os

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 20162019

orOR

For the transition period from                     to                     

Commission file number:File Number 001-36687

XENON PHARMACEUTICALS INC.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

200 – 3650 Gilmore Way

Burnaby, British Columbia V5G 4W8

Canada

(Address of Principal Executive Offices,Registrant’s telephone number, including zip code)

(Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code):area code: (604) 484-3300

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrantRegistrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. YesYES ☐ NoNO ☒

Indicate by check mark if the registrantRegistrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. YesYES ☐ NoNO ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: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 registrantRegistrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. YesYES ☒ NoNO ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrantRegistrant 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 registrantRegistrant was required to submit and post such files). YesYES ☒ NoNO ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of the registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.   ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer”,filer,” “accelerated filer”filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “smaller reporting“emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.:

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.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrantRegistrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934)Act). YesYES ☐ NoNO ☒

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common sharesequity held by non-affiliates of the registrant,Registrant, based on the closing sale price of the registrant’s common shares on the last business day of its most recently completed second fiscal quarter, as reported on The NASDAQNasdaq Global Market on June 28, 2019, was approximately $81.1$227.6 million. Common shares held by each executive officer and director and by each other person who may be deemed to be an affiliate of the registrant,Registrant, have been excluded from this computation.  This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

The number of outstanding common shares of the registrant, no par value per share,Registrant outstanding as of March 3, 20175, 2020 was 17,935,982.

34,956,272.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the registrant’s definitiveRegistrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement relating to the 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the registrant’s 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which will be filed subsequent to the date hereof, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Form 10-K.Report. Such Proxy Statement will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission not later than 120 days following the end of the registrant’sRegistrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2016.

2019.

XENON PHARMACEUTICALS INC.

FORM 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 20162019

Table of Contents

-i-

PART I

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and Canadian securities laws. The words or phrases “would be,” “will allow,” “intends to,” “may,” “believe,” “plan,” “will likely result,” “are expected to,” “will continue,” “is anticipated,” “estimate,” “project,” or similar expressions, or the negative of such words or phrases, are intended to identify “forward-looking statements.” You should read these statements carefully because they discuss future expectations, contain projections of future results of operations or financial condition, or state other “forward-looking” information. These statements relate to our future plans, objectives, expectations, intentions and financial performance and the assumptions that underlie these statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to:

These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such a difference include, but are not limited to, those discussed in this report in Part I, Item 1A — “Risk Factors,” and elsewhere in this report. Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. These statements, like all statements in this report, speak only as of their date, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise these statements in light of future developments. In this report, “we,” “our,” “us,” “Xenon,” and “the Company” refer to Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its subsidiary. Unless otherwise noted, all dollar amounts in this report are expressed in United States dollars.

In addition, statements that “we believe” and similar statements reflect our beliefs and opinions on the relevant subject. These statements are based upon information available to us as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and although we believe such information forms a reasonable basis for such statements, such information may be limited or incomplete, and our statements should not be read to indicate that we have conducted a thorough inquiry into, or review of, all potentially available relevant information. These statements are inherently uncertain and investors are cautioned not to unduly rely upon these statements.

This Annual Report on Form 10-K includes our trademarks and registered trademarks, including the Xenon logo “Extreme Genetics” and other trademarks or service marks of Xenon. Each other trademark, trade name or service mark appearing in this Annual Report on Form 10-K belongs to its holder.

Overview

We are a clinical-stageclinical stage biopharmaceutical company discovering andcommitted to developing innovative therapeutics to improve the lives of patients with neurological disorders. We are advancing a novel product pipeline of differentiated therapeutics for orphan indications thatneurology-focused therapies to address areas of high unmet medical need, with a focus on epilepsy. In addition to our proprietary product candidates, we intend to commercialize on our own, and for larger market indications that we intend to partneralso have partnered programs with globalseveral pharmaceutical companies. We have expertise in human genetics, small molecule drug discovery, as well as preclinical and clinical development that we intend to leverage to develop innovative therapeutics,companies, including novel selective ion channel inhibitors.

Our pharmaceutical partners include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd.Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., or Teva (through its subsidiary, Ivax International GmbH),Neurocrine Biosciences, Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and Merck & Co.,Flexion Therapeutics, Inc., or Merck (through its affiliate, Essex Chemie AG). Our pharmaceutical collaborations have generated in aggregate over $160.0 million in non-equity funding to date with the potential to provide us with over $1.0 billion in future milestone payments, as well as royalties and co-promotion income on product sales.Flexion.

Our proprietary development pipeline and pharmaceutical partnerships include:

Our Strategy

Our goal is to build a self-sustaining, fully-integrated, and profitable company that discovers, develops and commercializes innovative therapeutics including novel selective ion channel inhibitors, by leveraging our expertise in the genetics of rare human diseases.

Since our inception, we believe we have operated in a capital-efficient manner to build our capabilities and assets through phased growth, expansion and value creation. Prior to our November 2014 initial public offering and concurrent private placement, our last equity financing was in 2006. From 2006 to November 2014, we funded our operations and expanded our platform, product pipeline and infrastructure through a strategy which combined the deployment of our own resources and the establishment of broadly enabling and well-structured pharmaceutical partnerships with industry leaders. In September 2016, we successfully completed an underwritten public offering of 3,450,000 common shares at a public offering price of $7.50 per common share, resulting in approximately $24.3 million of proceeds to us, net of underwriting discounts and commissions but before offering expenses.treat neurological disorders.

Our strategy includes:

Our Extreme Genetics Discovery Platform

Our business was founded on our proprietary discovery platform, which we refer to as Extreme Genetics, for the discovery of validated drug targets by studying rare human diseases with extreme traits, including diseases caused by mutations in ion channels, known as channelopathies. Extreme Genetics involves the study of families where individuals exhibit inherited severe traits, or phenotypes. By identifying and characterizing single-gene defects responsible for these phenotypes, we gain insights into human disease biology to better select targets for therapeutic intervention. Our Extreme Genetics discovery platform yielded the first approved gene therapy product in the EU.

The key components of our Extreme Genetics discovery platform include:

In addition, we have built upon our global network by developing a new direct-to-patient web-based recruitment approach for identifying patients with rare or extreme phenotypes. By leveraging social media tools and allowing potential participants to directly access research studies online, we have successfully broadened the recruitment of participants for several of our research studies.

Focus on Human Channelopathies

A significant focus of our Extreme Genetics discovery platformefforts has been on human channelopathies, enabling us to develop strong capabilities in small molecule ion channel drug discovery. Our ion channel discovery capability is founded upon our understanding of the genetics of channelopathies combined with our proprietary biology and medicinal chemistry assets and know-how. With our collaborators, we identified new binding sites on ion channels which, in turn, led to the discovery of highly-selective voltage-gated ion channel inhibitors which may have safety and efficacy advantages over non-selective inhibitors.

While the pharmaceutical industry has shown significant interest in channelopathies, a general inability to target ion channels selectively with a pharmaceutical agent has been a limitation to the development of more effective or safer therapeutics. We believe we have developed a core competence in identifying and developing highly-selectiveselective small-molecule ion channel inhibitors,modulators, and we believe we can use this know-how to develop a pipeline of novel ion channel inhibitors for diseases in areas of high unmet medical need.

For example, In addition, we discoveredhave complemented our internal discovery capabilities by identifying external product candidates that deficiency of the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.7 is presenttarget ion channels in the rare human disease called congenital indifference to pain, or CIP. Individuals with CIP are unable to feel pain. This relationship indicated that Nav1.7 may be a key mechanismCNS for the developmenttreatment of novel analgesics. We are pursuing this mechanism in separate partnerships with Teva and with Genentech.

Similarly, with our collaborators from McGill University, we identified the genetic link between rare human epilepsies and mutations in the Nav1.1 sodium channel. These genetic epilepsy discoveries helped to define our therapeutic selective ion channel strategy for rare childhood epilepsies. We believe that our extensive ion channel knowledge and Extreme Genetics discovery platform provide the opportunity to validate additional ion channel targets for both prevalent and orphan indications.

Our Pipelineneurological conditions.

Our pipeline is summarized in the following figure, which shows our own proprietary product candidates and our partnered programs:

Our Proprietary Product Candidates

XEN801XEN1101, A Kv7 Potassium Channel Modulator for the Treatment of AcneEpilepsy

XEN801 is We are developing XEN1101, a selective, small molecule inhibitor of SCD1 being developeddifferentiated Kv7 potassium channel modulator, for the treatment of moderate to severe acne. SCD1 is an enzyme involved in lipid synthesis that is expressed in sebaceous glands in the skin. Mice deficient in SCD1 have a marked phenotype of sebaceous gland atrophy suggesting that inhibition of SCD1 activity in the skin may provide a novel treatment option for acne and other disorders of enlarged or overactive sebaceous glands. Published literature studying animals deficient in skin SCD1 have shown that these animals have lower levels of certain lipids produced by sebaceous glands, increased levels of retinoic acid, and increased levels of retinoic acid induced proteins including greatly elevated expression of Lipocalin-2, or LCN2, a gene which transcribes neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin, or NGAL. NGAL has been shown to mediate sebaceous gland cell death and may also have antibacterial properties. LCN2 is also highly upregulated and NGAL levels increased in a human sebaceous gland cell line treated with a SCD1 inhibitor. Published reports on isotretinoin, an approved acne treatment, also support the theory that isotretinoin’s therapeutic effects are achieved in part through increasing levels of NGAL.

We have discovered and developed novel small-molecule SCD1 inhibitors to which we have sole rights. In multiple preclinical models, we have shown that our SCD1 inhibitors can reduce the size and number of sebaceous glands. XEN801 has demonstrated good properties for topical administration including formulation in a light gel and adequate skin penetration in multiple animal species.

In preclinical mouse models, XEN801 was applied topically and showed reduction in the size of sebaceous glands in the underlying skin in a time and dose dependent manner. At the vehicle treated sites, numerous normally sized lipid loaded sebaceous glands are visible whereas only very small sebaceous glands with hardly any visible lipids are present at the XEN801 treated sites. These reductions are visible after two days of twice-daily treatment and reached statistical significance after seven days (data presented in figure below), reverting to normal levels once the treatment is stopped. Skin areas distant from the XEN801 treated sites exhibit no changes in sebaceous glands, which is consistent with the observed low plasma concentrations of XEN801 and the high local concentrations found in the skin at the treated sites.

Because there are no preclinical models of acne, human sebocytes, which are the cells that make up the sebaceous glands and secrete sebum, are a useful research tool for a variety of applications including acne. In a human sebocyte cell line exposed to XEN801, we have observed an increase in NGAL expression and apoptosis with a greater than two-fold increase in the apoptosis marker caspase-3 cleavage protein (data presented in figure below).

We believe preclinical data generated with XEN801 support the clinical development of XEN801 for acneepilepsy and potentially other dermatologicalneurological disorders.

Clinical Development of XEN801

In September 2015, we initiated We acquired XEN1101 from 1st Order Pharmaceuticals pursuant to an asset purchase agreement in April 2017. For a Phase 1 clinical trial of XEN801, which was completed by the end of 2015. In the XEN801 Phase 1 clinical trial, 48 healthy volunteers were dosed for either a 14-day or 21-day treatment period. A number of different dose volumesmore detailed description of the 1% XEN801 drug product were evaluated in the Phase 1 clinical trialterms of this agreement with dosing on the back1st Order Pharmaceuticals, see “—Collaborations, Commercial and face of healthy volunteers to determine the maximum tolerated dose. As expected, the most common side effects were localized, generally mild skin reactions. No serious adverse events were observed. Maximal plasma concentrations of XEN801 were low, whereas skin biopsies from the back of subjects showed a concentration of approximately two orders of magnitude higher than the IC₅₀. It is expected that even better penetration will be shown in the facial skin. A Phase 2 dose was selected based on favorable tolerability and skin drug concentrations.License Agreements” below.

In February 2016, we initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with moderate to severe acne. Enrollment of 165 subjects is now complete in the XEN801 Phase 2 clinical trial, which is a randomized, double-blind, multi-center, vehicle-controlled, parallel-group study designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety, tolerability and systemic exposure of XEN801 for the treatment of moderate to severe facial acne. Patients apply a gel formulation of XEN801 (or vehicle placebo) topically to their face once daily in the evening for 12 weeks with a 4-week follow up. The primary efficacy endpoint is the percent change in total (inflammatory and non-inflammatory) lesion count from baseline to week 12. Secondary endpoints include separate efficacy assessments of inflammatory lesion counts, non-inflammatory lesion counts, and Investigator's Global Assessment, or IGA, measures. Topline results from the XEN801 Phase 2 clinical trial are expected in the latter part of the first quarter of 2017.

About Acne

Acne is a multifactorial disease of the pilosebaceous unit, which are skin structures consisting of a hair follicle and its associated sebaceous gland. Increased levels of androgens, such as testosterone, which occurs during puberty cause an enlargement of the sebaceous gland that increases the amount of sebum production, a naturally occurring oil. Acne develops as a result of blockages in the hair follicles due to the sebaceous glands becoming clogged with excess sebum and dead skin cells. Under these conditions, the bacteria proprionibacterium acnes can multiply and cause the noticeable inflammatory lesions. We believe that topically applied SCD1 inhibitors will treat acne at its root cause by reducing the underlying sebaceous gland enlargement and reducing sebum production. With its association with the onset of puberty, acne prevalence peaks in late adolescence and is estimated to affect 40 to 50 million people in the U.S, of which there are approximately 11 million and 1.2 million individuals with moderate and severe acne, respectively.

Milder forms of acne are normally treated with over the counter products such as those containing benzoyl peroxide whereas moderate and severe forms of acne are often treated with the prescription drug isotretinoin. Isotretinoin is effective with the majority of patients reporting an improvement and approximately 50% of patients reporting remission of their acne. Scientific studies have shown that isotretinoin can cause apoptosis, a form of cell death, in sebaceous glands thereby reducing sebum production. Isotretinoin treatmentKv7 potassium channel mechanism has been associatedclinically validated with relatively common side effects including thin and dry skin, hair loss, severe acne flares, blood lipid and liver enzyme elevations. However, the most significant adverse event of isotretinoin is birth defects if takenezogabine, an earlier generation Kv7 modulator that was approved by women during pregnancy or even a short time before conception due to its teratogenic potential. In 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, approvedas an adjunctive treatment for adults with focal seizures with or without secondary generalization. XEN1101’s unique composition is chemically designed to improve upon potency, selectivity and pharmacokinetics, or PK, of ezogabine, and is not expected to have ezogabine’s composition-specific tissue pigmentation effects.

Clinical Development

We announced final data from a risk management plan for isotretinoin called iPLEDGE. Under this program, general practitioners are prohibitedXEN1101 Phase 1 clinical trial and the related transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, studies at the American Epilepsy Society, or AES, Annual Meeting in December 2018. The objectives of the XEN1101 Phase 1 clinical trial were to prescribe isotretinoinevaluate the safety, tolerability and patients are referredPK of both single ascending doses, or SAD, and multiple ascending doses, or MAD, of XEN1101 in healthy subjects. The XEN1101 Phase 1 clinical trial also included a pharmacodynamic, or PD, read-out from TMS studies that were designed to dermatologists registeredassess XEN1101’s ability and activatedpotency to modulate cortical excitability, thereby demonstrating activity in the iPLEDGE program.target CNS tissue. The XEN1101 Phase 1 results include data from six SAD cohorts ranging in dose from 5 to 30 mg (n=34, placebo=8), including a crossover food effect cohort (n=10) with a single 20 mg dose. MAD results included three cohorts ranging in once daily doses from 15 to 25 mg (n=18, placebo=6) including two cohorts of 15 mg evaluated in a fasted and fed state over 7 and 10 days, respectively, and one cohort of 25 mg evaluated in a fed state over 10 days. The PK profile of XEN1101 (including an effective half-life greater than 24 hours) supports a once-per-day dosing schedule with expected steady state in approximately one week without the need for titration. The majority of adverse events, or AEs, were mild or moderate, resolved spontaneously and were consistent with antiepileptic drugs of this class. Sedation (including somnolence and drowsiness) and dizziness (including light-headedness and presyncope) were the most common AEs, while mild cognitive effects (including memory and speech impairment) and blurred vision were also observed in a dose dependent manner. There were no SAEs, deaths, or clinically significant delayed ventricular repolarization or laboratory findings. Phase 1 results suggest that that XEN1101 is generally safe and well tolerated in the doses examined (single doses of up to 30 mg and multiple doses of up to 25 mg once daily).

The Phase 1b double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized cross-over TMS study included 20 healthy male subjects. TMS measurements were taken at 2 and 4 hours for all subjects and, due to a prolonged absorption phase displayed by XEN1101, an additional TMS assessment time-point was added at 6 hours for a subset of subjects. Subjects were randomized initially to either a 20 mg dose of XEN1101 or placebo and then, after a one-week wash-out period, crossed over to the other treatment arm. XEN1101 reduced corticospinal excitability, as demonstrated by a concentration dependent elevation in resting motor threshold, or RMT, the key TMS-EMG measure. RMT increased in proportion to XEN1101 plasma concentration showing a mean ± standard error of mean increase of 4.9 ± 0.7% (p<0.01) at 6 hours. Active motor threshold, or AMT, also increased in proportion to plasma concentration of XEN1101 with an increase of 2.0 ± 0.4% at 6 hours. In addition, XEN1101 statistically significantly modulated TMS-evoked EEG potentials, or TEPs, in a pattern consistent with reductions in cortical excitability. Relative to time-matched placebo, at peak plasma levels, XEN1101 decreased the amplitude of TEPs vs placebo at 25, 45 and 180 ms after the TMS pulse. Additional measures of cortical excitability including global mean field power were similarly impacted. XEN1101 also shifted the power spectra of resting state EEGs toward lower frequencies. This Phase 1b TMS study provides evidence of the CNS effects of a 20 mg dose of XEN1101 as indicated by suppression of cortical and corticospinal excitability, and helped with dose selection for our XEN1101 Phase 2b clinical trial.

A Phase 2b clinical trial, called the X-TOLE study, is currently underway and designed as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trial to evaluate the clinical efficacy, safety and tolerability of XEN1101 administered as adjunctive treatment in approximately 300 adult patients are also requiredwith focal epilepsy. The primary endpoint is the median percent change in monthly focal seizure frequency from baseline compared to registertreatment period of active versus placebo. Patient enrollment for this XEN1101 Phase 2b clinical trial is ongoing in the United States, Canada and qualifyEurope. Long term six-and nine-month toxicology studies have now been completed, providing support for the iPLEDGE program. Isotretinoin12-month open label extension for patients enrolled in the Phase 2b clinical trial. The clinical trial protocol includes an option to conduct an interim analysis. Depending upon the rate of enrollment, top-line results are anticipated in the second half of 2020. We also continue to explore the development of XEN1101 in other neurological indications.

About Focal Seizures

A focal seizure is localized within the brain and can only be dispensedeither stay localized or spread to the entire brain, which is typically categorized as a secondary generalized seizure. Focal seizures are the most common type of seizure experienced by people with epilepsy. The treatment of an individual patient with focal seizures is currently focused on reduction of seizure frequency, with seizure freedom as the ultimate goal. Focal seizures (simple, complex and secondary generalized tonic-clonic) account for a 30-day supply (no refills) by a registered pharmacy. We believeapproximately 60% of seizures (GlobalData Report 2017) of which approximately 33% are considered resistant to current treatments (Epilepsy Foundation). It is estimated that a safer alternative drug (without an onerous risk mitigation plan) that potently reduces sebum production may be a significant treatment option for moderate to severe acne.the addressable population in the United States could include approximately 460,000 adults and 70,000 pediatric patients with focal epilepsy.

XEN901,

XEN496, A Selective Small-Molecule Nav1.6 InhibitorKv7 Potassium Channel Modulator for the Treatment of Epilepsy DisordersKCNQ2-DEE

We are developing XEN901, which isXEN496 (active ingredient ezogabine), a selective inhibitor of the voltage-gated sodiumKv7 potassium channel Nav1.6,modulator, for the treatment of rare infantileKCNQ2 developmental and epileptic encephalopathiesencephalopathy, or KCNQ2-DEE (also known as EIEE7). Ezogabine was previously approved by the FDA as an anti-seizure medication, or ASM, as an adjunctive treatment for adults with focal seizures with or without secondary generalization. Published case reports where physicians have used ezogabine in infants and other formsyoung children with KCNQ2-DEE suggest that XEN496 may be efficacious in this often hard-to-treat pediatric patient population.

The FDA has granted orphan drug designation, or ODD, for XEN496 as a treatment of epilepsy. KCNQ2-DEE. The FDA previously indicated that it is acceptable to study XEN496 in infants and children up to four years old, and that a single, small pivotal trial may be considered adequate in order to demonstrate XEN496’s efficacy in KCNQ2-DEE, provided the study shows evidence of a clinically meaningful benefit in patients with the intended indication.

Clinical Development

We have developed considerable expertise XEN496 as a pediatric-specific, granule formulation of ezogabine to be presented as single-dose sprinkle capsules. Standard in voltage-gated sodiumvitro testing has shown that XEN496 acts as an “immediate-release” drug product. In December 2019, we filed an Investigational New Drug, or IND, application with the FDA related to a PK study, testing XEN496 in healthy adult volunteers. In January 2020, we received permission to proceed with the study, which is now ongoing and expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2020. In parallel, we are corresponding with the FDA regarding the Phase 3 clinical trial design and we expect feedback early in the second quarter of 2020. A Phase 3 clinical trial in KCNQ2-DEE is expected to start in 2020.

About KCNQ2-DEE

KCNQ2 developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (KCNQ2-DEE), otherwise known as EIEE7, is a rare, severe neurodevelopmental disorder with a significant seizure burden and profound developmental impairment. KCNQ2-DEE is uniquely characterized by multiple, daily, refractory seizures presenting within the first week of life with a prominent tonic component and autonomic signs. Seizures are often accompanied by clonic jerking or complex motor behavior. The electroencephalogram, or EEG, at onset of the disease shows a burst suppression pattern later evolving into multifocal epileptiform activity. The infants usually develop a severe to profound intellectual disability with axial hypotonia that can be accompanied by limb spasticity. The seizure activity typically decreases with age with some patients becoming seizure free or experiencing more minor seizure burden by 3 to 5 years of age; however, a survey of patient caregivers conducted by us indicates that a significant proportion of patients have ongoing seizures beyond this age range. The intellectual disability and other co-morbidities are not reversed or improved with age and patients generally require life-long care. Patients are often non-verbal and some children may also have autistic features. Seizure-related bradycardia and oxygen desaturation with cyanosis have been observed, and are thought to contribute to the significant risk of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy, or SUDEP, in these children. A recent epidemiology study from Europe examining the incidence and phenotypes of childhood-onset genetic epilepsies reports the incidence of KCNQ2-DEE as approximately 1 per 17,000 live births (5.89/100,000) compared to 1 per 12,200 live births estimated for Dravet Syndrome.

XEN007, A CNS-acting Calcium Channel Modulator

XEN007 (active ingredient flunarizine) is a CNS-acting calcium channel biologymodulator that modulates Cav2.1 and T-type calcium channels. Other reported mechanisms include dopamine, histamine and serotonin inhibition. Flunarizine is available in certain countries outside of the United States and has been reported to have clinical benefit in treating migraine and other neurological disorders.

Various development strategies for XEN007 are under consideration. We have entered into key exclusive licensing agreements in order to access regulatory files and drug product manufacturing, both of which may enable advanced clinical development of XEN007. The FDA granted ODD for the treatment of hemiplegic migraine with XEN007, and granted ODD and a rare pediatric disease, or RPD, designation for the treatment of alternating hemiplegia of childhood with XEN007. A physician-led, Phase 2 proof-of-concept study is underway to examine the potential clinical efficacy, safety, and tolerability of XEN007 as an adjunctive treatment in pediatric patients diagnosed with treatment-resistant childhood absence epilepsy, or CAE. Absence seizures are characterized by an abrupt impairment of awareness with arrest in behavior, staring, eye lid fluttering, and automatisms associated with generalized 3 Hz spike wave discharges, or SWD, on electroencephalogram, or EEG. A child may have one or many (up to 100) absence seizures a day and have accumulated significant experienceproblems with attention and learning. Flunarizine has been shown to be well tolerated clinically, and in pre-clinical models of absence seizures, flunarizine significantly reduced the number and duration of SWDs on EEG as mono-therapy and, when combined with valproic acid or ethosuximide, significantly reduced the SWD EEGs more than any drug alone. Results from the Phase 2 investigator-led proof-of-concept study are expected in 2020. Depending on the results from the study, CAE may represent a potential orphan indication for future development of selective sodium channel inhibitors. We expect to file an IND, or IND equivalent, application for XEN901 in the fourth quarter of 2017.XEN007.

With our collaborators from McGill University, we identified the genetic link between rare human epilepsy and mutations in the Nav1.1 gene. Nav1.1 plays a critical role in the normal functioning of inhibitory pathways in the brain. The lack of fully functioning Nav1.1 and inhibitory pathways allows the brain excitatory pathways to be unopposed resulting in the severe seizures of Dravet Syndrome, which is one example of a rare infantile epileptic encephalopathy. The brain excitatory pathways are preferentially mediated by the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.6. Published data have shown that seizures and premature death observed in a Dravet Syndrome mouse model can be corrected when these animals are bred with a Nav1.6 knockout mouse. Therefore, if we are able to selectively inhibit Nav1.6 with a small-molecule compound, we expect to taper this neuronal excitation and thereby treat rare forms of severe childhood epilepsy.

There are other intractable, rare childhood seizures that may benefit from a selective inhibitor of Nav1.6, including rare and intractable childhood epilepsies, such as SCN8A (or Nav1.6 gain-of function) epilepsy. These patients represent potential candidates for a selective Nav1.6 inhibitor since such a compound would directly target the disease. Many distinct SCN8A mutations have been linked to seizures in humans and we have generated preclinical data showing that a number of these patient-identified Nav1.6 gain-of-function mutant channels are sensitive to our selective Nav1.6 inhibitors. In addition, using our Nav1.6 inhibitors, we have shown compelling dose dependent efficacy in a transgenic SCN8A gain-of-function mouse model of seizures.

Non-selective sodium channel blockers have long been used to treat more common epilepsies like adult partial onset epilepsy. If the block of Nav1.6 is important for the efficacy in treating these disorders, a selective Nav1.6 inhibitor might provide improved efficacy with a reduced burden of off-target adverse events. We have studied the ability of our selective Nav1.6 inhibitor compounds to protect wild type mice from seizures in the maximal electroshock seizure, or MES, animal model. The MES assay has been well validated against known anti-epileptic drugs, or AEDs, and is believed to provide a reasonable assessment of the potential activity in adult partial epilepsies. MES induced seizures in wild type mice are reduced by XEN901 in a dose dependent manner, similar to that seen in SCN8A gain-of-function mice. This suggests that the efficacy of Nav1.6 selective inhibitors may not be limited to patients with SCN8A gain-of-function mutations and could also include more prevalent adult epilepsy disorders.

New Pipeline Opportunities

Given our expertise in ion channel drug discovery, our efforts are concentrated on the identification of ion channel targets where we believe novel selective inhibitorsmodulators might represent significant therapeutic advances, with a particular focus on CNS-related orphan indications. We intend to expand our pipeline either from our internal research efforts orand through acquiringthe acquisition or in-licensing of other product candidates or technologies.candidates.

Our Partnered Programs

TV-45070:NBI-921352, A Small MoleculeClinical Stage, Selective Nav1.6 Sodium Channel Inhibitor for the Treatment of Pain being Developed by Teva

TV-45070 (formerly XEN402) is a small-molecule inhibitor of the sodium channel Nav1.7 and other sodium channels, including those that are expressed in the pain-sensing peripheral nervous system. TV-45070 has potential application in neuropathic pain mediated by damage, dysfunction, or injury of nerves. We selected Nav1.7 as a drug target for pain after we discovered that the Nav1.7 protein is deficient in the rare human disease, CIP, where humans suffering from CIP are unable to feel pain.Epilepsy

In December 2012,2019, we entered into a collaborative developmentlicense and licensecollaboration agreement with Teva through its subsidiary Ivax, pursuantNeurocrine Biosciences to which we granted Tevadevelop treatments for epilepsy. Neurocrine Biosciences has an exclusive worldwide license to XEN901, now known as NBI-921352, a clinical stage selective Nav1.6 sodium channel inhibitor, and an exclusive license to pre-clinical compounds for development, including selective Nav1.6 inhibitors and dual Nav1.2/1.6 inhibitors. The agreement also included a multi-year research collaboration to discover, identify and develop additional novel Nav1.6 and commercialize TV-45070.Nav1.2/1.6 inhibitors. For a more detailed description of the terms of ourthis agreement with Teva,Neurocrine Biosciences, see “—Strategic Alliances”Collaborations, Commercial and License Agreements” below.  Using

NBI-921352 is a topical ointment formulation of TV-45070, Teva is currently conductingpotent, highly selective Nav1.6 sodium channel inhibitor being developed to treat pediatric patients with SCN8A developmental and epileptic encephalopathy, or SCN8A-DEE, and other potential indications, including adult focal epilepsy. Prior to our license and collaboration agreement with Neurocrine Biosciences, we completed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2b1 clinical trial in healthy adult subjects, and subsequently developed a pediatric-specific, granule formulation. Neurocrine Biosciences anticipates filing an IND application with the FDA in mid-2020 in order to start a Phase 2 clinical trial in SCN8A-DEE patients in the second half of 2020. We are eligible to receive up to $25 million upon the FDA acceptance of an IND for NBI-921352, with PHN55% of the amount in the form of an equity investment in our common shares at a 15% premium to our 30-day trailing volume weighted average price at that time.

FX301, A Pre-Clinical Nav1.7 Inhibitor for the Treatment of Post-Operative Pain

In September 2019, we entered into an agreement providing Flexion with results expectedthe global rights to develop and commercialize XEN402, now known as FX301, a Nav1.7 inhibitor. Flexion’s pre-clinical FX301 program consists of XEN402 formulated for extended release from a thermosensitive hydrogel. The initial development of FX301 is intended to support administration as a peripheral nerve block for control of post-operative pain. Flexion has indicated that it anticipates initiating FX301 clinical trials in mid-2017. Pursuant to2021. For a more detailed description of the terms of ourthis agreement with Teva, Teva is obligated to complete one additional Phase 2 or later stage clinical trial.

Discovery of TV-45070Flexion, see “—Collaborations, Commercial and Mechanism of Action

Using our Extreme Genetics discovery platform, we discovered Nav1.7 by studying families with the rare disorder CIP. Patients with CIP are unable to feel pain for painful events including fractures, childbirth, osteomyelitis, severe burns, ulcers, wounds and tooth abscesses. Based on this severe phenotype of absence of pain in humans with CIP, we predicted that the single-gene defect causing CIP could define an important novel human drug target for treating pain. We showed that defects in the CIP gene result in deficiency of the sodium channel Nav1.7.

Nav1.7 is highly expressed in peripheral nerves and transmits pain signals. We believe that inhibition of Nav1.7 may reduce these pain signals. TV-45070 was designed to be a non-selective small-molecule inhibitor of Nav1.7 such that it also can inhibit additional sodium channels, including those that we believe play a role in pain signaling. We believe this mixed sodium channel inhibition may enhance the potential efficacy of TV-45070 in chronic pain. TV-45070 is currently being developed as a topical product as its chemical properties are favorable for topical administration, including high local skin and underlying tissue concentrations with low plasma levels. With these properties, we believe we can target the site of generation of peripherally-based pain without unnecessarily exposing other tissues to significant levels of this compound. This is especially true for the central nervous system where we might expect to observe side-effects when multiple sodium channels are inhibited, such as sleepiness, nausea, and dizziness. We have demonstrated efficacy with this compound in multiple animal models for pain including both nociceptive and neuropathic pain models. The broad sodium channel inhibition of TV-45070 is in contrast to our selective inhibitors licensed to Genentech, which are selective for Nav1.7 and are being developed as oral formulations.

Clinical Development of TV-45070

We are collaborating with Teva on the development of topical TV-45070. Teva is currently conducting a Phase 2b clinical trial in patients with PHN. Previously, we observed promising evidence of activity for TV-45070 in four Phase 2 proof-of-concept clinical trials, including two trials in the orphan disease erythromelalgia, or EM, one trial in PHN and one trial in dental pain, a form of nociceptive pain.

The previously completed PHN Phase 2 proof-of-concept trial of topical TV-45070 was studied in 70 patients. Patients enrolled into the study had refractory PHN and their average disease duration was 76.6 months. This study was a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial where topical (8% ointment) TV-45070 was administered twice daily with each patient receiving either TV-45070 or placebo for three weeks, then after a washout period, the subjects received the alternative treatment. In this study, topical TV-45070 was well-tolerated with no drug-related SAEs. The results showed there was a reduction in the primary efficacy endpoint (change from baseline in the mean daily pain score) for both TV-45070 and placebo, but the difference between treatments was not statistically significant. However, in analysis of certain secondary endpoints, there was a significantly increased proportion of TV-45070-treated patients who reported 30% or greater (p=0.049) and 50% or greater (p=0.0078) reduction in their pain compared to placebo and a retrospective exploratory analysis not described in the study protocol showed that a significant increased proportion of TV-45070-treated patients reported 30% or greater improvement in sleep (p=0.034) compared to placebo.

In addition to the promising efficacy findings from our PHN proof-of-concept trial, there are a number of key factors supporting the rationale to develop TV-45070 in PHN including:

TV-45070 Phase 2b Clinical Trial in PHN

Teva is currently conducting a Phase 2b trial in patients with PHN. The Phase 2b trial, which was initiated in April 2015, is a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, multi-site study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of TV-45070 in patients with PHN. The study includes three treatment groups that receive doses of 4% or 8% of TV-45070 or placebo, dosed twice daily. Approximately 330 patients will be enrolled in the study, with the goal of having approximately 264 completers. Patients will be stratified into treatment groups based on their R1150W status. The primary endpoint of this study is the change from baseline to week 4 in the numeric rating scale, or NRS, scores. Secondary endpoints include additional pain measurement scores at specified daily time points, the percentage of patients with greater than 30% and greater than 50% improvement in pain scores, quality of life measurements and adverse events measurements. Topline results are expected in mid-2017.

About Post-Herpetic Neuralgia (PHN)

PHN is a painful complication of Herpes zoster infection, occurring particularly in patients above the age of 50. Herpes zoster, otherwise known as shingles, generally manifests as a painful skin rash with blisters in a limited area on one side of the body. Pain can occur both before and during the rash, and can also persist after the infection has resolved. PHN is defined as pain that persists for 120 days or longer after the onset of rash. It is estimated that the annual incidence of Herpes zoster is between 230 and 630 cases per 100,000 people, with PHN occurring in approximately 20% of cases, resulting in approximately 200,000 PHN patients in the U.S.

Like other forms of neuropathic pain, there is a need for improved treatments for PHN. The current leading drugs used to treat PHN suffer from low efficacy for many patients and common dose limiting side effects. It has been reported that 30% to 50% of PHN patients achieve a 30% to 50% improvement in their pain with these agents. Currently prescribed treatments include Lyrica (pregabalin) and generic forms of gabapentin, both of which target the same mechanism. Common side effects for these drugs include sleepiness, dizziness, blurred vision, edema and weight gain.License Agreements” below.

Selective Inhibitors of Nav1.7 for the Treatment of Pain being Developed by Genentech

In December 2011, we entered into a collaborative research and license agreement with Genentech and its affiliate, F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd, or Roche, to discover and develop selective oral inhibitors of Nav1.7 for the treatment of pain. For a more detailed description of the terms of this agreementour agreements with Genentech, see “—Strategic Alliances”Collaborations, Commercial and License Agreements” below.

Based on our discovery of Nav1.7 deficiency underlying the rare human disease called congenital indifference to pain, or CIP, where individuals with CIP are unable to feel pain, we believe that Nav1.7 is a highly-validated target for the treatment of pain. In contrast to our Teva partnership that is focused on developing a topical drug that targets a number of different sodium channels, including Nav1.7, ourOur Genentech collaboration is focused on discovering and developing an oral drugdrugs that selectively targetstarget Nav1.7. The

Collaborations, Commercial and License Agreements

License and Collaboration Agreement with Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc.

On December 2, 2019, we entered into a license and collaboration agreement, or the Collaboration Agreement, with Genentech has advanced two oral selective Nav1.7Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., or Neurocrine Biosciences, to establish a collaboration under which the parties will identify, research and develop sodium channel inhibitors, GDC-0276including our clinical candidate XEN901, now known as NBI-921352, and GDC-0310, into development.preclinical candidates XEN393, XPC’535 and XPC’391, which compounds Neurocrine Biosciences will have the exclusive right to further develop and commercialize under the terms and conditions set forth in the Collaboration Agreement.

To study

Licenses.  Under the effectsterms of targeting Nav1.7the Collaboration Agreement we granted to Neurocrine Biosciences an exclusive, royalty-bearing, sublicensable license to certain of our intellectual property rights for the research, development and commercialization of (i) XEN901; (ii) XEN393, XPC’535 and XPC’391, collectively referred to as the development track candidates, or the DTCs; and (iii) certain research compounds that bind to and inhibit voltage-gated sodium channels Nav1.2 and Nav1.6 as their primary mechanism of action, collectively, the Research Compounds and, together with XEN901 and the DTCs, the Compounds, on a worldwide basis for the treatment, cure, diagnosis, prediction or prevention of pain, we developed an animal model of inherited EM,any human disease or IEM, by expressing human Nav1.7 carrying a known IEM mutation in mice. These mice demonstrate a greater sensitivitydisorder, state, condition and/or malady, subject to pain. Using this IEM model, as showncertain exceptions set forth in the figure below,Collaboration Agreement.  We also granted to Neurocrine Biosciences a non-exclusive, non-royalty-bearing, sublicensable license to certain of our intellectual property rights for the screening of compounds for identification as a Select Nav Inhibitor (as defined below) and for the research of certain compounds otherwise expressly excluded from the Collaboration Agreement, or the Excluded Compounds.  

Exclusivity.  During the Research Term (as defined below) and for one year thereafter, other than in accordance with the terms of the Collaboration Agreement, neither Neurocrine Biosciences nor any of its respective affiliates is permitted to directly or indirectly research, develop, manufacture or commercialize any small-molecule Select Nav Inhibitor (as defined below).  During the term of the Collaboration Agreement, other than the Excluded Compounds and otherwise in accordance with the terms of the Collaboration Agreement, neither we nor any of our respective affiliates is permitted to directly or indirectly research, develop, manufacture or commercialize a single dosecompound that, as its primary mechanism of GDC-0276, these mice had fewer pain events demonstratingaction, binds to and inhibits voltage-gated sodium channels Nav1.2 and Nav1.6, such compound referred to as a Select Nav Inhibitor.

Governance.  The parties will establish a joint steering committee, or JSC, composed of an equal number of representatives from each entity, which will coordinate and oversee the abilityCollaboration Programs (as defined below).  The JSC will disband upon the completion or earlier termination of GDC-0276both of the Collaboration Programs.  Decisions of the JSC will be made by unanimous vote, provided that in the event of a disagreement on any matter, following a specified dispute resolution procedure, Neurocrine Biosciences will have the right to inhibit Nav1.7 decide such matter, subject to certain exceptions.

Collaboration Programs.  We are collaborating with Neurocrine Biosciences on the conduct of two collaboration programs: (i) a joint research collaboration to discover, identify and preclinically develop Research Compounds, or the Research Program, and (ii) a collaborative development program for XEN901 and two DTCs selected by the JSC, or the Initial Development Program and, together with the Research Program, referred to as the Collaboration Programs.  The Research Program is intended to include the preclinical development of our existing non-clinical Research Compounds and the discovery of new back-up and follow-on Research Compounds to XEN901 and the two DTCs selected by the JSC as clinical development candidates for subsequent development and commercialization by Neurocrine Biosciences.  During the term of the Research Program, the parties will conduct related activities in vivoaccordance with an agreed research plan and budget.  Each party will be solely responsible for all costs such party incurs to conduct its activities under the research plan, provided that Neurocrine Biosciences will reimburse us for certain full-time employees and out-of-pocket expenses incurred by us in accordance with the research budget.  Unless earlier terminated or extended, the Research Program will end on the second anniversary of the Collaboration Agreement, or the Research Term, after which we will have no obligation to perform any further activities in furtherance of the Research Program..

ClinicalThe Initial Development

Genentech has completed Program will include: (i) completion of any preclinical and clinical studies that are ongoing as the date of the Collaboration Agreement of any XEN901 product and the two DTC products selected by the JSC; (ii) a pharmacokinetic, drug-drug interaction and food effect Phase 1 clinical trialstrial of a XEN901 product to examine the adequacy of a new pediatric formulation; and (iii) all preclinical studies of two DTC products containing the two DTCs selected by the JSC.  The parties will use their commercially reasonable efforts to conduct the development activities under the Initial Development Program pursuant to specific development plans.  Each party will be solely responsible for GDC-0276all costs such party incurs to conduct its activities under these development plans, provided that, with respect to XEN901 development activities, Neurocrine Biosciences will reimburse us for certain full-time employees and GDC-0310. Genentech has indicatedout-of-pocket expenses incurred by us, and with respect to certain development activities related to the two JSC-selected DTCs, the JSC may determine that itNeurocrine Biosciences shall make such reimbursements.  

Development, Regulatory and Manufacturing.  Except for the activities set forth in the plans for the Collaboration Programs, Neurocrine Biosciences will be solely responsible, at its sole cost and expense, for all development and manufacturing of the Compounds and any pharmaceutical product that contains a Compound, subject to the Co-Funding Option (as defined below).  For the first indication that meets or exceeds a specified prevalence threshold, or a Major Indication, for which Neurocrine Biosciences intends to focusconduct a Phase 3 clinical trial of a XEN901 product or the first clinical trial of a DTC product following a successful Phase 2 clinical trial for such DTC product, Neurocrine Biosciences will prepare a development plan including an estimated budget and provide such plan to us.  We will have the right to elect to co-fund the development of one product in a Major Indication under such development plan and to receive a mid-single digit percentage increase in royalties owed on the net sales as calculated pursuant to the terms of the Collaboration Agreement, or Net Sales, of such products in the United States, or the Co-Funding Option.  If we exercise the Co-Funding Option, the parties will share equally all reasonable and documented costs and expenses that Neurocrine Biosciences incurs in connection with the development of such product in the applicable indication, except costs and expenses that are solely related to the development of such product for regulatory approval outside the United States.

Neurocrine Biosciences anticipates filing an IND with the FDA in the middle of 2020 in order to start a proposed clinical trial for XEN901 in SCN8A-DEE patients in the second half of 2020.

Neurocrine Biosciences will be the regulatory sponsor and will be solely responsible for all regulatory activities (except for those delegated to us) under the Collaboration Agreement, including submitting one or more INDs for a XEN901 product.  If the FDA grants a Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher in connection with the approval of a New Drug Application for a XEN901 product, Neurocrine Biosciences may, at its ongoingoption, (i) sell it to a third party and share a specified portion of the proceeds with us; (ii) use it for a product Neurocrine Biosciences is developing outside the Collaboration Agreement and pay us a specified portion of the voucher’s intrinsic value (as calculated pursuant to the terms of the Collaboration Agreement); or (iii) use the voucher for a pharmaceutical product that contains a Compound, in which case no payments would be due to us.  If the FDA grants Neurocrine Biosciences a voucher in connection with any other product, Neurocrine Biosciences will retain all rights to such voucher without any payment or other obligations to us.

Commercialization.  Neurocrine Biosciences will have the exclusive right to conduct, and will be solely responsible for all aspects of, the commercialization of any pharmaceutical product that contains a Compound.

Financial Terms.  Neurocrine Biosciences has agreed to pay us an upfront payment of $50.0 million, which includes a $30.0 million payment in cash within ten business days after the date of the Collaboration Agreement. For the remainder of the upfront payment, concurrently with the entry into the Collaboration Agreement, the parties entered into the Share Purchase Agreement (as defined below) pursuant to which we will issue and sell the Shares (as defined below) to Neurocrine Biosciences for an aggregate purchase price of $20.0 million.

If a XEN901 product achieves IND acceptance in either SCN8A-EE or a Major Indication, we will be entitled to a milestone cash payment of $11.25 million or $4.5 million, respectively. In addition to such cash payment, we will issue and sell either $13.75 million or $5.5 million of its common shares to Neurocrine Biosciences, depending on whether the IND acceptance is for SCN8A-EE or a Major Indication, respectively, the Milestone Equity Purchase.  The common shares sold to Neurocrine Biosciences in the Milestone Equity Purchase will have a price equal to 115% of our 30-day volume-weighted average price immediately prior to the public announcement of the IND acceptance.  If the IND acceptance first occurs for a Major Indication and, within one year after such IND acceptance, there is an IND acceptance in SCN8A-EE, Neurocrine Biosciences will pay us an additional $6.75 million cash payment and an additional $8.25 million of common shares will be issued and sold to Neurocrine Biosciences at a price equal to 115% of our 30-day volume-weighted average price immediately prior to the public announcement of the subsequent IND acceptance, or the Subsequent Milestone Equity Purchase.  If the aggregate number of common shares to be sold to Neurocrine Biosciences pursuant to the Share Purchase Agreement, the Milestone Equity Purchase and the Subsequent Milestone Equity Purchase would exceed 19.9% of our common shares outstanding on the date of the Collaboration Agreement, then the number of shares to be purchased shall be reduced such that the percentage cap is not exceeded.  

The Collaboration Agreement also provides for potential aggregate development effortsand regulatory milestone payments from Neurocrine Biosciences to us of up to $325.0 million for a XEN901 product and up to $247.5 million for each other Compound up to a maximum of three other Compounds.  Sales-based milestones of up to $150.0 million for each Compound, including a XEN901 product, will be paid from Neurocrine Biosciences to us upon the achievement of certain Net Sales targets, up to a maximum of four Compounds.

Neurocrine Biosciences has further agreed to pay us royalties based on GDC-0310. Pendingfuture Net Sales of any pharmaceutical product that contains a full assessmentCompound.  Such royalty percentages, for Net Sales in and outside the United States, range from (i) for a XEN901 product, a low double-digit percentage to a mid-teen percentage and a high-single digit percentage to low double-digit percentage, respectively; (ii) for each DTC product, a high-single digit percentage to a low double-digit percentage and a mid-single digit percentage to a high-single digit percentage, respectively; and (iii) for each Research Compound product, a mid-single digit percentage to a high-single digit percentage and a tiered mid-single digit percentage, respectively.

Neurocrine Biosciences’s obligations to pay royalties with respect to a product and country will expire upon the latest of: (i) the expiration of the last to expire valid claim in (a) the parties’ joint patent rights filed during the Research Term or a specified period of time thereafter or (b) our patent rights as specified in the Collaboration Agreement, in each case that cover such product; (ii) ten years from the first commercial sale of the product in such country; and (iii) the expiration of regulatory exclusivity for such product in such country, or the Royalty Term.  Royalty payments are subject to reduction in specified circumstances, including expiration of patent rights or if average Net Sales decrease by a certain percentage after the introduction of a generic product.

Term and Termination.  Unless earlier terminated, the term of the Collaboration Agreement will continue on a product-by-product and country-by-country basis until the expiration of the Royalty Term for such product in such country.  Upon the expiration of the Royalty Term for a particular product and country, the exclusive license granted by us to Neurocrine Biosciences with respect to such product and country will become fully-paid, royalty free, perpetual and irrevocable.

Neurocrine Biosciences may terminate the Collaboration Agreement in its entirety or on a product-by-product or country-by-country basis, for any or no reason, by providing at least 90 days’ written notice, provided that such unilateral termination will not be effective (i) with respect to a XEN901 product until Neurocrine Biosciences has used its commercially reasonable efforts to complete one Phase 2 clinical trial for a XEN901 product; (ii) with respect to a DTC product until Neurocrine Biosciences has used its commercially reasonable efforts to complete one Phase 1 clinical resultstrial for a DTC product; and ongoing (iii) with respect to the Collaboration Agreement in vivoits entirety until Neurocrine Biosciences has used its commercially reasonable efforts to complete both of these clinical trials.  Either party may terminate the Collaboration Agreement in the event of a material breach in whole or in part, subject to specified conditions.  If Neurocrine Biosciences is entitled to terminate the Collaboration Agreement due to our uncured material breach, in lieu of termination, Neurocrine Biosciences may elect to reduce all subsequent payments owing from Neurocrine Biosciences to us by half. studies, Genentech anticipates initiating

Upon the termination of the Collaboration Agreement for any reason, all licenses and other rights granted to Neurocrine Biosciences by us shall terminate, provided that if termination is solely with respect to one or more products or countries, then such termination will apply only to the terminated products or countries.  Upon termination in certain cases, Neurocrine Biosciences has agreed to grant us licenses to certain Neurocrine Biosciences intellectual property that is reasonably necessary, and that was actually used by Neurocrine Biosciences for the development, manufacturing or commercialization of the terminated products, to research, develop and commercialize the terminated products in the terminated countries.  Such license will be royalty-free with respect to any terminated product for which a Phase 2 clinical trial in 2017 forwas not completed prior to the potential treatmenteffective date of pain.

Chronic pain conditions, such as severe cancer paintermination, and neuropathic pain, are generally recognized as unmet medical needs providing potential commercial opportunities forotherwise will be royalty-bearing ranging from a new oral pain drug. Currently available pain drugs often have eitherlow-single digit percentage to a lackhigh-single digit percentage depending on the stage of meaningful pain relief or dose limiting side effects for many patients. An orally administered selective Nav1.7 inhibitor could present a novel mechanism for the treatment of moderate to severe pain as a single agent or in combination with existing analgesics that work through different mechanisms. We believe that the selective inhibition of Nav1.7 may lower the potential for dose-limiting central nervous system side-effects and allow for an improved side-effect profile for oral administration of such an inhibitor, which could potentially allow for the treatment of pain that has a central or deep tissue component, including cancer pain and neuropathic pain.

Other Collaborative Work with Genentech

We formed a second collaboration with Genentech in March 2014 for pain genetics, where we intend to focus on rare phenotypes where individuals have an inability to perceive pain or where individuals have non-precipitated spontaneous severe pain. For a more detailed descriptiondevelopment of the applicable product at the effective date of termination.

The Collaboration Agreement includes certain other customary terms of this second agreement with Genentech, see “—Strategic Alliances” below. We believe these phenotypes may unlock new key molecular regulators of pain signaling in humans, which we will seekand conditions, including mutual representations and warranties, indemnification and confidentiality provisions.

Share Purchase Agreement

On December 2, 2019, pursuant to validate as targets for new pain drugs. For example, we are analyzing CIP families that are not explained by Nav1.7 deficiency as well as families with conditions associated with severe pain phenotypes such as paroxysmal extreme pain disorder, or PEPD, inherited EM and cluster headache.

Glybera (alipogene tiparvovec): A Gene Therapy for the Orphan Disease LPLD

Glybera is a gene therapy product approved in the EU in October 2012 for the treatment of a subset of patients with the orphan lipid disorder lipoprotein lipase deficiency, or LPLD. Specifically, it is intended to treat LPLD in patients with severe or multiple pancreatitis attacks, despite dietary fat restrictions. LPLD is a severe metabolic disease of inadequate lipid metabolism, resulting in pancreatitis and in some cases, death. In collaboration with the University of British Columbia, or UBC, we demonstrated that humans with a variant of the lipoprotein lipase, or LPL, gene called LPL^S447X resulted in increased LPL enzyme activity leading to reduced triglyceride levels. Under our sublicense and research agreement with uniQure, we collaborated with uniQure and UBC on preclinical activities, and thereafter uniQure developed a LPL gene therapy product, Glybera, which contains the LPL^S447X variant. We believe that the introduction of the therapeutic LPL^S447X gene through administration of Glybera provides a clinical benefit for LPLD patients.

Glybera is the first product whose active ingredient was derived from our platform to receive commercial approval and was the first gene therapy product to be approved in the EU. The goal of Glybera therapy is to treat LPLD in order to achieve sustained improvement of clearance of triglyceride-rich lipid particles known as chylomicrons, and to significantly reduce the risk of pancreatitis attacks in patients suffering from multiple recurrent pancreatitis and abdominal pain events.

About LPLD

Familial LPLD is a rare autosomal-recessive disorder of lipoprotein metabolism. LPLD is characterized by severe hypertriglyceridemia caused by the absence of LPL activity, and, as a consequence, certain triglyceride-rich lipoproteins accumulate in the plasma. The population frequency of LPLD in the U.S. has been reported to be approximately one in a million individuals by the National Library of Medicine.

LPLD typically manifests early in childhood, with repeated episodes of abdominal pain and acute pancreatitis that can be life-threatening. There is currently no approved gene therapy for LPLD in the U.S. The current management of LPLD consists of strict adherence to an extremely low-fat diet, but compliance with such a diet is challenging. Lipid-lowering drugs are generally not effective for treating LPLD. We believe effective therapeutic strategies are therefore needed for this condition.

About LPL^S447X

Together with our collaborators at UBC and using our Extreme Genetics discovery platform, we demonstrated that the LPL^S447X variant resulted in reduced triglyceride levels in humans, as this single-gene defect results in elevated LPL enzyme activity, and we further demonstrated that LPL^S447X in an adenovirus gene therapy could treat hypertriglyceridemia in animal models of LPLD.

Clinical Development of Glybera

In a scientific publication, a single dose of Glybera was well-tolerated with no material safety concerns and was demonstrated to reduce the incidence of acute pancreatitis and abdominal pain events over the two-year study period.

Commercialization of Glybera

In 2012, Glybera was approved in the EU for the orphan disorder LPLD to treat patients with severe or multiple pancreatitis attacks. In July 2013, uniQure announced that it had entered into a partnership with Chiesi for the commercialization of Glybera in the EU and more than a dozen other countries including Brazil, China, Mexico and Russia. Glybera has received both fast-track and orphan drug designations for the treatment of LPLD in both the EU and the U.S. The first patient treated with Glybera as a commercially-available gene therapy in the EU was announced by uniQure in November 2015. Although commercial sales of Glybera have now commenced, we do not expect to receive significant revenue from these sales. uniQure also disclosed in November 2015 that it will not pursue U.S. regulatory approval of Glybera in order to maintain its focus on three core therapeutic areas. uniQure has announced that it will not provide additional guidance regarding commercialization progress for Glybera. For a more detailed description of the terms of our agreement with uniQure for Glybera, see “—Strategic Alliances” below.

Selective Small-Molecule Inhibitors of Targets for the Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease

We entered into a collaborative research and option agreement with Merck in June 2009 to discover novel targets and compounds for the treatment of cardiovascular disease using our Extreme Genetics discovery platform. For a more detailed description of the terms of our agreement with Merck, see “—Strategic Alliances” below. In 2012, Merck exercised its option to obtain an exclusive license to a target for cardiovascular disease and compound inhibitors that were discovered during the research collaboration. The target, when inhibited, is predicted to provide a beneficial lipid profile with the goal of protecting from cardiovascular disease.

Strategic Alliances

Collaboration Agreement, with Teva for TV-45070

In December 2012, we entered into a collaborative development and license agreementShare Purchase Agreement with Teva, through its subsidiary, Ivax,Neurocrine Biosciences, or the Share Purchase Agreement, pursuant to which we grantedissued and sold 1,408,847 of our common shares, or the Shares, to Neurocrine Biosciences in a private placement for an aggregate purchase price of $20.0 million, or $14.196 per share.  The purchase price represented a 20% premium to the closing price of our common shares on November 29, 2019.  

The Shares are subject to lock-up restrictions, which, without prior approval of us, prohibit Neurocrine Biosciences from selling the Shares for a period of up to two years after the effective date of the Collaboration Agreement.  In addition, Neurocrine Biosciences is, subject to certain exceptions, subject to a standstill agreement for a period of two years after the effective date of the Collaboration Agreement.  Pursuant to the standstill agreement, Neurocrine Biosciences and its affiliates will not (1) acquire, offer to acquire or agree to acquire any of our common shares or securities convertible into common shares, other than common shares issuable to Neurocrine Biosciences pursuant to the terms of the Collaboration Agreement; (2)  make, or participate in, any solicitation of proxies to vote any of our or our subsidiaries’ voting securities, or propose to change or control our management or board of directors by use of any public communication to holders of securities intended for such purpose; (3) make a public proposal for a change of control; or (4) knowingly encourage, accept, or support a tender, exchange, or offer proposal by any person, which would result in a change of control.  The Share Purchase Agreement contains certain other customary terms and conditions, including mutual representations, warranties, and covenants.

Asset Purchase Agreement with Flexion Therapeutics, Inc.

On September 9, 2019, we entered into an asset purchase agreement with Flexion Therapeutics, Inc. pursuant to which Flexion acquired all rights with respect to our investigational compound XEN402 and a related compound, including certain regulatory documentation, intellectual property rights, reports, data and all quantities of XEN402 owned or controlled by us. XEN402 is a sodium channel inhibitor that we had previously developed with our collaborator, Teva an exclusive worldwide licensePharmaceuticals International GmbH and its affiliated entities.  Pursuant to develop and commercialize certain products, including TV-45070.Under the terms of the agreement, Flexion also assumed certain liabilities relating to the purchased assets, including the obligation to pay a low single-digit percentage royalty to Teva on net sales of any approved products incorporating XEN402.

Flexion paid us an upfront feepurchase price of $41.0 million. We are collaborating with Teva to further develop TV-45070, and Teva is funding all development costs with respect$3.0 million for the purchased assets. Pursuant to the licensed products. In addition,terms of the agreement, we are eligible to receive potential milestoneadditional payments totalingfor various CMC, development and regulatory milestones of up to $335.0$9.0 million comprisedthrough initiation of a $20.0 millionPhase 2 proof of concept clinical milestone payment, up to $285.0 million in regulatory milestone payments, andtrial.  In addition, following a $30.0 million sales-based milestone payment. If TV-45070 is approved,successful proof of concept clinical trial, we are also eligible to receive royalties in the low teens to the low twenties on net sales of the licensed products for the timeframe ending upon the latest of (a) expiration of the last valid claim of a licensed patent covering the product, (b) the date on which such product loses market exclusivity and (c) the 10th anniversary of first commercial sale, in each case on a country-by-country basis.

We have an option to a 20% to 30% co-promotion interest for products incorporating TV-45070 in the U.S. Our exercise of this option is subject to meeting objective financial conditions, staffing requirements and compliance standards to be determined in Teva’s reasonable discretion in accordance with standard industry practice. Our co-promotion option is exercisable upon the filing of the first new drug application, or NDA, for a TV-45070 product with the FDA and we will be obligated to pay an opt-in fee to Teva, which is calculated by multiplying our co-promotion interest (as a percentage) by the amount of certain milestones paid or payable by Teva, to which is added certain past and future development costs incurred by Teva with respect to the product for the U.S. Our co-promotion interest is in the 20% to 30% range, and equals our percentage share of detailing activities and co-promotion expenses. Such opt-in fee is payable as a reduction to the milestone payments or our share of operating profits that Teva would otherwise owe to us or a combination of the two. If we exercise this option, upon paying an opt-in fee to Teva, we will be eligible to receive in lieuadditional clinical development and global regulatory approval milestone payments of up to $40.75 million, commercialization milestone payments of up to $75.0 million, as well as future royalties on sales of any approved products ranging from mid-single to low-double digit percentages, depending on the level of worldwide net sales.

The agreement contains customary representations, warranties and covenants, including a covenant by us not to develop a competing product for the treatment of post-surgical pain and a covenant by Flexion not to develop a product for the treatment of epilepsy incorporating XEN402. Each party has agreed, subject to certain conditions and limitations, to indemnify the other party for breaches of representations, warranties and covenants and for losses arising from certain assumed/excluded liabilities, as applicable.

Asset Purchase Agreement with 1st Order Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

In April 2017, we entered into an asset purchase agreement with 1st Order Pharmaceuticals, Inc., or 1st Order, pursuant to which we acquired all rights with respect to such productXEN1101 (previously known as 1OP2198). 1st Order previously acquired 1OP2198 from Valeant Pharmaceuticals Luxembourg S.a.r.l., an indirect subsidiary of Bausch Health Companies Inc., together with Valeant Pharmaceuticals Ireland Limited, Bausch Health, and assumed certain obligations, including potential milestone and royalty payments. Under the terms of the asset purchase agreement, we paid 1st Order an upfront fee of approximately $0.4 million and a $0.7 million milestone in 2017 upon achieving a clinical development milestone.

In September 2018, we signed an agreement with Bausch Health to buy out all future milestone payments and royalties owed to Bausch Health with respect to XEN1101, including up to $39.6 million in potential clinical development, regulatory and sales-based milestones and a mid-to-high single digit percentage royalty on commercial sales in the U.S.,exchange for a percentage share (equalone-time payment of $6.0 million. We remain responsible for future potential payments to our co-promotion interest)1st Order of operating profits from such product sales$0.5 million in the U.S.

Our agreement with Teva expires on the date of the expiration of all paymentclinical development milestones, up to $6.0 million in regulatory milestones for multiple indications and $1.5 million in other milestones, which may be payable pre-commercially. There are no royalty obligations to us under the agreement. Teva may terminate the agreement with 60 days advanced written notice to us after at least three Phase 2 (or later stage) clinical trials have been completed or in the event that safety or efficacy issues arise in the development of the licensed products. Either party may terminate the agreement in the event of the other party’s material breach which remains uncured for 90 business days. In certain termination circumstances, we would receive licenses to Teva intellectual property relating to TV-45070 clinical development and regulatory filings. If patents within such Teva intellectual property cover the TV-45070 product, then Teva is eligible to receive royalties from us based on a percentage of net product sales, within the mid single-digit range.1st Order.

Agreements with Genentech for Selective Inhibitors of Nav1.7 and Pain Genetics

In December 2011, we entered into a collaborative research and license agreement with Genentech, and its affiliate,a member of the Roche Group, to discover and develop small and large molecules that selectively inhibit the Nav1.7 sodium channel and companion diagnostics for the potential treatment of pain. Pursuant to this agreement, we granted Genentech a worldwide exclusive license to develop and commercialize compounds directed to Nav1.7 and products incorporating such compounds for all uses. We also granted Genentech a worldwide non-exclusive license to diagnostic products for the purpose of developing or commercializing such compounds.

Under the terms of the agreement, Genentech paid us an upfront fee of $10.0 million, a $5.0 million milestone payment for the selection of GDC-0276a compound for development and an $8.0 million milestone payment upon the approval by Health Canada of the clinical trial application, or CTA, for GDC-0276.a CTA. Genentech provided funding to us for certain of our full-time equivalents, or FTEs, performing the research collaboration plan. In addition, weplan, which concluded in December 2016. We are eligible to receive pre-commercial and commercial milestone payments with respect to the licensed products totaling up to an additional $613.0 million, comprised of up to $45.5 million in preclinicalpre-clinical and clinical milestone payments, up to $387.5 million in regulatory milestone payments, and up to $180.0 million in sales-based milestone payments for multiple products and indications. In addition, we are eligible to receive royalties based on net sales of the licensed products, which range from a mid single-digitmid-single-digit percentage to ten percent for small-molecule inhibitors for the timeframe that such products are covered by the licensed patents and a low single-digit percentage thereafter until the date that is ten years after first commercial sale on a country-by-country basis, plus a low single-digit percentage for large molecule inhibitors of Nav1.7 for a period of ten years from first commercial sale on a country-by-country basis. Our pre-commercial and commercial milestone payments and royalties may be subject to reductions based on the period in which the compound that is selected for development and commercialization was initially conceived.

Our agreement with Genentech expires on the date of the expiration of all payment obligations to us under the agreement. Genentech may terminate the agreement with three months advance notice anytime on or after the third anniversary of the effective date of the agreement, and each party may terminate the agreement in the event of a material breach by the other party that remains uncured after 90 days. In the event that Genentech terminates the agreement due to our breach, Genentech retains its licenses and its payment obligations to us are reduced. In the event that we terminate the agreement due to Genentech’s breach, the rights and licenses granted to Genentech revert back to us, subject to certain rights to make and use certain large-molecule product candidates that are retained by Genentech, and Genentech is obligated to assign certain regulatory approvals and grant certain licenses to us to enable us to develop and commercialize certain terminated products outside of the collaboration.

In May 2015, we amended the

Our collaborative research and license agreement to leverage the work performed in our ongoing Nav1.7 pain collaboration with Genentech for usehas been amended multiple times, in ourMay 2015, November 2015, March 2016, May 2017, July 2018 and September 2018, to either extend the term of the research and development program directed towards modulators of Nav1.6 for useor to provide us with greater flexibility in the field of treating epilepsy.developing compounds that target Nav1.6. Pursuant to the current amendment, we have obtained a worldwide, non-exclusive, revocableirrevocable, perpetual, world-wide, sublicensable license under intellectual property previously licensed by us tothe know-how forming part of the Genentech and intellectual property developed under the Nav1.7 collaboration that is necessary or useful to make, use, sell, offer for sale, and useimport compounds from our Nav1.6 program that are above a certain potency on Nav1.7 and were conceived prior to a certain date and products containing those compounds. Our license from Genentech includes commercialization rights but we are restricted from developing or commercializing our Nav1.6 modulators for usecompounds below a certain potency on Nav1.7 and conceived prior to a certain date in the field excluding commercialization. We obtainedof epilepsy and any of our Nav1.6 compounds conceived prior to a rightcertain date, regardless of first negotiationtheir potency on Nav1.7, in the field of pain. In exchange for the rights granted to us under this amendment, Genentech is eligible to receive a low single-digit percentage, tiered royalty on net sales of our Nav1.6 compounds conceived prior to a certain date, including XEN901 (now known as NBI-921352), for a certain period of timeten years from first commercial sale on a country-by-country basis. In accordance with our license and collaboration agreement with Neurocrine Biosciences, we remain solely responsible for all payments to obtain a worldwide, exclusive license under the intellectual property previously licensed by usGenentech with respect to commercialize certain Nav1.6 modulatorscompounds, including NBI-921352, licensed to treat any disease in the field. We also granted Genentech a right of first negotiation to enter into a drug research and development collaboration with us for our Nav1.6 program. Genentech can terminate the license upon 90 days’ notice after the third anniversary of the amendment or at any time upon our uncured material breach.

Neurocrine Biosciences. Pursuant to the amendment, we granted Genentech a worldwide exclusiveroyalty-free, non-exclusive, world-wide license under intellectual property developed under our Nav1.6 program. The license permits Genentechintellectual property to developmake, use, sell, offer for sale and commercializeimport compounds identified or first made in our Nav1.6 programbelow a certain potency on Nav1.7 and products containing those compounds for all uses outside the field of epilepsy and to develop and commercialize compounds (other than certain compounds identified or first made in our Nav1.6 program) for all uses. If Genentech reaches certain development milestones for and/or sells certain compounds identified or first made in our Nav1.6 program that are covered by a patent licensed to Genentech under the amendment, products containing such compound would be included in the products subject to the royalty and milestone obligations payable to us under the original agreement. The collaborative research and license agreement was amended in December 2015 to extend the term of the research program and, in March 2016, the agreement was amended again, pursuant to which we obtained a non-sublicensable, non-transferable, royalty free, non-exclusive license to make, use and test certain collaboration compounds developed under the Nav1.7 collaboration for internal research purposes during the term of the collaboration.indications except epilepsy.

In March 2014, we entered into an additional agreement with Genentech for pain genetics, where we intend to use our Extreme Genetics discovery platform to focuswhich focused on identifying genetic targets associated with rare phenotypes where individuals have an inability to perceive pain or where individuals have non-precipitated spontaneous severe pain. Pursuant to the terms of this agreement, any intellectual property arising out of the collaboration will be jointly owned by us and Genentech. We have also granted Genentech a time-limited, exclusive right of first negotiation on a target-by-target basis to form joint drug discovery collaborations. Under the terms of this agreement, Genentech paid us an upfront payment of $1.5 million aand two $0.25 million milestone paymentpayments related to the identification of a novel pain targettargets in September 2015 and we are eligible for an additional $1.75 million in milestone payments. The agreement terminates upon the expiration ofJuly 2017. Genentech’s time-limited, exclusive right of first negotiation, which shall bewas exercisable for two years. Genentech may terminatethroughout the agreement with three months advance notice anytime on or afterresearch term, expired at the 12 month anniversary of the effective date of the agreement, and each party may terminatesame time as the agreement in the event of a material breach by the other party that remains uncuredMarch 2018. Despite such termination, we remain eligible for 90 days. In March 2016, the research term for this agreement was extended until March 2017.

Agreement with uniQure for Glybera

Effective August 2000, we entered into a sublicense and research agreement with uniQure (formerly Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics) pursuantup to which we granted to uniQure an exclusive, worldwide sublicense under certain intellectual property controlled by us to develop and commercialize technology and compounds related to the variant of LPL, called LPL^S447X. Together with collaborators from UBC, we demonstrated that the LPL^S447X variant resultedadditional $1.5 million in increased LPL enzyme activity leading to reduced triglyceride levels in humans. Under our sublicense and research agreement with uniQure, we collaborated with uniQure and UBC on preclinical activities, and thereafter uniQure developed an LPL gene therapy product, Glybera, which contains the LPL^S447X variant. Glybera was approved in the EU in October 2012 to treat LPLD in patients with severe or multiple pancreatic attacks despite dietary fat restrictions. uniQure conducted the clinical trials and is responsible for the commercialization of Glybera.

Under the terms of the agreement, we are eligible to receive mid single-digit royalties on net sales of the licensed products, for sales made by uniQure and its affiliates. The royalty rates are reduced to a low single-digit for sales made by uniQure and its affiliates in countries where a licensed technology or a licensed product is not covered by a valid patent claim. Such royalties are payable until the expiration of the last licensed patent from UBC. With respect to uniQure’s sublicense to Chiesi, we are eligible to receive a percentage in the low twenties of all non-royalty compensation relating to the licensed technology or products that uniQure receives from Chiesi (for example upfront payments and milestone payments), a percentage in the low twenties of any royalties that uniQure receives from Chiesi based on sales of technology or products covered by the licensed patents, plus a mid single-digit percentage of certain further royalties that uniQure receives from Chiesi based on sales of our licensed technology or products after the expiration of all licensed patents covering the licensed technology or products during the period expiring ten years after the date of the first sale by or on behalf of Chiesi. If uniQure grants a sublicense to a third party other than to Chiesi, then we are eligible to receive a percentage in the low twenties of all non-royalty compensation relating to the licensed technology or products that uniQure receives from such sublicensee (for example upfront payments and milestone payments), plus a percentage in the low twenties of any royalties that uniQure receives from such sublicensee based on sales of technology or products covered by the licensed patents. Although commercial sales of Glybera commenced in the fourth quarter of 2015, we do not expect to receive significant revenue from these sales. Furthermore, royalties we are eligible to receive pursuant to our agreement with uniQure, including royalties related to sales made by Chiesi, are subject to customary royalty stacking deductions in the event that uniQure, or any of its sublicensees, have to license other technologies in order to commercialize Glybera.

We are eligible to receive certain additional milestone payments of less than CAD$1.0 million for Glybera and for each subsequent product, if any, developed pursuant to the agreement with uniQure. We, in turn, have certain payment obligations to our licensor, UBC, based on amounts received from uniQure or otherwise based on the exploitation of the licensed intellectual property.

Our sublicense agreement with uniQure expires on the date of the expiration of the UBC license agreement. Either party may terminate the agreement in the event of the other party’s default under the agreement that remains uncured for 20 days after receipt of notice from the non-breaching party.

Agreement with UBC

Effective August 2000, we entered into a license agreement with UBC pursuant to which UBC granted to us an exclusive, worldwide license under UBC’s interest in certain intellectual property controlled by UBC to develop and commercialize technology and compounds in the field of gene therapy, including products that related to the variant of LPL, called LPL^S447X.

Under the terms of the agreement, UBC is eligible to receive certain pre-commercial milestone payments. UBC is also eligible to receive a mid single-digit percentage of certain compensation that we receive based on sublicenses granted by us to a third party relating to the licensed technology or products, including in connection with our sublicensing agreement with uniQure for LPL^S447X.

Through December 31, 2016, we have paid to UBC upfront fees, milestone payments, and royalties totaling CAD$275,000 and are obligated to pay a certain additional milestone payment of approximately CAD$200,000 for Glybera and further milestone payments of CAD$322,500 for each subsequent product, if any, developed pursuant to our sublicensing agreement with uniQure.

Our license agreement with UBC expires on the date of the expiration of the last patent granted under such license. In the event that our sublicense with uniQure is terminated, we may terminate the agreement with 30 days advance notice to UBC. Either party may terminate the agreement in the event of the other party’s default under the agreement that remains uncured for 30 days after receipt of notice from the non-breaching party, and UBC may terminate without such cure period in the event of certain types of breach by us.

Agreement with Merck & Co., Inc. for Cardiovascular Disease

In June 2009, we entered into an exclusive collaborative research and option agreement with Merck & Co., Inc., or Merck, pursuant to which the parties conducted a research program to discover and develop novel small-molecule candidates for the potential treatment of cardiovascular disease. Merck provided payments to us for our FTEs who performed our activities pursuant to the research program conducted under the Merck agreement. The Merck collaborative research program ended in December 2012.

Under the terms of the agreement, Merck had the option to obtain an exclusive license under certain intellectual property controlled by us to develop and commercialize compounds and products directed to targets in the research program, which has now expired. In June 2012, Merck exercised its option and paid us $2.0 million to obtain such a worldwide exclusive license to develop and commercialize compound inhibitors of a target that was identified using our Extreme Genetics discovery platform. Through December 31, 2016,2018, we have received milestone payments and an option fee totaling $9.0 million, and we are eligible for further research, development and regulatory milestone payments of up to $64.0 million, comprised of $21.0 million in preclinicalpre-clinical and clinical milestone payments and up to $43.0 million in regulatory milestone payments for products directed to the licensed target, as well as royalties from the mid to high single-digit range in countries where such products are covered by a valid composition or method of use claim of a Xenon or Merck patent or, if not covered by such claims, royalties in the mid single-digitmid-single-digit range for ten years after first commercial sale of such products.

We have an option to co-fund the Phase 1 and first Phase 2 clinical trials of product candidates licensed by Merck by paying Merck 50% of such development costs. Such co-funding option is available at the IND-filing stage for the applicable product candidate. If we exercise our co-funding option then the maximum eligible milestone amounts due to us increase to $86.5 million and the royalties increase to the high single-digit to the sub-teenlow double-digit range.

Our agreement with Merck expires on the date of the expiration of all royalty payment obligations to us under the agreement. Merck has the right to terminate the agreement upon providing certain notices to us. Each party may terminate the agreement in the event of a material breach by the other party that remains uncured for 90 days after notice of such breach. In the event that Merck terminates the agreement due to our breach, the licenses granted to Merck survive and becomes fully paid up. In the event that we terminate the agreement due to Merck’s breach, the licenses granted to Merck terminate.

Termination Agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals International GmbH and Teva Canada Limited

On March 7, 2018, we and Teva Pharmaceuticals International GmbH and Teva Canada Limited, or together Teva, entered into a termination agreement terminating by mutual agreement the collaborative development and license agreement dated December 7, 2012, as amended, which subsequently closed on March 27, 2018. In connection with the termination, Teva returned and we cancelled 1,000,000 of our common shares that were owned by Teva. Pursuant to the terms of the termination agreement, Teva has also returned, licensed or assigned to us certain intellectual property, including certain patent rights and transferred regulatory filings related to TV-45070. The termination agreement requires us to pay a low single digit percentage royalty to Teva based on net sales of approved products, if any, resulting from any continued development and commercialization of TV-45070 by us or a sublicensee during the period that assigned or licensed patents cover such products. Pursuant to the terms of the asset purchase agreement with Flexion, certain future potential obligations relating to the purchased assets were assumed by Flexion, including the obligation to pay a low single-digit percentage royalty to Teva on net sales of any approved products incorporating XEN402. To date, no such sales have occurred.

Intellectual Property

As part of our business strategy, we generally file patent applications disclosing and claiming drug targets and their novel uses, novel compositions that modulate such targets, methods of making and using such compositions and various therapeutic formulations of such compositions that cover our product candidates. In some cases, we also file claims on screening assays as well as compositions and methods for use in diagnosing certain diseases. We generally file applications in the U.S., Canada, the European Union, or EU, and other commercially significant foreign jurisdictions. We also rely on trade secrets, internal know-how, technological innovations and agreements with third parties to develop, maintain and protect our competitive position. Our ability to be competitive will depend on the success of this strategy.

As of December 31, 2016,2019, we owned, co-owned or licensed 61approximately 26 issued or allowed U.S. patents and approximately 23 pending U.S. patent applications, including provisional and non-provisional filings. We also owned, co-owned or licensed anapproximately 157 additional 730 pending and granted counterpart applications worldwide, including 206approximately 19 total country-specific validations of 13for three European patents.

As of December 31, 2016,2019, we owned 17two issued U.S. patents, and fiveone pending U.S. non-provisional patent application and four U.S. provisional patent applications related to TV-45070,XEN1101, and methods of making and using thisXEN1101 and certain related compounds. The issued patents are expected to expire between 20262028 and 20342029 (absent any extensions of term). In addition, we have 92approximately 14 foreign issued patents (exclusive of European patent national validations), one pending PCT international application, and have filed 137approximately five pending corresponding applications in various foreign jurisdictions relating to TV-45070XEN1101 and certain related compounds.

As of December 31, 2016,2019, we together with Genentech, co-ownedhave filed one allowed U.S. provisional patent application one pending U.S. patent application and 23 pending counterpart patent applications worldwide relatingdirected to GDC-0310XEN496 (i.e., our pediatric formulation of ezogabine), a genus of related formulations, and methods of making and using the same.  Any patents issuing from this application are expected to expire in 2040 (absent any adjustments or extensions of term).

As of December 31, 2019, we owned one U.S. patent and one pending U.S. patent application directed to XEN901 and methods of making and using XEN901 and certain related compounds. Any patents issuing from these applications are expected to expire in 2034 (absent any extensions of term).

We have in-licensed from UBC patents related to Glybera, and methods of making and using Glybera. These include U.S. Patent No. 9,290,751, European Patent No. 1,200,117, Japanese Patent No. 5,095,894 and Canadian Patent No. 2,370,081, all of which are expected to expire in June 2020 (absent any extensions of term). In addition, U.S. Patent No. 6,814,962 has claims directed to the use of various recombinant viruses containing LPL coding sequences to treat various pathologies and is expected to expire in November 2020 (absent any extensions of term).

As of December 31, 2016, we owned or co-owned four issued U.S. patents related to XEN801, and methods of making and using this and certain related compounds. These issued patents are expected to expire between 2024 and 20252037 (absent any extensions of term).  In addition, we have 30approximately 20 pending corresponding applications in various foreign jurisdictions relating to XEN901 and certain related compounds. Pursuant to our collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences, Neurocrine Biosciences will oversee the prosecution, maintenance and other matters relating to the patent portfolio for XEN901 (now known as NBI-921352) and the other selective Nav1.6 inhibitors and dual Nav1.2/1.6 inhibitors.

As of December 31, 2019, we have filed four U.S. non-provisional patent applications, three PCT international applications, and approximately 20 pending corresponding applications in various foreign jurisdictions directed to certain of our selective inhibitors of Nav1.6 and/or Nav1.2 (exclusive of XEN901), as well as methods of making and using the same. Any patents issuing from these applications are expected to expire between 2037 and 2039 (absent any adjustments or extensions of term).

As of December 31, 2019, we, together with Genentech, a member of the Roche group, co-owned approximately seven issued U.S. patents, approximately nine pending U.S. patent applications, four foreign issued patents (exclusive of European patent national validations) and have sixfiled approximately 67 pending correspondingcounterpart patent applications in various foreign jurisdictions relating to XEN801 and certain related compounds. We have also filed a further U.S. provisional application directed to pharmaceutical compositions containing XEN801 and their associatedNav1.7 inhibitors, as well as methods of use. We intend to convert this U.S. provisional application into corresponding U.S. non-provisionalmaking and PCT applications in 2017,using the same. The issued patents, as well as any patents issuing from which would bethese applications are expected to expire inbetween 2034 and 2037 (absent any adjustments or extensions of term).

As of December 31, 2016, we have filed four U.S. provisional applications directed to selective inhibitors of Nav1.6 and their associated methods of use. We intend to convert these U.S. provisional applications into corresponding U.S. non-provisional and PCT applications in 2017, any patents issuing from which would be expected to expire in 2037 (absent any extensions of term).

We may obtain patents on our novel compositions before we obtain marketing approval for product candidates containing such compositions. Because patents are only valid for a limited period, and the life of a particular patent may begin prior to the commercial sale of the related product, the commercial value of any patent is limited. However, in certain circumstances, we may be able to seek patent term extensions for patents in the U.S. and in a number of European countries, compensating in part for delays in obtaining marketing approval, but we cannot be certain we will obtain such extensions.

Further, the existence of issued patents does not guarantee our right to practice the patented technology or commercialize any product candidate covered by such a patent. Third parties may have or obtain rights to other patents that could be used to prevent or attempt to prevent us from commercializing our product candidates. If these other parties are successful in obtaining valid and enforceable patents, and establishing our infringement of those patents, we could be prevented from commercializing our product candidates unless we were able to obtain a license under such patents, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all.

In the conduct of our business, we may infringe patents or other proprietary rights of third parties. If we do infringe such patents or other proprietary rights, we could be prevented from developing or selling products or from using the processes covered by those patents, could be required to pay substantial damages or could be required to obtain a license from the third party to allow us to use their technology, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. If we are not able to obtain a required license or develop alternative technologies, we may be unable to develop or commercialize some or all of our products, and our business could be adversely affected.

Much of our scientific capabilities depend upon the knowledge, experience and skills of key scientific and technical personnel. To protect our rights to our proprietary know-how and technology, we require all our employees, consultants and advisors to enter into confidentiality agreements that require disclosure and assignment to us of ideas, developments, discoveries and inventions made by these employees, consultants and advisors in the course of their service to us.

We may be unable to obtain, maintain and protect the intellectual property rights necessary to conduct our business, and we may be subject to claims that we infringe or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of others, which could materially harm our business. Although we believe our patents and patent applications provide us with a competitive advantage, the patent positions of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies can be uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions. We and our collaborators may not be able to develop patentable product candidates or processes or obtain patents from pending patent applications. Even if patent claims are allowed, the claims may not issue, or in the event of issuance, may not be sufficient to protect the technology owned by or licensed to us or to our collaborators. In certain cases where we have licensed rights to our intellectual property to our collaborators, such collaborators have assumed control of the prosecution and maintenance of the intellectual property portfolio related to such licensed rights. If our collaborators fail to adequately prosecute or maintain any portion of our licensed intellectual property, the competitive advantage and value of our intellectual property portfolio may be reduced. For more information, see “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property Rights.”

We own a number of trademarks and intend to develop names for our product candidates and as appropriate seek to secure trademark protection for them, including domain name registration, in relevant jurisdictions.

Competition

The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are highly competitive and are characterized by rapidly advancing technologies and a strong emphasis on proprietary products. While we believe that our technology, development experience, scientific knowledge and drug discovery approach provide us with certain advantages, we face potential competition in targetour discovery and product development efforts from many different approaches and sources, including pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic institutions and governmental agencies and public and private research institutions. Any product candidates or products that we or our collaborators successfully develop and commercialize will compete with existing products and new products that may become available in the future.

With respect to target discovery activities, competitors and other third parties, including academic and clinical researchers, may be able to access rare families and identify targets before we do.

Many of the companies against which we are competing or against which we may compete in the future have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinicalpre-clinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approved products than we, or our collaborators, do. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Smaller or early stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaboration arrangements with large and established companies.

The key competitive factors affecting the success of all of our product candidates, if approved, are likely to be their efficacy, safety, convenience, price, the effectiveness of alternative products, the level of competition and the availability of coverage, and adequate reimbursement from government and other third party payers.

Our commercial opportunityopportunities could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products or therapies that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA, European Medicines Agency, or EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. In addition, our ability to compete may be affected in many cases by insurers or other third party payers seeking to encourage the use of generic products.payers.

Aside from the product marketplace, our competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel, establishing clinical trial sites, recruiting patients for clinical trials, and by acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs.

Our partnered products and proprietaryThe key competitive factors affecting the success of all of our product candidates, thatif approved, are currently approved orlikely to be their efficacy, safety, convenience, price, the effectiveness of alternative products, the level of competition and the availability of coverage, and adequate reimbursement from government and other third party payers. Our product candidates that are in clinical development may compete with various therapies and drugs, both in the marketplace and currently under development.

TV-45070Anti-Seizure Medications, or ASMs, for the Treatment of Epilepsy

If more than one of our proprietary or partnered products were approved for the treatment of epilepsy, we anticipate that they could potentially compete with one another and GDC-0310 Competitionother ASMs. Commonly used ASMs, among others, include phenytoin, levetiracetam, brivaracetam, cenobamate, carbamazepine, clobazam, lamotrigine, valproate, oxcarbazepine, topiramate, lacosamide, perampanel and cannabidiol. There are currently no FDA-approved treatments specifically indicated for the early infantile epileptic encephalopathies KCNQ2-DEE or SCN8A-DEE; however, a number of different ASMs are currently used in these patient populations. We are not aware of other companies that are developing selective Nav1.6 inhibitors for the treatment of epilepsy. There are other ASMs in development that could potentially compete with our products, including products in development from Eisai Co., Ltd., Insys Therapeutics Inc., Knopp Biosciences LLC, Marinus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Ovid Therapeutics Inc., Praxis Bioresearch,  Sage Therapeutics, SK Life Science, Inc., Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc., Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., UCB, Inc., Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc., and Zogenix, Inc.

Selective Inhibitors of Nav1.7 for the Treatment of Pain

Drug discovery and development for various pain applications is intensely competitive. There are a large number of approved products for neuropathic pain, inflammatory pain and other pain indications. These approved products include capsaicin, celecoxib, lidocaine, narcotic analgesics, gabapentin, and pregabalin. We are also aware of development programs at several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are developing Nav1.7 inhibitors or other sodium channel inhibitors for the treatment of pain, including Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Biogen Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Chromocell Corporation in collaboration with its partner Astellas Pharma Inc., Dainippon Sumitomo Co., Ltd., Eli Lilly and Company, H. Lundbeck A/S, Merck, NeuroQuest Inc., Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. and Chromocell Corporation in collaboration with its partner Astellas Pharma Inc. Moreover, we are aware of various other product candidates in development that target other mechanisms of action to treat various pain indications, including calcium channel inhibitors, nerve growth factor inhibitors, and Nav1.8 inhibitors.

Glybera (alipogene tiparvovec) Competition

There are no approved gene therapies currently on the market for LPLD. The current management of LPLD consists of strict adherence to an extremely low-fat diet, but compliance with such a diet is challenging. Lipid-lowering drugs are generally not effective for treating LPLD. We are not aware of any other drugs or therapies currently in development that treat LPLD by using the LPL sequence containing the LPL^S447X genetic variant or otherwise.

XEN801 Competition

If XEN801 were approved for the treatment of acne, we anticipate it would compete with other approved prescription acne products including topical retinoids, oral hormonal therapies, topical and oral antimicrobials, and oral isotretinoin. In addition to approved prescription therapies, there are a wide range of over-the-counter, or OTC, treatments targeted at treating acne. Additionally, there are a number of prescription products that are used “off-label” for the treatment of acne. We are also aware of several products in clinical development that could potentially compete with XEN801, including products in development from Allergan PLC, AOBiome LLC, Braintree Laboratories Inc., Cassiopea SpA, Dermira Inc., Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Galderma SA, Mimetica Pty Ltd, Novan Therapeutics, Phosphagenics Ltd, Thesan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and XBiotech Inc.

Government Regulation

We are developing both small-molecule and large-molecule product candidates. Our small-molecule product candidates, which are regulated as drugs by the FDA.FDA and equivalent regulatory authorities outside the U.S. Within the FDA, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, or CDER, regulates drugs and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, or CBER, regulates biological products.drugs. Drugs and biological products are subject to regulation under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, or FD&C Act, and other federal, provincial, state, local and foreign statutes and regulations. Biological products are also subject to regulation under the Public Health Service Act, or PHS Act. Both theThe FD&C Act and the PHS Act, as applicable, and their corresponding regulations govern, among other things, the testing, manufacturing, safety, efficacy, labeling, packaging, storage, record keeping, distribution, import, export, reporting, advertising and other promotional practices involving drugs and biological products.drugs. FDA approval of an IND application must be obtained before clinical testing of drugs or biological products is initiated, and each clinical study protocol for such product candidates is reviewed by the FDA and IRB prior to initiation in the U.S. FDA approval also must be obtained before marketing of drugs and biological products in the U.S. The process of obtaining regulatory approvals and the subsequent compliance with appropriate federal, provincial, state, local and foreign statutes and regulations require the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources and we may not be able to obtain the required regulatory approvals.

Federal and state agencies, congressional committees and foreign governments have expressed interest in further regulating biotechnology. In particular, ethical, social and legal concerns about genetic testing, genetic research and gene therapy could result in additional regulations restricting or prohibiting the processes we may use in discovering and developing our products candidates and in manufacturing and marketing Glybera and any other gene therapy products we or our collaborators may develop. More restrictive regulations or claims that our products are unsafe or pose a hazard could prevent us from commercializing any products. New government requirements may be established that could delay or prevent regulatory approval of our product candidates under development. It is impossible to predict whether legislative changes will be enacted, regulations, policies or guidance changed, or interpretations by agencies or courts changed, or what the impact of such changes, if any, may be.

U.S. Drug Development Process

The process required by the FDA before a drug or biological product may be marketed in the U.S. generally involves the following:

Before testing any drug or biological product candidate in humans, the product candidate enters the preclinical testing stage. Preclinical tests, also referred to as nonclinical studies, include laboratory evaluations of product chemistry, toxicity and formulation, as well as animal studies to assess the potential safety and activity of the product candidate. The conduct of the preclinical tests must comply with federal regulations and requirements including GLPs.

The clinical study sponsor must submit the results of the preclinical tests, together with manufacturing information, analytical data, any available clinical data or literature and a proposed clinical protocol, to the FDA as part of the IND. Some preclinical testing may continue even after the IND is submitted. The IND automatically becomes effective 30 days after receipt by the FDA, unless the FDA places the clinical study on a clinical hold within that 30-day time period. In such a case, the IND sponsor and the FDA must resolve any outstanding concerns before the clinical study can begin. The FDA may also impose clinical holds on a product candidate at any time before or during clinical studies due to safety concerns or non-compliance. If the FDA imposes a clinical hold, studies may not recommence without FDA authorization and then only under terms authorized by the FDA. Accordingly, we cannot be sure that submission of an IND will result in the FDA allowing clinical studies to begin, or that, once begun, issues will not arise that suspend or terminate such studies.

Clinical studies involve the administration of the drug or biological product candidate to healthy volunteers or patients under the supervision of qualified investigators, generally physicians not employed by or under the study sponsor’s control. Clinical studies are conducted under protocols detailing, among other things, the objectives of the clinical study, dosing procedures, subject selection and exclusion criteria, and the parameters to be used to monitor subject safety, including stopping rules that assure a clinical study will be stopped if certain adverse events should occur. Each protocol and any amendments to the protocol must be submitted to the FDA as part of the IND. Clinical studies must be conducted and monitored in accordance with the FDA’s regulations comprising the GCP requirements, including the requirement that all research subjects provide informed consent. Further, each clinical study must be reviewed and approved by an independent institutional review board, or IRB, at or servicing each institution at which the clinical study will be conducted. An IRB is charged with protecting the welfare and rights of study participants and considers such items as whether the risks to individuals participating in the clinical studies are minimized and are reasonable in relation to anticipated benefits. The IRB also approves the form and content of the informed consent that must be signed by each clinical study subject or his or her legal representative and must monitor the clinical study until completed.

Human clinical studies are typically conducted in three sequential phases that may overlap or be combined:

Post-approval clinical studies, sometimes referred to as Phase 4 clinical studies, may be conducted after initial marketing approval. These clinical studies are used to gain additional experience from the treatment of patients in the intended therapeutic indication, particularly for long-term safety follow-up. The FDA recommends that sponsors observe subjects in studies of gene therapy products for potential gene therapy-related delayed adverse events for a 15-year period, including a minimum of five years of annual examinations followed by ten years of annual queries, either in person or by questionnaire, of study subjects. During all phases of clinical development, regulatory agencies require extensive monitoring and auditing of all clinical activities, clinical data, and clinical study investigators.

Concurrent with clinical studies, companies usually complete additional animal studies and must also develop additional information about the physical characteristics of the drug or biological product as well as finalize a process for manufacturing the product in commercial quantities in accordance with GMP requirements. To help reduce the risk of the introduction of adventitious agents with use of biological products, the PHS Act emphasizes the importance of manufacturing control for products whose attributes cannot be precisely defined. The manufacturing process must be capable of consistently producing quality batches of the product candidate and, among other things,requirements, the sponsor must develop methods for testingensuring the quality, identity, strength, quality, potency and purity of the final drug or biological product.drug. Additionally, appropriate packaging must be selected and tested and stability studies must be conducted to demonstrate that the drug or biological product candidate does not undergo unacceptable deterioration over its labeled shelf life.

Human gene therapy products are a new category of therapeutics, and studies of gene therapy products are subject to certain regulatory requirements in addition to those set forth above including certain requirements of the National Institutes of Health.

U.S. Review and Approval Processes

After the completion of clinical studies of a drug, or biological product, FDA approval of an NDA or a BLA must be obtained before commercial marketing of the drug or biological product, respectively.drug. The NDA or BLA must include results of product development, laboratory and animal studies, human studies, information on the manufacture and composition of the product, proposed labeling and other relevant information. In addition, under the Pediatric Research Equity Act, or PREA, an NDA or a BLA or supplement to an NDA or a BLA must contain data to assess the safety and effectiveness of the product for the claimed indications in all relevant pediatric subpopulations and to support dosing and administration for each pediatric subpopulation for which the product is safe and effective. The FDA may grant deferrals for submission of data or full or partial waivers. Unless otherwise required by regulation, PREA does not apply to any drug or biological product for an indication for which orphan designation has been granted. The testing and approval processes require substantial time and effort and there can be no assurance that the FDA will accept the NDA or BLA for filing and, even if filed, that any approval will be granted on a timely basis, if at all.

Under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or PDUFA, as amended, each NDA or BLA must be accompanied by a substantial user fee. PDUFA also imposes an annual product fee for drugs and biologics and an annual establishment fee on facilities used to manufacture prescription drugs or biologics.drugs. Fee waivers or reductions are available in certain circumstances, including a waiver of the application fee for the first application filed by a small business. Additionally, no user fees are assessed on NDAs or BLAs for products designated as orphan drugs, unless the product also includes a non-orphan indication.

Within 60 days following submission of the application, the FDA reviews anthe NDA or BLA submitted to determine if it is substantially complete before the agency accepts it for filing. The FDA may refuse to file any marketing application that it deems incomplete or not properly reviewable at the time of submission and may request additional information.information, including additional clinical data. In this event, the NDA or BLA must be resubmitted with the additional information. The resubmitted application also is subject to review before the FDA accepts it for filing. Once the submission is accepted for filing, the FDA begins an in-depth substantive review of the NDA or BLA.NDA. The FDA reviews the application to determine, among other things, whether the proposed product is safe and potent, or effective for its intended use, and has an acceptable purity profile, and whether the product is being manufactured in accordance with GMP to assure and preserve the product’s identity, safety, strength, quality, potency and purity.GMPs. The FDA may refer applications for novel products or products that present difficult questions of safety or efficacy to an advisory committee, typically a panel that includes clinicians and other experts, for review, evaluation and a recommendation as to whether the application should be approved and under what conditions. The FDA is not bound by the recommendations of an advisory committee, but it considers such recommendations carefully when making decisions. During the product approval process, the FDA also will determine whether a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS, is necessary to assure the safe use of the product. If the FDA concludes a REMS is needed, the sponsor of the NDA or BLA must submit a proposed REMS; the FDA will not approve the application without a REMS, if required.

Before approving an NDA or a BLA, the FDA will inspect the facilities at which the product is manufactured. The FDA will not approve the product unless it determines that the manufacturing processes and facilities are in compliance with GMP requirements and adequate to assure consistent production of the product within required specifications. Additionally, before approving an NDA or a BLA, the FDA will typically inspect one or more clinical sites to assure that the clinical studies were conducted in compliance with IND study requirements and GCP requirements. To assure GMP and GCP compliance, an applicant must incur significant expenditure of time, money and effort in the areas of training, record keeping, production, and quality control.

Notwithstanding the submission of relevant data and information, the FDA may ultimately decide that the NDA or BLA does not satisfy its regulatory criteria for approval and deny approval. Data obtained from clinical studies are not always conclusive and the FDA may interpret data differently than we interpret the same data. If the agency decides not to approve the marketing application, the FDA will issue a complete responseComplete Response letter that usually describes all of the specific deficiencies in the application identified by the FDA. The deficiencies identified may be minor, for example, requiring labeling changes, or major, for example, requiring additional clinical studies. Additionally, the complete responseComplete Response letter may include recommended actions that the applicant might take to place the application in a condition for approval. If a complete responseComplete Response letter is issued, the applicant may either resubmit the NDA, or BLA, addressing all of the deficiencies identified in the letter, or withdraw the application.

If a product receives regulatory approval, the approval maywill be significantly limited to the specific diseases and dosages studied in clinical trials or the indications for use may otherwise be limited, which could restrict the commercial value of the product. Further, the FDA may require that certain contraindications, warnings or precautions be included in the product labeling. The FDA may impose restrictions and conditions on product distribution, prescribing, or dispensing in the form ofpursuant to a risk management plan,REMS request, or otherwise limit the scope of any approval. In addition, the FDA may require post-approval clinical studies, sometimes referred to as Phase 4 clinical studies, designed to further assess a product’s safety and effectiveness, and testing and surveillance programs to monitor the safety of approved products that have been commercialized.

One of the performance goals agreed to by the FDA under the PDUFA is to complete its review of 90% of standard new molecular entity, or NME, NDAs and BLAs within ten months from the filing date and 90% of priority NME NDAs and BLAs within six months from the filing date, whereupon a review decision is to be made. The FDA does not always meet its PDUFA goal dates and its review goals are subject to change from time to time. The review process and the PDUFA goal date may be extended by three months if the FDA requests or the application sponsor otherwise provides additional information or clarification regarding information already provided in the submission within the last three months before the PDUFA goal date.

Fast Track Designation

The FDA has various programs, including Fast Track, which are intended to expedite the process for reviewingthe development and review of drugs. Even if a drug qualifies for one or more of these programs, the FDA may later decide that the drug no longer meets the conditions for qualification. Generally, drugs that are eligible for these programs are those for serious or life-threatening conditions, those with the potential to address unmet medical needs, and those that offer meaningful benefits over existing treatments. For example, Fast Track is a process designed to expedite the FDA’s review of drugs that treat serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions and fill unmet medical needs. Under the Fast Track process, drugs that offer major advances in treatment or provide a treatment where no adequate therapy exists, may also receive priority review by the FDA, or review within six months of the filing of an NDA compared to a traditional review time of ten months. Although Fast Track and priority review do not affect the standards for approval of a drug, and may not result in a faster approval, if approval is granted, for Fast Track designated drugs, the FDA will also attempt to facilitate early and frequent meetings with a sponsor of a Fast Track designated drug, to expedite such drug’s review and development. Although FDA has granted fast track designations to TV-45070 for EM and to Glybera for LPLD, such designations may not result in a faster development or review time, do not increase the odds of approval, and may be rescinded at any time if these drug candidates do not continue to meet the qualifications for these programs.

Orphan Drug Designation

Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may grant orphan designation to a drug or biological product intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which is generally a disease or condition that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the U.S., or more than 200,000 individuals in the U.S. and for which there is no reasonable expectation that the cost of developing and making a drug or biological product available in the U.S. for this type of disease or condition will be recovered from sales of the product. Both TV-45070 and Glybera haveXEN007 (active ingredient flunarizine), a drug we are evaluating for potential development in HM or AHC, has received orphan drug designation from the FDA.FDA for each indication. We have also received orphan drug designation from the FDA for flunarizine,XEN496 (active ingredient ezogabine), a drug we are evaluating internallyintend to begin Phase 3 development for the potential treatment of hemiplegic migraine.KCNQ2-DEE in 2020. Orphan product designation must be requested before submitting an NDA or BLA.NDA. After the FDA grants orphan product designation, the identity of the therapeutic agent and its potential orphan use are disclosed publicly by the FDA. Orphan product designation does not convey any advantage in or shorten the duration of the regulatory review and approval process.

Orphan drug products may also be eligible for RPD designation if greater than 50% of patients living with the disease are under age 19 and the condition affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the U.S. A priority review voucher will be given to the sponsor of a product with an RPD designation at the time of product approval that is transferable to another company. We have received RPD designation from the FDA for XEN007 for the treatment of AHC. There is no assurance we will receive a RPD priority review voucher or that it will result in a faster development process, review or approval for a subsequent marketing application. Further, it is possible that even if we obtain approval for XEN007 and qualify for such a priority review voucher, the program may no longer be in effect at the time of approval. Although priority review vouchers may be sold or transferred to third parties, there is no guaranty that we will be able to realize any value if we were to sell a priority review voucher.

If a product that has orphan designation subsequently receives the first FDA approval for such drug for the disease or condition for which it has such designation, the product is entitled to orphan product exclusivity, which means that the FDA may not approve any other applications to market the same drug or biological product for the same indication for seven years, except in limited circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority to the product with orphan exclusivity. Competitors, however, may receive approval of different products for the same indication for which the orphan product has exclusivity or obtain approval for the same product but for a different indication for which the orphan product has exclusivity. Orphan product exclusivity also could block the approval of one of our products for seven years if a competitor obtains approval of the same product for the same orphan indication as defined by the FDA, or if our product candidate is determined to be contained within the competitor’s product for the same orphan indication or disease. If a drug or biological product designated as an orphan product receives marketing approval for an indication broader than what is designated, it may not be entitled to orphan product exclusivity. Orphan drug status in the EU has similar, but not identical, benefits, including up to ten years of exclusivity.

Post-Approval Requirements

Maintaining substantial compliance with applicable federal, provincial, state, and local statutes and regulations requires the expenditure of substantial time and financial resources. Rigorous and extensive FDA regulation of drug and biological products continues after approval, particularly with respect to GMP. We will rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties for the production of clinical and commercial quantities of any products that we may commercialize. Manufacturers of our products are required to comply with applicable requirements in the GMP regulations, including quality control and quality assurance and maintenance of records and documentation. Other post-approval requirements applicable to drug and biological products,manufacturers, include reporting of GMP deviations that may affect the identity, potency, purity and overall safety, efficacy or quality of a distributed product, record-keeping requirements, reporting of adverse effects, reporting updated safety and efficacy information, and complying with electronic record and signature requirements. After an NDA or BLA is approved, the product also may be subject to official lot release. As part of the manufacturing process, the manufacturer is required to perform certain tests on each lot of the product before it is released for distribution. If the product is subject to official release by the FDA, the manufacturer submits samples of each lot of product to the FDA together with a release protocol showing a summary of the history of manufacture of the lot and the results of all of the manufacturer’s tests performed on the lot. The FDA also may perform certain confirmatory tests on lots of some products before releasing the lots for distribution by the manufacturer. In addition, the FDA conducts laboratory research related to the regulatory standards on the safety, purity, potency, and effectiveness of drug and biological products.

We also must comply with the FDA’s advertising and promotion requirements, such as those related to direct-to-consumer advertising, the prohibition on promoting products for uses or in patient populations that are not described in or are otherwise inconsistent with the product’s approved labeling (known as “off-label use”), and industry-sponsored scientific and educational activities, and promotional activities involving the internet.activities. Discovery of previously unknown problems or the failure to comply with the applicable regulatory requirements may result in restrictions on the marketing of a product or withdrawal of the product from the market as well as possible civil or criminal sanctions. Failure to comply with the applicable U.S. requirements at any time during the product development process, approval process or after approval, may subject an applicant or manufacturer to administrative or judicial civil or criminal sanctions and adverse publicity. FDA sanctions could include refusal to approve pending applications, withdrawal of an approval, clinical hold, warning or untitled letters, product recalls, product seizures, total or partial suspension of production or distribution, injunctions, fines, refusals of government contracts, mandated corrective advertising or communications with doctors, debarment, restitution, disgorgement of profits, or civil or criminal penalties. Any agency or judicial enforcement action could have a material adverse effect on us.

Drug and biological product manufacturers and other entities involved in the manufacture and distribution of approved drug or biological productsdrugs are required to register their establishments with the FDA and certain state agencies, and are subject to periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA and certain state agencies for compliance with GMPs and other laws. Accordingly, manufacturers must continue to expend time, money, and effort in the area of production and quality control to maintain GMP compliance. Discovery of problems with a product after approval may result in restrictions on a product, manufacturer, or holder of an approved NDA, or BLA, including withdrawal of the product from the market. In addition, changes to the manufacturing process or facility generally require prior FDA approval before being implemented and other types of changes to the approved product, such as adding new indications and additional labeling claims, are also subject to further FDA review and approval.

U.S. Patent Term Restoration and Marketing Exclusivity

Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of the FDA approval of the use of our product candidates, some of our U.S. patents may be eligible for limited patent term extension under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, commonly referred to as the Hatch-Waxman Amendments. The Hatch-Waxman Amendments permit a patent restoration term of up to five years as compensation for patent term lost during product development and the FDA regulatory review process. However, patent term restoration cannot extend the remaining term of a patent beyond a total of 14 years from the product’s approval date. The patent term restoration period is generally one-half the time between the effective date of an IND and the submission date of an NDA or BLA plus the time between the submission date of an NDA or BLA and the approval of that application. Only one patent applicable to an approved product is eligible for the extension and the application for the extension must be submitted prior to the expiration of the patent. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in consultation with the FDA, reviews and approves the application for any patent term extension or restoration.

Under the Hatch-Waxman Amendments, a drug product containing a new chemical entity as its active ingredient is entitled to five years of market exclusivity, and a product whose active ingredient was previously FDA approved, and for which the sponsor is required to generate new clinical data is entitled to three years of market exclusivity. A drug or biological product can also obtain pediatric market exclusivity in the U.S. Pediatric exclusivity,and, if granted, adds six months to existing exclusivity periods and patent terms. This six-month exclusivity, which runs from the end of other exclusivity protection or patent term, may be granted based on the timely, voluntary, and as-agreed upon completion of a pediatric study in accordance with an FDA-issued “Written Request” for such a study.

The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 created an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products shown to be similar to, or interchangeable with, an FDA-licensed reference biological product. Biosimilarity, which requires that there be no clinically meaningful differences between the biological product and the reference product in terms of safety, purity, and potency, can be shown through analytical studies, animal studies, and a clinical study or studies. Interchangeability requires that a product is biosimilar to the reference product and the product must demonstrate that it can be expected to produce the same clinical results as the reference product and, for products administered multiple times, the biologic and the reference biologic may be switched after one has been previously administered without increasing safety risks or risks of diminished efficacy relative to exclusive use of the reference biologic. However, complexities associated with the larger, and often more complex, structure of biological products, as well as the process by which such products are manufactured, pose significant hurdles to implementation that are still being worked out by the FDA.

A reference biologic is granted 12 years of exclusivity from the time of first licensure of the reference product. The first biologic product submitted under the abbreviated approval pathway that is determined to be interchangeable with the reference product has exclusivity against other biologics submitted under the abbreviated approval pathway for the lesser of (i) one year after the first commercial marketing, (ii) 18 months after approval if there is no legal challenge, (iii) 18 months after the resolution in the applicant’s favor of a lawsuit challenging the biologics’ patents if an application has been submitted, or (iv) 42 months after the application has been approved if a lawsuit is ongoing within the 42-month period.

Additional Regulation

In addition to the foregoing, provincial, state and federal U.S. and Canadian laws regarding environmental protection and hazardous substances affect our business. These and other laws govern our use, handling and disposal of various biological, chemical and radioactive substances used in, and wastes generated by, our operations. If our operations result in contamination of the environment or expose individuals to hazardous substances, we could be liable for damages and governmental fines. We believe that we are in material compliance with applicable environmental laws and that continued compliance therewith will not have a material adverse effect on our business. We cannot predict, however, how changes in these laws may affect our future operations.

Global Anti-Corruption Laws

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, the U.S. Travel Act, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, Title 18 United States Code section 201, and any other applicable domestic or foreign anti-corruption or anti-bribery laws to which we are subject prohibit corporations and individuals from engaging in certain activities to obtain or retain business or to influence a person working in an official capacity. It is illegal to pay, offer to pay or authorize the payment of anything of value to any foreign government official, government staff member, political party or political candidate in an attempt to obtain or retain business or to otherwise influence a person working in an official capacity. We may also be held liable for the acts of our third party agents under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and Canadian Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, and other applicable anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws. Noncompliance with these laws could subject us to investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, other enforcement actions, disgorgement of profits, significant fines, damages, other civil and criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, the loss of export privileges, whistleblower complaints, reputational harm, adverse media coverage, and other collateral consequences. Any investigations, actions or sanctions or other previously mentioned harm could have a material negative effect on our business, operating results and financial condition.

Government Regulation Outside of the U.S.

In addition to regulations in the U.S., we will be subject to a variety of regulations in other jurisdictions governing, among other things, clinical studiesresearch, development, testing, manufacture, quality control, approval, labeling, packaging, storage, record-keeping, promotion, advertising, distribution, post-approval monitoring and any commercial salesreporting, marketing and distributionexport and import of our products.

drugs, and reimbursement requirements. Generally, before a new drug can be marketed, considerable data demonstrating its quality, safety and efficacy must be obtained, organized into a format specific for each regulatory authority, submitted for review and approved by the regulatory authority. Whether or not we obtain FDA approval for a product, we must obtain the requisite approvals from regulatory authorities in foreign countries prior to the commencement of clinical studies or marketing of the product in those countries. Certain countries outside of the U.S. have a similar process that requires the submission of a clinical study application much like the IND prior to the commencement of human clinical studies. In the EU, for example, a CTA must be submitted to each country’s national health authority and an independent ethics committee, much like the FDA and the IRB, respectively. Once the CTA is approved in accordance with a country’s requirements, clinical study development may proceed. Similar requirements regarding a CTA and ethics approval exist in Canada.

The requirements and process governing the conduct of clinical studies, product licensing, coverage, pricing and reimbursement vary from country to country. In all cases, the clinical studies are conducted in accordance with GCP and the applicable regulatory requirements and the ethical principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki. The EU clinical trials legislation currently is undergoing a transition process mainly aimed at harmonizing and streamlining clinical-trial authorization, simplifying adverse-event reporting procedures, improving the supervision of clinical trials and increasing their transparency. Recently enacted Clinical Trials Regulation EU No 536/2014 is intended to ensure that the rules for conducting clinical trials in the EU are identical; however, it has not yet been fully implemented.

To obtain regulatory approval of an investigational drug or biological product under EU regulatory systems, we must submit a marketing authorization application, or MAA. The application used to file the NDA or BLA in the U.S. is similar to that required in the EU, with the exception of, among other things, country-specific document requirements. Reimbursement approval for the drug by regulatory authorities is also required before a drug may be commercialized. The EU also provides opportunities for market exclusivity. For example, in the EU, upon receiving marketing authorization, new chemical entities generally receive eight years of data exclusivity and an additional two years of market exclusivity. If granted, data exclusivity prevents regulatory authorities in the EU from referencing the innovator’s data to assess a generic application. During the additional two-year period of market exclusivity, a generic marketing authorization can be submitted, and the innovator’s data may be referenced, but no generic product can be marketed until the expiration of the market exclusivity. However, there is no guarantee that a product will be considered by the EU’s regulatory authorities to be a new chemical entity, and products may not qualify for data exclusivity. Products receiving orphan designation in the EU can receive ten years of market exclusivity, during which time no similar medicinal product for the same indication may be placed on the market. An orphan product can also obtain an additional two years of market exclusivity in the EU for pediatric studies. No extension to any supplementary protection certificate can be granted on the basis of pediatric studies for orphan indications.

The criteria for designating an “orphan medicinal product” in the EU are similar in principle to those in the U.S. Under Article 3 of Regulation (EC) 141/2000, a medicinal product may be designated as orphan if (1) it is intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a life-threatening or chronically debilitating condition; (2) either (a) such condition affects no more than five in 10,000 persons in the EU when the application is made, or (b) the product, without the benefits derived from orphan status, would not generate sufficient return in the EU to justify investment; and (3) there exists no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention or treatment of such condition authorized for marketing in the EU, or if such a method exists, the product will be of significant benefit to those affected by the condition, as defined in Regulation (EC) 847/2000. Orphan medicinal products are eligible for financial incentives such as reduction of fees or fee waivers and are, upon grant of a marketing authorization, entitled to ten years of market exclusivity for the approved therapeutic indication. The application for orphan drug designation must be submitted before the application for marketing authorization. The applicant will receive a fee reduction for the marketing authorization application if the orphan drug designation has been granted, but not if the designation is still pending at the time the marketing authorization is submitted. Orphan drug designation does not convey any advantage in, or shorten the duration of, the regulatory review and approval process. Glybera has received orphan drug designation for the treatment of LPLD in the EU.

The 10-year market exclusivity may be reduced to six years if, at the end of the fifth year, it is established that the product no longer meets the criteria for orphan designation, for example, if the product is sufficiently profitable not to justify maintenance of market exclusivity. Additionally, marketing authorization may be granted to a similar product for the same indication at any time if:

For other countries outside of the EU, such as Canada and countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia, the requirements governing the conduct of clinical studies, product and establishment licensing, coverage, data protection, pricing and reimbursement vary from country to country. In all cases, again, the clinical studies are conducted in accordance with GCP and the applicable regulatory requirements and the ethical principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki.

If we fail to comply with applicable foreign regulatory requirements, we may be subject to, among other things, fines, suspension or withdrawal of regulatory approvals, product recalls, inability to import or export, seizure of products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecution.

Pharmaceutical Coverage, Pricing and Reimbursement

Significant uncertainty exists as to the coverage and reimbursement status of any product candidates for which we obtain regulatory approval. In the U.S. and markets in other countries, sales of any products for which we receive regulatory approval for commercial sale will depend, in part, on the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement from third-party payers. Third-party payers include government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid, managed care plans, private health insurers, and other organizations. These third-party payers may deny coverage or reimbursement for a product or therapy in whole or in part if they determine that the product or therapy was not medically appropriate or necessary. Third-party payers may attempt to control costs by limiting coverage to specific drug products on an approved list, or formulary, which might not include all of the FDA-approved drug products for a particular indication, and by limiting the amount of reimbursement for particular procedures or drug treatments.

The cost of pharmaceuticals and devices continues to generate substantial governmental and third party payer interest. We expect that the pharmaceutical industry will experience pricing pressures due to the trend toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of managed care organizations and additional legislative proposals. Third-party payers are increasingly challenging the price and examining the medical necessity and cost-effectiveness of medical products and services, in addition to their safety and efficacy. We may need to conduct expensive pharmacoeconomic studies in order to demonstrate the medical necessity and cost-effectiveness of our products, in addition to the costs required to obtain the FDA approvals. Our product candidates may not be considered medically necessary or cost-effective. A payer’s decision to provide coverage for a drug 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 product development.

Some third-party payers also require pre-approval or prior authorization of coverage for new or innovative devices or drug therapies before they will reimburse healthcare providers who prescribe such therapies or patients who use such therapies.prescription drugs. While we cannot predict whether any proposed cost-containment measures will be adopted or otherwise implemented in the future, these requirements or any announcement or adoption of such proposals could have a material adverse effect on our ability to obtain adequate prices for our product candidates and to operate profitably.

In international markets, reimbursement and healthcare payment systems vary significantly by country, and many countries have instituted price ceilings on specific products and therapies. There can be no assurance that our products will be considered medically reasonable and necessary for a specific indication, that our products will be considered cost-effective by third-party payers, that coverage or an adequate level of reimbursement will be available or that the third-party payers’ reimbursement policies will not adversely affect our ability to sell our products profitably.

In addition, in many foreign countries, the proposed pricing for a drug must be approved before it may be lawfully marketed. The requirements governing drug pricing and reimbursement vary widely from country to country. For example, the EU provides options for its member states to restrict the range of medicinal products for which their national health insurance systems provide reimbursement and to control the prices of medicinal products for human use. A member state may approve a specific price for the medicinal product or it may instead adopt a system of direct or indirect controls on the profitability of the company placing the medicinal product on the market. There can be no assurance that any country that has price controls or reimbursement limitations for pharmaceutical products will allow favorable reimbursement and pricing arrangements for any of our products. Historically, products launched in the EU do not follow price structures of the United States and generally prices tend to be significantly lower.

Healthcare Reform

In the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes to the healthcare system that could affect our future results of operations. In particular, there have been and continue to be a number of initiatives at the U.S. federal and state levels that seek to reduce healthcare costs.

In the U.S., the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, or the Medicare Modernization Act, changed the way Medicare covers and pays for pharmaceutical products. The Medicare Modernization Act expanded Medicare coverage for drug purchases by the elderly by establishing Medicare Part D and introduced a new reimbursement methodology based on average sales prices for physician administered drugs under Medicare Part B. In addition, this legislation provided authority for limiting the number of drugs that will be covered in any therapeutic class under the new Medicare Part D program. Cost reduction initiatives and other provisions of this legislation could decrease the coverage and reimbursement rate that weour customers receive for any of our approved products. While the Medicare Modernization Act applies only to drug benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, private payers often follow Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement rates. Therefore, any reduction in reimbursement that results from the Medicare Modernization Act may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payers.

InEnacted in March 2010, the President signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, or PPACA, is a sweeping law intended to broaden access to health insurance, reduce or constrain the growth of healthcare spending, enhance remedies against healthcare fraud and abuse, add new transparency requirements for healthcare and health insurance industries, impose new taxes and fees on pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and impose additional health policy reforms. Among other things, PPACA revises the definition of “average manufacturer price” for reporting purposes, which could increase the amount of Medicaid drug rebates to states. Further, the new law imposes a significant annual fee on companies that manufacture or import branded prescription drug products. Substantial new provisions affecting compliance have also been enacted, which may affect our business practices with healthcare practitioners and a significant number of provisions are not yet, or have only recently become, effective. Although it is too earlyPPACA may continue to determine the full effect of PPACA, the new law appears likely to continue theplace downward pressure on pharmaceutical pricing, especially under the Medicare program, and may also increase our regulatory burdens and operating costs.

In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since PPACA was enacted. These new laws may result in reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which could have a material adverse effect on our customers and accordingly, our financial operations.

We expect that PPACA, as well as other healthcare reform measures that have been and may be adopted in the future, may result in more rigorous coverage criteria and in additional downward pressure on the price that we receive for any approved product, and could seriously harm our future revenue. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payers. The implementation of cost containment measures or other healthcare reforms may prevent us from being able to generate revenue, attain profitability, or commercialize our products.

The Trump administration and Congress are also expectedhave made changes to current health care laws and may continue to attempt broad sweeping changes to the currentexisting health care laws. We face uncertainties that might result from modification or repeal of any of the provisions of the PPACA, including as a result of current and future executive orders and legislative actions. The impact of those changes on us and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole is currently unknown. Any changes to the PPACA are likely to have an impact on our results of operations, and may have a material adverse effect on our result of operations. In particular, on December 18, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld the District Court ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and remanded the case to the District Court to determine whether the remaining provisions of the ACA are invalid. We cannot predict how this decision or future decisions, including subsequent appeals, will impact our business, or what other healthcare programs and regulations will ultimately be implemented at the federal or state level or the effect of any future legislation or regulation in the United States may have on our business.

In addition, different pricing and reimbursement schemes exist in other countries. In the European Community, governments influence the price of pharmaceutical products through their pricing and reimbursement rules and control of national healthcare systems that fund a large part of the cost of those products to consumers. Some jurisdictions operate positive and negative list systems under which products may be marketed only once a reimbursement price has been agreed upon. Some of these countries may require, as condition of obtaining reimbursement or pricing approval, the completion of clinical trials that compare the cost-effectiveness of a particular product candidate to currently available therapies. Other member states allow companies to fix their own prices for medicines, but monitor and control company profits. The downward pressure on healthcare costs in general, particularly prescription drugs, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected to the entry of new products. In addition, in some countries, cross-border imports from low-priced markets exert a commercial pressure on pricing within a country.

Other Healthcare Laws and Compliance Requirements

In the U.S., the research, manufacturing, distribution, sale and promotion of drug products and medical devicesthat we are potentiallydeveloping are subject to regulation by various federal, provincial, state and local authorities in addition to the FDA, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, other divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (e.g., the Office of Inspector General), the U.S. Department of Justice, state Attorneys General, and other state and local government agencies. For example, sales, marketing and scientific/educational grant programs must comply with applicable health care fraud and abuse laws, such as the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, as amended, the federal False Claims Act, as amended,Stark law, and implementing regulations, and similar state laws. Pricing and rebate programs must comply with the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program requirements of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, as amended, and the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992, as amended. If products are made available to authorized users of the Federal Supply Schedule of the General Services Administration, additional laws and requirements apply. Other laws and regulations that may apply to prescription drug manufacturers include the Sunshine Act, prescription drug price reporting requirements, and various state transparency and reporting laws. All business activities of these activitiesprescription drug manufacturers are also potentially subject to federal and state consumer protection and unfair competition laws.

The federal Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits any person, including a prescription drug manufacturer (or a party acting on its behalf), from knowingly and willfully soliciting, receiving, offering or providing remuneration, directly or indirectly, to induce or reward either the referral of an individual, or the furnishing, recommending, or arranging for a good or service, for which payment may be made under a federal healthcare program such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs. This statute has been interpretedcan be applied broadly to apply toinclude arrangements between pharmaceutical manufacturers on one hand and any referral source on the other, including prescribers, purchasers, and formulary managers on the other.managers. The term “remuneration” is not defined in the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and has been broadly interpreted to include anything of value, including, for example, gifts, discounts, the furnishing of supplies or equipment, credit arrangements, payments of cash, waivers of payments, ownership interests, and providing anything at less than its fair market value.service fees, unless expressly exempted or protected by a safe harbor. Further, the statute has been interpreted to cover any arrangement where one purpose of the remuneration was to obtain remuneration in exchange for referral or to induce further referrals for an item or service. Although there are a number of statutory exemptions and regulatory safe harbors protecting certain legitimate business arrangements from prosecution, the exemptions and safe harbors are drawn narrowly, and practices that involve remuneration intended to induce prescribing, purchasing or recommending may be subject to scrutiny if they do not qualify for an exemption or safe harbor. Our practices may not in all cases meet all of the criteria forof an applicable safe harbor for protection from liability under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute liability.Statute. The reach of the Anti-Kickback Statute was broadened by the recently enacted PPACA, which, among other things, amends the intent requirement of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute such that the government does not need to prove that a person or entity no longer needs to have actual knowledge of this statute or specifichad the intent to specifically violate itthe statute in order to have committedfind a violation. In addition, the PPACA provides that the government may assert that a claim including items or services resulting from a violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute constitutes a false or fraudulent claim for purposes of the federal False Claims Act (discussed below) or the civil monetary penalties statute, which imposes fines against any person who is determined to have presented or caused to be presented claims to a federal healthcare program that the person knows or should know is for an item or service that was not provided as claimed or is false or fraudulent. Additionally, many states have adopted laws similar to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, and some of these state prohibitions apply to referral of patients for healthcare items or services reimbursed by any third-party payer, not only the Medicare and Medicaid programs in at least some cases, and do not containexpressly provide for certain safe harbors.harbors or impose different requirements for safe harbor protection under applicable state laws.

The federal 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 healthcare program. The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act allow a private individual to bring civil actions on behalf of the federal government alleging that the defendant has submitted or cause to be submitted a false claim to the federal government, and to share in any monetary recovery. In recent years, the number of suits brought by private individuals has increased dramatically. In addition, various states have enacted false claims laws analogous to the False Claims Act. Many of these state laws apply where a claim is submitted to any third-party payer and not merely a federal healthcare program. There are many potential bases for liability under the False Claims Act. Liability arises, primarily, when an entity knowingly submits, or causes another to submit, a false claim for reimbursement to the federal government. The False Claims Act has been used to assert liability on the basis of inadequate care, kickbacks and other improper referrals, improperly reported government pricing metrics such as Best Price or Average Manufacturer Price, improper use of Medicare numbers when detailing the provider of services, improper promotion of off-label uses (i.e., uses not expressly approved by FDA in a drug’s label), and allegations as to misrepresentations with respect to the services rendered. Our future activities relating to the reporting of discount and rebate information and other information affecting federal, provincial, state and third party reimbursement of our products, and the sale and marketing of our products and our service arrangements or data purchases, among other activities, may be subject to scrutiny under these laws. We are unable to predict whether we would be subject to actions under the False Claims Act or a similar state law, or the impact of such actions. However, the cost of defending such claims, as well as any sanctions imposed, could adversely affect our financial performance. Also, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, created several new federal crimes, including healthcare fraud, and false statements relating to healthcare matters. The healthcare fraud statute prohibits knowingly and willfully executing a scheme to defraud any healthcare benefit program, including private third-party payers. 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.

In addition, we may be subject to, or our marketing activities may be limited by, data privacy and security regulation by bothin the federal governmentU.S. and the statesforeign jurisdictions in which we conduct our business.business, including jurisdictions in which we conduct our clinical trials. For example, HIPAA and its implementing regulations established uniform federal standards for certain “covered entities” (healthcare providers, health plans and healthcare clearinghouses) governing the conduct of certain electronic healthcare transactions and protecting the security and privacy of protected health information. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 commonly referred to as the economic stimulus package, included expansion of HIPAA’s privacy and security standards called the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH. Among other things, HITECH makes HIPAA’s privacy and security standards directly applicable to “business associates”—independent contractors or agents of covered entities that create, receive, maintain, or transmit protected health information in connection with providing a service for or on behalf of a covered entity. HITECH also increased the civil and criminal penalties that may be imposed against covered entities, business associates and possibly other persons, and gave state attorneys general new authority to file civil actions for damages or injunctions in federal courts to enforce the federal HIPAA laws and seek attorney’s fees and costs associated with pursuing federal civil actions. In addition, in May 2016, the EU formally adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which applies to all EU member states from May 25, 2018 and replaced the European Union Data Protection Directive. The GDPR has imposed many new or additional requirements including, but not limited to, obtaining consent of the individuals to whom the personal data relates, the nature and scope of notifications provided to the individuals, the security and confidentiality of the personal data, data breach notification and using third party processors in connection with the processing of the personal data. Failure to comply with the GDPR could subject us to regulatory sanctions, delays in clinical trials, criminal prosecution and/or civil fines or penalties. Additionally, GDPR creates a direct cause of action by individual data subjects. The GDPR is a complex law and the regulatory guidance is still evolving, including with respect to how the GDPR should be applied in the context of clinical trials or other transactions from that we may gain access to personal data. These changes in the law will increase our costs of compliance and result in greater legal risks. Other countries maintain different privacy laws that we are subject to.

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act, or the Sunshine Act, requires applicable manufacturers and certain distributors of prescription drugs, among other products, that are available for coverage by Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program to report annually to the Secretary of HHS: (i) payments or other transfers of value made by that entity, or by a third-party as directed by that entity, to physicians and teaching hospitals or to third parties on behalf of physicians or teaching hospitals; and (ii) physician ownership (including immediate family ownership) and investment interests in the entity. There are also an increasing number of state and local “sunshine” or transparency and reporting laws that require applicable manufacturers to make reports to states on pricing and marketing information. The U.S. federal government discloses the reported information on a publicly available website. Several states have enacted legislation requiring pharmaceutical companies to, among other things, establish marketing compliance programs, file periodic reports with the state, make periodic public disclosures on sales, marketing, pricing, clinical trials and other activities, and/or register their sales representatives, as well as to prohibit pharmacies and other healthcare entities from providing certain physician prescribing data to pharmaceutical companies for use in sales and marketing, and to prohibit certain other sales and marketing practices. In addition, beginning in 2013, a similarThese federal, requirement began requiring manufacturers to trackstate, and report to the federal government certain payments and other transfers of value made to physicians and other healthcare professionals and teaching hospitals and ownership or investment interests held by physicians and their immediate family members. The federal government discloses the reported information on a publicly available website. Theselocal laws may affect our sales, marketing, and other promotional activities by imposing administrative and compliance burdens on us. If we fail to track and report as required by these laws or otherwise comply with these laws, we could be subject to the penalty provisions of the pertinent state and federal authorities.

Because of the breadth of these health care laws and the narrowness of available statutory and regulatory exemptions, it is possible that some of our business activities could be subject to challenge under one or more of such laws. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of the federal and state laws described above or any other governmental regulations that apply to us, we may be subject to penalties, including criminal and significant civil monetary penalties, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, injunctions, recall or seizure of products, total or partial suspension of production, denial or withdrawal of pre-marketing product approvals, private qui tam actions brought by individual whistleblowers in the name of the government or refusal to allow us to enter into supply contracts, including government contracts, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, and corporate integrity agreement, which impose certain compliance, certification and reporting obligations, any of which could adversely affect our ability to operate our business and our results of operations. To the extent that any of our products are sold in a foreign country or if we contract with vendors or independent contractors outside of the U.S., we may be subject to similar foreign laws and regulations, which may include, for instance, applicable post-approval requirements, including safety surveillance, anti-fraudanti-corruption/anti-bribery laws,  anti-kickback laws, healthcare fraud and abuse laws, and implementation of corporate compliance programs and reporting of payments or transfers of value to healthcare professionals. While we are not aware of any current issues, we are unable to predict whether we will be subject to actions under applicable healthcare laws, or the impact of such actions on our business. However, the costs of defending such actions or claims, as well as any sanctions imposed, could result in a material adverse effect on our business or financial condition.

Environmental Matters

Our operations require the use of hazardous materials (including biological materials) which subject us to a variety of federal, provincial and local environmental and safety laws and regulations. Some of the regulations under the current regulatory structure 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 someone else’s, business operations should contamination of the environment or individual exposure to hazardous substances occur. We cannot predict how changes in laws or development of new regulations will affect our business operations or the cost of compliance.

Employees

As of December 31, 2016,2019, we had 94104 employees, including 88100 full-time employees. Of our employees, 6173 were primarily engaged in research and development, and 3032 of whom hold a Ph.D. or M.D. (or equivalent) degree. None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.

Research and Development

We have committed, and expect to continue to commit, significant resources to developing new product candidates. We have assembled an experienced research and development team with scientific and clinical development personnel. Our research and development expenses for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015,2019 and 20142018 were $19.8 million, $15.2$38.8 million and $11.8$23.6 million, respectively.

Manufacturing

We currently rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties and our collaborators for the manufacture of our product candidates for preclinicalpre-clinical and clinical testing, as well as for commercial manufacture if our product candidates receive marketing approval. Accordingly, we have not internally developed any manufacturing facilities or hired related personnel.

To date, we have obtained materials for our product candidates from multiple third-party manufacturers. We believe that all of the materials required for the manufacture of our product candidates can be obtained from more than one source. However, the manufacturing processes for each of our product candidates which include large and small-molecules, vary and sourcing adequate supplies may be made more difficult depending on the type of product candidate involved. Our small-molecule product candidates generally can be manufactured in reliable and reproducible synthetic processes from readily available starting materials. This chemistry generally is amenable to scale-up and does not require unusual equipment in the manufacturing process.

Corporate Information

We were incorporated in the Province of British Columbia on November 5, 1996 under the predecessor to the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) under the name “Xenon Bioresearch Inc.” We continued from British Columbia to the federal jurisdiction pursuant to Section 187 of the Canada Business Corporations Act, or the CBCA, on May 17, 2000 and concurrently changed our name to “Xenon Genetics Inc.” We registered as an extra-provincial company in British Columbia on July 10, 2000 and changed our name to “Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc.” on August 24, 2004. We have one wholly-owned subsidiary as at December 31, 2016,2019, Xenon Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., which was incorporated in Delaware on December 2, 2016. Our principal executive offices are located at 200 – 3650 Gilmore Way, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5G 4W8, and our telephone number is (604) 484-3300. We are a reporting issuer in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, but our shares are not listed on any recognized Canadian stock exchange. Our common shares trade on The NASDAQthe Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “XENE.”

Where You Can Find Additional Information

We make available free of charge through our investor relations website, http://www.xenon-pharma.com,investor.xenon-pharma.com, our annual reports, quarterly reports, current reports, proxy statements and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed or furnished with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. These reports may also be obtained without charge by contacting Investor Relations, Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., 200 – 3650 Gilmore Way, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5G 4W8, e-mail: investors@xenon-pharma.com. Our Internet website and the information contained therein or incorporated therein are not intended to be incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, the public may read and copy any materials we file or furnish with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549 or may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. Moreover, theThe SEC maintains an Internet sitea website that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding reports that we file or furnish electronically with them at www.sec.gov. Additional information related to Xenon is also available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

You should carefully consider the following risk factors, in addition to the other information contained in this report, including the section of this report captioned “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our financial statements and related notes. If any of the events described in the following risk factors and the risks described elsewhere in this report occurs, our business, operating results and financial condition could be seriously harmed. This report on Form 10-K also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of factors that are described below and elsewhere in this report.

Risks Related to Our Financial Condition and Capital Requirements

We have incurred significant losses since our inception and anticipate that we will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future.

We are a clinical-stage biotechnology company and, other than the years ended December 31, 2014 and 2013, we have recorded net losses in each annual reporting period since inception in 1996, and we do not expect to have sustained profitability for the foreseeable future. We had net losses of $23.0$41.6 million for the year ended December 31, 20162019 and an accumulated deficit of $142.7 $249.7 million as of December 31, 2016,2019, which were driven by expenses incurred in connection with our research and development programs and from general and administrative costs associated with our operations.

We have devoted most of our financial resources to research and development, including our clinical and preclinicalpre-clinical development activities. To date, we have financed our operations through the sale of equity securities, funding received from our licensees and collaborators, debt financing and, to a lesser extent, government funding. Other than royalties we are eligible to receive from sales of Glybera under our license to uniQure Biopharma B.V., or uniQure, which we do not expect to be significant, weWe have not generated any royaltysignificant revenue from product sales and our product candidates will require substantial additional investment before they willmay provide us with any product royalty revenue.

We expect to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for the foreseeable future as we:

Our expenses could increase beyond expectations for a variety of reasons, including if we are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, Health Canada, or other regulatory agencies, domestic or foreign, to perform clinical and other studies in addition to those that we currently anticipate. Our prior losses, combined with expected future losses, have had and will continue to have an adverse effect on our shareholders’ equity.

Other than royalties we are eligible to receive from sales of Glybera, weWe have not generated any significant royalty revenue from product sales and may never become profitable on a U.S. GAAP basis.

Our ability to generate meaningful revenue and achieve profitability on a U.S. GAAP basis depends on our ability, alone or with strategic collaborators, to successfully complete the development of, and obtain the regulatory approvals necessary to commercialize, our product candidates. Substantially all of our revenue since inception has consisted of upfront and milestone payments associated with our collaboration and license agreements. Revenue from these agreements is dependent on successful development of our product candidates by us or our collaborators. Other than royalties we are eligible to receive from sales of Glybera under our license to uniQure, weWe have not generated any significant royalty revenue from product sales, and do not otherwise anticipate generating revenue from product sales for the foreseeable future, if ever. Commercial sales of Glybera commenced in November 2015, but we do not expect to receive significant revenue from these sales. If any of our product candidates fail in clinical trials or do not gain regulatory approval, or if any of our future products, if any, once approved, fail to achieve market acceptance or adequate market share, we may never become profitable. Although we were profitable for the years ended December 31, 2014 and 2013, we may not be able to sustain profitability in subsequent periods. Our ability to generate future revenue from product sales depends heavily on our success, and the success of our collaborators, in:

The scope of our future revenue will also depend upon the size of any markets in which our product candidates receive approval and the availability of insurance coverage and the availability and amount of reimbursement from third-party payers for Glybera and future products, if any. If we are unable to achieve sufficient revenue to become profitable and remain so, our financial condition and operating results will be negatively impacted, and ourthe market price of our common shares might be harmed.adversely impacted.

We will likely need to raise additional funding, which may not be available on acceptable terms, if at all. Failure to obtain this necessary capital when needed may force us to delay, limit or terminate our product development efforts or other operations.

Since our inception, we have dedicated most of our resources to the discovery and development of our proprietary preclinicalpre-clinical and clinical product candidates, and we expect to continue to expend substantial resources doing so for the foreseeable future. These expenditures will include costs associated with research and development, potential milestone payments and royalties to third parties, manufacturing of product candidates and products approved for sale, conducting preclinicalpre-clinical experiments and clinical trials and obtaining and maintaining regulatory approvals, as well as commercializing any products later approved for sale. During the year ended December 31, 2016,2019, we incurred approximately $19.8$38.8 million of costs associated with research and development, exclusive of costs incurred by our collaborators in developing our product candidates.

Our current cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities are not expected to be sufficient to complete clinical development of any of our product candidates and prepare for commercializing any product candidate which receives regulatory approval. Accordingly, we will likely require substantial additional capital to continue our clinical development and potential commercialization activities. Our future capital requirements depend on many factors, including but not limited to:

We are unable to estimate the funds we will actually require to complete research and development of our product candidates or the funds required to commercialize any resulting product in the future.

Based on our research and development plans and our timing expectations related to the progress of our programs, we expect that our existing cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities as of the date of this report and research funding that we expect to receive under our existing collaborations, will enable us to fund our operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next 12 to 24 months.

Our operating plan may change as a result of many factors currently unknown to us, and we may need to seek additional funds sooner than planned, through public or private equity or debt financings, government or other third-party funding, marketing and distribution arrangements and other collaborations, strategic alliances and licensing arrangements or a combination of these approaches. Raising funds in the future may present additional challenges and future financing may not be available in sufficient amounts or on terms acceptable to us, if at all.

We may allocate our limited resources to pursue a particular product candidate or indication and fail to capitalize on other product candidates or indications that may be more profitable or for which there is a greater likelihood of success.

Because we have limited financial and management resources, we focus on a limited number of research programs and product candidates. As a result, we may forgo or delay pursuit of opportunities with other product candidates or for other indications that later prove to have greater commercial potential. Our resource allocation decisions may cause us to fail to capitalize on viable commercial drugs or profitable market opportunities. Our spend on current and future research and development programs and product candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable drugs. If we do not accurately evaluate the commercial potential or target market for a particular product candidate, we may relinquish valuable rights to that product candidate through collaboration, licensing or other arrangements in cases in which it would have been more advantageous for us to retain sole development and commercialization rights.

We are party to a loan and security agreement that contains operating and financial covenants that may restrict our business and financing activities and we may be required to repay the outstanding indebtedness in an event of default, which could have a materially adverse effect on our business.

In August 2018, we entered into an amended and restated loan and security agreement with Silicon Valley Bank providing for a term loan to us with an aggregate principal amount of $15.5 million. Borrowings under our amended and restated loan and security agreement are secured by substantially all of our assets except intellectual property and subject to certain other exceptions. The loan and security agreement restricts our ability, among other things, to:

In addition, we are required under our amended and restated loan agreement and security agreement to comply with various affirmative covenants. The covenants and restrictions and obligations in our amended and restated loan and security agreement, as well as any future financing agreements that we may enter into, may restrict our ability to finance our operations, engage in business activities or expand or fully pursue our business strategies. Our ability to comply with these covenants may be affected by events beyond our control, and we may not be able to meet those covenants. A breach of any of these covenants could result in a default under the amended and restated loan and security agreement, which could cause all of the outstanding indebtedness under the facility to become immediately due and payable.

If we are unable to generate sufficient cash available to repay our debt obligations when they become due and payable, either when they mature, or in the event of a default, we may not be able to obtain additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms, if at all, which may negatively impact our business operations and financial condition.

Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our existing shareholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates.

The terms of any financing arrangements we enter into may adversely affect the holdings or the rights of our shareholders and the issuance of additional securities, whether equity or debt, by us, or the possibility of such issuance, may cause the market price of our common shares to decline. The sale of additional equity or convertible securities also would dilute all of our shareholders. For example, in September 2016,November 2019, we entered into the November 2019 sales agreement with Jefferies LLC, or Jefferies, and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, or Stifel, to sell up to $50.0 million of our common shares, from time to time, through an “at-the-market” equity offering program under which Jefferies and Stifel acted as sales agents. As of January 14, 2020, we had sold 3,450,000 an aggregate of 3,252,330 common shares for net proceeds of $48.8 million, net of commissions paid, but excluding estimated transaction expenses. Additionally, in December 2019, pursuant to the terms of our collaboration agreement with Neurocrine Biosciences, we issued 1,408,847 common shares to Neurocrine Biosciences for an aggregate purchase price of $20.0 million. In January 2020, we completed an underwritten public offering of 3,750,000 of our common shares at a public offering price of $16.00 per share for net proceeds of $56.4 million, net of underwriting discounts and commissions, but before other offering expenses. In February 2020, the underwriters of the January 2020 public offering exercised their option to purchase an addtional 562,500 of our common shares at a public offering price of $16.00 per share, raising additional net proceeds of $8.5 million, net of underwriting discounts and commissions, but before other offering expenses. We are also party to an amended and restated loan and security agreement with Silicon Valley Bank pursuant to which we have borrowed an aggregate principal amount of $15.5 million. Our loan pursuant to the publicamended and restated loan and security agreement is secured by substantially all of $7.50 per common share pursuantour assets except intellectual property and the agreement requires us to our existing shelf registration statement on Form S-3comply with various affirmative and corresponding Canadian base shelf prospectus.negative covenants. The incurrence of additional indebtedness would result in increased fixed payment obligations and, potentially, the imposition of additional restrictive covenants. ThoseSuch additional covenants maycould include limitations on our ability to incur additional debt, limitations on our ability to acquire, sell or license intellectual property rights and other operating restrictions that could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. We could also be required to seek funds through arrangements with collaborators or otherwise at an earlier stage than otherwise would be desirable resulting in the loss of rights to some of our product candidates or other unfavorable terms, any of which may have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results and prospects. In addition, any additional fundraising efforts may divert our management from their day-to-day activities, which may adversely affect our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates.

Unstable market and economic conditions may have serious adverse consequences on our business and financial condition.

Global credit and financial markets experienced extreme disruptions at various points over the last decade, characterized by diminished liquidity and credit availability, declines in consumer confidence, declines in economic growth, increases in unemployment rates, and uncertainty about economic stability. If another such disruption in credit and financial markets and deterioration of confidence in economic conditions occurs, our business may be adversely affected. If the equity and credit markets were to deteriorate significantly in the future, it may make any necessary debtequity or equitydebt financing more difficult to complete, more costly, and more dilutive. Failure to secure any necessary financing in a timely manner and on favorable terms could have a material adverse effect on our growth strategy, financial performance and the market price of our common share price andshares could require us to delay or abandon development or commercialization plans. In addition, there is a risk that one or more of our current collaborators, service providers, manufacturers and other partners would not survive or be able to meet their commitments to us under such circumstances, which could directly affect our ability to attain our operating goals on schedule and on budget.

We are subject to risks associated with currency fluctuations which could impact our results of operations.

As of December 31, 2016,2019, approximately 44%8% of our cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities waswere denominated in Canadian dollars. Historically, the majority of our operatingWe incur significant expenses have been denominated in Canadian dollars and the majority ofin connection with our revenue has been denominatedoperations in U.S. dollars.

Prior to December 31, 2014,Canada. We do not currently engage in foreign currency hedging arrangements for our functional currency was the Canadian dollar. On January 1, 2015, our functional currency changed from the Canadian dollar to the U.S. dollar based on our analysis of the changes in the primary economic environment in which we operate. As a result, changes in the exchange rate between the Canadian dollarexpenditures, and, the U.S. dollar could materially impact our reported results of operations and distort period to period comparisons. In particular, to the extent that foreign currency-denominated (i.e., non-U.S. dollar) monetary assets do not equal the amount of our foreign currency denominated monetary liabilities, foreign currency gains or losses could arise and materially impact our financial statements. As a result of suchconsequently, foreign currency fluctuations it could be more difficult to detect underlying trendsmay adversely affect our earnings; however, in our business and results of operations. In addition, to the extent that fluctuations in currency exchange rates cause our results of operations to differ from our expectations or the expectations of our investors, the market price of our common shares could be adversely affected.

From time to time,future, we may engage in exchange rate hedging activities in an effort to mitigate the impact of exchange rate fluctuations. For example, we maintain a natural currency hedge against fluctuations in the U.S./Canadian foreign exchange rate by matching the amount of U.S. dollar and Canadian dollar investments to the expected amount of future U.S. dollar and Canadian dollar obligations, respectively. Any hedging technique we implement may fail to be effective. If our hedging activities are not effective, changes in currency exchange rates may have a more significant impact on the market price of our common shares.

Risks Related to Our Business

We, or our collaborators, may fail to successfully develop our product candidates.

Our and our collaborators’ clinical product candidates, which include TV-45070, GDC-0310, XEN801,XEN1101, XEN007, and NBI-921352 (previously known as XEN901 and being developed by our collaborator Neurocrine Biosciences), along with XEN901product candidates we expect to enter clinical development, which include XEN496, FX301 (being developed by Flexion Therapeutics, Inc.) and otherour pre-clinical compounds, in our preclinical and discovery pipeline, are in varying stages of development and will require substantial clinical development, testing and regulatory approval prior to commercialization. It may be several more years before these product candidates or any of our other product candidates receive marketing approval, if ever. If any of our product candidates fail to become approved products, our business, growth prospects, operating results and financial condition may be adversely affected and a decline in the market price of our common share priceshares could result.

We and our collaborators face substantial competition in the markets for our product candidates, which may result in others discovering, developing or commercializing products before us or doing so more successfully than we or our collaborators do.

The biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are characterized by rapidly advancing technologies, intense competition and a strong emphasis on proprietary products. We face potential competition in targetdrug discovery and product development from many different approaches and sources, including major pharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic institutions, and governmental agencies, andas well as public and private research institutions. Any product candidates that we or our collaborators successfully develop and commercialize will compete with existing products and any new products that may become available in the future.

The key competitive factors affecting the success of all of our product candidates, if approved, are likely to be their efficacy, safety, convenience and price;price, the effectiveness and safety of alternative products;products, the level of generic competition;competition, and the availability of coverage and adequate reimbursement from government and other third-party payers.

With respect to target discovery activities, competitors and other third parties, including academic and clinical researchers, may access rare families and identify novel targets for drug development before we do.

Many of the companies against which we are competing or against which we may compete in the future have significantly greater financial resources and expertise in research and development, manufacturing, preclinicalpre-clinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approved products than we, or our collaborators, do. Mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries may result in even more resources being concentrated among a smaller number of our competitors. Smaller or early stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaboration arrangements with large and established companies.

Our commercial opportunities could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products or therapies that are safer, more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than any products that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory approval for their products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for ours, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market. In addition, our ability to compete may be affected by decisions made by insurers or other third partythird-party payers.

To the extent that we are unable to compete effectively against one or more of our competitors in these areas, our business will not grow and our financial condition, results of operations and the market price of our common share priceshares may suffer.

If more than one of our proprietary or partnered products were approved for the treatment of epilepsy, we anticipate that they could potentially compete with one another and other anti-seizure medications, or ASMs. Commonly used ASMs, among others, include phenytoin, levetiracetam, brivaracetam, cenobamate, carbamazepine, clobazam, lamotrigine, valproate, oxcarbazepine, topiramate, lacosamide, ethosuximide, perampanel and cannabidiol. The FDA has not yet approved any drug products specifically for the KCNQ2 developmental and epileptic encephalopathy indication (otherwise known as KCNQ2-DEE or EIEE7) or for the SCN8A developmental and epileptic encephalopathy indication (otherwise known as SCN8A-DEE or EIEE13), an early infantile epileptic encephalopathy due to gain-of-function mutations in the SCN8A gene that encodes the Nav1.6 sodium channel. There are other ASMs in development that could potentially compete with our products, including products in development from Eisai Co., Ltd., Insys Therapeutics Inc., Knopp Biosciences LLC, Marinus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Ovid Therapeutics Inc., Praxis Bioresearch,  Sage Therapeutics, SK Life Science Inc., Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc., Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., UCB, Inc., Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc., and Zogenix, Inc.

Drug discovery and development for various pain applications is intensely competitive. There are a large number of approved products for neuropathic pain, inflammatory pain and other pain indications. These approved products include capsaicin, celecoxib, lidocaine, narcotic analgesics, gabapentin, and pregabalin. We are also aware of development programs at several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are developing Nav1.7 inhibitors or other sodium channel inhibitors for the treatment of pain, including Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Biogen Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Dainippon Sumitomo Co., Ltd., Eli Lilly and Company, Merck & Co., Inc., orH. Lundbeck A/S, Merck, NeuroQuest Inc., Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. and Chromocell Corporation in collaboration with its partner Astellas Pharma Inc. Moreover, we are aware of various other product candidates in development that target other mechanisms of action to treat various pain indications, including calcium channel inhibitors, nerve growth factor inhibitors, and Nav1.8 inhibitors.

If XEN801 were approved for the treatment of acne, we anticipate it would compete with other approved prescription acne products including topical retinoids, oral hormonal therapies, topical and oral antimicrobials, and oral isotretinoin. In addition to approved prescription therapies, there are a wide range of over-the-counter, or OTC, treatments targeted at treating acne. Additionally, there are a number of prescription products that are used “off-label” for the treatment of acne. We are also aware of several products in clinical development that could potentially compete with XEN801, including products in development from Allergan PLC, AOBiome LLC, Braintree Laboratories Inc., Cassiopea SpA, Dermira Inc., Foamix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Galderma SA, Mimetica Pty Ltd, Novan Therapeutics, Phosphagenics Ltd, Thesan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and XBiotech Inc.

We have no marketed proprietary products and have not yet advanced a product candidate beyond Phase 2 clinical trials, which makes it difficult to assess our ability to develop our future product candidates and commercialize any resulting products independently.

WeAs a company, we have no experience in Phase 3 and later stage clinical development or in conducting clinical trials in pediatric indications, and related regulatory requirements or the commercialization of products. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., or Teva, is responsible for the on-going clinical development of TV-45070; Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, is responsible for the on-going clinical development of GDC-0310; and uniQure controls and has been responsible for the development and commercialization of Glybera. Accordingly, weWe have not yet demonstrated our ability to independently and repeatedly conduct clinical development after Phase 2, successfully conduct an international multi-center clinical trial, conduct a pivotal clinical trial, obtain regulatory approval, manufacture drug product on a commercial scale or arrange for a third party to do so on our behalf, and commercialize therapeutic products. We will need to develop such abilities if we are to execute on our business strategy to selectively develop and independently commercialize product candidates for orphan and niche indications. To execute on our business plan for the development of independent programs, we will need to successfully:

If we are unsuccessful in accomplishing these objectives, we wouldwill not be able to develop and commercialize any future orphan and niche disease product candidates independently and could fail to realize the potential advantages of doing so.

If we are not successful in discovering, acquiring or in-licensing product candidates in addition to TV-45070, GDC-0310, XEN801XEN496, XEN1101 and XEN901,XEN007, our ability to expand our business and achieve our strategic objectives may be impaired.

We usehave built a product development pipeline by identifying product candidates either from our discovery platform to identify validated drug targets and develop newinternal research efforts or though acquiring or in-licensing other product candidates.candidates or technologies. To date, our internal discovery platform hasefforts have yielded one approved product, Glybera, and multiple development candidates, including TV-45070, GDC-0310, XEN801XEN901, which we licensed to Neurocrine Biosciences and XEN901. Useis now known as NBI-921352, and XEN402, which has been acquired by Flexion to use in its product candidate FX301. Both our internal discovery efforts and our assessment of our discovery platform requirespotential acquisition or in-licensing opportunities require substantial technical, financial and human resources, regardless of whether we identify any novelviable product candidates.

If we are unable to identify additional product candidates suitable for clinical development and commercialization either from our internal research efforts or though acquiring or in-licensing other product candidates or technologies, we may not be able to obtain product revenue in future periods, which likely would result in significant harm to our financial position and adversely impact the market price of our common shares.

Our approach to drug targets. discovery is unproven, and we do not know whether we will be able to develop any products of commercial value.

Our approach to drug discovery platformmay not reproducibly or cost-effectively result in the discovery of product candidates and development of commercially viable products that safely and effectively treat human disease.

Our drug discovery efforts may initially show promise in identifying additional potential product candidates yet fail to yield viable product candidates for clinical development or commercialization. Such failure may occur for many reasons, including the following: any product candidate may, on further study, be shown to have serious or unexpected side effects or other characteristics that indicate it is unlikely to be safe or otherwise does not meet applicable regulatory criteria; and any product candidate may not be capable of being produced in commercial quantities at an acceptable cost, or at all.

If we are unable to identify additional product candidates suitable for clinical development and commercialization, we may not be able to obtain product revenue in future periods, which likely would result in significant harm to our financial position and adversely impact the market price of our common shares.

Our approach to drug discovery is unproven, and we do not know whether we will be able to develop any products of commercial value.

Our discovery platform may not reproducibly or cost-effectively result in the discovery of product candidates and development of commercially viable products that safely and effectively treat human disease.

There are various challenges in utilizing our discovery platform to successfully identify novel drug targets, including locating families suffering from rare disorders and severe phenotypes, entering into agreements with foreign collaborators, complying with various domestic and foreign privacy laws, accessing required technologies in a timely manner and transporting DNA across national borders.

To date, only Glybera has been both developed using our discovery platform and approved for commercial sale. If the use of our discovery platform failsactivities fail to identify novel targets for drug discovery, or such targets prove to be unsuitable for treating human disease, or we are unable to develop product candidates with specificity and selectivity for such targets, we will fail to develop viable products. If we fail to develop and commercialize viable products, we will not achieve commercial success.

We may encounter difficulties in managing our growth, including headcount, and expanding our operations successfully.

Our business strategy involves continued development and, where development is successful, commercialization of select product candidates for orphan and niche indications independently. In order to execute on this strategy, we will need to build out a regulatory, sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing infrastructure and expand our development capabilities or contract with third parties to provide these capabilities and infrastructure for us. To achieve this, we will need to identify, hire and integrate personnel who have not worked together as a group previously.

As our operations expand, we expect that we will need to manage additional relationships with various strategic collaborators, suppliers and other third parties.

Drs. Simon Pimstone and Y. Paul Goldberg each devote a small amount of their time to clinical work outside of their duties at our company, conducting, generally, two to three outpatient clinics per month on average. Future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, and our management may need to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from our day-to-day activities and devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities.

If we are unable to effectively manage our growth, our expenses may increase more than expected, our ability to generate and grow revenue could be reduced, and we may not be able to implement our business strategy. Our future financial performance and our ability to commercialize product candidates and compete effectively will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth.

If we fail to attract and retain senior management and key personnel, we may be unable to successfully develop our product candidates, perform our obligations under our collaboration agreements, conduct our clinical trials and commercialize our product candidates.

Our success depends in part on our continued ability to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified management, clinical and scientific personnel.

We could experience difficulties attracting and retaining qualified employees as competition for qualified personnel in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical field is intense. We are highly dependent upon our senior management, particularly Dr. Simon Pimstone, our Chief Executive Officer, and President and Mr. Ian Mortimer, our Chief Financial OfficerPresident and Chief OperatingFinancial Officer, as well as other employees. The loss of services of anyeither of these individuals or one or more of our other members of senior management could materially delay or even prevent the successful development of our product candidates.

In addition, we will need to hire additional personnel as we expand our clinical development activities and develop commercial capabilities, including a sales infrastructure to support our independent commercialization efforts. We may not be able to attract and retain personnel on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for individuals with similar skill sets. The inability to recruit or loss of the services of any executive or key employee may impede the progress of our research, development and commercialization objectives.

Our employees, collaborators and other personnel may engage in misconduct or other improper activities, including non-compliance with regulatory standards and requirements and insider trading.

We are exposed to the risk of fraud or other misconduct by our employees, collaborators, vendors, principal investigators, consultants and commercial partners. Misconduct by these parties could include intentional failures to comply with the regulations of the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and other non-U.S. regulators, provide accurate information to the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and other non-U.S. regulators, comply with data privacy and security and healthcare fraud and abuse laws and regulations in the U.S. and abroad, report financial information or data accurately or disclose unauthorized activities to us. In particular, sales, marketing and business arrangements in the healthcare industry are subject to extensive laws and regulations intended to prevent fraud, misconduct, kickbacks, self-dealing and other abusive practices. Additionally, laws regarding data privacy and security, including the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009, or HITECH, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, or GDPR, and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA, as well as comparable laws in non-U.S.other jurisdictions, may impose obligations with respect to safeguarding the privacy, use, security and transmission of individually identifiable health information such as genetic material or information we obtainhave obtained through our direct-to-patient web-based recruitment approach for identifying patients with rare or extreme phenotypes.phenotypes or patients identified for clinical trials.

Various laws and regulations may restrict or prohibit a wide range of pricing, discounting, marketing and promotion, sales commission, customer incentive programs and other business arrangements. Any misconduct could also involve the improper use of information obtained in the course of clinical studies, which could result in regulatory sanctions and cause serious harm to our reputation. We have adopted a code of conduct applicable to all of our employees, officers, directors, agents and representatives, including consultants, but it is not always possible to identify and deter employee misconduct, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activitymisconduct may not be effective in controlling unknown or unmanaged risks or losses or in protecting us from governmental investigations or other actions or lawsuits stemming from a failure to comply with these laws orand regulations. If any such actions are instituted against us, and we are not successful in defending ourselves or asserting our rights, those actions could have a significant impact on our business, including the imposition of significant fines or other sanctions.sanctions, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, or the curtailment or restructuring of our operations.

We may encounter difficulties in managing our growth, including headcount, and expanding our operations successfully.

Our business strategy involves continued development and, where development is successful, commercialization of select product candidates for orphan and niche indications. In order to execute on this strategy, we will need to build out a regulatory, sales, manufacturing, distribution and marketing infrastructure and expand our development capabilities or contract with third parties to provide these capabilities and infrastructure for us. To achieve this, we will need to identify, hire and integrate personnel who have not worked together as a group previously.

As our operations expand, we expect that we will need to manage additional relationships with various strategic collaborators, suppliers and other third parties.

Dr. Simon Pimstone devotes a small amount of his time to clinical work outside of his duties at our company, conducting, generally, one outpatient clinic per week. Future growth will impose significant added responsibilities on members of management, and our management may need to divert a disproportionate amount of its attention away from our day-to-day activities and devote a substantial amount of time to managing these growth activities.

If we are unable to effectively manage our growth, our expenses may increase more than expected, our ability to generate and grow revenue could be reduced, and we may not be able to implement our business strategy. Our future financial performance and our ability to commercialize product candidates and compete effectively will depend, in part, on our ability to effectively manage any future growth.

Our business and operations could suffer in the event of system failures.

Computer system, network or telecommunications failures due to events such as damage from malware, unauthorized access, terrorism, war, or natural disasters could interrupt our internal or partner operations. For example, the loss of preclinicalpre-clinical trial data, or data from completed or ongoing clinical trials for our product candidates or other confidential information could result in delays in our regulatory filings and development efforts, and significantly increase our costs.costs and result in other adverse impacts to our business. To the extent that any disruption or securitycybersecurity breach werewas to result in a loss of or damage to our data, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and other remediation costs, and the development of our product candidates could be delayed. While we have implemented security measures and, to date, have not detected a cybersecurity breach of our systems nor experienced a material system failure, our internal computer systems and those ofthe external systems and services used by our third-party contract manufacturers, or CMOs, third-party contract research organizations, or CROs, or other contractors, consultants, directors and consultantspartners remain potentially vulnerable to damage from these events.

A variety of risks associated with international operations could materially adversely affect our business.

Our collaborator for TV-45070, Teva, is based in Israel and a significant portion of the research and development activities under our collaboration with Teva are performed outside of North America. Glybera has been approved for commercial sale in the EU by the EMA, subject to uniQure’s compliance with certain post-approval reporting and monitoring obligations. If we continue to engage in significant cross-border and international activities, we will be subject to risks related to international operations, including:

If any of these issues were to occur, our business could be materially harmed.

We face risks related to health epidemics and other outbreaks, which could significantly disrupt our operations and/or business.

Our near-term operating revenuebusiness could be adversely impacted by the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak originating in China, or by other epidemics. Our supply chain for raw materials, drug substance or drug product is partially dependent uponworldwide, including China, and accordingly could be subject to disruption.  There may be restrictions on the regulatory and marketing effortsexport or shipment of uniQure,raw materials, drug substance or its sublicensee, for the development and commercialization of Glybera.drug product that could materially delay our business or clinical trials.

Under the termsCertain of our license agreement with uniQure, we rely on uniQure, or its sublicensees, to market Glyberaresearch and to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of Glybera. In July 2013, uniQure announced that it had granted to Chiesi Farmaceutici, S.p.A., or Chiesi, an Italian pharmaceutical firm, an exclusive license to commercialize Glyberadevelopment efforts are also conducted globally, including our ongoing Phase 2b XEN1101 (X-TOLE) clinical trial, which includes investigative sites in the European Union, or the EU, and certain other countries outside of North America and Japan. Commercial sales of Glybera commenced in November 2015. DespiteEurope. A health epidemic or other outbreak, including the efforts of uniQurecurrent COVID-19 outbreak, may materially and Chiesi, Glybera may not gain market acceptance among physicians, patients, healthcare payers and the medical community.

Glybera is approved in the EU under exceptional circumstances and full approval may never be granted or the existing approval under exceptional circumstances could be revoked. As a condition to approval of Glybera, uniQure is required to complete a post-approval clinical trial and is required to implement a disease registry as well as implement risk management procedures, distribute educational materials to healthcare professionals and patients, implement an additional manufacturing process step, comply with certain notification obligations and undergo annual reassessment, any negative outcome of which could potentially lead to a withdrawal of marketing approval for Glybera.

Any failure of uniQure or its sublicensee to successfully commercialize Glybera or revocation of Glybera’s marketing approval in the EU could have an adverse effect onadversely affect our near-term operating revenue andbusiness, financial condition and could result in a decline inresults of operations. The extent to which COVID-19 impacts our results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information which may emerge concerning the priceseverity of our common shares.COVID-19 and the actions to contain COVID-19 or treat its impact, among others.

U.S. Holdersholders of our common shares may suffer adverse tax consequences if we are characterized as a passive foreign investment company.

Generally, for any taxable year in which 75% or more of our gross income is passive income, or at least 50% of the average quarterly value of our assets (which may be determined in part by the market value of our common shares, which is subject to change) are held for the production of, or produce, passive income, we would be characterized as a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Based on the price of our common shares and the composition of our gross income and gross assets, and the nature of our business, we do not believe that we were a PFIC for the taxable yearsyear ended December 31, 2016, 20152018, and 2014, although we could be a PFIC for the calendar year ending December 31, 2017 or in subsequent years. Based on the price of our common shares and the composition of our gross income and gross assets, we do not believe we were a PFIC for the taxable year ended December 31, 2019.  Our status as a PFIC is a fact-intensive determination made on an annual basis, and we cannot provide any assurance regarding our PFIC status for the taxable year ending December 31, 2017 or for future taxable years.

If we are a PFIC for any subsequent year, U.S. Holdersholders of our common shares may suffer adverse tax consequences. Gains realized by non-corporate U.S. Holdersholders on the sale of our common shares would be taxed as ordinary income, rather than as capital gain, and the preferential tax rate applicable to dividends received on our common shares would be lost. Interest charges would also be added to taxes on gains and dividends realized by all U.S. Holders.holders. U.S. holders should consult their own tax advisors with respect to their particular circumstances.

A U.S. Holderholder may avoid these adverse tax consequences by timely making a qualified electing fund election. For each year that we would meet the PFIC gross income or asset test, an electing U.S. Holderholder would be required to include in gross income its pro rata share of our net ordinary income and net capital gains, if any. A U.S. Holderholder may make a qualified electing fund election only if we commit to provide U.S. Holdersholders with their pro rata share of our net ordinary income and net capital gains. If we are a PFIC in the current or a future tax year, weWe will provide, upon request, our U.S. Holdersholders with the information that is necessary in order for them to make a qualified electing fund election and to report their common shares of ordinary earnings and net capital gains for each year for which we aremay be a PFIC. U.S. holders should consult their own tax advisors with respect to making this election and the related reporting requirements.

A U.S. Holderholder may also mitigate the adverse tax consequences if we are a PFIC by timely making a mark-to-market election. Generally, for each year that we would meet the PFIC gross income or asset test, an electing U.S. Holderholder would include in gross income the increase in the value of its common shares during each of its taxable years and deduct from gross income the decrease in the value of such shares during each of its taxable years. A mark-to-market election may be made and maintained only if our common shares are regularly traded on a qualified exchange, including The NASDAQthe Nasdaq Global Market, or NASDAQ.Nasdaq. Whether our common shares are regularly traded on a qualified exchange is an annual determination based on facts that, in part, are beyond our control. Accordingly, a U.S. Holderholder might not be eligible to make a mark-to-market election to mitigate the adverse tax consequences if we are characterized as a PFIC. U.S. holders should consult their own tax advisors with respect to the possibility of making this election.

In addition, if we are or become a PFIC (or our PFIC status is uncertain), it may deter certain U.S. investors from purchasing our common shares, which could have an adverse impact on the market price of our common shares.

We may become subject to income tax in jurisdictions in which we are organized or operate, which would reduce our future earnings.

There is a risk that we may become subject to income tax in jurisdictions outside of Canada and the United States, if under the laws of any such jurisdiction, we are considered to be carrying on a trade or business there or earn income that is considered to be sourced there and we do not qualify for an exemption. In jurisdictions where we do not believe we are subject to tax, we can provide no certainty that tax authorities in those jurisdictions will not subject one or more tax years to examination. Tax examinations are often complex as tax authorities may disagree with the treatment of items reported by us, the result of which could have a material adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

Acquisitions, or joint ventures or other strategic transactions could disrupt our business, cause dilution to our shareholders and otherwise harm our business.

We actively evaluate various strategic transactions on an ongoing basis, and may acquireincluding the acquisition of other businesses, products or technologies as well as pursuepursuing strategic alliances, joint ventures, licensing transactions or investments in complementary businesses. Any of these transactions could be material to our financial condition and operating results and expose us to many risks, including:

Foreign acquisitions involve unique risks in addition to those mentioned above, including those related to integration of operations across different cultures and languages, currency risks and the particular economic, political and regulatory risks associated with specific countries.

Also, the anticipated benefit of any strategic alliance, joint venture or acquisition may not materialize. Future acquisitions or dispositions could result in potentially dilutive issuances of our equity securities, the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities or amortization expenses or write-offs of goodwill, any of which could harm our financial condition. We cannot predict the number, timing or size of future joint ventures or acquisitions, or the effect that any such transactions might have on our operating results.

Risks Related to Development, Clinical Testing and Regulatory Approval of Our Product Candidates

The regulatory approval processes of the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and regulators in other jurisdictions are lengthy, time-consuming and inherently unpredictable. If we, or our collaborators, are unable to obtain timely regulatory approval for our product candidates in a timely manner, or at all, our business will be substantially harmed.

The regulatory approval process is expensive and the time required to obtain approval from the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions to sell any product is uncertain and may take years. Whether regulatory approval will be granted is unpredictable and depends upon numerous factors, including the substantial discretion of the regulatory authorities. Approval policies, regulations, or the type and amount of preclinicalpre-clinical and clinical data necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate’s clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. Other thanMoreover, pre-clinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and even if the pre-clinical studies show promising results and clinical trials are successfully completed, we cannot guarantee that the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions will interpret the results as we do, and more trials, manufacturing-related studies or non-clinical studies could be required before we submit our product candidates for Glyberaapproval. Many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in pre-clinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their products. To the EU, neitherextent that the results of our studies and trials are not satisfactory to the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory authorities in other jurisdictions for support of a marketing application, approval of our product candidates may be significantly delayed, or we nor our collaborators have obtained regulatorymay be required to expend significant additional resources, which may not be available to us, to conduct additional trials in support of potential approval for any of our product candidates. It is also possible that none of our existing product candidates or any of our future product candidates will ever obtain regulatory approval, even if we expend substantial time and resources seeking such approval.

Our product candidates could fail to receive regulatory approval for many reasons, including the following:

Even if we, or our collaborators, obtain approval for a particular product, regulatory authorities may grant approval contingent on the performance of costly post-approval clinical trials, or may approve a product with a label that does not include the labeling claims necessary or desirable for the successful commercialization of that product.

In addition, because there may be approved treatments for some of the diseases for which we may seek approval, in order to receive regulatory approval, we may need to demonstrate in clinical trials that the product candidates we develop to treat those diseases are not only safe and effective, but may need to be compared to existing products, which may make it more difficult for our product candidates to receive regulatory approval or adequate reimbursement.

Clinical drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process with uncertain timelines and uncertain outcomes. If clinical trials are prolonged, delayed or delayed,not completed, we, or our collaborators, may be unable to commercialize our product candidates on a timely basis.

Clinical testing of product candidates is expensive and, depending on the stage of development, can take a substantial period of time to complete. Clinical trial outcomes are inherently uncertain, and failure can occur at any time during the clinical development process.

Clinical trials can be halted or delayed for a variety of reasons, including those related to:

The results of any Phase 3 or other pivotal clinical trial may not be adequate to support marketing approval. These clinical trials are lengthy and, with respect to non-orphan indications, usually involve many hundreds to thousands of patients. In addition, if the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or another applicable regulator disagrees with our or our collaborator’s choice of the key testing criterion, or primary endpoint, or the results for the primary endpoint are not robust or significant relative to the control group of patients not receiving the experimental therapy, or our statistical analysis is inconclusive, such regulator may refuse to approve our product candidate in the region in which it has jurisdiction. The FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other applicable non-U.S. regulators also may require additional clinical trials as a condition for approving any of these product candidates.

We could also encounter delays if a clinical trial is suspended or terminated by us, by our collaborators, by the IRBs of the institutions in which such trial is being conducted, by any Data Safety Monitoring Board for such trial, or by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory authorities. Such authorities may impose such a suspension or termination due to a number of factors, including failure to conduct the clinical trial in accordance with regulatory requirements or our clinical protocols, inspection of the clinical trial operations or trial site by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory authorities resulting in the imposition of a clinical hold, product candidate manufacturing problems, unforeseen safety issues or adverse side effects, failure to demonstrate a benefit from using a drug, changes in governmental regulations or administrative actions or lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial. In addition, delays can occur due to safety concerns arising from trials or other clinical data regarding another company’s product candidate in the same compound class as one of ours.

Additionally, changes in applicable regulatory requirements and guidance may occur and we may need to amend clinical trial protocols to reflect these changes or to include additional objectives that could yield important scientific information critical to our overall development strategy. The protocol amendment process often requires review and approval by several review bodies, including regulatory agencies and scientific, regulatory and ethics boards and IRBs. These protocol amendments may not be accepted by the review bodies in the form submitted, or at all, which may impact costs, timing or successful completion of a clinical trial.

If we or our collaborators experience delays in the completion of, or termination of, any clinical trial of one of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of the product candidate will be harmed, could shorten the patent protection period during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our products under patent protection, and our or our collaborators’ ability to commence product sales and generate product revenue from the product will be delayed. In addition, any delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs and slow down our product candidate development and approval process. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly. In addition, many of the factors that cause, or lead to, a delay in the commencement or completion of clinical trials may also ultimately lead to the denial of regulatory approval of our product candidates.

Our product candidates – including TV-45070XEN496 targets an ultra-orphan indication of KCNQ2-DEE and GDC-0310 for the treatment of pain, XEN801 for the treatment of acne,FDA has indicated that a single, small pivotal trial may be sufficient to demonstrate effectiveness and XEN901 for the treatment of epilepsy disorders – target novel molecular mechanisms. Regulatorysafety in KCNQ2-DEE provided that no new or unexpected safety issues arise during drug development. However, other regulatory authorities may require more extensive studiesadditional data. Further, even though we believe the safety and efficacy profile of ezogabine, the long-term effectsactive ingredient in XEN496, in pediatric patients with KCNQ2-DEE generated to date by others appears promising based on published clinical case reports, we do not yet know if the pediatric-specific formulation of such product candidates for regulatory approval, which could delayXEN496 will have the same or similar safety, pharmacokinetic and/or efficacy profile in pediatric patients with KCNQ2-DEE as the original formulation of ezogabine. If we are unable to replicate the published clinical case reports, due to the new formulation or any other factors, the clinical development of our product candidatesXEN496 may not be successful and the FDA or our future product candidates based on novel mechanisms.other regulatory authorities may require additional data in more patients or we may not be able to generate sufficient data for approval in this patient population.

Our clinicalClinical trials may fail to demonstrate adequately the safety and efficacy of our or our collaborators’ product candidates, which could prevent or delay regulatory approval and commercialization.

Before obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial sale of our products, we or our collaborators must demonstrate through lengthy, complex and expensive preclinicalpre-clinical testing and clinical trials that the product candidate is both safe and effective for use in each target indication. Clinical trials often fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy of the product candidate studied for the target indication. Most product candidates that commence clinical trials are never approved as products.

In the case of some of our and our collaborators’ product candidates, we and our collaborators are seeking to develop treatments for diseases for which there is relatively limited clinical experience, and in some cases our clinical trials may use novel end pointsendpoints and measurement methodologies or subjective patient feedback, which adds a layer of complexity to ourthese clinical trials and may delay regulatory approval. In addition, our focus on orphan and niche markets may cause us to select target indications that are in more challenging therapeutic areas. For example,Related to our collaboration with Genentech and our agreement with Flexion, clinical trials for pain the indication for which TV-45070 and GDC-0310 are being developed, are inherently difficult to conduct. The primary measure of pain is based on subjective patient feedback, which can be influenced by factors outside of our control and can vary widely from day to day for a particular patient, and from patient to patient, and from site to site within a clinical study. The placebo effect also tends to have a more significant impact onin pain trials.

If our or our collaborators’ product candidates are not shown to be both safe and effective in clinical trials, wesuch product candidates will not be ableunable to obtain regulatory approval or commercialize these product candidates and products.be successfully commercialized. In such case, we would need to develop other compounds and conduct associated preclinicalpre-clinical testing and clinical trials, as well as potentially seek additional financing, all of which would have a material adverse effect on our business, growth prospects, operating results, financial condition and results of operations.

We or our collaborators may find it difficult to enroll patients in our clinical studies, including for ultra-orphan, orphan or niche indications, which could delay or prevent clinical studies of our product candidates.

We or our collaborators may not be able to identify, recruit and enroll a sufficient number of patients, or those with required or desired characteristics to achieve diversity in a study, to complete our clinical studies in a timely manner.manner, or at all. Patient enrollment for clinical trials for ultra-orphan, orphan and niche indications and for more prevalent conditions is affected by factors including:

The limited patient populations in ultra-orphan, orphan and niche indications, such as KCNQ2-DEE, SCN8A-DEE, other early infantile epileptic encephalopathies, or EIEEs, alternating hemiplegia of childhood, or AHC, and hemiplegic migraine, or HM, present significant recruitment challenges for clinical trials. As an example of a rare childhood epilepsy disorder, the prevalence of Dravet Syndrome is estimated to be 7,500-15,000 patients in the U.S. It is estimated that the population of SCN8A epilepsy represents an even smaller subset amongst rare, childhood epilepsies when compared to Dravet Syndrome; howevertrials and a full understanding of this populationthe size of these populations is still relatively unknown. Many of these patients may not be suitable or available forto participate in our or our collaborators’ clinical trials. This means that we or our collaborators will generally will have to run multi-site and potentially multi-national trials, which can be expensive and require close coordination and supervision. If we or our collaborators’ experience delays in completing our clinical trials, such delays could result in increased costs, delays in advancing our product development, delays in testing the effectiveness of our technologyproduct candidates or termination of the clinical studies altogether. Even if we or our collaborators’ are successful in receiving regulatory approval, the limited patient populations in ultra-orphan, orphan and niche indications may impact the successful commercialization of our or our collaborators’ product candidates and reimbursement rates, which could impact revenue and our ability to achieve profitability.

The FDA has not yet approved any drug products specifically for AHC, KCNQ2-DEE or SCN8A-DEE, and the clinical endpoints required to obtain approval are not well defined.

Given the nature of some of the rare diseases we and our collaborators are seeking to treat, we or our collaborators may have to devise novel clinical endpoints to be tested in studies, which can lead to some subjectivity in interpreting study results and could result in regulatory agencies not agreeing with the validity or the adequacy of the chosen endpoints, or our or our collaborators’ interpretation of the clinical data, and therefore denying approval. Negotiating the appropriate endpoints to use with FDA or similar regulators may be costly and time-consuming, and may delay clinical trials. In post-Phase 1 trials, given the illness of the subjects in our and our collaborators’ studies and the nature of the subjects’ rare diseases, we or our collaborators may also be required or choose to conduct certain studies on an open-label basis. Additionally, we or our collaborators may elect to review interim clinical data at multiple time points during the studies, which could introduce bias into the study results, or result in statistical penalties being applied to the data, and potentially result in denial of approval.

If we fail to obtain or maintain orphan drug designation or other regulatory exclusivity for some of our product candidates, our competitive position would be harmed.

AAlthough we may file intellectual property to protect XEN007 and additional intellectual property to protect XEN496, these product candidate that receivescandidates are not currently covered by any issued patents and we may have to rely solely on orphan drug designation can benefit from a streamlined regulatory process as well as potential commercial benefits following approval.to gain market exclusivity for these product candidates. Currently, this designation provides market exclusivity in the U.S. and the EU for seven years and ten years, respectively, if a product is the first such product approved for such orphan indication. This market exclusivity does not, however, pertain to indications other than those for which the drug was specifically designated in the approval, nor does it prevent other types of drugs from receiving orphan designations or approvals in these same indications. Further, even after an orphan drug is approved, the FDA can subsequently approve a drug with similar chemical structure for the same condition if the FDA concludes that the new drug is clinically superior to the orphan product or a market shortage occurs.

In the EU, orphan exclusivity may be reduced to six years if the drug no longer satisfies the original designation criteria or can be lost altogether if the marketing authorization holder consents to a second orphan drug application or cannot supply enough drug, or when a second applicant demonstrates its drug is “clinically superior” to the original orphan drug. TV-45070 has received both fast track and orphan drug designations for the treatment of erythromelalgia, or EM, from the FDA, and flunarizine,XEN007, a drug we are evaluating internally for the potential treatment of hemiplegic migraine,development in HM or AHC, has received orphan drug designation from the FDA.FDA for each indication. We have also received orphan drug designation from the FDA for XEN496, a drug we intend to begin Phase 3 development for the treatment of KCNQ2-DEE in 2020. If we seek orphan drug designations for other indications or in other jurisdictions, such as for TV-45070 in the EU, we may fail to receive such orphan drug designations and, even if we succeed, such orphan drug designations may fail to result in or maintain orphan drug exclusivity upon approval, which would harm our competitive position. Further, not all jurisdictions, such as Canada, have orphan drug designations. Neither orphan drug designation, nor rare pediatric disease, or RPD, designation gives the drug any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process.

Although the FDA has granted RPD designation to XEN007 for the treatment of AHC, we may not be able to realize any value from such designation.

Our product candidate XEN007 has received RPD designation from the FDA for the treatment of AHC. The FDA defines a "rare pediatric disease" as a disease that affects fewer than 200,000 individuals in the U.S. primarily under the age of 18 years old. Under the FDA's RPD priority review voucher program, upon the approval of a new drug application, NDA, or a biologics license application, BLA, for the treatment of an RPD, the sponsor of such application would be eligible for a priority review voucher that can be used to obtain priority review for a subsequent NDA or BLA. There is no assurance we will receive a RPD priority review voucher or that use of the priority review voucher will result in a faster review or approval for a subsequent marketing application. It is possible that even if we obtain approval for XEN007 and qualify for such a priority review voucher, the program may no longer be in effect at the time of XEN007 approval. Also, although priority review vouchers may be freely sold or transferred to third parties, there is no guarantee that we will be able to realize any value if we were to sell a priority review voucher to a third party.  We may not be able to receive approval of an NDA for XEN007 for AHC prior to October 1, 2022 after which Congress must further reauthorize the program for priority review vouchers. RPD Designation does not lead to faster development or regulatory review of the product, or increase the likelihood that it will receive marketing approval.

Results of pre-clinical studies and/or earlier clinical trials may not be predictive of the results of later-stagelater clinical trials.trials and the results of our clinical trials may not satisfy the requirements of the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or foreign regulatory authorities.

The results of preclinicalpre-clinical studies, either generated by us, such as for XEN901 (which we licensed to Neurocrine Biosciences and is now known as NBI-921352) or XEN402 (which we sold to Flexion and is now known as FX301), or by our CROs or by other third parties from which we have in-licensed or acquired a product candidate, such as for XEN1101, may not be predictive of results in clinical testing. Moreover, pre-clinical results can often be difficult to compare across different studies for a variety of reasons, including differences in experimental protocols and techniques, personnel, equipment and other factors, which may make the pre-clinical results less reliable and predictive of clinical trial results. In addition, published clinical data or case reports from third parties or early clinical trialstrial data of our product candidates may not be predictive of the results of later-stage clinical trials. Interpretation of results from early, usually smaller, studies that suggest a clinically meaningful response in some patients, requires caution. Results from later stages of clinical trials enrolling more patients may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy results or otherwise fail to be consistent with the results of earlier trials of the same product candidates.candidate. Later clinical trial results may not replicate earlier clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including differences in trial design, different trial endpoints (or lack of trial endpoints in exploratory studies), patient population, number of patients, patient selection criteria, trial duration, drug dosage and formulation and lack of statistical power in the earlier studies. These uncertainties are enhanced where the diseases under study lack established clinical endpoints, and validated measures of efficacy, as is often the case with orphan diseases for which no drugs have been developed previously.previously and where the product candidates target novel mechanisms. For example, to our resultsknowledge, NBI-921352 is the first selective Nav1.6 sodium channel inhibitor being developed for two small exploratorythe treatment of epilepsy and therefore standard pre-clinical models may not be predictive of clinical trialsefficacy due to its novel molecular mechanism.  

Further, our product candidates may not be approved even if they achieve their primary endpoint in our Phase 3 clinical trials. The FDA, EMA, Health Canada or foreign regulatory authorities may disagree with our trial design and our interpretation of data from pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. In addition, any of these regulatory authorities may change its requirements for primary EM pain, one usingthe approval of a topical formulationproduct candidate even after reviewing and providing comments or advice on a protocol for a pivotal clinical trial that, if successful, would potentially form the otherbasis for an oral formulationapplication for approval by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or another regulatory authority. Furthermore, any of TV-45070, used novel measuresthese regulatory authorities may also approve our product candidates for a narrower indication than we request or may grant approval contingent on the performance of efficacy assessment. While these studies provided promising results, further largercostly post-marketing clinical trials will be necessary to confirm and extend these observations.trials.

Changes in methods of product candidate manufacturing or formulation may result in additional costs or delay.

As product candidates are developed through preclinicalpre-clinical to late stage clinical trials towards approval and commercialization, it is common that various aspects of the development program, such as manufacturing methods and formulation,formulations, are altered along the way in an effort to optimize products, processes and results. Such changes carryresults, to extend patent protection and/or to target different populations. For example, XEN496 is a pediatric-specific formulation of ezogabine and we have also developed a pediatric formulation for NBI-921352 that was included in the risk that they will not achieve these intended objectives.license to Neurocrine Biosciences. Any of these changes could cause our product candidates to perform differently and not provide the same drug exposure profile in children and/or cause side effects different to those observed with formulations previously tested in adults. Unexpected changes in the performance of a new formulation may affect the results of planned clinical trials or other future clinical trials conducted with the altered materials. This could delay completion of clinical trials, require the conduct of bridging clinical trials or the repetition of one or more clinical trials, increase clinical trial costs and/or delay or jeopardize approval of our product candidates and/or jeopardize our or our collaborators’ ability to commence product sales and generate revenue.

Even if we obtain and maintain approval for our product candidates from one jurisdiction, we may never obtain approval for our product candidates in other jurisdictions, which would limit our market opportunities and adversely affect our business.

Sales of our approved products, are, andif any, will be subject to U.S. and foreignthe regulatory requirements governing clinical trials and marketing approval in the countries in which we obtain regulatory approval, and we plan to seek regulatory approval to commercialize our product candidates in North America, the EU and in additional foreign countries. Clinical trials conducted in one country may not be accepted by regulatory authorities in other countries and regulatory approval in one country does not ensure approval in any other country, while a failure or delay in obtaining regulatory approval in one country may have a negative effect on the regulatory approval process in others. For example, approval in the U.S. by the FDA does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions, and approval by one foreign regulatory authority does not ensure approval by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or regulatory authorities in other countries. Approval procedures vary among jurisdictions and can be lengthy and expensive, and involve requirements and administrative review periods different from, and greater than, those in the U.S., including additional preclinicalpre-clinical studies or clinical trials. Even if our product candidates are approved, regulatory approval for any product may be withdrawn by the regulatory authorities in a particular jurisdiction.

Even if a product is approved, the FDA, EMA, Health Canada, or the EMA,another applicable regulatory authority, as the case may be, may limit the indications for which the product may be marketed, require extensive warnings on the product labeling or require expensive and time-consuming clinical trials or reporting as conditions of approval. In many countries outside the U.S., a product candidate must be approved for reimbursement before it can be approved for sale in that country. In some cases, the price that we intend to charge for a product is also subject to approval.

Regulatory authorities in countries outside of the U.S., Canada and the EMAEU also have their own requirements for approval of product candidates with which we must comply prior to marketing in those countries. Obtaining foreign regulatory approvals and compliance with such foreign regulatory requirements could result in significant delays, difficulties and costs for us and could delay or prevent the introduction of our current and any future products, in certain countries.

If we fail to receive applicable marketing approvals or comply with the regulatory requirements in international markets, our target market will be reduced and our ability to realize the full market potential of our product candidates will be harmed and our business will be adversely affected.

We work with outside scientists and their institutions in executing our business strategy of developing product candidates using our discovery platform.candidates. These scientists may have other commitments or conflicts of interest, which could limit our access to their expertise and harm our ability to leverage our discovery platform.develop viable product candidates.

We work with scientific advisors and collaborators at academic institutions and other research institutions in connection with our discovery platform. These scientific advisors serve as our link to the various families with extreme phenotypes in that these advisors may:

institutions. These scientists and collaborators are not our employees,employees; rather, they serve as either independent contractors or the primary investigators under research collaboration agreements that we have with their sponsoring academic or research institution. Such scientists and collaborators may have other commitments that would limit their availability to us. Although our scientific advisors generally agree not to do competing work, if an actual or potential conflict of interest between their work for us and their work for another entity arises, we may lose their services. It is also possible that some of our valuable proprietary knowledge may become publicly known through these scientific advisors if they breach their confidentiality agreements with us, which would cause competitive harm to our business.

Risks Related to Commercialization

If, in the future, we are unable to establish our own sales, marketing and distribution capabilities or enter into licensing or collaboration agreements for these purposes, we may not be successful in independently commercializing any future products.

We do not have a sales or marketing infrastructure and, as a company, have no sales, marketing or distribution experience. Our strategy involves, in part, building our own commercial infrastructure to selectively commercialize future products in niche or orphan indications. Whereindications in certain commercial markets. If we believe such involvement would advance our business,enter into licensing or collaboration agreements, we may seek to retain the right to participate in the future development and commercialization of such products. For example,products if we have a co-promotion option for TV-45070 with Teva in the U.S.believe such involvement would advance our business.

To develop internal sales, distribution and marketing capabilities, we will have to invest significant amounts of financial and management resources, some of which will need to be committed prior to any confirmation that any of our proprietary product candidates will be approved. For any future products for which we decide to perform sales, marketing and distribution functions ourselves, we could face a number of additional risks, including:

Where and when appropriate, we may elect to utilize contract sales forces or distribution partners to assist in the commercialization of our product candidates. If we enter into arrangements with third parties to perform sales, marketing and distribution services for a product, the resulting revenue or the profitability from this revenue to us is likely to be lower than if we had sold, marketed and distributed that product ourselves. In addition, we may not be successful in entering into arrangements with third parties to sell, market, and distribute our product candidates or may be unable to do so on terms that are favorable to us. We likely will have little control over such third parties, and any of these third parties may fail to devote the necessary resources and attention to sell, market, and distribute our current or any future products effectively.

Even if we receive regulatory approval to commercialize any of the product candidates that we develop independently, we will be subject to ongoing regulatory obligations and continued regulatory review, which may result in significant additional expense.

Any regulatory approvals that we receive for our product candidates we commercialize will be subject to limitations on the approved indicated uses for which the product may be marketed or subject to certain conditions of approval and may contain requirements for potentially costly post-approval trials, including Phase 4 clinical trials, and surveillance to monitor the safety and efficacy of the marketed product.

For any approved product, we will need to ensure continued compliance with extensive regulations and requirements regarding the manufacturing processes, labeling, packaging, distribution, adverse event reporting, storage, advertising, promotion and recordkeeping for the product. These requirements include submissions of safety and other post-approval information and reports, as well as continued compliance with current good manufacturing practices, or cGMP, and current good clinical practices, or cGCP, for any clinical trials that we or our collaborators are required to conduct post-approval. Later discovery of previously unknown problems with a product, including adverse events of unanticipated severity or frequency, or with third-party manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may result in, among other things:

Occurrence of any of the foregoing could have a material and adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

In addition, prescription drugs may be promoted only for the approved indications in accordance with the approved label. The FDA and other agencies actively enforce the laws and regulations prohibiting the promotion of off-label uses, and a company that is found to have improperly promoted off-label may be subject to significant liability. However, physicians may, in their independent medical judgment, prescribe legally available products for off-label uses. The FDA does not regulate the behavior of physicians in their choice of treatments but the FDA and other foreign regulators do restrict manufacturer’s communications on the subject of off-label use of their products.

If the market opportunities for anyour product that we or our collaborators developcandidates are smaller than we believe they are, our revenue may be adversely affected, and our business may suffer.  Because the target patient populations for some of our product candidates are small, we must be able to successfully identify patients and acquire a significant market share to achieve profitability and growth.

We intend toSome of our product candidates focus our independent product development on treatments for rare and ultra-rare diseases.  Our projections of bothGiven the small number of peoplepatients who have thesesome of the diseases as well as the subset of peoplethat we are targeting, our profitability and growth depend on successfully identifying patients with these diseases who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our product candidates, are based on estimates.rare and ultra-rare diseases.  Currently, most reported estimates of the prevalence of these diseases are based on studies of small subsets of the population in specific geographic areas, which are then extrapolated to estimate the prevalence of the diseases in the U.S. or elsewhere. IfOur projections of both the number of people who have these diseases, as well as the subset of people with these diseases who have the potential to benefit from treatment with our product candidates, are based on our internal estimates.   These estimates have been derived from a variety of sources, including scientific literature, surveys of clinics, patient foundations, and market research, and may prove to be incorrect.  Further, new studies may change the estimated incidence or prevalence of suchthese diseases, and, as a result, the number of patients with these diseases may turn out to be lower than expected.  Our effort to identify patients with diseases we seek to treat is smaller thanin early stages, and we have projected, then, even ifcannot accurately predict the number of patients for whom treatment might be possible.  Additionally, the potentially addressable patient population for each of our products are approved, weproduct candidates may be limited or may not be ableamenable to successfully commercialize them.treatment with our product candidates, and new patients may become increasingly difficult to identify or gain access to, which would adversely affect our results of operations and our business.  Finally, even if we obtain significant market share for our product candidates, because the potential target populations are very small, we may never achieve profitability despite obtaining such significant market share.

Even if we or our collaborators receive approval to commercialize our products, unfavorable pricing regulations and challenging third-party coverage and reimbursement practices could harm our business.

Our or any collaborators’ ability to commercialize any products successfully will depend, in part, on the extent to which coverage and reimbursement for these products and related treatments will be available from government healthcare programs, private health insurers, managed care plans, and other organizations. Government authorities and third-party payers, such as private health insurers and health maintenance organizations, decide which medications they will pay for and establish reimbursement levels. A primary trend in the U.S. healthcare industry is cost containment. Government authorities and third-party payers have attempted to control costs by limiting coverage and the amount of reimbursement for particular medications. Increasingly, third-party payers are requiring that drug companies provide them with predetermined discounts from list prices and are challenging the prices charged for medical products. We cannot be sure that coverage and reimbursement will be available for any product that we or any collaborator commercialize and, if reimbursement is available, the level of reimbursement. In addition, coverage and reimbursement may impact the demand for, or the price of, any product candidate for which we or a collaborator obtains marketing approval. If coverage and reimbursement are not available or reimbursement is available only to limited levels, we or our collaborators may not be able to successfully commercialize any product candidate for which marketing approval is obtained.

There may be significant delays in obtaining coverage and reimbursement for newly approved drugs, and coverage may be more limited than the purposes for which the drug is approved by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory authorities. Moreover, eligibility for coverage and reimbursement does not imply that a drug will be paid for in all cases or at a rate that covers our costs, including research, development, manufacture, sale and distribution expenses. Interim reimbursement levels for new drugs, if applicable, may also be insufficient to cover our and any collaborator’s costs and may not be made permanent. Reimbursement rates may vary according to the use of the drug and the clinical setting in which it is used, may be based on reimbursement levels already set for lower cost drugs and may be incorporated into existing payments for other services. Net prices for drugs may be reduced by mandatory discounts or rebates required by government healthcare programs or private payers and by any future relaxation of laws that presently restrict imports of drugs from countries where they may be sold at lower prices than in the U.S. Third-party payers often rely upon Medicare coverage policy and payment limitations in setting their own reimbursement policies. Our or any collaborator’s inability to promptly obtain coverage and profitable payment rates from both government-funded and private payers for any approved products that we or our collaborators develop could have a material adverse effect on our operating results, our ability to raise capital needed to commercialize products and our overall financial condition.

Our and our collaborators’ target patient populations in orphan and niche indications, where we intend to selectively developsuch as KCNQ2-DEE, and commercialize products independently,SCN8A-DEE, and other potential target patient populations, such as AHC, are relatively small. In order for therapies that are designed to treat smaller patient populations to be commercially viable, the pricing, coverage and reimbursement for such therapies needs to be higher, on a relative basis, to account for the lack of volume. Accordingly, we will need to implement apricing, coverage and reimbursement strategystrategies for any approved product that accounts for the smaller potential market size. If we are unable to establish or sustain coverage and adequate reimbursement for our current and any future products from third party payers or the government, the adoption of those products and sales revenue will be adversely affected, which, in turn, could adversely affect the ability to market or sell those products.

Recently enacted and future legislation may increase the difficulty and cost for us to commercialize any products that we or our collaborators develop and affect the prices we may obtain.

The U.S. and some foreign jurisdictions are considering or have enacted a number of legislative and regulatory proposals to change the healthcare system in ways that could affect our ability to sell any of our products profitably, once such products are approved for sale. Among policy makers and payers in the U.S. and elsewhere, there is significant interest in promoting changes in healthcare systems with the stated goals of containing healthcare costs, improving quality and/or expanding access. In the U.S., the pharmaceutical industry has been a particular focus of these efforts and has been significantly affected by major legislative initiatives.

TheFor example, in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, collectively, the PPACA, was enacted in 2010 and includes measures that have significantly changed or will significantly change, the way healthcare is financed by both governmental and private insurers. Among theThe Trump administration and Congress, through legislation, executive orders and other measures, has taken action to repeal and replace certain provisions of PPACA of importance to the pharmaceutical industry are the following:

In the EU, similar political, economic and regulatory developments may affect our ability to profitably commercialize our current or any future products. In addition to continuing pressure on prices and cost containment measures, legislative developments at the EU or member state level may result in significant additional requirements or obstacles that may increase our operating costs. In international markets, reimbursement and healthcare payment systems vary significantly by country, and many countries have instituted price ceilings on specific products and therapies. Glybera and ourOur future products, if any, might not be considered medically reasonable and necessary for a specific indication or cost-effective by third-party payers. An adequate level of reimbursement might not be available for such products and third-party payers’ reimbursement policies might adversely affect our or our collaborators’ ability to sell Glybera and any future products profitably.

Legislative and regulatory proposals have been made to expand post-approval requirements and restrict sales and promotional activities for pharmaceutical products. We cannot be sure whether additional legislative changes will be enacted, or whether the FDA regulations, guidance or interpretations will be changed, or what the impact of such changes on the marketing approvals of our product candidates, if any, may be. In addition, increased scrutiny by the U.S. Congress of the FDA’s approval process may significantly delay or prevent marketing approval, as well as subject us to more stringent product labeling and post-approval testing and other requirements.

The Trump administration and Congress are also expected to attempt broad sweeping changes to the current health care laws, including PPACA. The impact of those changes on us and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole is currently unknown. Any changes to the PPACA are likely to have an impact on our results of operations, and may have a material adverse effect on our result of operations. We cannot predict the likelihood, nature or extent of government regulation that may arise from future legislation or administrative action, either in the U.S. or abroad.in other jurisdictions. If we or our collaborators are slow or unable to adapt to changes in existing requirements or the adoption of new requirements or policies, or if we or our collaborators are not able to maintain regulatory compliance, our product candidates may lose any marketing approval that may have been obtained and we may not achieve or sustain profitability, which would adversely affect our business.

Foreign governments tend to impose strict price controls, which may adversely affect our future profitability.

In most foreign countries, particularly those in the EU and Canada, prescription drug pricing and/or reimbursement is subject to governmental control. In those countries that impose price controls, pricing negotiations with governmental authorities can take considerable time after the receipt of marketing approval for a product. To obtain reimbursement or pricing approval in some countries, we or our collaborators may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our product candidate to other available therapies.

Some countries require approval of the sale price of a drug before it can be marketed. In many countries, the pricing review period begins after marketing or product licensing approval is granted. In some foreign markets, prescription pharmaceutical pricing remains subject to continuing governmental control even after initial approval is granted. As a result, we or our collaborators might obtain marketing approval for a product in a particular country, but then be subject to price regulations that delay commercial launch of the product, possibly for lengthy time periods, and negatively impact the revenue that areis generated from the sale of the product in that country. If reimbursement of such products is unavailable or limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at unsatisfactory levels, or if there is competition from lower priced cross-border sales, our profitability will be negatively affected.

Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties

We depend on our collaborative relationship with Teva to further develop and commercialize TV-45070, and if our relationship is not successful or is terminated, we may not be able to effectively develop and/or commercialize TV-45070, which would have a material adverse effect on our business.

We depend on Teva to collaborate with us to develop and globally commercialize TV-45070. Under the agreement, Teva controls all decision-making with respect to the clinical development and commercialization for TV-45070.

As a result of our dependence on Teva, the eventual success or commercial viability of TV-45070 is largely beyond our control. The financial returns to us, if any, depend in large part on the achievement of development and commercialization milestones, plus a share of any revenue from sales. Therefore, our success, and any associated financial returns to us and our investors, will depend in large part on Teva’s performance under the agreement. We are subject to a number of additional specific risks associated with our dependence on our collaborative relationship with Teva, including:

If either we or Teva fail to perform our respective obligations, any clinical trial, regulatory approval or development progress could be significantly delayed or halted, could result in costly or time-consuming litigation or arbitration and could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Decisions by Teva to emphasize other drug candidates currently in its portfolio ahead of our product candidates, or to add competitive agents to its portfolio could result in a decision to terminate the agreement, in which event, among other things, we may be responsible for paying any remaining costs of all ongoing or future clinical trials.

In addition, Teva’s executive offices and a substantial percentage of their manufacturing capabilities are located in Israel. Teva’s Israeli operations are dependent upon materials imported from outside Israel, and Teva also exports significant amounts of products from Israel. Accordingly, our collaboration with Teva could be materially and adversely affected by acts of terrorism or if major hostilities were to occur in the Middle East or trade between Israel and its present trading partners were curtailed, including as a result of acts of terrorism in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Any of the above discussed scenarios could adversely affect the timing and extent of our development and commercialization activities, which could cause significant delays and funding shortfalls for those activities and seriously harm our business.

Our prospects for successful development and commercialization of our partnered products and product candidates are dependent upon the research, development and marketing efforts of our collaborators.

We have no control over the resources, time and effort that our collaborators may devote to our programs and limited access to information regarding or resulting from such programs. We are dependent on Teva,our collaborators, including Neurocrine Biosciences, Flexion, Genentech and Merck, to fund and conduct the research and any clinical development of product candidates under our collaborationagreements with each of them, and for the successful regulatory approval, marketing and commercialization of one or more of such products or product candidates and on uniQure, and its licensee Chiesi to successfully commercialize Glybera.candidates. Such success will be subject to significant uncertainty.

Our ability to recognize revenue from successful collaborations may be impaired by multiple factors including:

If our collaborators do not perform in the manner we expect or fulfill their responsibilities in a timely manner, or at all, the clinical development, regulatory approval and commercialization efforts could be delayed, terminated or be commercially unsuccessful. Conflicts between us and our collaborators may arise. In the event of termination of one or more of our collaboration agreements, it may become necessary for us to assume the responsibility of any terminated product or product candidates at our own expense or seek new collaborators. In that event, we would likely be required to limit the size and scope of one or more of our independent programs or increase our expenditures and seek additional funding which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all, and our business would be materially and adversely affected.

We depend on our collaborative relationship with Neurocrine Biosciences to further develop and commercialize NBI-921352, and if our relationship is not successful or is terminated, we may not be able to effectively develop and/or commercialize NBI-921352, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We depend on Neurocrine Biosciences to collaborate with us to develop and commercialize NBI-921352. Under the agreement and subject to input from the joint steering committee, Neurocrine Biosciences controls all decision-making with respect to the clinical development and commercialization for NBI-921352.

As a result of our collaboration with Neurocrine Biosciences, the eventual success or commercial viability of NBI-921352 is largely beyond our control. The financial returns to us, if any, depend in large part on the achievement of development and commercialization milestones, plus a share of any revenue from sales. Therefore, our success, and any associated financial returns to us and our investors, will depend in part on Neurocrine Biosciences’ performance under the agreement.

We are subject to a number of additional specific risks associated with our dependence on our collaborative relationship with Neurocrine Biosciences, including:

If either we or Neurocrine Biosciences fail to perform our respective obligations, any clinical trial, regulatory approval or development progress could be significantly delayed or halted, could result in costly or time-consuming litigation or arbitration and could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Decisions by Neurocrine Biosciences to emphasize other drug candidates currently in its portfolio ahead of our product candidates, or to add competitive agents to its portfolio could result in a decision to terminate the agreement, in which event, among other things, we may be responsible for paying any remaining costs of all ongoing or future clinical trials.

Any of the above discussed scenarios could adversely affect the timing and extent of the development and commercialization activities related to NBI-921352, which could materially and adversely impact our business.

We may not be successful in establishing new collaborations or maintaining our existing alliances, which could adversely affect our ability to develop future product candidates and commercialize future products.

In the ordinary course, we engage with other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to discuss potential in-licensing, out-licensing, alliances and other strategic transactions. We may seek to enter into additional product collaborations in the future, including alliances with other biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies,these types of transactions to enhance and accelerate the development of our future product candidates and the commercialization of any resulting products. We face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators and the negotiation process is time-consuming and complex. Moreover, we may not be successful in our efforts to establish other collaborations or other alternative arrangements for any future product candidates because our research and development pipeline may be insufficient, our product candidates may be deemed to be at too early of a stage of development for collaboration effort and/or third parties may view our product candidates as lacking the requisite potential to demonstrate safety and efficacy. Even if we are successful in our efforts to establish collaborations, the terms that we agree upon may not be favorable to us and we may not be able to maintain such collaborations if, for example, development or approval of a product candidate is delayed or sales of an approved product are disappointing.

If any of our existing collaboration agreements is terminated, or if we determine that entering into other product collaborations is in our best interest but we either fail to enter into, delay in entering into or fail to maintain such collaborations:

We intend to rely on third-party manufacturers to produce our clinical product candidate supplies. Any failure by a third-party manufacturer to produce acceptable supplies for us may delay or impair our ability to initiate or complete our clinical trials or commercialize approved products.

We do not currently own or operate any manufacturing facilities nor do we have anysignificant in-house manufacturing experience or personnel. We rely on our collaborators to manufacture product candidates licensed to them or work with multiple third party contract manufacturersCMOs to produce sufficient quantities of materials required for the manufacture of our product candidates for preclinicalpre-clinical testing and clinical trials and intend to do so for the commercial manufacture of our products. If we are unable to arrange for such third-party manufacturing sources, or fail to do so on commercially reasonable terms, we may not be able to successfully produce sufficient supply of product candidate or we may be delayed in doing so. Such failure or substantial delay could materially harm our business.

Reliance on third-party manufacturers entails risks to which we would not be subject if we manufactured product candidates ourselves, including reliance on the third party for regulatory compliance and quality control and assurance, volume production, the possibility of breach of the manufacturing agreement by the third party because of factors beyond our control (including a failure to synthesize and manufacture our product candidates in accordance with our product specifications) and the possibility of termination or nonrenewal of the agreement by the third party at a time that is costly or damaging to us. In addition, the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and other regulatory authorities require that our product candidates be manufactured according to cGMP and similar foreign standards. Pharmaceutical manufacturers and their subcontractors are required to register their facilities and/or products manufactured at the time of submission of the marketing application and then annually thereafter with the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and certain state and foreignother regulatory agencies. They are also subject to periodic unannounced inspections by the FDA, stateEMA, Health Canada and other foreign authorities.regulatory agencies. Any subsequent discovery of problems with a product, or a manufacturing or laboratory facility used by us or our collaborators, may result in restrictions on the product or on the manufacturing or laboratory facility, including marketed product recall, suspension of manufacturing, product seizure or a voluntary withdrawal of the drug from the market. Any failure by our third-party manufacturers to comply with cGMP or failure to scale up manufacturing processes, including any failure to deliver sufficient quantities of product candidates in a timely manner, could lead to a delay in, or failure to obtain, regulatory approval of any of our product candidates.

We rely on third parties to monitor, support, conduct, and/or oversee pre-clinical studies and clinical trials of the product candidates that we are developing independently and, in some cases, to maintain regulatory files for those product candidates. We may not be able to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates or commercialize any products that may result from our development efforts, if we are not able to maintain or secure agreements with such third parties on acceptable terms, if these third parties do not perform their services as required, or if these third parties fail to timely transfer any regulatory information held by them to us.

We rely on entities outside of our control, which may include academic institutions, CROs, hospitals, clinics and other third-party collaborators, to monitor, support, conduct and/or oversee preclinicalpre-clinical and clinical studies of our current and future product candidates. We also rely on third parties to perform clinical trials on our current and future product candidates when they reach that stage. As a result, we have less control over the timing and cost of these studies and the ability to recruit trial subjects than if we conducted these trials with our own personnel.

If we are unable to maintain or enter into agreements with these third parties on acceptable terms, or if any such engagement is terminated prematurely, we may be unable to enroll patients on a timely basis or otherwise conduct our trials in the manner we anticipate. In addition, there is no guarantee that these third parties will devote adequate time and resources to our studies or perform as required by our contract or in accordance with regulatory requirements, including maintenance of clinical trial information regarding our product candidates. If these third parties fail to meet expected deadlines, fail to transfer to us any regulatory information in a timely manner, fail to adhere to protocols or fail to act in accordance with regulatory requirements or our agreements with them, or if they otherwise perform in a substandard manner or in a way that compromises the quality or accuracy of their activities or the data they obtain, then clinical trials of our future product candidates may be extended or delayed with additional costs incurred, or our data may be rejected by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or other regulatory agencies.

Ultimately, we are responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the applicable protocol, legal, regulatory and scientific standards, and our reliance on third parties does not relieve us of our regulatory responsibilities.

We and our CROs are required to comply with current good laboratory practices, or cGLP, cGCP and cGMP regulations and guidelines enforced by the FDA, Health Canada, the competent authorities of the member states of the European Economic Area and comparable foreign regulatory authorities for products in clinical development. Regulatory authorities enforce these cGCP regulations through periodic inspections of clinical trial sponsors, principal investigators, and clinical trial sites. For example, one of the sites, that participated in our XEN801 Phase 2 clinical acne trial was recently the subject of a routine inspection by Health Canada, which is still currently in progress. The initial inspection deficiencies that were identified are related to the sponsor obligations around good clinical practicesmanufacturing facilities, nonclinical testing facilities and records. We expect to receive a written report from Health Canada with more detail in the coming weeks, and we will have an opportunity to respond with proposed corrective actions, if necessary. Given the nature of these deficiencies, we do not believe that any of the findings have an impact on the integrity of the data, safety of the trial subjects or the overall validity of the trial.other contractors. If we or any of our CROs fail to comply with these applicable cGCP regulations, the clinical data generated in our nonclinical studies and clinical trials may be deemed unreliable and our submission of marketing applications may be delayed or the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or another regulatory authority may require us to perform additional clinical trials before approving our marketing applications. Upon inspection, the FDA, EMA, Health Canada or another regulatory authority could determine that any of our clinical trials fail or have failed to comply with applicable cGCP regulations. In addition, our clinical trials must be conducted with product produced under the cGMP regulations enforced by the FDA, EMA, Health Canada and other regulatory authorities, and our clinical trials may require a large number of test subjects. Our failure to comply with thesecGLP, cGCP and cGMP regulations may require us to repeat clinical trials, which would delay the regulatory approval process and increase our costs. Moreover, our business may be implicated if any of our CROs violates federal or state fraud and abuse or false claims laws and regulations or healthcare privacy and security laws.

If any of our clinical trial sites terminates for any reason, we may experience the loss of follow-up information on patients enrolled in our ongoing clinical trials unless we are able to transfer the care of those patients to another qualified clinical trial site. Further, if our relationship with any of our CROs is terminated, we may be unable to enter into arrangements with alternative CROs on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.

Switching or adding CROs or other suppliers can involve substantial cost and require extensive management time and focus. In addition, there is a natural transition period when a new CRO or supplier commences work. As a result, delays may occur, which can materially impact our ability to meet our desired clinical development timelines. If we are required to seek alternative supply arrangements, the resulting delays and potential inability to find a suitable replacement could materially and adversely impact our business.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property

We could be unsuccessful in obtaining or maintaining adequate patent protection for one or more of our products or product candidates.

Our commercial success will depend, in large part, on our ability to obtain and maintain patent and other intellectual property protection with respect to our product candidates. We evaluate our global patent portfolio in the ordinary course of business to enhance patent protection in areas of our strategic focus and in key markets for our potential products and may abandon existing patents or patent applications related to terminated development programs or areas of low strategic importance. Patents might not be issued or granted with respect to our patent applications that are currently pending, and issued or granted patents might later be found to be invalid or unenforceable, be interpreted in a manner that does not adequately protect our current product or any future products, or fail to otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies is generally uncertain because it involves complex legal and factual considerations. The standards applied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, and foreign patent offices in granting patents are not always applied uniformly or predictably. For example, there is no uniform worldwide policy regarding patentable subject matter or the scope of claims allowable in biotechnology and pharmaceutical patents. Consequently, patents may not issue from our pending patent applications.applications, or we may end up with patent claims of different scope in different jurisdictions. As such, we do not know the degree of future protection that we will have on our proprietary products and technology, if any, and a failure to obtain adequate intellectual property protection with respect to our product candidates and proprietary technology could have a material adverse impact on our business.

Periodic maintenance fees, renewal fees, annuity fees and various other governmental fees on patents and/or applications will be due to be paid to the USPTO and various governmental patent agencies outside of the U.S. in several stages over the lifetime of the patents and/or applications. The USPTO and various non-US governmental patent agencies require compliance with a number of procedural, documentary, fee payment and other similar provisions during the patent application process. We employ reputable law firms and other professionals to help us comply with respect to the patents and patent applications that we own, and we rely upon our licensors or our other collaborators to effect compliance with respect to the patents and patent applications that we license. In manysome cases, an inadvertent lapse can be cured by payment of a late fee or by other means in accordance with the applicable rules. However, there are situations in which noncompliance can result in abandonment or lapse of the patent or patent application, resulting in partial or complete loss of patent rights in the relevant jurisdiction. In such an event, our competitors might be able to enter the market and this circumstance would have a material adverse effect on our business.

Our intellectual property rights will not necessarily provide us with competitive advantages.

The degree of future protection afforded by our intellectual property rights is uncertain because intellectual property rights have limitations, and may not adequately protect our business, or permit us to maintain our competitive advantage.

The following examples are illustrative:

Any of the aforementioned threats to our competitive advantage could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights throughout the world.

Filing, prosecuting and defending patents on product candidates in all countries throughout the world would be prohibitively expensive, and our intellectual property rights in some countries outside the U.S. can be less extensive than those in the U.S. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as federal and state laws in the U.S. Consequently, we may not be able to prevent third parties from practicing our inventions in all countries outside the U.S., or from selling or importing products made using our inventions in and into the U.S. or other jurisdictions. Competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained patent protection to develop their own products and further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection, but enforcement is not as strong as that in the U.S. These products may compete with our current or future products, if any, and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing.

Many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending intellectual property rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property protection, particularly those relating to biotechnology products, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement of our patents or marketing of competing products in violation of our proprietary rights generally. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights in foreign jurisdictions could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop or license.

Our patents covering one or more of our products or product candidates could be found invalid or unenforceable if challenged.

Any of our intellectual property rights could be challenged or invalidated despite measures we take to obtain patent and other intellectual property protection with respect to our product candidates and proprietary technology. For example, if we were to initiate legal proceedings against a third party to enforce a patent covering one of our product candidates, the defendant could counterclaim that our patent is invalid and/or unenforceable. In patent litigation in the U.S. and in some other jurisdictions, defendant counterclaims alleging invalidity and/or unenforceability are commonplace. Grounds for a validity challenge could be an alleged failure to meet any of several statutory requirements, for example, lack of novelty, obviousness, broken priority, lack of written description, or non-enablement. Grounds for an unenforceability assertion could be an allegation that someone connected with prosecution of the patent withheld material information from the USPTO or the applicable foreign counterpart, or made a misleading statement, during prosecution. A litigant or the USPTO itself could challenge our patents on this basis even if we believe that we have conducted our patent prosecution in accordance with the duty of candor and in good faith. The outcome following such a challenge is unpredictable.

With respect to challenges to the validity of our patents, for example, there might be invalidating prior art, of which we and the patent examiner were unaware during prosecution. If a defendant were to prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity and/or unenforceability, we would lose at least part, and perhaps all, of the patent protection on a product candidate. Even if a defendant does not prevail on a legal assertion of invalidity and/or unenforceability, our patent claims may be construed in a manner that would limit our ability to enforce such claims against the defendant and others. The cost of defending such a challenge, particularly in a foreign jurisdiction, and any resulting loss of patent protection could have a material adverse impact on one or more of our product candidates and our business.

Enforcing our intellectual property rights against third parties may also cause such third parties to file other counterclaims against us, which could be costly to defend, particularly in a foreign jurisdiction, and could require us to pay substantial damages, cease the sale of certain products or enter into a license agreement and pay royalties (which may not be possible on commercially reasonable terms or at all). Any efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights are also likely to be costly and may divert the efforts of our scientific and management personnel.

Patent protection and patent prosecution for some of our product candidates is dependent on, and the ability to assert patents and defend them against claims of invalidity is maintained by, third parties.

There have been and may be times in the future when certain patents that relate to our product candidates or any approved products are controlled by our licensees, sublicensees, licensors or licensors.other collaborators. Although we may, under such arrangements, have rights to consult with our collaborators on actions taken as well as back-up rights of prosecution and enforcement, we have in the past and may in the future relinquish rights to prosecute and maintain patents and patent applications within our portfolio as well as the ability to assert such patents against infringers. Currently, some of theseFor example, currently the rights relating to the patent portfoliosportfolio for TV-45070, GDC-0310, GlyberaXEN901 (now known as NBI-921352), other selective Nav1.6 inhibitors and some of our earlier stage product candidatesdual Nav1.2/1.6 inhibitors are held by our collaborators.Neurocrine Biosciences, some of the rights relating to the patent portfolio for novel Nav1.7 inhibitors are held by Genentech and the rights to the patent portfolio for XEN402 were sold to Flexion (now known as FX301).

If any current or future licensee, sublicensee, licensor or licensorother collaborators with rights to prosecute, assert or defend patents related to our product candidates fails to appropriately prosecute and maintain patent protection for patents covering any of our product candidates, or if patents covering any of our product candidates are asserted against infringers or defended against claims of invalidity or unenforceability in a manner which adversely affects such coverage, our ability to develop and commercialize any such product candidate may be adversely affected and we may not be able to prevent competitors from making, using and selling competing products.

We may be involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents or the patents of our licensors, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful.

Competitors may infringe our patents or the patents of our licensors. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file infringement claims, which can be expensive and time-consuming. In addition, in an infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent of ours or one of our licensors is not valid or is unenforceable or may refuse to stop the other party in such infringement proceeding from using the technology at issue on the grounds that our patents do not cover the technology in question. An adverse result in any litigation or defense proceedings could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated, held unenforceable or interpreted narrowly, and could put any of our patent applications at risk of not yielding an issued patent.

Interference proceedings, derivation proceedings, entitlement proceedings, ex parte reexamination, inter partes reexamination, inter partes review, post-grant review, and opposition proceedings provoked by third parties or brought by the USPTO or any foreign patent authority may be used to challenge inventorship, ownership, claim scope, or validity of our patent applications. An unfavorable outcome could require us to cease using the related technology or to attempt to license rights to it from the prevailing party. Our business could be harmed if the prevailing party does not offer us a license on commercially reasonable terms, if any license is offered at all. Litigation or interference proceedings may fail and, even if successful, may result in substantial costs and distract our management and other employees.

We may not be able to prevent, alone or with our licensors, misappropriation of our trade secrets or confidential information, particularly in countries where the laws may not protect those rights as fully as in the U.S. Furthermore, because of the substantial amount of discovery required in connection with intellectual property litigation, there is a risk that some of our confidential information could be compromised by disclosure during this type of litigation. In addition, there could be public announcements of the results of hearings, motions or other interim proceedings or developments. If securities analysts or investors perceive these results to be negative, it could have a substantial adverse effect on the market price of our common shares.

Claims that our product candidates or the sale or use of our future products infringe the patent or other intellectual property rights of third parties could result in costly litigation or could require substantial time and money to resolve, even if litigation is avoided.

Our commercial success depends upon our ability to develop product candidates and commercialize products that may be approved in the future, using our proprietary technology without infringing the intellectual property rights of others. Our product or product candidates or any uses of them may now and in the future infringe third-party patents or other intellectual property rights. Third parties might allege that we or our collaborators are infringing their patent rights or that we have misappropriated their trade secrets, or that we are otherwise violating their intellectual property rights, whether with respect to the manner in which we have conducted our research or to the composition, use or manufacture of the compounds we have developed or are developing with our collaborators. Such third parties might resort to litigation against us or other parties we have agreed to indemnify, which litigation could be based on either existing intellectual property or intellectual property that arises in the future.

It is possible that relevant patents or patent applications held by third parties will cover our product candidates at the time of launch and we may also fail to identify, relevant patents or patent applications held by third parties that cover our product candidates. For example, applications filed before November 29, 2000, and certain applications filed after that date that will not be filed outside the U.S. remain confidential until patents issue. Other patent applications in the U.S. and several other jurisdictions are published approximately 18 months after the earliest filing for which priority is claimed, with such earliest filing date being commonly referred to as the priority date. Furthermore, publication of discoveries in the scientific or patent literature often lags behind actual discoveries. Therefore, we cannot be certain that we or our collaborators were the first to invent, or the first to file patent applications on, our product candidates or for their uses, or that our product candidates will not infringe patents that are currently issued or that are issued in the future. In the event that a third party has also filed a patent application covering one of our product candidates or a similar invention, we may have to participate in an adversarial proceeding, known as an interference, declared by the USPTO or its foreign counterpart to determine priority of invention. Additionally, pending patent applications and patents which have been published can, subject to certain limitations, be later amended in a manner that could cover our current or future products, if any, or their use.

Defending against claims of patent infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets or other violations of intellectual property rights could be costly and time consuming, regardless of the outcome. Thus, even if we were to ultimately prevail, or to settle at an early stage, such litigation could burden us with substantial unanticipated costs. In addition, litigation or threatened litigation could result in significant demands on the time and attention of our management team, distracting them from the pursuit of other company business. Claims that our product candidates or the sale or use making, offering to sell, or importing, of our future products infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate third-party intellectual property rights could therefore have a material adverse impact on our business.

Most of our competitors are larger than we are and have substantially greater financial resources. They are, therefore, likely to be able to sustain the costs of complex intellectual property litigation longer than we could. In addition, the uncertainties associated with litigation could have a material adverse effect on our ability to raise the funds necessary to conduct our clinical trials, continue our internal research programs, in-license needed technology, or enter into strategic collaborations that would help us bring our product candidates to market.

In addition, any future intellectual property litigation, interference or other administrative proceedings will result in additional expense and distraction of our personnel. An adverse outcome in such litigation or proceedings may expose us or any future strategic collaborators to loss of our proprietary position, expose us to significant liabilities, or require us to seek licenses that may not be available on commercially acceptable terms, if at all, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Unfavorable outcomes in intellectual property litigation could limit our research and development activities and/or our ability to commercialize certain products.

If third parties successfully assert their intellectual property rights against us, we might be barred from using certain aspects of our technology or barred from developing and commercializing certain products. Prohibitions against using certain technologies, or prohibitions against commercializing certain products, could be imposed by a court or by a settlement agreement between us and a plaintiff. In addition, if we are unsuccessful in defending against allegations that we have infringed, misappropriated or otherwise violated patent or other intellectual property rights of others, we may be forced to pay substantial damage awards to the plaintiff. There is inevitable uncertainty in intellectual property litigation and we could lose, even if the case against us is weak or flawed. If litigation leads to an outcome unfavorable to us, we may be required to obtain a license from the intellectual property owner in order to continue our research and development programs or to market any resulting product. It is possible that the necessary license will not be available to us on commercially acceptable terms, or at all. Alternatively, we may be required to modify or redesign our current or future products, if any, in order to avoid infringing or otherwise violating third-party intellectual property rights. This may not be technically or commercially feasible, may render those products less competitive, or may delay or prevent the entry of those products to the market. Any of the foregoing could limit our research and development activities, our ability to commercialize one or more product candidates, or both.

In order to avoid or settle potential claims with respect to any patent or other intellectual property rights of third parties, we may choose or be required to seek a license from a third party and be required to pay license fees or royalties or both, which could be substantial. These licenses may not be available on acceptable terms, or at all. Even if we or any future collaborators were able to obtain a license, the rights may be nonexclusive, which could result in our competitors gaining access to the same intellectual property. Ultimately, we could be prevented from commercializing a product, or be forced, by court order or otherwise, to cease some or all aspects of our business operations, if, as a result of actual or threatened patent or other intellectual property claims, we are unable to enter into licenses on acceptable terms. Further, we could be found liable for significant monetary damages as a result of claims of intellectual property infringement. For example,In the future, we have received, and may in the future receive offers to license and demands to license from third parties claiming that we are infringing their intellectual property or owe license fees and, even if such claims are without merit, we could fail to successfully avoid or settle such claims.

If Teva, uniQure,Neurocrine Biosciences, Flexion, Genentech, Merck or Merckother collaborators license or otherwise acquire rights to intellectual property controlled by a third party in various circumstances, for example, where a product could not be legally developed or commercialized in a country without the third-party intellectual property right or, where it is decided that it would be useful to acquire such third-party right to develop or commercialize the product, they are eligible under our collaboration agreements to decrease payments payable to us on a product-by-product basis and, in certain cases, on a country-by-country basis. Any of the foregoing events could harm our business significantly.

If we breach any of the agreements under which we license the use, development and commercialization rights to our product candidates or technology from third parties, we could lose license rights that are important to our business.

Under our existing license and other agreements, including those associated with our XEN1101 and XEN007 programs, we are subject to various obligations, including diligence obligations such as development and commercialization obligations, as well as potential royaltymilestone payments and other obligations. If we fail to comply with any of these obligations or otherwise breach our license agreements, our licensing partners may have the right to terminate the applicable license in whole or in part.part, or convert an exclusive license to a non-exclusive license. Generally, the loss of any one of our current licenses, or license exclusivity, or any other license we may acquire in the future, could materially harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

Confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties may not prevent unauthorized disclosure of trade secrets and other proprietary information, which would harm our competitive position.

In addition to patents, we rely on trade secrets, technical know-how and proprietary information concerning our discovery platform, business strategy and product candidates in order to protect our competitive position, which are difficult to protect. In the course of our research and development activities and our business activities, we often rely on confidentiality agreements to protect our proprietary information. Such confidentiality agreements are used, for example, when we talk to vendors of laboratory, manufacturing or clinical development services or potential strategic collaborators. In addition, each of our employees and consultants is required to sign a confidentiality agreement and invention assignment agreement upon joining our company. Our employees, consultants, contractors, business partners or outside scientific collaborators might intentionally or inadvertently disclose our trade secret information in breach of these confidentiality agreements or our trade secrets may otherwise be misappropriated. Our collaborators might also have rights to publish data and we might fail to apply for patent protection prior to such publication. It is possible that a competitor will make use of such information, and that our competitive position will be compromised. In addition, to the extent that our employees, consultants or contractors use intellectual property owned by others in their work for us, disputes may arise as to the rights in related or resulting know-how and inventions. Enforcing a claim that a third party illegally obtained and is using any of our trade secrets is expensive and time consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, courts outside the U.S. sometimes are less willing than U.S. courts to protect trade secrets. Moreover, our competitors may independently develop equivalent knowledge, methods and know-how. If we cannot maintain the confidentiality of our proprietary technology and other confidential information, then our ability to obtain patent protection or to protect our trade secret information would be jeopardized, which would adversely affect our competitive position.

Patent reform legislation and recentRecent court decisions could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents.

On September 16, 2011,The patent positions of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies can be highly uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions for which important legal principles remain unresolved. No consistent policy regarding the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act,breadth of claims allowed in patents in these fields has emerged to date in the United States. There have been recent changes regarding how patent laws are interpreted, and both the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or the Leahy-Smith Act, was signed into law. The Leahy-Smith Act includes a number ofUSPTO, and Congress have recently made significant changes to the patent system. There have been U.S. patent law, including provisionsSupreme Court decisions that affect the way patent applications will be prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. The USPTO has developed and implemented regulations and procedures to govern administrationnow show a trend of the Leahy-Smith Act,Supreme Court which is distinctly negative on some patents. The trend of these decisions along with resulting changes in patentability requirements being implemented by the USPTO could make it increasingly difficult for us to obtain and substantivemaintain patents on our products. We cannot accurately predict future changes in the interpretation of patent laws or changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act. The full effect of theselaws which might be enacted into law. Those changes is currently unclear as the courts have yet to address these provisions and the applicability of the Leahy-Smith Act and new regulations on specific patents, includingmay materially affect our patents, discussed herein, have not been determined and would needour ability to be reviewed. Accordingly, it is not yet clear what, if any, impactobtain patents, the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation ofcosts to prosecute our business. As a result, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of patent applications and enforce our patents and/or the enforcementpatents and applications of our collaborators. The patent situation in these fields outside the United States also has uncertainties. Changes in either the patent laws or defensein interpretations of issuedpatent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of our intellectual property or narrow the scope of our patent protection. Accordingly, we cannot predict the breadth of claims that may be allowed or enforced in the patents all ofwe own or to which couldwe have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition. On June 13, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., held that isolated DNA sequences are not patentable. In December 2014, the USPTO issued its Interim Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility, in which it extended Myriad's "marked difference" standard for patent subject matter eligibility to all potential natural products. This standard applies to patent claims that recite not only nucleic acids (such as DNA in Myriad), but also other subject matter that could be considered a natural product, such as peptides, proteins, extracts, organisms, antibodies, chemicals, and minerals. As a consequence of the Myriad decision and the USPTO’s Interim Guidance, if any of our future product candidates utilize isolated DNA, peptides, proteinslicense or the like, we will not be able to obtain patents in the U.S. claiming such novel gene targets that we discover, which could limit our ability to prevent third parties from developing drugs directed against such targets.third-party patents.

If we do not obtain protection under the Hatch-Waxman Act and similar legislation outside of the U.S. by extending the patent terms for our product candidates, our business may be materially harmed.

Depending upon the timing, duration and specifics of FDA marketing approval of our product candidates, if any, one or more U.S. patents may be eligible for limited patent term restoration under the Hatch-Waxman Act. The Hatch-Waxman Act permits a patent restoration term of up to five years as compensation for patent term lost during clinical testing of the product and the subsequent FDA regulatory review process. However, we may not be granted an extension because of, for example, failing to apply within applicable deadlines, failing to apply prior to expiration of relevant patents or otherwise failing to satisfy applicable requirements. Moreover, the applicable time period or the scope of patent protection afforded could be less than five years, or even less than we request.request if that number is less than five years.

If we are unable to obtain patent term extension or restoration or the term of any such extension is less than we request, the period during which we will have the right to exclusively market our product will be shortened and our competitors may obtain approval of competing products following our patent expiration, and our revenue could be reduced, possibly materially.

We have not registered our corporate name as a trademark in all of our potential markets, and failure to secure those registrations could adversely affect our business.

Our corporate name, Xenon, has not been trademarked in each market where we operate and plan to operate. Our trademark applications for our corporate name or the name of our products may not be allowed for registration, and our registered trademarks may not be maintained or enforced. During trademark registration proceedings, we may receive rejections, which we may be unable to overcome in our responses. Third parties may also attempt to register trademarks utilizing the Xenon name on their products, and we may not be successful in preventing such usage. In addition, in the USPTO and in comparable agencies in many foreign jurisdictions, third parties are given an opportunity to oppose pending trademark applications and to seek to cancel registered trademarks. Opposition or cancellation proceedings may be filed against our trademarks, and our trademarks may not survive such proceedings. If we do not secure registrations for our trademarks, we may encounter more difficulty in enforcing them against third parties than we otherwise would.

Intellectual property litigation may lead to unfavorable publicity that harms our reputation and causes the market price of our common shares to decline.

During the course of any intellectual property litigation, there could be public announcements of the initiation of the litigation as well as results of hearings, rulings on motions, and other interim proceedings in the litigation. If securities analysts or investors regard these announcements as negative, the perceived value of our existing products, programs or intellectual property could be diminished. Accordingly, the market price of our common shares may decline. Such announcements could also harm our reputation or the market for our future products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks Related to Our Industry

If product liability lawsuits are brought against us, we may incur substantial liabilities and may be required to limit commercialization of our current and any future products.

We face an inherent risk of product liability as a result of the clinical testing of our product candidates, and we will face an even greater risk if we commercialize any product candidates. For example, we may be sued if any of our product candidates, including any that are developed in combination with other therapies, allegedly causes injury or is found to be otherwise unsuitable during product testing, manufacturing, marketing or sale. Any such product liability claims may include allegations of defects in manufacturing, defects in design, a failure to warn of dangers inherent in the product, negligence, strict liability and a breach of warranties. Claims could also be asserted under state consumer protection acts. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against product liability claims, we may incur substantial liabilities or be required to limit commercialization of our product candidates. Even successful defense would require significant financial and management resources. There is also risk that third parties we have agreed to indemnify could incur liability. Regardless of the merits or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

We currently carry product liability insurance of $10,000,000 per occurrence and $10,000,000 aggregate limit. We believe our product liability insurance coverage is appropriate in light ofrelative to our current clinical programs; however, we may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in sufficient amounts to protect us against losses due to liability. If and when we obtain marketing approval for product candidates, we intend to expand our insurance coverage to include the sale of commercial products; however, we may then be unable to obtain product liability insurance on commercially reasonable terms or in adequate amounts. On occasion, large judgments have been awarded in class action lawsuits based on drugs or medical treatments that had unanticipated adverse effects. A successful product liability claim or series of claims brought against us could cause the market price of our common shares to decline and, if judgments exceed our insurance coverage, could adversely affect our future results of operations and business.

Patients with certain of the diseases targeted by our product candidates are often already in severe and advanced stages of disease and have both known and unknown significant pre-existing and potentially life-threatening conditions. During the course of treatment, patients may suffer adverse events, including death, for reasons that may be related to our product candidates. Such events could subject us to costly litigation, require us to pay substantial amounts of money to injured patients, delay, negatively impact or end our opportunity to receive or maintain regulatory approval to market those product candidates, or require us to suspend or abandon our commercialization efforts. Even in a circumstance in which we do not believe that an adverse event is related to our products, the investigation into the circumstance may be time-consuming or inconclusive. These investigations may interrupt our sales efforts, delay our regulatory approval process in other countries, or impact and limit the type of regulatory approvals our product candidates receive or maintain. As a result of these factors, a product liability claim, even if successfully defended, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our current and future relationships with customers and third-party payersoperations in the U.S. and elsewhere will be subject, directly or indirectly, to applicable federal and state anti-kickback, fraud and abuse, false claims, transparency, health information privacy and security, and other healthcare laws and regulations, which could expose us to criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm, administrative burdens, and diminished profits and future earnings.

Healthcare providers, physicians and third-party payers in the U.S. and elsewhere play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current arrangements with health care providers and our future arrangements with third-party payers and customers may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, including, without limitation, the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and the federal False Claims Act, that may constrain the business or financial arrangements and relationships through which we market, sell and distribute any products for which we obtain marketing approval. In addition, we may be subject to transparency laws and patient privacy regulation by the federal government and by the U.S. states and foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct our business. The applicable federal, state and foreign healthcare laws and regulations that may affect our ability to operate include the following:

Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations may involve substantial costs. It is possible that governmental authorities will conclude that our business practices may not comply with current or future statutes, regulations or case law involving applicable fraud and abuse or other healthcare laws and regulations. If our operations are found to be in violation of any of these laws or any other governmental regulations that may apply to us, we may be subject to significant civil, criminal and administrative penalties, including, without limitation, damages, fines, disgorgement, imprisonment, exclusion from participation in government healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, integrity oversight and reporting obligations, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. If any of the physicians or other providers or entities with whom we expect to do business, including our collaborators, is found not to be in compliance with applicable laws, it may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from participation in government healthcare programs, which could also materially affect our business.

If we fail to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, we could become subject to fines or penalties or incur costs that could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.

Our research and development activities involve the controlled use of potentially harmful biological materials as well as hazardous materials, chemicals, and various radioactive compounds typically employed in molecular and cellular biology. For example, we routinely use cells in culture and we employ small amounts of radioisotopes. We cannot completely eliminate the risk of accidental contamination or injury from the use, storage, handling, or disposal of these materials through our maintenance of up-to-date licensing and training programs. In the event of contamination or injury, we could be held liable for damages that result, and any liability could exceed our resources. We currently carry insurance covering certain claims arising from our use of these materials. However, if we are unable to maintain our insurance coverage at a reasonable cost and with adequate coverage, our insurance may not cover any liability that may arise. We are subject to U.S. and Canadian federal, provincial, and local, and may be subject to U.S. and/or foreign, laws and regulations governing the use, storage, handling, and disposal of these materials and specified waste products. Complying with regulations regarding the use of these materials could be costly, and if we fail to comply with these regulations, it could have a material adverse effect on our operations and profitability.

We or the third parties upon whom we depend may be adversely affected by earthquakes or other natural disasters and our business continuity and disaster recovery plans may not adequately protect us from serious disaster.

Our headquarters are located in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. We are vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes that could disrupt our operations. If a natural disaster, power outage, fire or other event occurred that prevented us from using all or a significant portion of our headquarters, that damaged critical infrastructure, such as the manufacturing facilities of our third-party contract manufacturers,CMOs, or that otherwise disrupted operations, it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible for us to continue our business for a substantial period of time. Although we carry insurance for earthquakes and other natural disasters, we may not carry sufficient business interruption insurance to compensate us for all losses that may occur. The disaster recovery and business continuity plans we have in place currently are limited and may not be adequate in the event of a serious disaster or similar event. We may incur substantial expenses as a result of a natural disaster or earthquake, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, we may lose samples or other valuable data. The occurrence of any of the forgoingforegoing could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Risks Related to the Securities Markets and Ownership of Our Common Shares

The market price of our common shares may be volatile, and purchasers of our common shares could incur substantial losses.

The market price of our common shares has fluctuated in the past and is likely to be volatile in the future.  As a result of this volatility, investors may experience losses on their investment in our common shares.  The market price for our common shares may be influenced by many factors, including the following:

In addition, the stock market in general, and NASDAQNasdaq and the biopharmaceutical industry in particular, have from time to time experienced volatility that often has been unrelated to the operating performance of the underlying companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common shares, regardless of our operating performance. In several recent situations where the market price of a stock has been volatile, holders of that stock have instituted securities class action litigation against the company that issued the stock. If any of our shareholders were to bring a lawsuit against us, the defense and disposition of the lawsuit could be costly and divert the time and attention of our management and harm our operating results.

Future sales of our common shares in the public market could cause the market price of our common shares to fall.

The market price of our common shares could decline as a result of sales of a large number of our common shares or the perception that these sales could occur.  These sales, or the possibility that these sales may occur, also might make it more difficult for us to sell equity securities in the future at a time and at a price that we deem appropriate.

Certain holders of our common shares are party to our amended and restated investor rights agreement, as amended, and have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering the sale of their common shares or to include their common shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other shareholders. We also register the offer and sale of all common shares that we may issue under our equity compensation plans.

In addition, in the future, we may issue additional common shares, preferred shares, or other equity or debt securities convertible into common shares in connection with a financing, acquisition, litigation settlement, employee arrangements or otherwise.  Any such issuance could result in substantial dilution to our existing shareholders and could cause the market price of our common shares to decline.

Provisions in our corporate charter documents and Canadian law could make an acquisition of us, which may be beneficial to our shareholders, more difficult and may prevent attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our current management and/or limit the market price of our common shares.

Provisions in our articles and our by-laws, as well as certain provisions under the Canada Business Corporations Act, or CBCA, and applicable Canadian securities laws, may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition, tender offer or other change in control of us that shareholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which they might otherwise receive a premium for their common shares.  These provisions could also limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for our common shares, thereby depressing the market price of our common shares.  In addition, because our board of directors is responsible for appointing the members of our management team, these provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for shareholders to replace members of our board of directors.  Among other things, these provisions include the following:

Any provision in our articles, by-laws, under the CBCA or under any applicable Canadian securities law that has the effect of delaying or deterring a change in control could limit the opportunity for our shareholders to receive a premium for their common shares, and could also affect the price that some investors are willing to pay for our common shares.

U.S. civil liabilities may not be enforceable against us, our directors, or our officers.

We are governed by the CBCA and our principal place of business is in Canada.  Many of our directors and officers reside outside of the U.S., and all or a substantial portion of their assets as well as all or a substantial portion of our assets are located outside the U.S.  As a result, it may be difficult for investors to effect service of process within the U.S. upon us and certain of our directors and officers or to enforce judgments obtained against us or such persons, in U.S. courts, in any action, including actions predicated upon the civil liability provisions of U.S. federal securities laws or any other laws of the U.S.  Additionally, rights predicated solely upon civil liability provisions of U.S. federal securities laws or any other laws of the U.S. may not be enforceable in original actions, or actions to enforce judgments obtained in U.S. courts, brought in Canadian courts, including courts in the Province of British Columbia.

We are governed by the corporate and securities laws of Canada which in some cases have a different effect on shareholders than the corporate laws of Delaware, U.S. and U.S. securities laws.

We are governed by the CBCA and other relevant laws, which may affect the rights of shareholders differently than those of a company governed by the laws of a U.S. jurisdiction, and may, together with our charter documents, have the effect of delaying, deferring or discouraging another party from acquiring control of our company by means of a tender offer, a proxy contest or otherwise, or may affect the price an acquiring party would be willing to offer in such an instance. The material differences between the CBCA and Delaware General Corporation Law, or DGCL, that may have the greatest such effect include, but are not limited to, the following: (i) for material corporate transactions (such as mergers and amalgamations, other extraordinary corporate transactions or amendments to our articles) the CBCA generally requires a two-thirds majority vote by shareholders, whereas DGCL generally only requires a majority vote; and (ii) under the CBCA a holderholders of 5% or more of our common shares that carry the right to vote at a meeting of shareholders can requisition a special meeting of shareholders, whereas such right does not exist under the DGCL.

An active trading market for our common shares may not be maintained.

Our common shares are currently traded on NASDAQ,Nasdaq, but we can provide no assurance that we will be able to maintain an active trading market on NASDAQNasdaq or any other exchange in the future. If an active market for our common shares is not maintained, it may be difficult for our shareholders to sell the common shares they have purchased without depressing the market price for the common shares or at all. Further, an inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital by selling additional common shares and may impair our ability to enter into strategic collaborations or acquire companies or products by using our common shares as consideration.

Complying with the laws and regulations affecting public companies will increase our costs and the demands on management and could harm our operating results and our ability to accurately report our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our common shares.

As a public company, and particularly after we cease to be an “emerging growth company,” we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the related rules and regulations subsequently implemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, the applicable Canadian securities regulators and NASDAQ impose numerous requirements on public companies, including requiring changes in corporate governance practices. Also, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and operating results. Our management and other personnel have and will continue to devote a substantial amount of time to compliance with these laws and regulations. These requirements have increased and will continue to increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs and have made and will continue to make some activities more time-consuming and costly. For example, these rules and regulations make it difficult and expensive for us to maintain director and officer liability insurance and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or to incur substantial costs to maintain the same or similar coverage. These rules and regulations could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors or our board committees or as executive officers.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting annually and the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures quarterly. In particular, Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or Section 404, requires us to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal control over financial reporting to allow management to report on, and our independent registered public accounting firm potentially to attest to, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. As an “emerging growth company” we expect to avail ourselves of the exemption from the requirement that our independent registered public accounting firm attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting under Section 404. However, we may no longer avail ourselves of this exemption when we cease to be an “emerging growth company.” When our independent registered public accounting firm is required to undertake an assessment of our internal control over financial reporting, the cost of our compliance with Section 404 will correspondingly increase. Our compliance with applicable provisions of Section 404 will require that we incur substantial accounting expense and expend significant management time on compliance-related issues as we implement additional corporate governance practices and comply with reporting requirements. Moreover, if we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404 applicable to us in a timely manner, or if we or our independent registered public accounting firm identifies deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses, the market price of our common shares could decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

Furthermore, investor perceptions of our company may suffer if deficiencies are found, and this could cause a decline in the market price of our common shares. Irrespective of compliance with Section 404, any failure of our internal control over financial reporting could have a material adverse effect on our stated operating results and harm our reputation. If we are unable to implement these requirements effectively or efficiently, it could harm our operations, financial reporting, or financial results and could result in an adverse opinion on our internal controls from our independent registered public accounting firm.

We are an “emerging growtha smaller reporting company,” and any decision on our part to comply only with certain reduced reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growthsuch companies could make our common shares less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growtha “smaller reporting company,” as defined inunder the Jumpstart Our Business StartupsSecurities Exchange Act of 2012,1934, as amended, or the JOBSExchange Act. For as long as we continue to be an “emerging growtha smaller reporting company,” we may choose to take advantage of exemptions from various reporting requirements applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growthsmaller reporting companies,” including, but not limited to, not being required to have our independent registered public accounting firm audit our internal control overtwo years of audited financial reporting under Section 404, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensationstatements in our periodic reports and proxy statements and exemptions fromannual reports.

We will remain a smaller reporting company so long as, as of June 30 of the requirements of holding a nonbinding advisory vote on executive compensation and shareholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. We could be an “emerging growth company” for up to five years following the completion of our initial public offering, although, if we have more than $1.0 billion in annual revenue, ifpreceding year, (i) the market value of our common shares held by non-affiliates, exceedsor our public float, is less than $250 million; or (ii) we have annual revenues less than $100 million and either we have no public float or our public float is less than $700 million as of June 30 of any year, or we issue more than $1.0 billion of non-convertible debt over a three-year period before the end of that five-year period, we would cease to be an “emerging growth company” as of the following December 31. million.

Investors could find our common shares less attractive if we choose to rely on these disclosure exemptions. If some investors find our common shares less attractive as a result of any choices to reduce future disclosure, there may be a less active trading market for our common shares and the market price of our common shares may be more volatile.

As

Effective December 31, 2019, we are no longer an “emergingemerging growth company” the JOBS Act allows which will increase our costs and demands on management and could harm our operating results and our ability to accurately report our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows, which may adversely affect investor confidence in us to delay adoption of new or revised accounting pronouncements applicable to public companies until such pronouncements are made applicable to private companies. However, we previously decided to “opt out” of such extended transition period, and, as a result, the value of our common shares.

Prior to our loss of emerging growth company status, we availed ourselves of the exemption from the requirement that our independent registered public accounting firm attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting under Section 404. However, we may no longer avail ourselves of this exemption and we expect to incur significant expense and devote substantial management effort toward ensuring compliance with Section 404.

We currently do not have an internal audit group, and we will complyneed to continue to hire additional accounting and financial staff with newappropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge, and it may be difficult to recruit and maintain such personnel. Implementing any appropriate changes to our internal control over financial reporting may require specific compliance training for our directors, officers and employees and take a significant period of time to complete. Such changes may not, however, be effective in maintaining the adequacy of our internal control over financial reporting, and any failure to maintain that adequacy, or revised accounting standardsconsequent inability to produce accurate financial statements or other reports on the relevant dates on which adoption of such standards is required for non-emerging growth companies. Section 107 of the JOBS Act provides thata timely basis, could increase our decisionoperating costs and could materially impair our ability to opt out of the extended transition period for complying with new or revised accounting standards is irrevocable.operate our business.

If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results or prevent fraud.  As a result, shareholders could lose confidence in our financial and other public reporting, which would harm our business and the market price of our common shares.

Effective internal controlscontrol over financial reporting areis necessary for us to provide reliable financial reports and, together with adequate disclosure controls and procedures, are designed to prevent fraud. Any failure to implement required new or improved controls, or difficulties encountered in their implementation could cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations. In addition, any testing by us conducted in connection with Section 404 or any subsequent testing by our independent registered public accounting firm, may reveal deficiencies in our internal controls over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses or that may require prospective or retroactive changes to our financial statements or identify other areas for further attention or improvement. Inferior internal controls could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could have a negative effect on the market price of our common shares.

We are required to disclose changes made in our internal controls and procedures on a quarterly basis and our management is required to assess the effectiveness of these controls annually. However, for as long as weWe are an “emerging growth company” under the JOBS Act, our independent registered public accounting firm will not bealso required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404. Anobtain an independent assessment of the effectiveness of our internal controls which could detect problems that our management’s assessment might not. In addition,Going forward, even if our management did not perform an evaluationconcludes that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, our independent registered public accounting firm may conclude that there are material weaknesses or significant deficiencies with respect to our internal controls or the level at which our internal controls are documented, designed, implemented or reviewed. If we or our independent registered public accounting firm identifies deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that are deemed to be material weaknesses or that may require prospective or retroactive changes to our financial statements, investors may lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could cause the market price of our common shares to decline and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources. Irrespective of compliance with Section 404, any failure of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2014 or December 31, 2013 and our independent registered public accounting firm did not perform an evaluation of our internal control over financial reporting during any period in accordance with the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Had we and our independent registered public accounting firm performed such an evaluation, control deficiencies may have been identified by management or our independent registered public accounting firm, and those control deficiencies could have also represented one or morea material weaknesses. Undetected material weaknesses inadverse effect on our internal controls could lead to financial statement restatementsstated operating results and require us to incur the expense of remediation.harm our reputation.

Future sales and issuances of our common shares, preferred shares, or rights to purchase common shares, including warrants or pursuant to our equity incentive plans, could cause you to incur dilution and could cause the market price of our common shares to fall.

As of December 31, 2016,2019, stock options to purchase 1,910,8233,534,236 of our common shares with a weighted-average exercise price of $7.32$7.90 per common share were outstanding.outstanding, a warrant to purchase 40,000 of our common shares with a weighted-average exercise price of $9.79 per common share was outstanding, and 1,016,000 of our Series 1 Preferred Shares were outstanding, which are convertible into our common shares on a one-for-one basis at the option of the holder, subject to certain ownership limitations following a requested conversion. During the year ended December 31, 2018, certain funds affiliated with BVF Partners L.P. exercised their conversion rights to convert 1,852,000 Series 1 Preferred Shares into the same number of common shares. The exercise of any of these stock options or warrant or conversion of the remaining Series 1 Preferred Shares would result in dilution to current shareholders. Further, because we willanticipate the need to raise additional capital to fund our clinical development programs, we may in the future sell substantial amounts of common shares, preferred shares, or other securities convertible into or exchangeable for common shares. Pursuant to our equity incentive plans, our compensation committee (or a subset or delegate thereof) is authorized to grant equity-based incentive awards to our employees, directors and consultants. Future stock option grants and issuances of common shares under our share-based compensation plans may have an adverse effect on the market price of our common shares.

TheseAny future issuances of common shares, preferred shares, or common share-related securities together with the exercise of outstanding options and any additionalsuch as warrants, notes, or preferred shares that are convertible into, exercisable or exchangeable for, our common shares, issued in connection with acquisitions, if any, may result in further dilution towould have a dilutive effect on the voting and economic interests of our existing shareholders, and new investors could gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common shares.shareholders.

We are at risk of securities class action litigation.

In the past, securities class action litigation has often been brought against a company following a decline in the market price of its securities.  This risk is especially relevant for us because biotechnology companies have experienced significant stock price volatility in recent years.  If we face such litigation, it could result in substantial costs and a diversion of management’s attention and resources, which could harm our business.

NASDAQNasdaq may delist our securities from its exchange, which could limit investors’ ability to make transactions in our securities and subject us to additional trading restrictions.

Our common shares are listed on NASDAQNasdaq under the trading symbol “XENE.” Our securities may fail to meet the continued listing requirements to be listed on NASDAQ.Nasdaq. If NASDAQNasdaq delists our common shares from trading on its exchange, we could face significant material adverse consequences, including:

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research reports about our business, or if they issue an adverse opinion about our business, the market price of our common shares and the trading volume of our common shares could decline.

The trading market for our common shares is influenced by the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business.  If too few securities or industry analysts cover our company, the market price of our common shares would likely be negatively impacted.  If securities and industry analysts who cover us downgrade our common shares or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the market price of our common shares would likely decline.  If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our common shares could decrease, which might cause the market price of our common shares and the trading volume of our common shares to decline.

Our management team has broad discretion as to the use of the net proceeds from our September 2016 public offering of common sharesand private equity and debt financings and the investment of these proceeds may not yield a favorable return. We may invest the proceeds in ways with which our shareholders disagree.

We have broad discretion in the application of any net proceeds we have received pursuant to our January 2020 public offering of common shares, our November 2019 “at-the-market” equity offering program with Jefferies and Stifel and our sale of common shares to Neurocrine Biosciences in December 2019, as well as the net proceeds to us from previous equity and debt financings, including the net proceeds we received pursuant to our 2018 “at-the-market” equity offering programs, the net proceeds from our August 2018 amended and restated loan and security agreement, pursuant to which we have borrowed an aggregate of $15.5 million of principal and the net proceeds from our September 20162018 public offering of common shares. You may not agree with our decisions, and our use of the proceeds and our existing cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities may not improve our results of operation or enhance the value of our common shares. The results and effectiveness of the use of proceeds are uncertain, and we could spend the proceeds in ways that you do not agree with or that do not improve our results of operations or enhance the value of our common shares. Our failure to apply these funds effectively could have a material adverse effect on our business, delay the development of our product candidates and cause the market price of our common shares to decline. In addition, until the net proceeds are used, they may be placed in investments that do not produce significant income or that may lose value.

We do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common shares in the foreseeable future.

We do not currently intend to pay any cash dividends on our common shares in the foreseeable future.  We currently intend to retain all of our future earnings, if any, to finance the growth and development of our business.  In addition, the terms of any future debt agreements may preclude us from paying dividends.  As a result, capital appreciation, if any, of our common shares may be investors’ sole source of gain for the foreseeable future.

None.

Our headquarters are located in Burnaby, British Columbia, where we occupy approximately 41,332 square feet of office and laboratory space. The term of the lease expires in March 2022. We currently pay an aggregate of approximately $95,496$105,084 per month in base rent, property tax, common area maintenance fees and management fees, and the landlord holds a security deposit equal to approximately $68,623.$68,743.

Our temporary U.S. office is located in Boston, Massachusetts, where we occupy on a month-to-month basis approximately 134215 square feet.

We believe that our existing facilities are adequate to meet our business requirements for the near-term and that additional space will be available on commercially reasonable terms, if required.

From time to time, we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. We are not presently a party to any legal proceedings that, in the opinion of our management, would reasonably be expected to have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results or cash flows if determined adversely to us. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors.

Not applicable.

PART II

Market Information

Our common shares have been traded on The NASDAQthe Nasdaq Global Market since November 5, 2014 under the symbol “XENE.” Prior to such time, there was no public market for our common shares. The following table sets forth the high and low sales prices per common share as reported on The NASDAQ Global Market for the periods indicated.

On March 3, 2017,5, 2020, the last reported sale price of our common shares was $8.60$15.38 per share.

Holders

As of March 3, 2017,5, 2020, there were approximately 176149 holders of record of our common shares. The actual number of shareholders is greater than this number of record holders and includes shareholders who are beneficial owners but whose common shares are held in street name by brokers and other nominees.

Dividends

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common shares or any other securities. We currently anticipate that we will retain all available funds and any future earnings, if any, in the foreseeable future for use in the operation of our business and do not currently anticipate paying cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Payment of future cash dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of the board of directors, subject to applicable law and will depend on various factors, including our financial condition, operating results, current and anticipated cash needs, the requirements of current or then-existing debt instruments and other factors the board of directors deems relevant.

Canadian withholding tax at a rate of 25% (subject to reduction under the provisions of any applicable income tax treaty or convention to which Canada is a signatory) will be payable on the gross amount of dividendsa dividend on our common shares paid or credited, or deemed to be paid or credited, to a holder of our common shares who, for purposes of the Income Tax Act (Canada), is not (and is not deemed to be) resident in Canada, and who does not use or hold (and will not be deemed to use or hold) our common shares in, or in the course of, carrying on a business or part of a business in Canada, or a Non-Resident of Canada Holder. The Canadian withholding taxestax will be deducted directly by us or our paying agent from the amount of the dividend otherwise payable and remitted to the Receiver General of Canada. The rate of withholding tax applicable to a dividend paid on our common shares to a Non‑Resident of Canada Holder who is a resident of the U.S. for purposes of the Canada‑U.S. Tax Convention (1980), or the Convention, beneficially ownsis the beneficial owner of the dividend and qualifies for the full benefits of the Convention will generally be reduced to 15% or, if such a Non-Resident of Canada Holder is a corporationcompany that owns (or, for purposes of the Convention, is considered to own) at least 10% of our voting shares, to 5%. Not all persons who are residents of the U.S. for purposes of the Convention will qualify for the benefits of the Convention. A Non-Resident of Canada Holder who is a resident of the U.S. is advised to consult his or her tax advisor in this regard. The rate of withholding tax on dividends is also reduced under other bilateral income tax treaties to which Canada is a signatory.

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

The information concerning our equity compensation plans is incorporated by reference herein to our Proxy Statement for the 20172020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be filed with the SEC within 120 days after the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2016.2019.

Performance Graph

This performance graph shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, or incorporated by reference into any of our filings under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Exchange Act, except as shall be expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing.

The following stock performance graph illustratesAs a comparison of the total cumulative shareholder return on our common shares from November 5, 2014, which is the date our common shares commenced trading on The NASDAQ Global Market, through December 31, 2016, to two indices: the NASDAQ Composite Index and the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index. The graph assumes an initial investment of $100 on November 5, 2014, and that any dividends were reinvested. The comparisons in the graph are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission andsmaller reporting company, we are not intendedrequired to forecast or be indicativeprovide the information requested by this item pursuant to Item 201(e) of possible future performance of our common shares.

Regulation S-K.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

During the three months ended December 31, 2016, we did not issue or sell any of our common shares or other equity securities pursuant to unregistered transactions in reliance upon exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

None.

Issuer Repurchases of Equity Securities

None.

The following selected financial data is derived from our audited consolidated financial statements and should be read in conjunction with, and is qualified in its entirety by, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and Item 8, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” contained elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The selected Statements of Operations Data for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2015 and 2014 and Balance Sheet Data as of December 31, 2016 and 2015 have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The selected Statements of Operations Data for the years ended December 31, 2013 and 2012 and Balance Sheet Data as of December 31, 2014, 2013 and 2012 have been derived from our audited financial statements thatAs a smaller reporting company, we are not included inrequired to provide the information requested by this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Historical results are not necessarily indicativeitem pursuant to Item 301 of future results. Our audited annual consolidated financial statements have been prepared in U.S. dollars and in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Regulation S-K.

You should read the following discussion and analysis together with Part II, Item 6 — “Selected Financial Data” and our consolidated financial statements and notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report. The following discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those set forth under the caption Part I, Item 1A — “Risk Factors.” Throughout this discussion, unless the context specifies or implies otherwise, the terms “Xenon,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its subsidiary.

Overview

We are a clinical-stageclinical stage biopharmaceutical company discovering andcommitted to developing innovative therapeutics to improve the lives of patients with neurological disorders. We are advancing a novel product pipeline of differentiated therapeutics for orphan indications that we intendneurology-focused therapies to commercializeaddress areas of high unmet medical need, with a focus on our own, and for larger market indications that we intend to partner with global pharmaceutical companies. We have expertise in human genetics, small molecule drug discovery, as well as preclinical and clinical development that we intend to leverage to develop innovative therapeutics, including novel selective ion channel inhibitors.epilepsy.

Our pharmaceutical partners include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd., or Teva (through its subsidiary, Ivax International GmbH), Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and Merck & Co., Inc., or Merck (through its affiliate, Essex Chemie AG). Our pharmaceutical collaborations have generated in aggregate over $160.0 million in non-equity funding to date with the potential to provide us with over $1.0 billion in future milestone payments, as well as royalties and co-promotion income on product sales.

Our proprietary development pipeline and pharmaceutical partnerships include:Proprietary Programs

Partnered Programs

We have funded our operations through the sale of equity securities, funding received from our licensees and collaborators, debt financing and, to a lesser extent, government funding. For 2016, 2015, and 2014,the year ended December 31, 2019, we recognized revenuesrevenue of approximately $1.8$6.8 million, $15.6 million, and $28.4 million, respectively, consisting primarily of funding and payments from our collaborators. Though ourWe did not recognize any revenue from our collaboration and license agreements resulted in net income of $13.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2014 and $12.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2013, we2018. We do not expect to have sustained profitability for the foreseeable future. We had net losses of $23.0$41.6 million for the year ended December 31, 20162019 and an accumulated deficit of $142.7$249.7 million as of December 31, 2016,2019, from expenses incurred in connection with our research programs and from general and administrative costs associated with our operations.