our other activities. A product or professional liability claim could result in substantial damages, be costly and time consuming to defend, and cause material harm to our business, reputation or financial condition. We cannot assure you that our liability insurance would protect our assets from the financial impact of defending a product or professional liability claim. Any claim brought against us, with or without merit, could increase our liability insurance rates or prevent it from securing insurance coverage in the future.
Errors, defects, or mistakes in our products or services, and operations could harm our reputation, decrease market acceptance of our products or services.
We are creating new products and services, many of which are initially based on largely untested technologies. As all of our products and services progress, we or others may determine that it made product or service-level scientific or technological mistakes. The diagnostic and testing processes utilize a number of complex and sophisticated molecular, biochemical, informatics, and mechanical processes, many of which are highly sensitive to external factors. An operational or technological failure in one of these complex processes or fluctuations in external factors may result in less efficient processing or variation between testing runs. Refinements to our processes may
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initially result in unanticipated issues that reduce the efficiency or increase variability. In particular, sequencing, which is a key component of these processes, could be inefficient with higher than expected variability thereby increasing total sequencing costs and reducing the number of samples we can process in a given time period. Therefore, inefficient or variable processes can cause variability in our operating results and damage our reputation.
In addition, our laboratory operations could result in any number of errors or defects. Our quality assurance system may fail to prevent it from inadvertent problems with samples, sample quality, lab processes including sequencing, software, data upload or analysis, raw materials, reagent manufacturing, assay quality or design, or other components or processes. In addition, our assays may have quality or design errors, and we may have inadequate procedures or instrumentation to process samples, assemble our proprietary primer mixes and commercial materials, upload and analyze data, or otherwise conduct our laboratory operations. If we provide products or services with undiscovered errors to our customers, our clinical diagnostics may falsely indicate a patient has a disease or genetic variant, fail to assess a patient’s risk of getting a disease or having a child with a disease, or fail to detect disease or variant in a patient who requires or could benefit from treatment or intervention. We believe our customers are likely to be particularly sensitive to product and service defects, errors and delays, including if our products and services fail to indicate the presence of residual disease with high accuracy from clinical specimens or if we fail to list or inaccurately indicate the presence or absence of disease in our test report or analysis. In drug discovery, such errors may interfere with our collaborators’ clinical studies or result in adverse safety or efficacy profiles for their products in development. This may harm our customers’ businesses and may cause it to incur significant costs, divert the attention of key personnel, encourage regulatory enforcement action against it, create a significant customer relations problem for us and cause our reputation to suffer. We may also be subject to warranty and liability claims for damages related to errors or defects in our products or services. Any of these developments could harm our business and operating results.
We are subject to increasingly complex taxation rules and practices, which may affect how we conduct our business and our results of operations.
As our business grows, we are required to comply with increasingly complex taxation rules and practices. We are subject to tax in multiple U.S. tax jurisdictions and may be subject to foreign tax jurisdictions in the future. The development of our tax strategies requires additional expertise and may impact how we conduct our business. Our future effective tax rates could be unfavorably affected by changes in, or interpretations of, tax rules and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we do business or by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities. Furthermore, we provide for certain tax liabilities that involve significant judgment. We are and may be subject to the examination of our tax returns by federal, state and foreign tax authorities. If our tax strategies are ineffective or it is not in compliance with domestic and international tax laws, as applicable, our financial position, operating results and cash flows could be adversely affected.
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets
Our inability to effectively protect our proprietary products, processes, and technologies, including the confidentiality of our trade secrets, could harm our competitive position.
We currently rely upon trade secret protection and copyright, as well as non-disclosure agreements and invention assignment agreements with our employees, consultants and third parties, and to a limited extent patent protection, to protect our confidential and proprietary information. Although our competitors have utilized and are expected to continue utilizing similar methods and have aggregated and are expected to continue to aggregate similar databases of genetic testing information, our success will depend upon our ability to develop proprietary methods and databases and to defend any advantages afforded by our methods and databases relative to our competitors. If we do not protect our intellectual property adequately, competitors may be able to use our methods and databases and thereby erode any competitive advantages we may have.
We will be able to protect our proprietary rights from unauthorized use by third parties only to the extent that our proprietary technologies are covered by valid and enforceable patents or are effectively maintained as trade secrets. In this regard, we have applied, and we intend to continue applying, for patents covering such aspects of our technologies as it deems appropriate. However, we expect that potential patent coverage we may obtain will not be
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sufficient to prevent substantial competition. In this regard, we believe it is probable that others will independently develop similar or alternative technologies or design around those technologies for which we may obtain patent protection. In addition, any patent applications we file may be challenged and may not result in issued patents or may be invalidated or narrowed in scope after they are issued. Questions as to inventorship or ownership may also arise. Any finding that our patents or applications are unenforceable could harm our ability to prevent others from practicing the related technology, and a finding that others have inventorship or ownership rights to our patents and applications could require us to obtain certain rights to practice related technologies, which may not be available on favorable terms, if at all. If we initiate lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents, or litigate against third-party claims, which would be expensive, and we lose, we may lose some of our intellectual property rights. Furthermore, these lawsuits may divert the attention of our management and technical personnel.
We expect to rely substantially upon trade secrets and proprietary know-how protection for our confidential and proprietary information, and we have taken security measures to protect this information. These measures, however, may not provide adequate protection for our trade secrets, know-how or other confidential information. Among other things, we seek to protect our trade secrets and confidential information by entering into confidentiality agreements with employees and consultants. There can be no assurance that any confidentiality agreements that we have with our employees and consultants will provide meaningful protection for our trade secrets and confidential information or will provide adequate remedies in the event of unauthorized use or disclosure of such information. Accordingly, there also can be no assurance that our trade secrets will not otherwise become known or be independently developed by competitors. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret can be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, trade secrets may be independently developed by others in a manner that could prevent legal recourse by us. If any of our confidential or proprietary information, such as our trade secrets, were to be disclosed or misappropriated, or if any such information was independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position could be harmed.
Any inability to effectively protect our proprietary technologies under certain jurisdictions and legal regimes could harm our competitive position.
Our success and ability to compete in certain jurisdictions and under certain legal regimes depend to a large extent on our ability to develop proprietary products and technologies and to maintain adequate protection of our intellectual property in the United States and other countries; this becomes increasingly important as we expand our operations and enter into strategic collaborations with partners to develop and commercialize products. The laws of some foreign countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and we may encounter difficulties in establishing and enforcing its proprietary rights outside of the United States. In addition, the proprietary positions of companies developing and commercializing tools for molecular diagnostics, including our own, generally are uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions. This uncertainty may materially affect our ability to defend or obtain patents or to address the patents and patent applications owned or controlled by our collaborators and licensors.
Any of these factors could adversely affect our ability to obtain commercially relevant or competitively advantageous patent protection for our products.
If patent regulations or standards are modified, such changes could have a negative impact on our business.
From time to time, the U.S. Supreme Court, other federal courts, the U.S. Congress or the USPTO may change the standards of patentability and validity of patents within the cancer screening and diagnostics space, and any such changes could have a negative impact on our business.
There have been several cases involving “gene patents” and diagnostic claims that have been considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. In March 2012, the Supreme Court in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc, found a patented diagnostic method claim unpatentable because the relationship between a metabolite concentration and optimized dosage was a patent-ineligible “law of nature.” In June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in ACLU v. Myriad Genetics, Inc, that an isolated genomic DNA sequence is not patent eligible while cDNA is eligible. The Prometheus and Myriad decisions, as well as subsequent case law, affect the legal concept of subject matter eligibility by seemingly narrowing the scope of the statute defining patentable inventions.
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In December 2014 and again in 2019, the USPTO published revised guidelines for patent examiners to apply when examining process claims for patent eligibility in view of several recent Supreme Court decisions, including Mayo, Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., and Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, and others. The guidance indicates that claims directed to a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea that do not meet the eligibility requirements should be rejected as non-statutory, patent ineligible subject matter. While these guidelines may be subject to review and modification by the USPTO over time, we cannot assure you that our intellectual property strategy or patent portfolio will not be negatively impacted by the decisions described above, rulings in other cases or changes in guidance or procedures issued by the USPTO.
Additional substantive changes to patent law, whether new or associated with the America Invents Act — which substantially revised the U.S. patent system — may affect our ability to obtain, enforce or defend our patents. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact these substantive changes will ultimately have on the cost of prosecuting our patent applications, our ability to obtain patents based on our discoveries and our ability to enforce or defend our issued patents, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
If we are not able to adequately protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information, including the databases we manage and to which we have access, the value of our technology and products could be significantly diminished.
We rely on trade secret and proprietary know-how protection for our confidential and proprietary information and have taken security measures to protect this information. These measures, however, may not provide adequate protection. For example, we have a policy of requiring our consultants, advisors and collaborators, including, for example, our strategic collaborators with whom we seek to develop and commercialize products, to enter into confidentiality agreements and our employees to enter into invention, non-disclosure and in certain cases non-compete agreements. However, breaches of our physical or electronic security systems, or breaches caused by our employees who failing to abide by their confidentiality obligations during or upon termination of their employment with us, could compromise these protection efforts. Any action we take to enforce our rights may be time-consuming, expensive, and possibly unsuccessful. Even if successful, the resulting remedy may not adequately compensate us for the harm caused by the breach. These risks are heightened in countries where laws or law enforcement practices may not protect proprietary rights as fully as in the United States or Europe. Any unauthorized use or disclosure of, or access to, our trade secrets, know-how or other proprietary information, whether accidentally or through willful misconduct, could have a material adverse effect on our programs and our strategy, and on our ability to compete effectively.
If our trademarks and trade names are not adequately protected, we may not be able to build name recognition in our markets of interest, and our business may be adversely affected.
Failure to maintain our trademark registrations, or to obtain new trademark registrations in the future, could limit our ability to protect our trademarks and impede our marketing efforts in the countries in which we operate. We may not be able to protect our rights to trademarks and trade names which we may need to build name recognition with potential partners or customers in our markets of interest. As a means to enforce our trademark rights and prevent infringement, we may be required to file trademark claims against third parties or initiate trademark opposition proceedings. This can be expensive and time-consuming, and possibly unsuccessful. our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names may be challenged, infringed, circumvented, declared generic or determined to infringe on other marks.
Our pending trademark applications in the United States and in other foreign jurisdictions where we may file may not be successful. Even if these applications result in registered trademarks, third parties may challenge these trademarks in the future. Over the long term, if we are unable to establish name recognition based on our trademarks and trade names, then we may not be able to compete effectively, and our business may be adversely affected.
Litigation or other proceedings resulting from either third-party claims of patent infringement, or asserting infringement by third parties of our technology, could be costly, time-consuming, and could limit our ability to commercialize our products or services.
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Our success depends in part on our non-infringement of the patents or intellectual property rights of third parties, and our ability to successfully prevent third parties from infringing our intellectual property. We operate in a crowded technology area in which there has been substantial litigation and other proceedings regarding patent and other intellectual property rights in the genetic diagnostics industry. Third parties, including our competitors, have asserted and may in the future assert that we are infringing their intellectual property rights. We may also become subject to and/or initiate future intellectual property litigation as our product portfolio and the level of competition in our industry grow.
Because the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, or USPTO, maintains patent applications in secrecy until a patent application publishes or the patent is issued, we have no way of knowing if others may have filed patent applications covering technologies used by it or our partners. Additionally, there may be third-party patents, patent applications and other intellectual property relevant to our technologies that may block or compete with our technologies. From time-to-time we have received correspondence from third parties alleging to hold intellectual property rights that could block our development or commercialization of products. While none of these inquiries to date have had any material effect on it, we may receive inquiries in the future that could have a material effect on our business. Even if third-party claims are without merit, defending a lawsuit may result in substantial expense to us and may divert the attention of management and key personnel. In addition, we cannot provide assurance that it would prevail in any such suits to the extent necessary to conduct our business according to our strategic plan or that the damages or other remedies, if any, awarded against it would not be substantial. Claims of intellectual property infringement may require that we, or our strategic partners, enter into unsustainably high royalty or license agreements with third parties that may only be available on unacceptable terms, if at all. In addition, we could experience delays in product introductions or sales growth while we attempt to develop non-infringing alternatives. These claims could also result in injunctions against the further development and commercial sale of services or products containing our technologies, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Further, patents and patent applications owned by us may become the subject of interference proceedings in the USPTO to determine priority of invention, which could result in substantial cost to us as well as a possible adverse decision as to the priority of invention of the patent or patent application involved. An adverse decision in an interference proceeding may result in the loss of rights under a patent or patent application subject to such a proceeding. We cannot predict whether, or offer any assurance that, the patent infringement claims may initiate in the future will be successful. We are and may become subject to counterclaims by patent infringement defendants. Our patents may be declared invalid or unenforceable, or narrowed in scope. Even if we prevail in an infringement action, we cannot assure you that it would be adequately compensated for the harm to our business. If we are unable to enjoin third-party infringement, our revenues may be adversely impacted and we may lose market share; and such third-party product may continue to exist in the market, but fail to meet our regulatory or safety standards, thereby causing irreparable harm to our reputation as a provider of quality products, which in turn could result in loss of market share and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and our results of operations.
In addition, our agreements with some of our customers, suppliers, and other entities with whom we do business require us to defend or indemnify these parties to the extent they become involved in patent infringement claims, including the types of claims described in this risk factor. We have agreed, and may in the future agree, to defend or indemnify third parties if we determine it to be in the best interests of our business relationships. If we are required or agree to defend or indemnify third parties in connection with any infringement claims, we could incur significant costs and expenses that could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our use of open-source software could subject our business to possible litigation or cause us to subject our platform to unwanted open-source license conditions that could negatively impact our sales.
A limited but meaningful portion of our platforms and products incorporate open-source software, and we will incorporate open-source software into other offerings or products in the future. Such open-source software is generally licensed by its authors or other third parties under open-source licenses. There is little legal precedent governing the interpretation of certain terms of these licenses, and therefore the potential impact of these terms on our business is unknown and may result in unanticipated obligations regarding our products and technologies. If an author or other third party that distributes such open-source software were to allege that we had not complied with
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the conditions of one or more of these licenses, we could be required to incur significant legal expenses defending against such allegations. In addition, if we combine our proprietary software with open-source software in a certain manner, under some open-source licenses, we could be required to release the source code of our proprietary software, which could substantially help our competitors develop products that are similar to or better than our products.
We rely on strategic collaborative and licensing arrangements with third parties to develop critical intellectual property. We may not be able to successfully establish and maintain such intellectual property.
The development and commercialization of our products and services rely, directly or indirectly, upon strategic collaborations and licensing agreements with third parties. Such arrangements provide us with intellectual property and other business rights crucial to our product development and commercialization. We have incorporated licensed technology into our tests. Our dependence on licensing, collaboration and other similar agreements with third parties may subject it to a number of risks. There can be no assurance that any current contractual arrangements between us and third parties or between our strategic partners and other third parties will be continued on materially similar terms and will not be breached or terminated early. Any failure to obtain or retain the rights to necessary technologies on acceptable commercial terms could require us to re-configure our products and services, which could negatively impact their commercial sale or increase the associated costs, either of which could materially harm our business and adversely affect our future revenues and ability to achieve sustained profitability.
We expect to continue and expand our reliance on collaborative and licensing arrangements. Establishing new strategic collaborations and licensing arrangements is difficult and time-consuming. Discussions with potential collaborators or licensors may not lead to the establishment of collaborations on favorable terms, if at all. To the extent we agree to work exclusively with one collaborator in a given area, our opportunities to collaborate with other entities could be limited. Potential collaborators or licensors may reject collaborations with it based upon their assessment of our financial, regulatory or intellectual property position or other factors. Even if we successfully establish new collaborations, these relationships may never result in the successful commercialization of any product or service. In addition, the success of the projects that require collaboration with third parties will be dependent on the continued success of such collaborators. There is no guarantee that our collaborators will continue to be successful and, as a result, we may expend considerable time and resources developing products or services that will not ultimately be commercialized.
Risks Related to Cybersecurity, Privacy and Information Technology
Interruption, interference with, or failure of our information technology and communications systems could hurt our ability to effectively provide our products and services, which could harm our reputation, financial condition, and operating results.
The availability of our products and services and fulfillment of our customer contracts depend on the continuing operation of our information technology and communications systems. Our systems are vulnerable to damage, interference, or interruption from terrorist attacks, natural disasters, the effects of climate change (such as sea level rise, drought, flooding, wildfires, and increased storm severity), power loss, telecommunications failures, computer viruses, ransomware attacks, computer denial of service attacks, phishing schemes, or other attempts to harm or access our systems. Some of our data centers are located in areas with a high risk of major earthquakes or other natural disasters. Our data centers are also subject to break-ins, sabotage, and intentional acts of vandalism, and, in some cases, to potential disruptions resulting from problems experienced by facility operators. Some of our systems are not fully redundant, and disaster recovery planning cannot account for all eventualities.
The occurrence of a natural disaster, closure of a facility, or other unanticipated problems at our data centers could result in lengthy interruptions in our service. In addition, our products and services are highly technical and complex and may contain errors or vulnerabilities, which could result in interruptions in or failure of our services or systems.
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Security breaches, privacy issues, loss of data and other incidents could compromise sensitive, protected, or personal information related to our business, could prevent it from accessing critical information, and could expose it to regulatory liability, which could adversely affect our business.
In the ordinary course of our business, we collect and store sensitive data, including PHI, personally identifiable information, genetic information, credit card information, intellectual property and proprietary business information owned or controlled by us or our customers, payers and other parties. We manage and maintain our applications and data utilizing a combination of on-site systems, managed data center systems and cloud-based systems. We also communicate PHI and other sensitive patient data through our various customer tools and platforms. In addition to storing and transmitting sensitive data that is subject to multiple legal protections, these applications and data encompass a wide variety of business-critical information including research and development information, commercial information, and business and financial information. We face a number of risks relative to protecting this critical information, including loss of access risk, inappropriate disclosure, inappropriate modification, and the risk of our being unable to adequately monitor and modify our controls over our critical information. Any technical problems that may arise in connection with the data that we access and our systems, including those that are hosted by third-party providers, could result in interruptions to our business and operations or exposure to security vulnerabilities. These types of problems may be caused by a variety of factors, including infrastructure changes, intentional or accidental human actions or omissions, software errors, malware, viruses, security attacks, fraud, spikes in customer usage and denial of service issues. From time to time, large third-party web hosting providers have experienced outages or other problems that have resulted in their systems being offline and inaccessible. Such outages could materially impact our business and operations.
The secure processing, storage, maintenance and transmission of this critical information are vital to our operations and business strategy, and we devote significant resources to protecting such information. Although we take what we believe to be reasonable and appropriate measures, including a formal, dedicated enterprise security program, to protect sensitive information from various compromises (including unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification or lack of availability), our information technology and infrastructure may be vulnerable to attacks by hackers or viruses or breached due to employee error, malfeasance or other disruptions. Any such breach or interruption could compromise our networks and the information stored therein could be accessed by unauthorized parties, altered, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen.
Further, some of our customer tools and platforms are currently accessible through a portal and there is no guarantee that we can protect our portal from a security breach. Unauthorized access, loss or dissemination could also disrupt our operations (including our ability to conduct our analyses, provide test results, bill payers or patients, process claims and appeals, provide customer assistance, conduct research and development activities, collect, process and prepare company financial information, provide information about our tests and other patient and physician education and outreach efforts through our website, and manage the administrative aspects of our business) and damage our reputation, any of which could adversely affect our business. In addition to data security risks, we also face privacy risks. Should we actually violate, or be perceived to have violated, any privacy promises our business makes to patients or consumers, it could be subject to a complaint from an affected individual or interested privacy regulator, such as the FTC, a state Attorney General, an EU Member State Data Protection Authority, or a data protection authority in another international jurisdiction. This risk is heightened given the sensitivity of the data we collect.
Any security compromise that causes an apparent privacy violation could also result in legal claims or proceedings; liability under federal, state, foreign, or multinational laws that regulate the privacy, security, or breach of personal information, such as but not limited to the HIPAA, HITECH, state data security and data breach notification laws, the EU’s GDPR, the UK Data Protection Act of 2018; and related regulatory penalties. Penalties for failure to comply with a requirement of HIPAA or HITECH vary significantly, and, depending on the knowledge and culpability of the HIPAA-regulated entity, may include civil monetary penalties of up to $1.5 million per calendar year for each provision of HIPAA that is violated. A person who knowingly obtains or discloses individually identifiable health information in violation of HIPAA may face a criminal penalty of up to $50,000 and up to one-year imprisonment. The criminal penalties increase if the wrongful conduct involves false pretenses or the intent to sell, transfer or use identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain or malicious
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harm. Penalties for unfair or deceptive acts or practices under the FTC Act or state Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices, or UDAP, statutes may also vary significantly.
There has been unprecedented activity in the development of data protection regulation around the world. As a result, the interpretation and application of consumer, health-related and data protection laws in the United States, Europe and elsewhere are often uncertain, contradictory and in flux. The GDPR took effect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR took effect on May 25, 2018. The GDPR applies to any entity established in the EU as well as extraterritorially to any entity outside the EU that offers goods or services to, or monitors the behavior of, individuals who are located in the EU. The GDPR imposes strict requirements on controllers and processors of personal data, including enhanced protections for “special categories” of personal data, which includes sensitive information such as health and genetic information of data subjects. The GDPR also grants individuals various rights in relation to their personal data, including the rights of access, rectification, objection to certain processing and deletion. The GDPR provides an individual with an express right to seek legal remedies if the individual believes his or her rights have been violated. Failure to comply with the requirements of the GDPR or the related national data protection laws of the member states of the EU, which may deviate from or be more restrictive than the GDPR, may result in significant administrative fines issued by EU regulators. Maximum penalties for violations of the GDPR are capped at 20 million euros or 4% of an organization’s annual global revenue, whichever is greater.
Further, the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU, often referred to as Brexit, has created uncertainty with regard to data protection regulation in the United Kingdom. In particular, it is still unclear whether the transfer of personal information from the EU to the United Kingdom will in the future remain lawful under the GDPR. The United Kingdom-EU post-Brexit trade deal provides that transfers of personal information to the United Kingdom will not be treated as restricted transfers to a non-EU country for a period of up to six months from January 1, 2021. However, unless the EU Commission makes an “adequacy finding” with respect to the United Kingdom before the end of that transition period, from that date the United Kingdom will be a “third country” under the GDPR and transfers of personal information from the EU to the United Kingdom will require an “adequacy mechanism,” such as the SCCs.
Additionally, the implementation of GDPR has led other jurisdictions to either amend or propose legislation to amend their existing data privacy and cybersecurity laws to resemble the requirements of GDPR. For example, on June 28, 2018, California adopted the CCPA. The CCPA regulates how certain for-profit businesses that meet one or more CCPA applicability thresholds collect, use, and disclose the personal information of consumers who reside in California. Among other things, the CCPA confers to California consumers the right to receive notice of the categories of personal information that will be collected by a business, how the business will use and share the personal information, and the third parties who will receive the personal information; the CCPA also confers rights to access, delete, or transfer personal information; and the right to receive equal service and pricing from a business after exercising a consumer right granted by the CCPA. In addition, the CCPA allows California consumers the right to opt out of the “sale” of their personal information, which the CCPA defines broadly as any disclosure of personal information to a third party in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration. The CCPA also requires a business to implement reasonable security procedures to safeguard personal information against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. California amended the law in September 2018 to exempt all PHI collected by certain parties subject to HIPAA, and further amended the law in September 2020 to clarify that de-identified data as defined under HIPAA will also be exempt from the CCPA. The California Attorney General’s final regulations implementing the CCPA took effect on August 14, 2020. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for data breaches resulting from a business’s failure to implement and maintain reasonable data security procedures that is expected to increase data breach litigation. In addition, California voters recently approved the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, or CPRA, that is scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2023. The CPRA would, among other things, amend the CCPA to give California residents the ability to limit the use of their sensitive information, provide for penalties for CPRA violations concerning California residents under the age of 16, and establish a new California Privacy Protection Agency to implement and enforce the law. Other jurisdictions in the United States are beginning to propose laws similar to CCPA. Some observers have noted that the CCPA could mark the beginning of a trend toward more stringent privacy legislation, which could increase our potential liability and adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
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It is possible the GDPR, CCPA and other emerging United States and international data protection laws may be interpreted and applied in manner that is inconsistent with our practices. If so, this could result in government-imposed fines or orders requiring that we change our practices, which could adversely affect our business. In addition, these privacy laws and regulations may differ from country to country and state to state, and our obligations under these laws and regulations vary based on the nature of our activities in the particular jurisdiction, such as whether we collect samples from individuals in the local jurisdiction, perform testing in the local jurisdiction, or process personal information regarding employees or other individuals in the local jurisdiction. Complying with these various laws and regulations could cause us to incur substantial costs or require it to change our business practices and compliance procedures in a manner adverse to our business. We can provide no assurance that it is or will remain in compliance with diverse privacy and data security requirements in all of the jurisdictions in which we do business. Failure to comply with privacy and data security requirements could result in a variety of consequences, or damage to our reputation, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Data privacy and security concerns relating to our technology and our practices could damage our reputation, subject it to significant legal and financial exposure, and deter current and potential users or customers from using our products and services. Software bugs or defects, security breaches, and attacks on our systems could result in the improper disclosure and use of user data and interference with our users and customers’ ability to use our products and services, harming our business operations and reputation.
Concerns about our practices with regard to the collection, use, disclosure, or security of personal information or other data-privacy-related matters, even if unfounded, could harm our reputation, financial condition, and operating results. Our policies and practices may change over time as expectations regarding privacy and data change.
Our products and services involve the storage and transmission of protected health information and other personal information, proprietary information, and bugs, theft, misuse, defects, vulnerabilities in our products and services, and security breaches expose it to a risk of loss of this information, improper use and disclosure of such information, litigation, and other potential liability. Systems and control failures, security breaches, failure to comply with our privacy policies, and/or inadvertent disclosure of user data could result in government and legal exposure, seriously harm our reputation and brand and, therefore, our business, and impair our ability to attract and retain users or customers. We expect to continue to expend significant resources to maintain security protections that shield against bugs, theft, misuse, or security vulnerabilities or breaches.
We experience cyber-attacks and other attempts to gain unauthorized access to our systems on a regular basis. We may experience future security issues, whether due to employee error or malfeasance or system errors or vulnerabilities in our or other parties’ systems, which could result in significant legal and financial exposure. Government inquiries and enforcement actions, litigation, and adverse press coverage could harm our business. We may be unable to anticipate or detect attacks or vulnerabilities or implement adequate preventative measures. Attacks and security issues could also compromise trade secrets and other sensitive information, harming our business.
While we have dedicated significant resources to privacy and security incident response capabilities, including dedicated worldwide incident response teams, our response process may not be adequate, may fail to accurately assess the severity of an incident, may not respond quickly enough, or may fail to sufficiently remediate an incident. As a result, we may suffer significant legal, reputational, or financial exposure, which could harm our business, financial condition, and operating results.
We depend on our scientific computing and information technology and management systems and any failure of these systems could harm our business.
We depend on scientific computing and information technology and management systems, including third-party cloud computing infrastructure, operating systems and artificial intelligence platforms, for significant elements of our operations, including our laboratory information management system, clinical database, analytical platform, laboratory workflow tools, customer and collaborator reporting and related functions. We also depend on our proprietary workflow software to support new product and service launches and regulatory compliance.
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We use complex software processes and bioinformatic pipelines to manage samples and evaluate sequencing result data. These are subject to initial design or ongoing modifications which may result in unanticipated issues that could cause variability in patient results, leading to service disruptions or errors, resulting in liability.
We have installed, and expects to expand, a number of enterprise software systems that affect a broad range of business processes and functional areas, including systems laboratory operations, handling human resources, financial controls and reporting, contract management, regulatory compliance and other infrastructure operations, and patient consent and information management. In addition to these business systems, we have installed, and intends to extend, the capabilities of both our preventative and detective security controls by augmenting the monitoring and alerting functions, the network design and the automatic countermeasure operations of our technical systems. These information technology and telecommunications systems support a variety of functions, including laboratory operations, test validation, sample tracking, quality control, customer service support, billing and reimbursement, research and development activities, scientific and medical curation and general administrative activities. In addition, our third-party billing and collections provider depends upon technology and telecommunications systems provided by outside vendors.
Information technology and telecommunications systems are vulnerable to damage from a variety of sources, including telecommunications or network failures, malicious internal or external human acts and natural disasters. Moreover, despite network security and back-up measures, some of our servers are potentially vulnerable to physical or electronic break-ins, computer viruses and similar disruptive problems. Despite the precautionary measures we have taken to prevent unanticipated problems that could affect our information technology and telecommunications systems, failures or significant downtime of these systems or those used by our collaborators or subcontractors could prevent it from conducting our comprehensive screening analysis, clinical diagnostics and drug discovery, preparing and providing reports to researchers, clinicians and our collaborators, billing payers, handling physician inquiries, conducting research and development activities and managing the administrative aspects of our business. Any disruption or loss of information technology or telecommunications systems on which critical aspects of our operations depend could have an adverse effect on our business and our reputation, and we may be unable to regain or repair our reputation in the future.
Our ability to transfer data stored outside of the United States could be limited by international regulations or other action by foreign governments, which could adversely affect our business.
Some of the data we process in the ordinary course of our business may be stored outside of the United States. In order to process such data, we may need to transfer them to countries other than those where they are stored. Should a foreign government adopt a regulation restricting the international transfer of such data, we may not be able to process them, which could adversely impact our business.
Risks Related to Being a Public Company
We will incur increased costs and demands on management as a result of compliance with laws and regulations applicable to public companies, which could harm our operating results.
As a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses, including costs associated with public company reporting requirements. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as rules implemented by the SEC and Nasdaq, impose a number of requirements on public companies, including with respect to corporate governance practices. The SEC and other regulators have continued to adopt new rules and regulations and make additional changes to existing regulations that require the company’s compliance. In addition, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, or the Dodd-Frank Act, enacted in 2010, includes significant corporate governance and executive-compensation-related provisions. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance and disclosure obligations. If these requirements divert the attention of our management and personnel from other aspects of our business concerns, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Moreover, these rules and regulations applicable to public companies substantially could increase our legal, accounting and financial compliance costs, require that we hire additional personnel and make some activities more time consuming and costly.
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A market for our securities may not continue, which would adversely affect the liquidity and price of our securities.
The price of our securities may fluctuate significantly due to general market and economic conditions. An active trading market for our securities may not be sustained. In addition, the price of our securities can vary due to general economic conditions and forecasts, our general business condition and the release of our financial reports. You may be unable to sell your securities when desired or at an acceptable price unless an active trading market can be sustained.
If we do not meet the expectations of investors, stockholders or financial analysts, the market price of our securities may decline.
If we do not meet the expectations of investors or securities analysts, the market price of our securities may decline. In addition, fluctuations in the price of our securities could contribute to the loss of all or part of your investment. If an active market for our securities does not continue, the trading price of our securities could be volatile and subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. Any of the factors listed below could have a material adverse effect on your investment in our securities and our securities may trade at prices significantly below the price you paid for them. In such circumstances, the trading price of our securities may not recover and may experience a further decline.
Factors affecting the trading price of our securities may include:
•actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly financial results or the quarterly financial results of companies perceived to be similar to us;
•changes in the market’s expectations about our operating results;
•the public’s reaction to our press releases, our other public announcements and our filings with the SEC;
•speculation in the press or investment community;
•announcements of technological innovation, new products, acquisitions, strategic alliances, significant agreements by us or competitors;
•success of competitors;
•our operating results falling below our financial guidance or other projections or failing to meet the expectation of securities analysts or investors in a particular period;
•changes in financial estimates and recommendations by securities analysts concerning us or the market in general;
•operating and stock price performance of other companies that investors deem comparable to us;
•our ability to market new and enhanced products on a timely basis;
•changes in laws and regulations affecting our business;
•commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving us;
•changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities or the incurrence of additional debt (including the potential issuance of shares of common stock in connection with the pending Acquisition of GeneDx and the Acquisition PIPE Investment);
•the inability to complete the Acquisition due to the failure to satisfy the conditions to the consummation of the Acquisition, including receipt of the required stockholder approval or the required regulatory approvals;
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•risks that the proposed Acquisition disrupts our current plans and operations or affects our ability to retain or recruit key employees;
•risks related to the Acquisition diverting management’s or employees’ attention from ongoing business operations;
•the effect of the pending Acquisition on our business relationships (including, without limitation customers, strategic partners, collaborators and suppliers), operating results and business generally;
•the amount of the costs, fees, expenses and charges related to the Acquisition;
•the volume of shares of our common stock available for public sale;
•any major change in our Board or management;
•sales of substantial amounts of common stock by our directors, officers or significant stockholders or the perception that such sales could occur;
•the expiration of the market stand-off or contractual lock-up agreements;
•the realization of any of the risk factors described herein;
•additions or departures of key personnel;
•failure to comply with the requirements of Nasdaq;
•failure to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or other laws or regulations;
•actual, potential or perceived control, accounting or reporting problems;
•changes in accounting principles, policies and guidelines; and
•general economic and political conditions such as recessions, inflation and interest rates, fuel prices, international currency fluctuations and acts of war or terrorism.
Broad market and industry factors may materially harm the market price of our securities irrespective of our operating performance. The stock market in general and Nasdaq have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of the particular companies affected. The trading prices and valuations of these stocks, and of our securities, may not be predictable. A loss of investor confidence in the market for the stocks of other companies which investors perceive to be similar to us could depress our stock price regardless of our business, prospects, financial conditions or results of operations. A decline in the market price of our securities also could adversely affect our ability to issue additional securities and our ability to obtain additional financing in the future.
In the past, securities class action litigation has often been initiated against companies following periods of volatility in their stock price. This type of litigation could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention and resources, and could also require us to make substantial payments to satisfy judgments or to settle litigation.
If securities or industry analysts cease publishing research or reports about us, our business, or our market, or if they change their recommendations regarding our common stock adversely, then the price and trading volume of our common could decline.
The trading market for our common stock is influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us, our business, our market, or our competitors. If any of the analysts who cover us change their recommendation regarding our stock adversely, or provide more favorable relative recommendations about our competitors, the price of our common stock would likely decline. If any analyst who covers us were to cease
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coverage of us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
Changes in laws, regulations or rules, or a failure to comply with any laws, regulations or rules, may adversely affect our business, investments and results of operations.
We are subject to laws, regulations and rules enacted by national, regional and local governments and Nasdaq. In particular, we are required to comply with certain SEC, Nasdaq and other legal or regulatory requirements. Compliance with, and monitoring of, applicable laws, regulations and rules may be difficult, time consuming and costly. Those laws, regulations or rules and their interpretation and application may also change from time to time and those changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, investments and results of operations. In addition, a failure to comply with applicable laws, regulations or rules, as interpreted and applied, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
Anti-takeover provisions contained in our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation and Restated Bylaws, as well as provisions of Delaware law, could impair a takeover attempt.
Our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation (which we refer to as our “Charter”) contains provisions that may discourage unsolicited takeover proposals that stockholders may consider to be in their best interests. We are also subject to anti-takeover provisions under Delaware law, which could delay or prevent a change of control. Together, these provisions may make more difficult the removal of management and may discourage transactions that otherwise could involve payment of a premium over prevailing market prices for our securities. These provisions will include:
•no cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
•a classified board of directors with three-year staggered terms, which could delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of the Board;
•the requirement that directors may only be removed from the Board for cause;
•the right of our Board to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of our Board or the resignation, death or removal of a director in certain circumstances, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our Board;
•a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
•a prohibition on stockholders calling a special meeting and the requirement that a meeting of stockholders may only be called by a majority of the board, our chairman of the board or our chief executive officer and may not be called by any other person, which may delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors;
•the requirement that changes or amendments to certain provisions of our Charter must be approved by holders of at least two-thirds of our common stock; and
•advance notice procedures that stockholders must comply with in order to nominate candidates to our Board or to propose matters to be acted upon at a meeting of stockholders, which may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
The JOBS Act permits “emerging growth companies” like us to take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies.
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We currently qualify as an “emerging growth company” as defined in Section 2(a)(19) of the Securities Act, as modified by the JOBS Act. As such, we take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies for as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company, including: (i) the exemption from the auditor attestation requirements with respect to internal control over financial reporting under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; (ii) the exemptions from say-on-pay, say-on-frequency and say-on-golden parachute voting requirements; and (iii) reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports. As a result, our stockholders may not have access to certain information they deem important. We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (i) the last day of the fiscal year: (a) following September 1, 2025, the fifth anniversary of the initial public offering of CMLS; (b) in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1.07 billion; or (c) in which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer, which means the market value of our common stock that is held by non-affiliates exceeds $700.0 million as of the prior June 30th, and (ii) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt during the prior three-year period.
In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the exemption from complying with new or revised accounting standards provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act as long as we are an emerging growth company. An emerging growth company can therefore delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. The JOBS Act provides that a company can elect to opt out of the extended transition period and comply with the requirements that apply to non-emerging growth companies, but any such election to opt out is irrevocable. We have elected to avail ourselves of such extended transition period, which means that when a standard is issued or revised and it has different application dates for public or private companies, we, as an emerging growth company, can adopt the new or revised standard at the time private companies adopt the new or revised standard. This may make comparison of our financial statements with another public company that is neither an emerging growth company nor an emerging growth company that has opted out of using the extended transition period difficult or impossible because of the potential differences in accounting standards used.
Additionally, we are a “smaller reporting company” as defined in Item 10(f)(1) of Regulation S-K. Smaller reporting companies may take advantage of certain reduced disclosure obligations, including, among other things, providing only two years of audited consolidated financial statements. We will remain a smaller reporting company until the last day of the fiscal year in which (i) the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates exceeds $250 million as of the prior June 30, or (ii) our annual revenues exceeded $100 million during such completed fiscal year and the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of the prior June 30.
We cannot predict if investors will find our common stock less attractive because we rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may be more volatile.
Our internal controls over financial reporting may not be effective and our independent registered public accounting firm may not be able to certify as to their effectiveness, which could have a significant and adverse effect on our business and reputation.
As a public company, we are required to comply with the SEC’s rules implementing Sections 302 and 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which require management to certify financial and other information in our quarterly and annual reports and provide an annual management report on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting. To comply with the requirements of being a public company, we are required to provide management’s assessment on internal controls, and we may need to undertake various actions, such as implementing additional internal controls and procedures and hiring additional accounting or internal audit staff. Further, as an emerging growth company, our independent registered public accounting firm is not required to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 until the date we are no longer an emerging growth company. At such time, our independent registered public accounting firm may issue a report that is adverse in the event that it is not satisfied with the level at which the controls of the company are documented, designed or operating.
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Testing and maintaining these controls can divert our management’s attention from other matters that are important to the operation of our business. If we identify material weaknesses in the internal control over financial reporting of the company or are unable to comply with the requirements of Section 404 or assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion as to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting when we no longer qualify as an emerging growth company, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our common stock could be negatively affected, and we could become subject to investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional financial and management resources.
Our Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and federal court within the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that our stockholders may initiate, which could limit a stockholder’s ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our Charter designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and federal court within the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that our stockholders may initiate, which could limit a stockholder’s ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers or employees.
Our Charter provides that, subject to limited exceptions, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and federal court within the State of Delaware will be exclusive forums for any:
•derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf;
•action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by, or other wrongdoing by, any of our directors, officers, stockholders, employees or agents to us or our stockholders;
•action asserting a claim against the us or any of our directors, officers, stockholders, employees or agents arising pursuant to any provision of the General Corporation Law, our Charter or our Restated Bylaws (which we refer to as our “Bylaws”) or as to which the General Corporation Law confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware:
•action to interpret, apply, enforce or determine the validity of our Charter or our Bylaws; or
•other action asserting a claim against us or any of our directors, officers, stockholders, employees or agents that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine.
This choice of forum provision does not apply to actions brought to enforce a duty or liability created under the Exchange Act or any other claim for which federal courts have jurisdiction. Furthermore, in accordance with our Bylaws, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States will be, to the fullest extent permitted by law, the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring or holding any interest in any of our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to our exclusive forum provision in our Bylaws and the choice of forum provision in our Charter.
These provisions may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or any of our directors, officers, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provisions contained in our Charter to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The stockholders will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with the federal securities laws and the regulations promulgated thereunder.
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Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring or holding any interest in any of our securities shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to our exclusive forum provisions, including the choice of forum provision. These provisions may limit a stockholders’ ability to bring a claim, and may result in increased costs for a stockholder to bring a claim in a judicial forum of their choosing for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, and other employees.
Risks Related to Our Common Stock and Warrants
We may amend the terms of the public warrants in a manner that may be adverse to holders with the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding public warrants. As a result, the exercise price of a holder’s public warrants could be increased, the exercise period could be shortened and the number of shares of our common stock purchasable upon exercise of a public warrant could be decreased, all without the approval of that warrant holder.
Our public warrants were issued in registered form under a warrant agreement between Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, as warrant agent, and us. The warrant agreement provides that the terms of the public warrants may be amended without the consent of any holder to cure any ambiguity or correct any defective provision, but requires the approval by the holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding public warrants to make any change that adversely affects the interests of the registered holders. Accordingly, we may amend the terms of the public warrants in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 50% of the then-outstanding public warrants approve of such amendment. Although our ability to amend the terms of the public warrants with the consent of at least 50% of the then-outstanding public warrants is unlimited, examples of such amendments could be amendments to, among other things, increase the exercise price of the public warrants, convert the warrants into cash or stock, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of shares of common stock purchasable upon exercise of a public warrant.
We may redeem unexpired public warrants prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to warrant holders, thereby making their public warrants worthless.
We have the ability to redeem outstanding public warrants at any time after they become exercisable and prior to their expiration, at a price of $0.01 per public warrant; provided that the last reported sales price of our common stock equals or exceeds $18.00 per share (as adjusted for stock splits, stock dividends, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading-day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we give notice of such redemption to the warrant holders. If and when the public warrants become redeemable by us, we may exercise our redemption right even if we are unable to register or qualify the underlying securities for sale under all applicable state securities laws. We will use our best efforts to register or qualify such shares of common stock under the blue sky laws of the state of residence in those states in which the warrants were offered by us. Redemption of the outstanding public warrants could force the warrant holders: (i) to exercise their public warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for them to do so; (ii) to sell their public warrants at the then-current market price when they might otherwise wish to hold their public warrants; or (iii) to accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding public warrants are called for redemption, is likely to be substantially less than the market value of their public warrants. None of the private placement warrants will be redeemable by us so long as they are held by CMLS Holdings LLC, or the Former Sponsor, or its permitted transferees.
Our warrants are exercisable for our common stock, which will increase the number of shares eligible for future resale in the public market and result in dilution to our stockholders.
As of December 31, 2021, our public warrants are exercisable for 14,758,305 shares of common stock at $11.50 per share. Our private warrants are exercisable for 7,236,667 shares of common stock at $11.50 per share. The additional shares of our common stock issuable upon exercise of our warrants will result in dilution to the then existing holders of our common stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market. Sales of substantial numbers of such shares in the public market could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
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In addition, the assumptions used in preparing the pro forma financial information may not prove to be accurate and other factors may affect our financial condition or results of operations. Any potential decline in our financial condition or results of operations may cause significant variations in our stock price.
Our warrants are accounted for as liabilities and the changes in value of our warrants could have a material effect on our financial results.
Included on our balance sheet as of December 31, 2021 are derivative liabilities related to our warrants. Accounting Standards Codification 815, Derivatives and Hedging, or ASC 815, provides for the remeasurement of the fair value of such derivatives at each balance sheet date, with a resulting non-cash gain or loss related to the change in the fair value being recognized in earnings in the statement of operations. As a result of the recurring fair value measurement, our financial statements and results of operations may fluctuate quarterly, based on factors, which are outside of our control. Due to the recurring fair value measurement, we expect that we will recognize non-cash gains or losses on our warrants each reporting period and that the amount of such gains or losses could be material.
Future resales of our common stock could cause the market price of our common stock to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Sales of a significant number of shares of our common stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our common stock.
Immediately after the closing of our July 2021 business combination: (i) former holders of Legacy Sema4 common stock owned approximately 64.89% of our total outstanding common stock, (ii) holders of public shares owned 18.43% of our total outstanding common stock, (iii) the Former Sponsor and certain of CMLS’s other initial stockholders owned 4.61% of our total outstanding common stock and (iv) the Merger PIPE Investors owned approximately 12.07% of our total outstanding shares of common stock.
Although the Former Sponsor and certain of our stockholders were subject to certain lock-up restrictions regarding the transfer of our common stock following the consummation of the business combination, these lock-up restrictions expired on January 18, 2022. However, certain of our existing stockholders have also entered into support agreements in connection with the Acquisition, whereby these stockholders have agreed to, among other things, be bound by certain transfer restrictions. Furthermore, we have filed a registration statement on Form S-1 related to the offer and sale from time to time by the selling securityholders named in the prospectus that forms a part of that registration statement of up to 236,223,401 shares of common stock and 7,236,667 warrants, which registration statement has been declared effective by the SEC. Because the business combination lock-up restrictions have expired and the registration statement is available for use, and as the transfer restrictions under the support agreement end, the market price of our common stock could decline if the holders of our common stock sell them or are perceived by the market as intending to sell them.
There is no guarantee that the public warrants will ever be in the money, and they may expire worthless and the terms of our public warrants may be amended.
The exercise price for the public warrants is $11.50 per share of common stock. There is no guarantee that the public warrants will ever be in the money prior to their expiration, and as such, the public warrants may expire worthless.
Risks Related to the Acquisition
The Acquisition is subject to closing conditions, including governmental, regulatory and stockholder approvals, as well as other uncertainties and there can be no assurances as to whether and when it may be completed. Failure to complete the Acquisition could negatively impact our stock price, future business and financial results.
There can be no assurance that the proposed Acquisition of GeneDx will occur. Consummation of the Acquisition is subject to certain customary conditions, including, without limitation: (i) the approval by our
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stockholders of the issuance of shares of common stock in connection with the Acquisition and a related amendment to our Charter; (ii) the expiration or early termination of the waiting period applicable to the consummation of the Acquisition under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended; (iii) the absence of any legal requirement that prevents or makes illegal the consummation of transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement; (iv) the accuracy of each party’s representations and warranties (subject to certain qualifications); (v) each party’s performance in all material respects of its obligations contained in the Merger Agreement; and (vi) the absence of a material adverse effect on each of GeneDx and our company since the date of the Merger Agreement.
While we believe we will receive the requisite approvals, there can be no assurance that these and other conditions to closing will be satisfied at all or satisfied on the proposed terms and schedules as contemplated by the parties. Satisfaction of the closing conditions may delay the consummation of the Acquisition, and if certain closing conditions are not satisfied prior to the end date specified in the Merger Agreement, the parties will not be obligated to complete the Acquisition.
If the Acquisition is not completed for any reason, we will have incurred substantial expenses. We have incurred substantial legal, accounting and financial advisory fees that are payable by us whether or not the Acquisition is completed, and our management has devoted considerable time and effort in connection with the pending Acquisition. In particular, the Merger Agreement contains specified termination rights for each of the parties. A failed acquisition could materially adversely affect our business, operating results or financial condition. In addition, the trading price of our securities could be adversely affected to the extent that the current price reflects an assumption that the Acquisition will be completed.
We will be subject to business uncertainties while the Acquisition is pending.
Uncertainty about the effect of the pending Acquisition on employees and third parties may have an adverse effect on us. These uncertainties may impair our ability to retain and motivate key personnel and could cause third parties that deal with any of us or them to defer entering into contracts or making other decisions or seek to change existing business relationships. If key employees depart because of uncertainty about their future roles and the potential complexities of the Acquisition, our business could be harmed.
We may be the target of transaction related lawsuits which could result in substantial costs and may delay or prevent the Acquisition from being completed.
Securities class action lawsuits and derivative lawsuits are often brought against companies that have entered into merger agreements. Even if the lawsuits are without merit, defending against these claims can result in substantial costs and divert management time and resources. An adverse judgment could result in monetary damages, which could have a negative impact on our liquidity and financial condition. Additionally, if a plaintiff is successful in obtaining an injunction prohibiting completion of the Acquisition, then that injunction may delay or prevent the Acquisition from being completed, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operation. There can be no assurance that complaints will not be filed with respect to the Acquisition.
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments
None.
Item 2. Properties
Our corporate headquarter is located at 333 Ludlow Street, North Tower, 8th Floor, Stamford, Connecticut 06902. Material lease agreements include offices and laboratory facilities as shown in the table below. We believe that our current facilities are suitable and adequate to meet our current needs.
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| Properties | Term | Space | ||||||
| Stamford, CT Corporate Headquarter | Through 2033 | 90,000 sq.ft. | ||||||
| Branford, CT Laboratory | Through 2029 | 40,000 sq.ft. | ||||||
| Stamford, CT Laboratory | Through 2046 | 67,000 sq.ft. | ||||||
| New York, NY Office | Through 2022 | 15,000 sq.ft. | ||||||
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
We, and our subsidiary, are currently not a party to, and our property is not currently the subject of, any material pending legal proceedings; however, we may become involved in various claims and legal actions arising in the ordinary course of business.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
None.
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Part II
Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Market Information
Since July 23, 2021, our Class A common stock and public warrants have been listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbols “SMFR” and “SMFRW”, respectively. Prior to our business combination, CMLS’s Class A common stock, CMLS’s public warrants, and CMLS’s public units were listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the symbols “CMLF”, “CMFLW”, and “CMLFU” respectively.
Holders
As of March 7, 2022, there were 77 record holders of our Class A common stock and 5 record holders of our public warrants, based upon information received from our transfer agent. However, this number does not reflect beneficial owners whose shares were held of record by nominees or broker dealers. We believe a substantially greater number of beneficial owners hold shares of our Class A common stock or public warrants through brokers, banks, or other nominees.
Dividend Policy
We have never paid any cash dividends on our capital stock. We anticipate that we will retain earnings, if any, to support operations and to finance the growth and development of our business. In addition, the terms of the revolving credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank, or SVB, precludes us from paying cash dividends without the prior written consent of SVB. Therefore, we do not expect to pay cash dividends for the foreseeable future.
Stock Performance Graph
Not applicable.
Sale of Unregistered Securities
None.
Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers
None.
Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations together with our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. This discussion contains forward-looking statements and involves numerous risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements. You should carefully read the section entitled “Risk Factors” to gain an understanding of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.
Overview
We are a patient-centered, health intelligence company with a mission to use artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning to enable personalized medicine for all. By leveraging leading data scientists and technology, our platform powers remarkable and unique insights that transform the practice of medicine including how disease is diagnosed, treated, and prevented.
We were established out of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai or ISMMS, and commenced operations in June 2017 as a commercial entity that could effectively engage diverse patient populations and health care institutions at scale. We have since established and deployed our comprehensive and integrated genomic and clinical
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data platform and established a mature diagnostic testing business. We now maintain a database that includes more than 12 million de-identified individual clinical records, many with genomic profiles. We also manage a data asset over 47 petabytes in size, that has been expanding at more than 1 petabyte per month with an accelerating growth rate.
Currently, we derive the majority of our revenue from our diagnostic test solutions. Our diagnostic business generates revenue and engages with healthcare professionals working with patients primarily through our Women’s Health and Oncology solutions.
Our Women’s Health solutions sequence and analyze an industry-leading number of genes and use interpretive information tools to translate raw sequencing and clinical data efficiently and accurately into digestible clinical reports that guide decision-making by patients and physicians. Our Oncology diagnostic solutions feature both somatic tumor profiling and hereditary cancer screenings, along with a foundational whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing approach. Our Sema4 Signal Hereditary Cancer solution determines if a patient carries an inherited genetic change that increases the risk of cancer or informs on cancer treatment. We believe our Signal Whole Exome and Transcriptome solution is one of the most comprehensive molecular profiling solutions from a commercial entity to receive New York State approval. Beginning in May of 2020, we also expanded our diagnostic testing services to include testing for the presence of COVID-19, which we intend to discontinue by March 31, 2022.
We have also expanded beyond diagnostic testing to enter into service agreements with third parties to provide diagnostic testing, research, and related data aggregation reporting services. We have established and continue to seek strategic relationships with pharmaceutical and biotech, or Biopharma, companies to enable innovation across the entire drug lifecycle, from next-generation drug discovery and development, to post-market efficacy surveillance, to informing on bioavailability, toxicity, tolerability, and other features critical to drug development.
Factors Affecting Our Performance
We believe several important factors have impacted, and will continue to impact, our performance and results of operations. While each of these areas presents significant opportunities for us, they also pose significant risks and challenges that we must address. See the section titled “Item 1A. Risk Factors” for more information.
Number of resulted tests
We historically reported both accessioned and resulted tests as important factors impacting our performance. A test is resulted once the appropriate workflow is completed and details are provided to the ordered patients or healthcare professional for reviews, which corresponds to the timing of our revenue recognition. We believe the number of resulted tests in any period is more important and useful to our investors because it directly correlates with long-term patient relationships and the size of our genomic database. Therefore, we do not plan to report the number of accessioned tests.
Success obtaining and maintaining reimbursement
Our ability to increase the number of billable tests and our revenue therefrom will depend on our success in achieving reimbursement for our tests from third-party payors. Reimbursement by a payor may depend on several factors, including a payor’s determination that a test is appropriate, medically necessary, cost-effective, and has received prior authorization. Since each payor makes its own decision as to whether to establish a policy or enter into a contract to provide coverage for our tests, as well as the amount it will reimburse us for a test, seeking these approvals is a time-consuming and costly process.
In cases where we or our partners have established reimbursement rates with third-party payors, we face additional challenges in complying with their procedural requirements for reimbursement. These requirements often vary from payor to payor and are reassessed by third-party payors regularly. As a result, in the past we have needed additional time and resources to comply with the requirements.
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We expect to continue to focus our resources on increasing the adoption of, and expanding coverage and reimbursement for, our current and any future tests we may develop or acquire. If we fail to expand and maintain broad adoption of, and coverage and reimbursement for, our tests, our ability to generate revenue and our future business prospects may be adversely affected.
Ability to lower the costs associated with performing our tests
Reducing the costs associated with performing our diagnostic tests is both our focus and a strategic objective. We source, and will continue to source, components of our diagnostic testing workflows from third parties. We also rely upon third-party service providers for data storage and workflow management.
Increasing adoption of our services by existing and new customers
Our performance depends on our ability to retain and broaden the adoption of our services with existing customers as well as our ability to attract new customers. Our success in retaining and gaining new customers is dependent on the market’s confidence in our services and the willingness of customers to continue to seek more comprehensive and integrated genomic and clinical data insights.
Investment in platform innovation to support commercial growth
We are seeking to leverage and deploy our Centrellis and Traversa platforms to develop a pipeline of future disease-specific research and diagnostic and therapeutic products and services. We have limited experience in the development or commercialization of clinical or research products in connection with our database and our Centrellis platform.
We operate in a rapidly evolving and highly competitive industry. Our business faces changing technologies, shifting provider and patient needs, and frequent introductions of rival products and services. To compete successfully, we must accurately anticipate technology developments and deliver innovative, relevant, and useful products, services, and technologies on time. As our business evolves, the competitive pressure to innovate will encompass a wider range of products and services. We must continue to invest significant resources in research and development, including investments through acquisitions and partnerships. These investments are critical to the enhancement of our current diagnostics and health information and data science technologies from which existing and new service offerings are derived.
We expect to incur significant expenses to advance these development efforts, but they may not be successful. New potential services may fail at any stage of development and, if we determine that any of our current or future services are unlikely to succeed, we may abandon them without any return on our investment. If we are unsuccessful in developing additional services, our growth potential may be impaired.
Key Performance Indicators
We use the following key financial and operating metrics to evaluate our business and operations, measure our performance, identify trends affecting our business, project our future performance, and make strategic decisions. These key financial and operating metrics should be read in conjunction with the following discussion of our results of operations and financial condition together with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and other financial information included elsewhere in this report.
The principal focus of our commercial operations is to offer our diagnostic tests through both our direct sales force and laboratory distribution partners. Test volume correlates with genomic database size and long-term patient relationships. Thus, test volumes drive database diversity and enable potential identification of variants of unknown significance and population-specific insights. The number of tests resulted is a key indicator that we use to assess the operational efficiency of our business. Once the appropriate workflow is completed, the test is resulted and details are provided to ordered patients or healthcare professionals for reviews.
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During the year ended December 31, 2021, we resulted 709,942 tests in our laboratories, 418,053 tests of which were for COVID-19, compared to the period ended December 31, 2020, in which we resulted approximately 540,407 tests in our laboratories, 332,764 of which were for COVID-19. This 31% increase in resulted volume from 2020 to 2021 largely resulted from newly entered service agreements for COVID-19 testing as well as an increase in non-COVID-19 institutional testing. During the year ended December 31, 2019, we resulted approximately 155,497 tests in our laboratories, none of which were for COVID-19. The 248% increase in resulted volume from 2019 to 2020 largely resulted from newly entered service agreements for COVID-19 testing, offset by a slowdown in the base diagnostic business during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic given that many of our customers, including hospitals and clinics, had suspended non-emergency appointments and services.
As discussed above, we no longer report the number of accessioned tests as a key performance indicator because the number of resulted tests more directly correlates with long-term patient relationships and the size of our genomic database.
COVID-19 Impact
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had, and continues to have, an extensive impact on the global health and economic environments since the initial outbreak in March 2020.
Beginning in April 2020, our diagnostic test volumes decreased significantly as compared to the prior year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related limitations and priorities across the healthcare system. In response, beginning in May 2020, we entered into several service agreements with state governments and healthcare institutions to provide testing for the presence of COVID-19 infection. COVID-19 test volumes grew significantly from the introduction of the service offering through the remainder of 2020 and further increased in 2021. To support the rapid expansion of COVID-19 test volumes, we increased our workforce through both temporary contractors and employees. In addition, while most of our revenues from genetic testing rely upon reimbursements from third party payors, healthcare institutions, and individuals, the majority of our COVID-19 test revenues rely upon reimbursements from state governments and healthcare institutions. In addition, COVID-19 testing yields lower revenues per tests and incurs lower costs to perform each test. We have also experienced a slowdown in receivable collections since the onset of the pandemic, but do not expect those collection trends to continue.
As part of our response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have implemented various strategies to mitigate operating risks, reduce costs and improve cash collections. We have made significant advance purchases of test-related inventory in order to reduce the risk of potential business interruptions related to supply chain disruption. We also contracted with third-party vendors to collect and test COVID-19 samples to reduce operating risks related to employee health. Temporary COVID-19 austerity measures included cancellation of the 2020 annual merit compensation increase, temporary salary reductions from May through July 2020 and deferral of the 401(k) employer match from May through December 2020. The employer match was reinstated in January 2021, and the deferred portion was funded on March 9, 2021. To support our sales employees with commission-based compensation structure, we implemented temporary minimum commissions during the second quarter of 2020. No such minimums were in place in any quarter after the second quarter nor are any such minimums expected to be implemented again in the near term. No employee layoffs were implemented as part of these austerity measures.
As conditions improve, we are focused on overhauling our revenue cycle, and as part of transformational activities hired a Chief Revenue Officer and established a revenue cycle Center of Excellence. As part of our efforts to improve our collection efficiency and overall financial health, we are also undergoing various process transformations within the Order-to-Cash and Procure-to-Pay cycles.
While test volumes have since improved, we continue to experience changes in the mix of tests due to the impact of the COVID-19 and its variants. We anticipate that demand for COVID-19 tests will decrease as vaccines continue to be developed and deployed to the general population. For this reason, we announced in December 2021 that we had decided to discontinue COVID-19 testing services by March 31, 2022 and began notifying our COVID-19 testing solutions customers of this decision. We intend to dedicate all of our efforts and resources to our core mission to transform healthcare by using artificial intelligence to enable the delivery of precision medicine as the standard of care, and do not expect declines for our other revenue streams during 2022. The full extent to which
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the COVID-19 pandemic will directly or indirectly impact our business, results of operations and financial condition will depend on future developments that are highly uncertain and cannot be accurately predicted, including new information that may emerge concerning COVID-19 or its variants, the actions taken to contain it or treat it and the economic impact on local, regional, national and international markets and supply chains. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic could continue to have a material impact on our results of operations, cash flows and financial condition for the foreseeable future.
In March 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act, was signed into law which was a stimulus bill that, among other things, provided assistance to qualifying businesses and individuals and included funding for the healthcare system. We received $5.4 million in 2020 as part of the stimulus, comprised of $2.6 million received under the Provider Relief Fund, or PRF, distribution and $2.8 million received under the Employee Retention Credit, or ERC, distribution. During 2021, we received an additional $5.6 million under the PRF distribution.
PRF distributions to healthcare providers are not loans and will not be required to be repaid; however, as a condition to receiving these payments, providers must agree to certain terms and conditions and submit sufficient documentation demonstrating that the funds are being used for healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have concluded it is probable that all terms and conditions associated with the PRF distribution have been met. As a result, we recorded the PRF distributions in other income (expense), net in the statements of operations and comprehensive loss during the periods in which we received the distributions.
ERC distributions are refundable tax credits for 50% of qualified wages paid to employees during the pandemic. A company is eligible for the ERC if it has not received a Paycheck Protection Program loan under the Cares Act and (1) its operations have been fully or partially suspended because of COVID-19 or (2) its gross receipts in a calendar quarter in 2020 declined by more than 50% from the same period in 2019. At the time of applying for the ERC, we concluded that it was reasonably possible the eligibility requirements would be met; however, due to a change in circumstances, we are re-evaluating our position. As such, we deferred the recognition of the ERC distribution and recorded the proceeds in other liabilities on the consolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 2021 and 2020.
At this time, we are not certain of the availability, extent or impact of any future relief provided under the CARES Act or other stimulus initiatives.
Recent Developments
In January 2022, we and our wholly-owned subsidiaries, Orion Merger Sub I, Inc., or Merger Sub I, and Orion Merger Sub II, LLC, or Merger Sub II, entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger and Reorganization, or the Merger Agreement, with GeneDx, Inc., a New Jersey corporation, or GeneDx, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of OPKO Health, Inc., or OPKO, GeneDx Holding 2, Inc., or Holdco, and OPKO to acquire 100% of GeneDx (which we refer to as the “Acquisition”). Subject to the terms and conditions of the Merger Agreement, we will pay consideration to OPKO for the Acquisition of (i) $150 million in cash at the closing of the Acquisition, subject to certain adjustments as provided in the Merger Agreement, (ii) 80 million shares of our Class A common stock to be issued at the closing of the Acquisition and (iii) up to $150 million payable following the closing of the Acquisition, if certain revenue-based milestones are achieved for each of the fiscal years ending December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2023. These milestone payments, if and to the extent earned under the terms of the Merger Agreement, will be satisfied through the payment and/or issuance of a combination of cash and shares of our Class A common stock (valued at $4.86 per share), with such mix to be determined in our sole discretion.
The completion of the Acquisition is subject to a number of closing conditions (which, as of the date of this report, have not been met), including certain regulatory and other third party approvals, the consummation of a pre-closing restructuring and certain approvals of our stockholders related to the Acquisition). The Acquisition is expected to close in the first half of 2022. If this pending Acquisition is consummated, consistent with our business model, we expect to leverage the combined health information database of Sema4 and GeneDx to partner with additional health systems and biopharma companies to transform patient care and therapeutic development and enable precision medicine for all.
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Concurrently with the execution of the Merger Agreement, we entered into subscription agreements with certain institutional investors, pursuant to, and on the terms and subject to the conditions of which, these investors have collectively subscribed for 50 million shares of our Class A common stock for an aggregate purchase price equal to $200 million (which we refer to as the “Acquisition PIPE Investment”). The Acquisition PIPE Investment will be consummated substantially concurrently with the closing of the Acquisition.
Components of Results of Operations
Revenue
We derive the majority of our revenue from diagnostic testing services, which primarily relate to Women’s Health, Oncology and COVID-19. We also recognize revenue from collaboration service agreements with Biopharma companies and other third parties pursuant to which we provide diagnostic testing and related data aggregation reporting services. As discussed above, in December 2021, we announced that we decided to discontinue COVID-19 testing services by March 31, 2022 and begun notifying its COVID-19 testing solutions customers of this decision.
We recognize revenue when control of the promised goods or services is transferred to the customer in an amount that reflects the consideration which we expect to be entitled to in exchange for those goods or services.
Diagnostic Test Revenue
We primarily generate revenue from performing diagnostic testing services for three groups of customers: healthcare professionals working with patients with third-party insurance coverage or without third-party insurance coverage or those who elect to self-pay; and institutional clients, such as hospitals, clinics, state governments and reference laboratories. Customers are billed upon delivery of test results. The amount of revenue recognized for diagnostic testing services depends on a number of factors, such as contracted rates with our customers and third-party insurance providers, insurance reimbursement policies, payor mix, historical collection experience, price concessions and other business and economic conditions and trends. To date, the majority of our diagnostic test revenue has been earned from orders received for patients with third-party insurance coverage.
Our ability to increase our diagnostic test revenue will depend on our ability to increase our market penetration, obtain contracted reimbursement coverage from third-party payers, enter into contracts with institutions, and increase our reimbursement rate for tests performed.
Other Revenue
We generate revenue from providing diagnostic testing and related data aggregation reporting services under both short-term and long-term project-based collaboration service agreements with third parties. The terms of these contracts generally include non-refundable upfront payments, which we record as contract liabilities, and variable payments based upon the achievement of certain milestones during the contract term.
With respect to existing collaboration service agreements, our revenue may fluctuate period to period due to the pattern in which we may deliver our services, our ability to achieve milestones, the timing of costs incurred, changes in estimates of total anticipated costs that we expect to incur during the contract period, and other events that may not be within our control. Our ability to increase our revenue will depend on our ability to enter into contracts with third-party partners.
Cost of Services
The cost of services reflect the aggregate costs incurred in performing services. These costs include expenses for reagents and laboratory supplies, personnel-related expenses (comprising salaries and benefits) and stock-based compensation for employees directly involved in revenue generating activities, shipping and handling fees, costs of third-party reference lab testing and phlebotomy services and allocated genetic counseling, facility and IT costs associated with delivery services. Allocated costs include depreciation of laboratory equipment, facility occupancy, and information technology costs. The cost of services are recorded as the services are performed.
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We expect the cost of services to generally increase in line with the anticipated growth in diagnostic testing volume and services we provide under our collaboration service agreements. However, we expect the cost per test to decrease over the long term due to the efficiencies we may gain from improved utilization of our laboratory capacity, automation, and other value engineering initiatives. These expected reductions may be offset by new tests which often have a higher cost per test during the introductory phases before we can gain efficiencies. The cost per test may fluctuate from period to period.
Research and Development Expenses
Research and development expenses represent costs incurred to develop our technology and future test offerings. These costs are principally associated with our efforts to develop the software we use to analyze data and process customer orders. These costs primarily consist of personnel-related expenses (comprising salaries and benefits), stock-based compensation for employees performing research and development, innovation and product development activities, costs of reagents and laboratory supplies, costs of consultants and third-party services, equipment and related depreciation expenses, non-capitalizable software development costs, research funding to our research partners as part of research and development agreements and allocated facility and information technology costs associated with genomics medical research. Research and development costs are generally expensed as incurred and certain non-refundable advanced payments provided to our research partners are expensed as the related activities are performed.
We generally expect our research and development expenses to continue to increase as we innovate and expand the application of our platforms. However, we expect research and development expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue in the long term, although the percentage may fluctuate from period to period due to the timing and extent of our development and commercialization efforts and fluctuations in our compensation-related charges.
Selling and Marketing Expenses
Selling and marketing expenses primarily consist of personnel-related expenses (comprising salaries, and benefits) and stock-based compensation for employees performing commercial sales, account management, marketing, and allocation of genetic counseling services related to medical education. Selling and marketing costs are expensed as incurred.
We generally expect our selling and marketing expenses will continue to increase in absolute dollars as we expand our commercial sales and marketing and counseling teams and increase marketing activities. However, we expect selling and marketing expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue in the long term, subject to fluctuations from period to period due to the timing and magnitude of these expenses.
General and Administrative Expenses
General and administrative expenses primarily consist of personnel-related expenses (comprising salaries and benefits) and stock-based compensation for employees in executive leadership, legal, finance and accounting, human resources, information technology, strategy and other administrative functions. In addition, these expenses include office occupancy and information technology costs. General and administrative costs are expensed as incurred.
We generally expect our general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we increase headcount and incur costs associated with operating as a public company, including expenses related to legal, accounting, and regulatory matters; maintaining compliance with requirements of the Nasdaq and of the SEC; director and officer insurance premiums and investor relations. We expect these expenses to decrease as a percentage of revenue in the long term as revenue increases, although the percentage may fluctuate from period to period due to fluctuations in our compensation-related charges.
Related Party Expenses
Related party expenses primarily consist of amounts incurred in connection with transactions occurred with ISMMS for expenses under our transition services agreement, or TSA, with ISMMS which expired at the end of the
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first quarter of 2021, and other service agreements. Additional information can be found in our consolidated financial statements in Note 7, “Related Party Transactions” included within this Annual Report.
We generally expect related party expenses to decrease as we establish our own internal and external resources to fulfill the administrative and other services we have historically procured from ISMMS.
Interest Income
Interest income primarily consists of interest earned on money market funds.
Interest Expense
Interest expense consists of interest costs related to our capital leases and our long-term debt arrangements, including unused line fee and the amortization of deferred transaction costs related to the loan and security agreement entered into with Silicon Valley Bank to provide a $125 million revolving credit facility described elsewhere in this report.
Other Income, Net
Other income, net primarily consists of funding received under the CARES Act. We recognized $2.6 million of the $5.4 million of funding received under the CARES Act as other income, net on the statements of operations and comprehensive loss during the year ended December 31, 2020. We recognized $5.6 million of additional funding received under the CARES Act during the year ended December 31, 2021 and the amount is included in other income, net for the year ended December 31, 2021. In addition, the loss incurred due to early payment penalties recognized upon extinguishment of debt of $0.3 million is included in other income, net.
Results of Operations
A discussion regarding our financial condition and results of consolidated operations for the year ended December 31, 2021 compared to the year ended December 31, 2020 and for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the year ended December 31, 2019 is presented below.
Certain expenses were previously misclassified as cost of services and they are now reported as selling and marketing. The adjustment is reflected in the amounts reported below for years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019. Refer to Note 2, “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” to our consolidated financial statements for further information.
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Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2021 and 2020
The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods presented:
Year Ended December 31, | |||||||||||
| 2021 | 2020 (Restated) | ||||||||||
(in thousands) | |||||||||||
Revenue | |||||||||||
Diagnostic test revenue | $ | 205,100 | $ | 175,351 | |||||||
Other revenue | 7,095 | 3,971 | |||||||||
Total revenue | 212,195 | 179,322 | |||||||||
Cost of services | 228,797 | 175,296 | |||||||||
Gross (loss) profit | (16,602) | 4,026 | |||||||||
Research and development | 105,162 | 72,700 | |||||||||
Selling and marketing | 112,738 | 63,183 | |||||||||
General and administrative | 205,988 | 100,742 | |||||||||
Related party expenses | 5,659 | 9,395 | |||||||||
Loss from operations | (446,149) | (241,994) | |||||||||
Other income (expense): | |||||||||||
| Change in fair market value of warrant and earn-out contingent liabilities | 198,401 | — | |||||||||
Interest income | 79 | 506 | |||||||||
Interest expense | (2,835) | (2,474) | |||||||||
Other income, net | 5,114 | 2,622 | |||||||||
Total other income (expense), net | 200,759 | 654 | |||||||||
Loss before income taxes | (245,390) | (241,340) | |||||||||
Income tax provision | — | — | |||||||||
Net loss and comprehensive loss | (245,390) | (241,340) | |||||||||
Redeemable convertible preferred stock dividends | — | — | |||||||||
Net loss attributable to common stockholders | $ | (245,390) | $ | (241,340) | |||||||
Revenue