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BioNTech FORM 6-K
No mRNA immunotherapy has been approved, and none may ever be approved.
mRNA drug development has substantial clinical development and regulatory risks due to the novel and unprecedented nature of this new category of therapeutics.
As a potential new category of therapeutics, to our knowledge, no mRNA immunotherapies have been approved to date by the FDA, EMA or other regulatory agency.
Successful discovery and development of mRNA-based (and other) immunotherapies by either us or our collaborators is highly uncertain and depends on numerous factors, many of which are beyond our or their control.
To date, there has never been a commercialized mRNA-based product.
Our product candidates that appear promising in the early phases of development may fail to advance, experience delays in the clinic or clinical holds, or fail to reach the market for many reasons, including:
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discovery efforts aimed at identifying potential immunotherapies may not be successful;
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nonclinical or preclinical study results may show product candidates to be less effective than desired or have harmful or problematic side effects;
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clinical trial results may show the product candidates to be less effective than expected, including a failure to meet one or more endpoints or have unacceptable side effects or toxicities;
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manufacturing failures or insufficient supply of GMP materials for clinical trials, or higher than expected cost could delay or set back clinical trials, or make our product candidates commercially unattractive;
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our improvements in the manufacturing processes may not be sufficient to satisfy the clinical or commercial demand of our product candidates or regulatory requirements for clinical trials;
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changes that we make to optimize our manufacturing, testing or formulating of GMP materials could impact the safety, tolerability and efficacy of our product candidates;
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pricing or reimbursement issues or other factors could delay clinical trials or make any immunotherapy uneconomical or noncompetitive with other therapies;
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the failure to timely advance our programs or receive the necessary regulatory approvals, or a delay in receiving such approvals, due to, among other reasons, slow or failure to complete enrollment in clinical trials, withdrawal by trial participants from trials, failure to achieve trial endpoints, additional time requirements for data analysis, data integrity issues, BLA, MAA or the equivalent application, discussions with the FDA or the EMA, a regulatory request for additional nonclinical or clinical data, or safety formulation or manufacturing issues may lead to our inability to obtain sufficient funding; and
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the proprietary rights, products and technologies of our competitors may prevent our immunotherapies from being commercialized.
Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA.
Unlike certain gene therapies that irreversibly alter cell DNA and may cause certain side effects, mRNA-based medicines are designed not to irreversibly change cell DNA.
Side effects observed in other gene therapies, however, could negatively impact the perception of immunotherapies despite the differences in mechanism.
In addition, because no mRNA-based product has been approved, the regulatory pathway in the United States and may other jurisdictions for approval is uncertain.
The pathway for an individualized therapy, such as our iNeST mRNA-based immunotherapy where each patient receives a different combination of mRNAs, remains particularly unsettled.
The number and design of the clinical and preclinical studies required for the approval of these types of medicines have not been established, may be different from those required for gene therapy products or therapies that are not individualized or may require safety testing like gene therapy products.
Moreover, the length of time necessary to complete clinical trials and submit an application for marketing approval by a regulatory authority varies significantly from one pharmaceutical product to the next and may be difficult to predict.
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Long document, there could be other nuggets hiding in plain sight.