UNITED STATES  

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

 

FORM 10-Q

 

(Mark One)

For the Quarterly Period Ended September 30, 2016

or

For the Transition Period From ________ To ________

Commission file number: 001-37620

 

KURA ONCOLOGY, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

(858) 500-8800

(Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code)

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

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

 

Indicate by check mark whether registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

As of the close of business on November 2, 2016, the registrant had 21,367,747 shares of Common Stock ($0.0001 par value) outstanding.

 

 

 

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KURA ONCOLOGY, INC.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

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PART I. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

ITEM 1. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

KURA ONCOLOGY, INC.

Condensed Balance Sheets

(In thousands, except par value data) 

 

 

See accompanying notes to condensed financial statements.

 

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KURA ONCOLOGY, INC.

Condensed Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Loss

(In thousands, except per share data)

(Unaudited)

 

 See accompanying notes to condensed financial statements.

 

 

 

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KURA ONCOLOGY, INC.

Condensed Statements of Cash Flows

(In thousands)

(Unaudited)

 

See accompanying notes to condensed financial statements.

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KURA ONCOLOGY, INC.

Notes to Unaudited Condensed Financial Statements

 

1. Organization and Basis of Presentation

The Company

Kura Oncology, Inc., is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company committed to realizing the promise of precision medicines for the treatment of cancer. We focus on the development of small molecule product candidates that target cell signaling pathways that are important to driving the progression of certain cancers. We aim to employ molecular diagnostics to identify patients with cancers who are likely to benefit from our targeted product candidates.

References in these Notes to Unaudited Condensed Financial Statements to the “Company” or “we”, “our” or “us”, refer to Kura Oncology, Inc., a private Delaware corporation incorporated in the State of Delaware in August 2014, for the periods prior to our reverse merger transaction which took place on March 6, 2015, or the Merger, and Kura Oncology, Inc., a Delaware corporation incorporated in November 2007 and formerly known as Zeta Acquisition Corp. III, a public shell company, for the periods following the Merger.

Basis of Presentation

The accompanying unaudited condensed financial statements should be read in conjunction with the audited financial statements and notes thereto in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 17, 2016, from which we derived our balance sheet as of December 31, 2015. The accompanying condensed financial statements have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, since they are interim statements, the accompanying condensed financial statements do not include all of the information and notes required by GAAP for complete financial statements. The accompanying condensed financial statements reflect all adjustments, consisting of normal recurring adjustments, that are, in the opinion of our management, necessary to a fair statement of the results for the interim periods presented. Interim results are not necessarily indicative of results for a full year.

The preparation of the condensed financial statements in accordance with GAAP requires our management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our condensed financial statements and accompanying notes. The amounts reported could differ under different estimates and assumptions. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate our estimates and judgments, which are based on historical and anticipated results and trends and on various other assumptions that management believes to be reasonable under the circumstances. By their nature, estimates are subject to an inherent degree of uncertainty and, as such, actual results may differ from management’s estimates.

 

 

2. Summary of Significant Accounting Policies

Comprehensive Income (Loss)

Comprehensive income (loss) is defined as the change in equity during the period from transactions and other events and non-owner sources. For the periods presented, accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) consists solely of unrealized gains and losses on marketable securities.

Net Loss per Share

We calculated basic net loss per common share by dividing the net loss by the weighted-average number of common shares outstanding for the period, without consideration for common stock equivalents. Diluted net loss per share is calculated by dividing the net loss by the weighted-average number of common share equivalents outstanding for the period determined using the treasury-stock method. Dilutive common stock equivalents are comprised of unvested restricted stock awards, outstanding stock options and outstanding warrants. For all periods presented, there is no difference in the number of shares used to calculate basic and diluted shares outstanding due to the antidilutive effect of the securities. Because of our net loss, unvested restricted stock awards representing an aggregate of 2,322,453 and 3,571,875 shares of common stock, options to purchase an aggregate of 1,176,591 and 410,000 shares of common stock and warrants to purchase an aggregate of 67,976 and zero shares of common stock are excluded from the calculation of diluted net loss per common share for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, respectively, due to the anti-dilutive effect of the securities.

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Recent Accounting Pronouncements

In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, issued Accounting Standards Update, or ASU, 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842), which amends the existing accounting standards for accounting for leases. The amendments are to increase transparency and comparability among organizations by requiring recognition of lease assets and lease liabilities on the balance sheets and disclosure of key information about leasing arrangements. This pronouncement is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, and interim periods within those annual periods. Early adoption is permitted. The guidance is required to be adopted at the earliest period presented using a modified retrospective approach. We are currently evaluating the impact these amendments will have on our condensed financial statements and the timing of when we will adopt the guidance.

In March 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-09, Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting. ASU 2016-09 changes certain aspects of accounting for share-based payments to employees and involves several aspects of the accounting for share-based payment transactions, including the income tax consequences, classification of awards as either equity or liabilities, and classification on the statement of cash flows. Specifically, ASU 2016-09 requires that all income tax effects of share-based awards be recognized as income tax expense or benefit in the reporting period in which they occur. Additionally, ASU 2016-09 amends existing guidance to allow forfeitures of share-based awards to be recognized as they occur. Previous guidance required that share-based compensation expense include an estimate of forfeitures. We elected to early adopt ASU 2016-09 in the quarter ended June 30, 2016 with an effective date of January 1, 2016 and made a policy election to account for forfeitures as they occur. The cumulative effect of adoption was recorded in the quarter ended June 30, 2016 and had an immaterial impact to our condensed financial statements.

In March 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-06, Derivatives and Hedging (Topic 815), Contingent Put and Call Options in Debt Instruments. ASU 2016-06 resolves the diversity in practice resulting from two approaches to assess whether contingent call (put) options are clearly and closely related to the debt host. Specifically, ASU 2016-06 requires an entity to assess an embedded call (put) option solely in accordance with the four-step decision sequence approach. We elected to early adopt ASU 2016-06 in the quarter ended June 30, 2016 with an effective date of January 1, 2016 and there was no impact to our condensed financial statements.

 

 

3. Available-for-Sale Securities

We invest in available-for-sale securities consisting of money market funds, U.S. Treasury securities, corporate debt securities, commercial paper and government sponsored entities securities. Available-for-sale securities are classified as part of either cash and cash equivalents or short-term investments in the condensed balance sheets. Available-for-sale securities with maturities of three months or less from the date of purchase have been classified as cash equivalents, and were $4.0 million and $13.0 million as of September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively. The following tables summarize, by major security type, our available-for-sale securities with maturities of more than three months from the date of purchase classified as short-term investments, in thousands:

 

 

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Our available-for-sale investments are classified as current assets, even though the stated maturity date may be one year or more beyond the current balance sheet date, which reflects management’s intention to use the proceeds from sales of these securities to fund our operations, as necessary. As of September 30, 2016, $66.3 million of our investments had maturities less than one year and $5.5 million had maturities between one to two years. There were no realized gains or losses for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016. As of September 30, 2016, $14.6 million of our marketable securities were in gross unrealized loss positions, all of which had been in such position for less than twelve months. We reviewed our marketable securities as of September 30, 2016 and determined that the unrealized losses were not considered to be other-than-temporary based upon (i) the financial strength of the issuing institution and (ii) the fact that all securities have been in an unrealized loss position for less than twelve months. In addition, we do not intend to sell these securities and it is not more likely than not that we will be required to sell these securities before the recovery of their amortized cost basis. As of September 30, 2016, we had not recognized any such impairment in our condensed financial statements.

 

 

4. Fair Value Measurements

As a basis for considering assumptions that market participants would use in pricing an asset or liability, the guidance establishes a three-tier fair value hierarchy, which prioritizes the inputs used in measuring fair value as follows:

Available-for-sale marketable securities consist of U.S. Treasury securities, which were measured at fair value using Level 1 inputs, and corporate debt securities, commercial paper and government sponsored entities, which were measured at fair value using Level 2 inputs. We determine the fair value of Level 2 related securities with the aid of valuations provided by third parties using proprietary valuation models and analytical tools. These valuation models and analytical tools use market pricing or prices for similar instruments that are both objective and publicly available, including matrix pricing or reported trades, benchmark yields, broker/dealer quotes, issuer spreads, two-sided markets, benchmark securities, bids and/or offers. We validate the fair values of Level 2 financial instruments by comparing these fair values to a third-party pricing source. No transfers between levels have occurred during the periods presented.

The following tables summarize, by major security type, our cash equivalents and short-term investments that are measured at fair value on a recurring basis and are categorized using the fair value hierarchy, in thousands:

 

 

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We believe that our term loan facility bears interest at a rate that approximates prevailing market rates for instruments with similar characteristics and, accordingly, the carrying value of the term loan facility approximates fair value. The fair value of our term loan facility is determined using Level 2 inputs in the fair value hierarchy. See Note 6, Long-Term Debt, for further discussion of our term loan facility. 

 

 

5. Accounts Payable and Accrued Liabilities

Accounts payable and accrued liabilities consisted of the following, in thousands:

 

 

 

6. Long-Term Debt

On April 27, 2016, we entered into a loan and security agreement, or the Loan Agreement, with Oxford Finance LLC and Silicon Valley Bank, or the Lenders, pursuant to which the Lenders provided a loan facility of up to $20.0 million. Upon entering into the Loan Agreement, we borrowed $7.5 million from the Lenders, or Term A Loan. We may, at our sole discretion, borrow up to an additional $12.5 million at any time between December 31, 2016 and May 1, 2017, or Term B Loan, and together with the Term A Loan, the Term Loans, subject to our successful advancement of KO-947, a small molecule inhibitor of extracellular signal regulated kinase, into Phase 1 clinical trials. In addition, each Term B Loan must be in an amount equal to the lesser of $5.0 million or the amount that is remaining under the Term B Loan.

All of the Term Loans will mature on November 1, 2020, or Maturity Date. Repayment of the Term Loans is interest only through May 1, 2018, followed by 30 equal monthly payments of principal plus accrued interest commencing on June 1, 2018. The per annum interest rate for any outstanding Term Loans is the greater of (i) 7.75% and (ii) the sum of (a) the prime rate reported in The Wall Street Journal on the last business day of the month that immediately precedes the month in which the interest will accrue, plus (b) 4.25%. In addition, a final payment of 7.50% of the amounts of the Term Loans drawn will be due on the earlier of the Maturity Date, acceleration of any Term Loan, or prepayment of the Term Loans. In connection with the Term A Loan, a final payment of approximately $0.6 million will be due and is being accrued through interest expense using the effective interest method. If we elect to prepay the Term Loans, a prepayment fee equal to 1%, 2% or 3% of the principal balance will also be due, depending upon when the prepayment occurs. We will also be required to pay an unused fee on the earlier of May 2, 2017 or prior repayment of the Term Loans in an amount equal to (a) 2.00% multiplied by (b) $20.0 million minus the aggregate amount of the Term Loans drawn on or before May 1, 2017.

We are subject to customary affirmative and restrictive covenants under the term loan facility. Our obligations under the Loan Agreement are secured by a first priority security interest in substantially all of our current and future assets, other than our intellectual property. We have also agreed not to encumber our intellectual property assets, except as permitted by the Loan Agreement.

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The Loan Agreement also contains customary indemnification obligations and customary events of default, including, among other things, our failure to fulfill certain obligations under the Loan Agreement and the occurrence of a material adverse change in our business, operations, or condition (financial or otherwise), a material impairment of the prospect of repayment of any portion of the loan, or a material impairment in the perfection or priority of Lenders’ lien in the collateral or in the value of such collateral. In the event of default by us under the Loan Agreement, the Lenders would be entitled to exercise their remedies thereunder, including the right to accelerate the debt, upon which we may be required to repay all amounts then outstanding under the Loan Agreement. The conditional exercisable call option related to the event of default is considered to be an embedded derivative which is required to be bifurcated and accounted for as a separate financial instrument. In the periods presented, the value of the embedded derivative is not material, but could become material in future periods if an event of default became more probable than is currently estimated. As of September 30, 2016, we were in compliance with all material covenants under the Loan Agreement and there had been no material adverse change.

In connection with the Term A Loan, we issued to the Lenders warrants to purchase up to 67,976 shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $3.31 per share, or the Warrants. The Warrants are exercisable, in whole or in part, and will terminate on the earlier of April 27, 2026 or the closing of certain merger or consolidation transactions. The Warrants were valued using the Black-Scholes option pricing model with the following assumptions: volatility of 70.92%, expected term of ten years, risk-free interest rate of 2.11% and a zero dividend yield. The fair value of the Warrants was approximately $172,000 upon issuance, which was recorded as a debt discount and is being amortized to interest expense using the effective interest method through the scheduled maturity date.

If we borrow under the Term B Loan, upon the funding of the Term B Loan, we will issue to the Lenders additional warrants to purchase shares of our common stock equal to 3.00% of each Term B Loan amount divided by the lower of (i) the ten day average closing price of our common stock reported on the Nasdaq Global Select Market prior to funding or (ii) the closing price of our common stock reported on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on the day prior to funding. Such lower amount of (i) and (ii) above will also be the exercise price per share for such warrants. The terms of such warrants would be substantially the same as those contained in the Warrants.

The following table summarizes future minimum payments under the term loan facility as of September 30, 2016, in thousands:

 

 

7. Equity Incentive Plan

The following table summarizes share-based compensation expense for all equity awards granted, in thousands:

 

For the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recognized share-based compensation expense related to stock options of $298,000 and $122,000, respectively, of which $13,000 and $9,000 related to non-employee stock options, respectively. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recognized share-based compensation expense related to stock options of $0.8 million and $211,000, respectively, of which $26,000 and $24,000 related to non-employee stock options, respectively.

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For the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recognized share-based compensation expense related to restricted stock awards totaling $286,000 and $412,000, respectively, of which $253,000 and $378,000 related to non-employee restricted stock awards, respectively. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recognized share-based compensation expense related to restricted stock awards totaling $0.7 million and $1.5 million, respectively, of which $0.6 million and $1.3 million related to non-employee restricted stock awards, respectively. As of September 30, 2016, unrecognized compensation costs related to employee stock options and restricted stock awards were approximately $3.0 million and $261,000, respectively, which are expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of approximately 2.9 years and 2.0 years, respectively.

 

8. Related Party Transactions

Our president and chief executive officer is also the sole managing member of our affiliated company Araxes Pharma LLC, or Araxes. Four individuals are significant stockholders of each of us and Araxes. The following is a summary of transactions with Araxes for the nine months ended September 30, 2016:

We sublease office space from Wellspring Biosciences LLC, or Wellspring, a wholly owned subsidiary of Araxes. For the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, rent expense related to this sublease was $28,000 and $24,000, respectively. For the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, rent expense related to this sublease was $80,000 and $73,000, respectively. Pursuant to the terms of the sublease as amended in June 2016, the sublease will expire on October 31, 2019.

Effective April 2016, we amended our management services agreement with Araxes. Under the amended agreement, Araxes pays us a fixed fee of $65,000 per month for management services, which is reduced from the prior fixed fee of $100,000 per month. In addition, the agreement allows for Araxes to reimburse us an amount equal to the number of full time equivalents, or FTE, performing research and development services for Araxes, at an annual FTE rate of approximately $350,000, plus actual expenses as reasonably incurred. The initial term expired on December 31, 2015 but, pursuant to the terms of the agreement, renews automatically for additional consecutive one-year periods. The agreement may be terminated by either party with a notice of at least 30 days prior to the expiration of the then-renewal term. For the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recorded reimbursements of $66,000 and $79,000, respectively, and for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recorded reimbursements of $258,000 and $200,000, respectively, for research and development services provided to Araxes, which was recorded as a reduction to research and development expenses on the condensed statements of operations and comprehensive loss. As of September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, $261,000 and $430,000 related to management fees and reimbursements of research and development services, respectively, are included in accounts receivable, related party on the condensed balance sheets.

We have a services agreement with Wellspring which allows for payment of research and development services provided to us of an amount equal to the number of FTE’s performing the services, at an annual FTE rate of $400,000, plus actual expenses as reasonably incurred. The initial term of this services agreement expired on December 31, 2015 but, pursuant to the terms of the agreement, renews automatically for additional consecutive one-year periods. The agreement may be terminated by either party with a notice of at least 30 days prior to the expiration of the then-renewal term. For the three months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recognized $1.0 million in both periods, and for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, we recognized $3.2 million in both periods from research and development services provided to us under this agreement as research and development expense, related party on the condensed statements of operations and comprehensive loss. As of September 30, 2016 and December 31, 2015, $1.1 million and $0.9 million, respectively, related to research and development services under this agreement are included in accounts payable and accrued expenses, related party on the condensed balance sheets.

 

 

 

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ITEM 2. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our unaudited condensed financial statements and related notes included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and the audited financial statements and notes thereto as of and for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 and the related Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, both of which are contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, on March 17, 2016.

This Quarterly Report includes forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, which are subject to the “safe harbor” created by those sections, that involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. These forward-looking statements can generally be identified as such because the context of the statement will include words such as “may,” “will,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “continue,” “likely,” or “opportunity,” the negative of these words or other similar words. Similarly, statements that describe our plans, strategies, intentions, expectations, objectives, goals or prospects and other statements that are not historical facts are also forward-looking statements. For such statements, we claim the protection of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers of this Quarterly Report are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the time this Quarterly Report was filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are based largely on our expectations and projections about future events and future trends affecting our business, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk factors identified in our SEC reports, including this Quarterly Report. In addition, past financial or operating performance is not necessarily a reliable indicator of future performance, and you should not use our historical performance to anticipate results or future period trends. We can give no assurances that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if any of them do, what impact they will have on our results of operations and financial condition. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise our forward-looking statements.

References to the “Company,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Kura Oncology, Inc., or Prior Kura, a private Delaware corporation incorporated in the State of Delaware in August 2014, for the periods prior to our reverse merger transaction which took place on March 6, 2015, or the Merger, and Kura Oncology, Inc., a Delaware corporation incorporated in November 2007 and formerly known as Zeta Acquisition Corp. III, for the periods following the Merger.

Overview

We are a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company committed to realizing the promise of precision medicines for the treatment of cancer. We focus on the development of small molecule product candidates that target cell signaling pathways that are important to driving the progression of certain cancers. We aim to employ molecular diagnostics to identify patients with cancers who are likely to benefit from our targeted product candidates.

Advancements in cancer genetics and new molecular diagnostic tools are helping define why some patients respond to a particular therapy while other patients receive little to no clinical benefit. This new era in cancer drug discovery and development offers the potential for innovative treatments that are safer and more effective for patients with particular cancers. We aim to improve patient outcomes and contribute to the reduction in healthcare costs by matching targeted therapeutics to the patients who will derive the most benefit. We are developing drugs designed to inhibit mutated or abnormally functioning cellular pathways that drive cancer growth and intend to pair them with molecular diagnostics to identify those patients with tumors most likely to respond to treatment.

We are developing our lead product candidate, tipifarnib, a farnesyl transferase inhibitor, in both solid tumors and blood cancers. We have designed our phase 2 program for tipifarnib based on previously generated clinical data, preclinical data and our identification of potential molecular biomarkers. We currently have four company sponsored Phase 2 clinical studies ongoing: the first in patients with locally advanced solid tumors that carry Harvey rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog, or HRAS, mutations; the second in patients with peripheral T-cell lymphomas, or PTCL; the third in patients with lower risk myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS; and the fourth in patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, or CMML. Tipifarnib is also being evaluated in an investigator sponsored trial in patients with urothelial carcinoma tumors characterized by HRAS mutations. We in-licensed tipifarnib from Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, or Janssen, a foreign entity headquartered in Belgium and an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson, in December 2014, and have worldwide rights in all indications other than virology.

Our pipeline also includes two preclinical programs. We are advancing KO-947, a small molecule inhibitor of extracellular-signal-regulated kinase, or ERK, as a potential treatment for patients with tumors that have mutations in, or other dysregulation of, the mitogen-activated protein kinase, signaling pathway, including pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, head

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and neck cancer and melanoma. We anticipate submitting an investigational new drug application, or IND, for KO-947 to the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, in the fourth quarter of 2016 and commencing a Phase 1 clinical trial in the first half of 2017. We are also developing orally available, small molecule inhibitors of the menin-mixed lineage leukemia, or menin-MLL, fusion protein interaction, which are currently in lead optimization as a potential treatment for patients with acute leukemias involving translocations or partial tandem duplications of the MLL gene. Our goal is to nominate a development candidate for our menin-MLL program in the fourth quarter of 2016.

Liquidity Overview

Our accumulated deficit was $46.5 million as of September 30, 2016. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for at least the next several years as we continue the research and clinical development of, and seek regulatory approval for, our product candidates. Our net losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year. As of September 30, 2016, we had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $74.6 million. In April 2016, we received approximately $7.5 million in net proceeds from our term loan facility, with an additional $12.5 million available between December 31, 2016 and May 1, 2017, subject to our successful advancement of KO-947 into Phase 1 clinical trials. Although we expect our existing cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments will be sufficient to fund our current operations into 2018, our development programs will require significant additional funds. We may also need to raise additional funds sooner than expected to pursue other development activities related to our pipeline programs. We may seek to obtain additional financing in the future through equity or debt financings, or through collaborations or partnerships with other companies. We may not be able to raise additional capital on terms acceptable to us, or at all, and any failure to raise capital as and when needed could compromise our ability to execute on our business plan.

Financial Operations Overview

Research and Development Expenses

We focus on the research and development of our product programs. Our research and development expenses consist of salaries, benefits and other personnel costs, preclinical and clinical trial costs, manufacturing costs for non-commercial products and research and development facilities costs. All such costs are charged to research and development expense as incurred. Payments that we make in connection with in-licensed technology for a particular research and development project that have no alternative future uses (in other research and development projects or otherwise) and therefore, no separate economic values, are expensed as research and development costs at the time such costs are incurred. As of September 30, 2016, we have no in-licensed technologies that have alternative future uses in research and development projects or otherwise.

Since inception through September 30, 2016, we had incurred an aggregate of approximately $35.3 million in research and development expenses related to the in-licensing and development of our product candidates and pipeline programs. We cannot determine with certainty the timing of initiation, the duration or the completion costs of current or future preclinical studies and clinical trials of our product candidates. At this time, due to the inherently unpredictable nature of preclinical and clinical development, we are unable to estimate with any certainty the costs we will incur and the timelines we will require in the continued development of our product candidates and our other pipeline programs. Clinical and preclinical development timelines, the probability of success and development costs can differ materially from expectations. Our future research and development expenses will depend on the preclinical and clinical success of each product candidate that we develop, as well as ongoing assessments of the commercial potential of such product candidates. In addition, we cannot forecast which product candidates may be subject to future collaborations, when such arrangements will be secured, if at all, and to what degree such arrangements would affect our development plans and capital requirements.

Completion of clinical trials may take several years or more, and the length of time generally varies according to the type, complexity, novelty and intended use of a product candidate. The cost of clinical trials may vary significantly over the life of a project as a result of differences arising during clinical development, including, among others:

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General and Administrative Expenses

General and administrative expenses consist primarily of salaries, benefits and other personnel costs for employees in executive, finance, business development and support functions. Other significant general and administrative expenses include the costs associated with obtaining and maintaining our patent portfolio, professional services for accounting, auditing, legal and investor and public relations, corporate activities, travel and allocated facilities.

Other Income (Expense)

Other income (expense) consists primarily of management fee income, interest income and interest expense. Management fee income is earned in accordance with the management services agreement, as amended, with our affiliated company Araxes Pharma LLC. Interest expense consists of interest on long-term debt and convertible notes.

Income Taxes

We have incurred net losses and have not recorded any U.S. federal or state income tax benefits for the losses as they have been offset by valuation allowances.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our results of operations and changes for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, in thousands:

 

Comparison of the Three Months Ended September 30, 2016 and 2015

Research and Development Expenses. The increase in research and development expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 was primarily due to an increase of $0.8 million in outsourced clinical development costs, offset by a decrease of $0.1 million in share-based compensation. We expect to incur substantial research and development expenses during the remainder of 2016 as we continue clinical development activities for our tipifarnib product candidate, prepare for the IND submission for KO-947 and further research and development of our other programs.

General and Administrative Expenses. General and administrative expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2016 decreased by $51,000 as compared to the same period in 2015. We expect to incur substantial general and administrative expenses during the remainder of 2016 to support our planned increase in research and development activities and maintain activities associated with being a public company.

Other income, net. The decrease in other income, net, for the three months ended September 30, 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 was primarily due to an increase of $0.2 million in interest expense related to our long-term debt.

Comparison of the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2016 and 2015

Research and Development Expenses. The increase in research and development expenses for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 was primarily due to increases of $2.1 million in outsourced clinical development costs, $0.5 million in outsourced research contracts and $0.6 million in personnel costs, offset in part by decreases of $0.8 million in license fees and $0.5 million in share-based compensation.

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General and Administrative Expenses. The increase in general and administrative expenses for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 was primarily due to the increase in costs associated with being a public company, which included increases of $0.4 million in personnel costs, $0.4 million in share-based compensation, $0.2 million in professional and consulting fees and $0.2 million in compliance expenses, and an increase of $0.2 million in patent related costs.

Other income, net. The decrease in other income, net, for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 compared to the same period in 2015 was primarily due to an increase of $0.3 million in interest expense and a decrease of $0.2 million in management fee income, offset in part by an increase of $0.3 million in interest income on our short-term investments.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Since our inception, we have funded our operations primarily through equity and debt financings. We have devoted our resources to funding our research and development programs, including discovery research, preclinical and clinical development activities. As of September 30, 2016, we had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $74.6 million.

In April 2016, we entered into a loan and security agreement, or loan agreement, with Oxford Finance LLC and Silicon Valley Bank, or collectively referred to as the lenders, providing for up to $20.0 million in a series of term loans. Under the loan agreement, we have borrowed $7.5 million, or Term A Loan, and may borrow up to an additional $12.5 million at any time between December 31, 2016 and May 1, 2017, or Term B Loan, and together with Term A Loan, the Term Loans, subject to our successful advancement of KO-947 into Phase 1 clinical trials. All of the Term Loans mature on November 1, 2020, or Maturity Date. Repayment on the Term Loans is interest only through May 1, 2018, followed by 30 equal monthly payments of principal plus accrued interest commencing on June 1, 2018. The per annum interest rate for any outstanding Term Loans is the greater of (i) 7.75% and (ii) the sum of (a) the prime rate reported in The Wall Street Journal on the last business day of the month that immediately precedes the month in which the interest will accrue, plus (b) 4.25%. In addition, a final payment of 7.50% of the amounts of the term loans drawn will be due on the earlier of the Maturity Date, acceleration or prepayment of the Term Loans. If we elect to prepay the Term Loans, a prepayment fee equal to 1%, 2% or 3% of the principal balance also will be due, depending upon when the prepayment occurs. We will also be required to pay an unused fee on the earlier of May 2, 2017 or prior repayment of the Term Loans in an amount equal to (a) 2.00% multiplied by (b) $20.0 million minus the aggregate amount of the term loans drawn on or before May 1, 2017. See Note 6, Long-Term Debt, in the Notes to Unaudited Condensed Financial Statements for further details of the term loan facility. Our obligations under the loan agreement are secured by substantially all of our assets other than our intellectual property, but including proceeds from the sale, licensing or other disposition of our intellectual property. Our intellectual property is subject to negative covenants, which, among other things, prohibit us from selling, transferring, assigning, mortgaging, pledging, leasing, granting a security interest in or otherwise encumbering our intellectual property, subject to limited exceptions.

Although we believe that our existing cash resources, including the proceeds and funds available under our term loan facility, will be sufficient to fund our cash requirements into 2018, we will require significant additional financing in the future to continue to fund our operations. We may seek to obtain additional financing in the future through equity or debt financings or through collaborations or partnerships with other companies. If we are unable to obtain additional financing on commercially reasonable terms, our business, financial condition and results of operations will be materially adversely affected.

We have incurred operating losses since inception and negative cash flows from operating activities. As of September 30, 2016, we had an accumulated deficit of $46.5 million. We expect to continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future, and we expect the losses to increase as we continue the development of, and seek regulatory approvals for, our product candidates and begin to commercialize any approved products. To date, we have not generated any revenues from product sales, and we do not have any approved products. We do not know when, or if, we will generate any revenue from product sales. We do not expect to generate significant revenue from product sales unless and until we obtain regulatory approval of and commercialize one of our current or future product candidates. We are subject to all of the risks incident in the development of new therapeutic products, and we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other unknown factors that may adversely affect our business. We anticipate that we will need substantial additional funding in connection with our continuing operations.

Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial product revenues, we expect to finance our cash needs through a combination of stock offerings, debt financings, collaborations, strategic partnerships and licensing arrangements. Other than our term loan facility, we do not have any committed external source of funds. Additional capital may not be available on reasonable terms, if at all. Subject to limited exceptions, our term loan facility also prohibits us from incurring indebtedness without the prior written consent of the lenders. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of stock or convertible debt securities, the ownership interest of our stockholders will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect the rights of our common stockholders. Debt financing, if available, may involve agreements that include increased fixed payment obligations and covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures, declaring dividends, selling or licensing intellectual property rights and other operating restrictions that could adversely impact our ability to conduct our business. If we raise additional funds through collaborations,

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strategic partnerships or licensing arrangements with third parties, we may have to relinquish valuable rights to our product candidates, including our other technologies, future revenue streams or research programs, or grant licenses on terms that may not be favorable to us. If we are unable to raise additional funds when needed, we may be unable to carry out our business plan. As a result we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts or grant rights to develop and commercialize our product candidates even if we would otherwise prefer to develop and commercialize such product candidates ourselves, and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be materially adversely affected.

The following table provides a summary of our net cash flow activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015, in thousands:

 

The increase in net cash used in operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 as compared to the same period of the prior year was primarily due to a higher net loss of $4.1 million and a $3.4 million increase in payments of accounts payable and accrued expenses during the nine months ended September 30, 2016, offset by $1.0 million in payments of other long-term liabilities in the prior year period.

Net cash provided by investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 consisted of $43.7 million of proceeds from maturities of marketable securities, offset by $41.2 million in purchases of marketable securities. Net cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 consisted mainly of $30.1 million in purchases of marketable securities.

Net cash provided by financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 consisted of $7.5 million in net proceeds from the issuance of long-term debt. Net cash provided by financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 consisted of $47.6 million in net proceeds from the issuance of common stock in March 2015 and $5.0 million in proceeds from the issuance of convertible notes.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

As of September 30, 2016, we did not have any off-balance sheet arrangements.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates of the Company

Our discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based on our condensed financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. The preparation of these condensed financial statements requires management to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses and the disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities in our condensed financial statements. We evaluate our estimates and judgments on an ongoing basis. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about our financial condition and results of operations that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates. There have been no material changes to our critical accounting policies and estimates from the information provided in Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Critical Accounting Policies and Management Estimates,” included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015.

ITEM 3. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK

Not required for smaller reporting companies.

ITEM 4. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports required by the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the timelines specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, management recognized that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can only provide reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and in reaching a reasonable

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level of assurance, management was required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

As required by SEC Rule 13a-15(b), we carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of the end of the quarter covered by this report. Based on the foregoing, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level as of the end of the quarter covered by this report.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

During the quarter ended September 30, 2016, we implemented a new enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) system. The new ERP system was designed and implemented, in part, to enhance the overall system of internal controls over financial reporting through further automation and integration of business processes. In connection with the ERP implementation, we updated the processes that constitute our internal control over financial reporting, as necessary, to accommodate related changes to our accounting procedures and business processes.

Except for the changes related to the ERP implementation, there have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during our most recent quarter ended September 30, 2016 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

PART II – OTHER INFORMATION

ITEM 1. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We currently are not a party to any legal proceedings, the adverse outcome of which, in management’s opinion, individually or in the aggregate, would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations or financial position.

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ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. In addition to the information included or incorporated by reference in this Quarterly Report and in our other public filings, you should carefully consider the risks described below in evaluating our company. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be harmed by any of these risks. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks not currently known to us or other factors not perceived by us to present significant risks to our business at this time also may impair our business operations. We have marked with an asterisk (*) those risk factors that reflect changes from the risk factors previously disclosed in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the SEC on March 17, 2016.

Risks Related to Our Financial Position and Need For Additional Capital

We expect to incur losses over the next several years and may never achieve or maintain profitability.*

We expect that it will be many years, if ever, before we have a product candidate ready for commercialization. To date, we have financed our operations primarily through equity and debt financings. We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and increasing operating losses for the foreseeable future. The net losses we incur may fluctuate significantly from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year. We anticipate that our expenses will increase substantially if and as we:

To become and remain profitable, we must develop and eventually commercialize a product or products with significant market potential. This will require us to be successful in a range of challenging activities, including completing clinical trials of our product candidates, obtaining marketing approval from the FDA for these product candidates and manufacturing, marketing and selling those products for which we may obtain marketing approval. We may never succeed in these activities and, even if we do, may never generate revenues that are significant or large enough to achieve profitability. If we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain or increase profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Our failure to become and remain profitable would decrease the value of the company and could impair our ability to raise capital, maintain our discovery and preclinical development efforts, expand our business or continue our operations. A decline in the value of our company could also cause you to lose all or part of your investment.

We are a clinical-stage company with no approved products and no historical product revenue. Consequently, we expect that our financial and operating results will vary significantly from period to period.

We are a clinical-stage company that has incurred losses since our inception and expect to continue to incur substantial losses in the foreseeable future. Biopharmaceutical product development is a highly speculative undertaking and involves a substantial degree of uncertainty. We expect our actual financial condition and operating results to fluctuate significantly from quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors relating to our business that may contribute to these fluctuations include:

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Accordingly, the likelihood of our success must be evaluated in light of many potential challenges and variables associated with a clinical-stage company, many of which are outside of our control, and past operating or financial results should not be relied on as an indication of future results. Fluctuations in our operating and financial results could cause our share price to decline. It is possible that in some future periods, our operating results will be above or below the expectations of securities analysts or investors, which could also cause our share price to decline.

Our limited operating history may make it difficult for you to evaluate the success of our business to date and to assess our future viability.

We are an early-stage clinical development company. Our operations to date have been limited to organizing and staffing our company, business planning, raising capital, identifying and acquiring potential product candidates, undertaking preclinical studies and preparing for and undertaking clinical studies of our most advanced product candidate, tipifarnib. We have not yet demonstrated our ability to successfully complete any clinical trials, including those clinical trials in support of FDA approval, obtain marketing approvals, manufacture a commercial scale product, or arrange for a third-party to do so on our behalf, or conduct sales and marketing activities necessary for successful product commercialization. Medicines, on average, take 10 to 15 years to be developed from the time they are discovered to the time they are available for treating patients. Consequently, any predictions you make about our future success or viability based on our short operating history to date may not be as accurate as they could be if we had a longer operating history.

In addition, as a new business, we may encounter unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications, delays and other known and unknown factors. We may in the future need to transition from a company with a research focus to a company capable of supporting commercial activities. We may not be successful in such a transition.

We will need to obtain substantial additional capital in connection with our continuing operations. Raising additional capital may cause dilution to our stockholders, restrict our operations or require us to relinquish rights to our technologies or product candidates.*

Until such time, if ever, as we can generate substantial product revenues, we will need to raise additional capital in connection with our continuing operations. We expect to finance our cash needs through a combination of equity offerings and debt financings. In April 2016, we entered into the loan agreement with the lenders providing for up to $20.0 million in term loans. Under the terms of the loan agreement, the lenders have initially provided us with a term loan of $7.5 million, with an additional $12.5 million available at any time between December 31, 2016 and May 1, 2017, subject to our successful advancement of KO-947 into Phase 1 clinical trials. Other than our term loan facility, we do not have any committed external source of funds. To the extent that we raise additional capital through the sale of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interest of our stockholders will be diluted, and the terms of these securities may include liquidation or other preferences that adversely affect rights of our stockholders as a common stockholder. Debt financing and preferred equity financing, if available, may involve agreements that include covenants limiting or restricting our ability to take specific actions, such as incurring additional debt, making capital expenditures or declaring dividends.

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While any amounts are outstanding under our term loan facility, we are subject to a number of affirmative and restrictive covenants, including covenants regarding delivery of financial statements, maintenance of inventory, payment of taxes, maintenance of insurance, dispositions of property, business combinations or acquisitions, incurrence of additional indebtedness and transactions with affiliates, among other customary covenants. If we default under our term loan facility, the lenders may accelerate all of our repayment obligations and take control of our pledged assets, potentially requiring us to renegotiate our agreement on terms less favorable to us or to immediately cease operations. Further, if we are liquidated, the lenders’ right to repayment would be senior to the rights of the holders of our common stock to receive any proceeds from the liquidation. The lenders could declare a default under our term loan facility upon the occurrence of an event of default, which includes our failure to satisfy our payment obligations under the loan agreement, the breach of certain of our other covenants under the loan agreement or the occurrence of a material adverse change, thereby requiring us to repay the loan immediately or to attempt to reverse the declaration of default through negotiation or litigation. Any declaration by the lenders of an event of default could significantly harm our business and prospects and could cause the price of our common stock to decline.

We cannot be certain that additional funding will be available on acceptable terms, or at all. Subject to limited exceptions, our term loan facility also prohibits us from incurring indebtedness without the prior written consent of the lenders. If we are unable to raise additional funds when needed, we may be required to delay, limit, reduce or terminate our product development or future commercialization efforts.

Risks Related to the Discovery and Development of Our Product Candidates

Our discovery, preclinical and clinical development is focused on the development of targeted therapeutics for patients with genetically defined cancers, which is a rapidly evolving area of science, and the approach we are taking to discover and develop drugs is novel and may never lead to marketable products.

The discovery and development of targeted drug therapeutics for patients with genetically defined cancers is an emerging field, and the scientific discoveries that form the basis for our efforts to discover and develop product candidates are relatively new. The scientific evidence to support the feasibility of developing product candidates based on these discoveries is both preliminary and limited. The patient populations for our product candidates are not completely defined but are substantially smaller than the general treated cancer population, and we will need to screen and identify these patients. Successful identification of patients is dependent on several factors, including achieving certainty as to how specific genetic alterations respond to our product candidates and developing companion diagnostics to identify such genetic alterations. Furthermore, even if we are successful in identifying patients, we cannot be certain that the resulting patient populations will be large enough to allow us to successfully commercialize our products and achieve profitability. Therefore, we do not know if our approach of treating patients with genetically defined cancers will be successful. If our approach is unsuccessful, our business will suffer.

Our research and development programs and product candidates are at an early stage of development. As a result we are unable to predict if or when we will successfully develop or commercialize our product candidates.*

Our clinical-stage product candidate, tipifarnib, as well as our other pipeline assets are at an early stage of development and will require significant investment and regulatory approvals prior to commercialization. We currently have no product candidates beyond Phase 2 clinical trials. We commenced a Phase 2 clinical trial of tipifarnib in advanced solid tumors with the HRAS mutation in May 2015, a Phase 2 clinical trial in PTCL in September 2015, a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with lower risk MDS in May 2016 and a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with CMML in October 2016. Our development candidate in our ERK program, KO-947, is in IND-enabling pre-clinical development, and our other programs, including our menin-MLL program, are in earlier stages of discovery and development. Each of our product candidates will require additional clinical and preclinical development, management of clinical, preclinical and manufacturing activities, obtaining regulatory approval, obtaining manufacturing supply, building of a commercial organization, substantial investment and significant marketing efforts before we generate any revenues from product sales. We are not permitted to market or promote any of our product candidates before we receive regulatory approval from the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory authorities, and we may never receive such regulatory approval for any of our product candidates. In addition, our product development programs contemplate the development of companion diagnostics. Companion diagnostics are subject to regulation as medical devices and we may be required to obtain marketing approval for accompanying companion diagnostics before we may commercialize our product candidates.

We cannot be certain that clinical development of tipifarnib, KO-947 or any of our other product candidates will be successful or that we will obtain regulatory approval or be able to successfully commercialize any of our product candidates and generate revenue. Success in preclinical testing and early clinical trials does not ensure that later clinical trials will be successful, and the clinical trial process may fail to demonstrate that our product candidates are safe and effective for their proposed uses. Any such failure could cause us to abandon further development of any one or more of our product candidates and may delay development of other product candidates. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials. Tipifarnib has been studied in more than 5,000

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oncology patients and was generally well tolerated and exhibited a manageable side effect profile. However, there is no guarantee that unacceptable side effects will not be identified at the doses and schedules we are using or plan to use in our clinical trials of tipifarnib. In prior studies tipifarnib demonstrated anti-cancer activity in certain patient subsets. However, the anti-cancer activity observed was not sufficient to support marketing approval by the FDA in the indication in which it was sought. Although we are designing our clinical trials to target the patient subsets who we believe are most likely to benefit from treatment with tipifarnib, there is no guarantee that our clinical trials will be successful. A number of companies in the biopharmaceutical industry have suffered significant setbacks in advanced clinical trials due to lack of efficacy or adverse safety profiles, notwithstanding promising results in earlier clinical trials. Any delay in, or termination of, our clinical trials will delay and possibly preclude the filing of any new drug applications, or NDAs, with the FDA and, ultimately, our ability to commercialize our product candidates and generate product revenue.

We have not previously submitted an NDA to the FDA, or similar drug approval filings to comparable foreign authorities, for any product candidate, and we cannot be certain that any of our product candidates will receive regulatory approval. Further, our product candidates may not receive regulatory approval even if they are successful in clinical trials. If we do not receive regulatory approvals for our product candidates, we may not be able to continue our operations. Even if we successfully obtain regulatory approvals to market one or more of our product candidates, our revenues will be dependent, in part, upon our or our future collaborators’ ability to obtain regulatory approval of the companion diagnostics to be used with our product candidates, if required, as well as the size of the markets in the territories for which we gain regulatory approval and have commercial rights. If the markets for patient subsets that we are targeting are not as significant as we estimate, we may not generate significant revenues from sales of such products, if approved.

Difficulty in enrolling patients could delay or prevent clinical trials of our product candidates. We may find it difficult to enroll patients in our clinical trials for tipifarnib.*

Identifying and qualifying patients to participate in clinical studies of our product candidates is critical to our success. The timing of our clinical studies depends in part on the speed at which we can recruit patients to participate in testing our product candidates, and we may experience delays in our clinical trials if we encounter difficulties in enrollment.

In addition to the potentially small populations for our clinical trials of tipifarnib, the eligibility criteria of our clinical trials will further limit the pool of available study participants as we will require that patients have specific characteristics that we can measure or to assure their disease is either severe enough or not too advanced to include them in a study. Additionally, the process of finding and diagnosing patients may prove costly. We also may not be able to identify, recruit and enroll a sufficient number of patients to complete our clinical studies because of the perceived risks and benefits of the product candidate under study including the number and frequency of study required procedures and tests, the availability and efficacy of competing therapies and clinical trials, the proximity and availability of clinical study sites for prospective patients, and the patient referral practices of physicians. If patients are unwilling to participate in our studies for any reason, the timeline for recruiting patients, conducting studies, and obtaining regulatory approval of potential products may be delayed.

If we experience delays in the completion of, or termination of, any clinical trial of our product candidates, the commercial prospects of our product candidates will be harmed, and our ability to generate product revenue from any of these product candidates could be delayed or prevented. In addition, any delays in completing our clinical trials will increase our costs, slow down our product candidate development and approval process, and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenue. 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, including:

We may not be successful in our efforts to build a pipeline of product candidates.

A key element of our strategy is to build a pipeline of small molecule product candidates that inhibit cancer signaling targets where we believe outcomes can be improved by using molecular diagnostics to identify those patients whose tumors have the genetic mutations most likely to respond to treatment, and to progress those product candidates through clinical development for the treatment of a variety of different types of cancer. We may not be able to develop product candidates that are safe and effective inhibitors of all or any of these targets. Even if we are successful in building a product pipeline, the potential product candidates that we identify may not be suitable for clinical development for a number of reasons, including causing harmful side effects or demonstrating other

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characteristics that indicate a low likelihood of receiving marketing approval or achieving market acceptance. If our methods of identifying potential product candidates fail to produce a pipeline of potentially viable product candidates, then our success as a business will be dependent on the success of fewer potential product candidates, which introduces risks to our business model and potential limitations to any success we may achieve.

Clinical drug development involves a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome. We may incur additional costs or experience delays in completing, or ultimately be unable to complete, the development and commercialization of our product candidates.*

The risk of failure for all of our product candidates is high. Before obtaining marketing approval from regulatory authorities for the sale of any product candidate, we must complete preclinical development and then conduct extensive clinical trials to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of our product candidates in humans. Clinical testing is expensive, difficult to design and implement and can take many years to complete, and its outcome is inherently uncertain. Failure can occur at any time during the clinical trial process. Further, the results of preclinical studies and early clinical trials of our product candidates may not be predictive of the results of subsequent clinical trials, and interim results of a clinical trial do not necessarily predict final results. Moreover, preclinical and clinical data are often susceptible to varying interpretations and analyses, and many companies that have believed their product candidates performed satisfactorily in preclinical studies and clinical trials have nonetheless failed to obtain marketing approval of their products. For instance, the FDA issued a non-approval letter for tipifarnib in acute myeloid leukemia in June 2005. It is impossible to predict when or if any of our product candidates will prove effective or safe in humans or will receive regulatory approval.

We may experience delays in our clinical trials and we do not know whether planned clinical trials will begin or enroll patients on time, need to be redesigned or be completed on schedule, if at all. We have experienced a delay in completing the manufacture of clinical supplies of KO-947, which has resulted in a delay in submitting an IND for KO-947. We currently anticipate commencing a Phase 1 trial of KO-947 in the first half of 2017, however, if we are unable to timely complete the manufacture of clinical supplies of KO-947, our clinical trial may be further delayed, or may not start at all. If the FDA or IRBs have comments on our study plans for our ongoing or planned Phase 2 clinical trials of tipifarnib or our planned Phase 1 clinical trial of KO-947 that we are required to address, such studies may be delayed, or may not start at all. Clinical trials may be delayed, suspended or prematurely terminated at any time by us or by the FDA or other similar regulatory agency if it is determined at any time that patients may be or are being exposed to unacceptable health risks, including risk of death, or if compounds are not manufactured in compliance with current good manufacturing practice, or cGMP, regulations or with acceptable quality. There can be no assurance that the FDA will not put any of our product candidates on clinical hold in the future. We may experience numerous unforeseen events during, or as a result of, clinical trials that could delay or prevent our ability to receive marketing approval or commercialize our product candidates. Clinical trials may be delayed, suspended or prematurely terminated because costs are greater than we anticipate or for a variety of reasons, such as:

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If we are required to conduct additional clinical trials or other testing of our product candidates beyond those that we currently contemplate, if we are unable to successfully complete clinical trials of our product candidates or other testing, if the results of these clinical trials or tests are not positive or are only modestly positive or if there are safety concerns, we may:

Our product development costs will also increase if we experience delays in testing or marketing approvals. We do not know whether any of our preclinical studies or clinical trials will need to be restructured or will be completed on schedule, or at all. Significant preclinical or clinical trial delays also could shorten any periods during which we may have the exclusive right to commercialize our product candidates or allow our competitors to bring products to market before we do and impair our ability to successfully commercialize our product candidates and may harm our business and results of operations.

We may not be successful in advancing the clinical development of our product candidates, including tipifarnib.*

In order to execute on our strategy of advancing the clinical development of our product candidates, we have designed our Phase 2 clinical trials of tipifarnib, and expect to design future clinical trials, to include patients whose tumors harbor the applicable genetic alterations that we believe contribute to particular cancer subsets. Our goal in doing this is to enroll patients who have the highest probability of responding to the drug, in order to show early and statistically significant evidence of clinical efficacy. If we are unable to identify genetic alterations, or biomarkers, that are predictive of response to our product candidates, or we are unable to include patients whose tumors harbor the applicable genetic alterations in our clinical trials, or if our product candidates fail to work as we expect, our ability to assess the therapeutic effect, seek participation in FDA expedited review and approval programs, including Breakthrough Therapy, Fast Track Designation, Priority Review and Accelerated Approval, or otherwise to seek to accelerate clinical development and regulatory timelines, could be compromised, resulting in longer development times, larger clinical trials and a greater likelihood of not obtaining regulatory approval. In addition, because the natural history of different tumor types is variable, we will need to study our product candidates, including tipifarnib, in clinical trials specific for a given tumor type and this may result in increased time and cost. Even if our product candidate demonstrates efficacy in a particular tumor type, we cannot guarantee that any product candidate, including tipifarnib, will behave similarly in all tumor types, and we will be required to obtain separate regulatory approvals for each tumor type we intend a product candidate to treat. If any of our clinical trials are unsuccessful, our business will suffer.

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Preclinical and clinical testing of tipifarnib that has been conducted to date may not have been performed in compliance with applicable regulatory standards, which could lead to increased costs or material delays for their further development.

We licensed the rights to develop our lead product candidate, tipifarnib, from Janssen in December 2014, and the development of tipifarnib prior to our license was conducted wholly by Janssen or any third parties with which it had contracted. As a result, we were not involved with nor did we have any control over any of those development activities. Because we had no input on Janssen’s development activities relating to tipifarnib, we may discover that all or certain elements of the clinical trials and studies it performed have not been in compliance with applicable regulatory standards or have otherwise been deficient, particularly relative to current requirements as development of tipifarnib began in the 1990’s. Any such deficiency in the prior development of tipifarnib may adversely affect our ability to obtain regulatory approval for tipifarnib.

Our product candidates may cause serious adverse events or have unacceptable side effects that could delay, limit or prevent their development.*

If our product candidates are associated with unacceptable side effects in preclinical or clinical trials or have characteristics that are unexpected, we may need to interrupt, delay or abandon their development or limit development to more narrow uses or subpopulations in which the undesirable side effects or other characteristics are less prevalent, less severe or more acceptable from a risk-benefit perspective.

Tipifarnib has been studied in more than 5,000 oncology patients and was generally well tolerated and exhibited a manageable side effect profile. The most common hematologic adverse events of any grade were neutropenia (low white blood cell count), anemia and thrombocytopenia (low platelet count). The most common non-hematologic adverse events of any grade were gastrointestinal system disorders (nausea, anorexia, diarrhea and vomiting), fatigue and rash. Treatment discontinuation across the prior tipifarnib clinical studies has been in the range of approximately 20-25%. There is no guarantee that additional or more severe side effects will not be identified through further clinical studies. Rights to develop tipifarnib in virology indications have been granted by Janssen to EB Pharma LLC, or EB Pharma, a subsidiary of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals. Undesirable side effects may be identified in clinical trials that EB Pharma may conduct in virology indications, which may negatively impact the development, commercialization or potential value of tipifarnib.

We have not yet initiated clinical trials of KO-947, and it is likely that there may be side effects associated with its use in humans. Any observed drug-related side effects could affect patient recruitment or the ability of enrolled patients to complete the clinical trial or result in potential product liability claims. Additionally, if results of our trials for tipifarnib, KO-947 or other product candidates reveal an unacceptable frequency and severity of serious adverse events or side effects, our trials could be suspended or terminated and the FDA or comparable foreign regulatory agencies could require us to cease further development of, or deny approval of, our product candidates for any or all targeted indications. Many compounds developed in the biopharmaceutical industry that initially showed promise in early-stage testing for treating cancer have later been found to cause side effects that prevented further development of those compounds. Any of these occurrences may harm our business, financial condition and prospects significantly.

We may expend our limited resources to pursue a particular product candidate or indication and fail to capitalize on 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 managerial resources, we must focus on a limited number of research programs and product candidates and on specific indications. As a result, we may forego 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 products or profitable market opportunities. Our spending on current and future discovery and preclinical development programs and product candidates for specific indications may not yield any commercially viable products.

Failure to successfully validate, develop and obtain regulatory approval for companion diagnostics for our product candidates could harm our drug development strategy and operational results.*

As one of the central elements of our business strategy and clinical development approach, we seek to screen and identify subsets of patients with a genetic alteration who may derive meaningful benefit from our product candidates. To achieve this, certain of our programs may be dependent on the development and commercialization of a companion diagnostic. We intend to partner development of companion diagnostics for use in clinical trials and, if successful, for commercialization of our product candidates. Companion diagnostics are developed in conjunction with clinical programs for the associated product and are subject to regulation as medical devices. Each agency that approves a product will independently need to approve the companion diagnostic before or concurrently with its approval of the product candidate, and before a product can be commercialized. The approval of a companion diagnostic as part of the product label will limit the use of the product candidate to only those patients who express the specific genetic alteration it was developed to detect. We may also experience delays in developing a sustainable, reproducible and scalable

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manufacturing process or transferring that process to commercial partners or negotiating insurance reimbursement plans, all of which may prevent us from completing our clinical trials or commercializing our products on a timely or profitable basis, if at all.

In our Phase 2 clinical trial of tipifarnib in advanced cancers with HRAS mutations, patients are being enrolled based on information from the clinical sites on the patients’ tumor HRAS mutation status. Typically, this information is being obtained by the clinical sites from next-generation sequencing, or NGS, panels used by the site to characterize patients’ tumors. In some disease indications including HRAS mutant squamous cell head and neck cancer, it may not be routine to screen all patients. In such cases we may facilitate screening at third party CROs. This may result in additional cost and longer timelines. If the results of our Phase 2 clinical trials are positive and we validate our biomarker hypotheses in those clinical trials, we plan to partner development and validation of companion diagnostic tests to aid in the selection of patients in subsequent clinical trials of tipifarnib and to prepare and submit an investigational device exemption, or IDE, for use of the companion diagnostic in the clinical trial. Any delay or failure by us or our third-party collaborators to develop or obtain IDE approval for use of companion diagnostics in our clinical trials of tipifarnib could delay or prevent us from commencing or completing our clinical trials. We expect that the companion diagnostic tests will either be a qualitative polymerase chain reaction-based assay or an NGS-based assay. The results of NGS panels being currently used at sites may not be accurate or consistent across sites, and our development of tipifarnib or a companion diagnostic may be delayed or complicated by a change in assay methodology.

Companion diagnostics are subject to regulation by the FDA and comparable foreign regulatory authorities as medical devices and require separate clearance or approval prior to their commercialization. To date, the FDA has required premarket approval of all companion diagnostics for cancer therapies. We and our third-party collaborators may encounter difficulties in developing and obtaining approval for these companion diagnostics. Any delay or failure by us or third-party collaborators to develop or obtain regulatory approval of a companion diagnostic could delay or prevent approval of our product candidates.

Failure by us or our third-party collaborators to successfully commercialize companion diagnostics developed for use with our product candidates could harm our ability to commercialize these product candidates.

Even if we or our companion diagnostic collaborators successfully obtain regulatory approval for the companion diagnostics for our product candidates, our collaborators:

Additionally, we or our collaborators may encounter production difficulties that could constrain the supply of the companion diagnostics, affect the ease of use, affect the price or have difficulties gaining acceptance of the use of the companion diagnostics in the clinical community.

If companion diagnostics for use with our product candidates fail to gain market acceptance, our ability to derive revenues from sales of our product candidates could be harmed. If we or our collaborators fail to commercialize these companion diagnostics, we may not be able to enter into arrangements with another diagnostic company to obtain supplies of an alternative diagnostic test for use in connection with our product candidates or do so on commercially reasonable terms, which could adversely affect and delay the development or commercialization of our product candidates.

Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties

We rely on third-party contractors and organizations to conduct our clinical trials, and those third parties may not perform satisfactorily, including failing to meet deadlines for the completion of such clinical trials.*

We rely on third party contractors, clinical data management organizations, independent contractors, medical institutions and clinical investigators to support our pre-clinical development activities and conduct our clinical trials, including our Phase 2 clinical trials of tipifarnib. These agreements may terminate for a variety of reasons, including a failure to perform by the third parties. If we are required to enter into alternative arrangements, our product development activities would be delayed.

We compete with many other companies, some of which may be our competitors, for the resources of these third parties. Large pharmaceutical companies often have significantly more extensive agreements and relationships with such third-party providers, and

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such third-party providers may prioritize the requirements of such large pharmaceutical companies over ours. The third parties on whom we rely may terminate their engagements with us at any time, which may cause delay in the development and commercialization of our product candidates. If any such third party terminates its engagement with us or fails to perform as agreed, we may be required to enter into alternative arrangements, which would result in significant cost and delay to our product development program. Moreover, our agreements with such third parties generally do not provide assurances regarding employee turnover and availability, which may cause interruptions in the research on our product candidates by such third parties.

Our reliance on these third parties to conduct our clinical trials will reduce our control over these activities but will not relieve us of our responsibilities. For example, we will remain responsible for ensuring that each of our clinical trials is conducted in accordance with the general investigational plan and protocols for the clinical trial. Moreover, the FDA and other regulatory authorities require us to comply with good clinical practices for conducting, recording and reporting the results of clinical trials to assure that data and reported results are credible and accurate and that the rights, integrity and confidentiality of clinical trial participants are protected. We are also required to register ongoing clinical trials and post the results of completed clinical trials on a government-sponsored database, ClinicalTrials.gov, within specified timeframes. Failure to do so can result in fines, adverse publicity and civil and criminal sanctions.

Additionally, we rely substantially on third-party data managers for our clinical trial data. There is no assurance that these third parties will not make errors in the design, management or retention of our data or data systems. There is no assurance that these third parties will pass FDA or other regulatory audits, which could delay or prevent regulatory approval.

If these third parties do not successfully carry out their contractual duties, meet expected deadlines or conduct our clinical trials in accordance with regulatory requirements or our stated protocols, we will not be able to obtain, or may be delayed in obtaining, marketing approvals for our product candidates and will not be able to, or may be delayed in our efforts to, successfully commercialize our product candidates.

We depend on third parties for the manufacture of our product candidates for preclinical and clinical testing and expect to continue to do so for commercialization. This reliance on third parties increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our product candidates or products at an acceptable cost and quality, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts.*

We do not own or operate facilities for the manufacture of our product candidates, and we do not have any manufacturing personnel. We currently have no plans to build our own clinical or commercial scale manufacturing capabilities. Janssen has provided us with its existing inventory of clinical supply of tipifarnib. Janssen also provided us with its existing inventory of crude drug substance and bulk key intermediate for manufacture of drug substance for tipifarnib. A portion of the clinical supply of tablets of tipifarnib provided by Janssen have a non-uniform surface where the film coating on the tablets has worn away to a varying degree. We believe this surface erosion is a cosmetic defect only and has no impact on patient safety or the effectiveness of the tablets, and an insignificant impact on taste masking. We rely, and expect to continue to rely, on third parties, for the manufacture of additional clinical supplies of tipifarnib and our other product candidates for preclinical and clinical testing. We will rely on third parties as well for commercial manufacture if any of our product candidates receive marketing approval. This reliance on third parties increases the risk that we will not have sufficient quantities of our product candidates or products or such quantities at an acceptable cost or quality, which could delay, prevent or impair our development or commercialization efforts. We also expect to rely on other third parties to store and distribute drug supplies for our clinical trials.

The manufacture of pharmaceutical products is complex and requires significant expertise and capital investment, including the development of drug formulation and manufacturing techniques and process controls. Manufacturers of pharmaceutical products often encounter difficulties in production, particularly in scaling up and validating initial production and absence of contamination. These problems include difficulties with production costs and yields, quality control, including stability of the product, quality assurance testing, operator error, shortages of qualified personnel, as well as compliance with strictly enforced federal, state and foreign regulations. Furthermore, if contaminants are discovered in our products or in the manufacturing facilities in which our products are made, such manufacturing facilities may need to be closed for an extended period of time to investigate and remedy the contamination. Our initial liquid formulation of KO-947 for intravenous dosing did not demonstrate stability characteristics consistent with our specifications, which resulted in a delay in the completion of our manufacturing activities for clinical supplies of KO-947 and a delay in submitting an IND for KO-947. Accordingly, we have continued our formulation development work to develop a lyophilized formulation of KO-947 for use in clinical trials. We cannot assure that our lyophilized formulation will have the stability and sterility characteristics that are acceptable to us or the FDA.

If we are unable to develop a formulation of KO-947 with acceptable stability and sterility characteristics, or experience an unexpected delay or loss of supply of any of our product candidates for any reason, whether as a result of manufacturing, supply or storage issues or otherwise, our business may be harmed and we may experience delays, disruptions, suspensions or terminations of, or we may be required to restart or repeat, any pending or ongoing clinical trials. Although we generally do not begin a clinical trial

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unless we believe we have a sufficient supply of a product candidate to complete the clinical trial, we may be required to manufacture additional supplies of our product candidates to the extent our estimates of the amounts required prove inaccurate, we suffer unexpected losses of product candidate supplies, or to the extent that we are required to have fresh product candidate supplies manufactured to satisfy regulatory requirements or specifications. Any significant delay or discontinuation in the supply of a product candidate, or the raw material components thereof, due to the need to replace a supplier, contract manufacturer or other third-party manufacturer, could considerably harm our business and delay completion of our clinical trials, product testing and potential regulatory approval of our product candidates. Any performance failure on the part of our existing or future manufacturers, suppliers or distributors could delay clinical development or marketing approval of our product candidates or commercialization of our products, producing additional losses and depriving us of potential product revenue.

We may be unable to establish any agreements with third-party manufacturers or to do so on acceptable terms. Even if we are able to establish agreements with third-party manufacturers, reliance on third-party manufacturers entails additional risks, including:

Third-party manufacturers may not be able to comply with cGMP regulations or similar regulatory requirements outside the United States. Our failure, or the failure of our third-party manufacturers, to comply with applicable regulations could result in sanctions being imposed on us, including clinical holds, fines, injunctions, civil penalties, delays, suspension or withdrawal of approvals, license revocation, seizures or recalls of product candidates or products, operating restrictions and criminal prosecutions, any of which could significantly and adversely affect supplies of our products.

Our product candidates and any products that we may develop may compete with other product candidates and products for access to manufacturing facilities. There are a limited number of manufacturers that operate under cGMP regulations and that might be capable of manufacturing for us.

Risks Related to Regulatory Approval of Our Product Candidates and Other Legal Compliance Matters

If we are not able to obtain, or if there are delays in obtaining, required regulatory approvals, we will not be able to commercialize our product candidates, and our ability to generate revenue will be materially impaired.

Our product candidates must be approved by the FDA pursuant to an NDA in the United States and by the European Medicines Agency, or EMA, and similar regulatory authorities outside the United States prior to commercialization. The process of obtaining marketing approvals, both in the United States and abroad, is expensive and takes many years, if approval is obtained at all, and can vary substantially based upon a variety of factors, including the type, complexity and novelty of the product candidates involved. Failure to obtain marketing approval for a product candidate will prevent us from commercializing the product candidate. We have not received approval to market any of our product candidates from regulatory authorities in any jurisdiction. We have no experience in filing and supporting the applications necessary to gain marketing approvals and expect to rely on third-party CROs to assist us in this process. Securing marketing approval requires the submission of extensive preclinical and clinical data and supporting information to regulatory authorities for each therapeutic indication to establish the product candidate’s safety and efficacy. Securing marketing approval also requires the submission of information about the product manufacturing process to, and inspection of manufacturing facilities by, the regulatory authorities. Our product candidates may not be effective, may be only moderately effective or may prove to have undesirable or unintended side effects, toxicities or other characteristics that may preclude our obtaining marketing approval or prevent or limit commercial use. Regulatory authorities have substantial discretion in the approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our data are insufficient for approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other studies. In addition, varying interpretations of the data obtained from preclinical and clinical testing could delay, limit or prevent marketing approval of a product candidate. Changes in marketing approval policies during the development period, changes in or the enactment of additional statutes or regulations, or changes in regulatory review for each submitted product application, may also cause delays in or prevent the approval of an application.

If we experience delays in obtaining approval or if we fail to obtain approval of our product candidates, the commercial prospects for our product candidates may be harmed and our ability to generate revenues will be materially impaired.

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We may not be able to benefit from available regulatory exclusivity periods if another company obtains regulatory approval for tipifarnib before we do.*

As the composition of matter patents covering tipifarnib recently expired in the United States and in countries in Europe, our commercial strategy for tipifarnib relies on obtaining other patents related to tipifarnib and on non-patent regulatory exclusivity. In the United States, a pharmaceutical manufacturer may obtain five years of non-patent exclusivity upon FDA approval of an NDA for a new chemical entity, which is a drug that contains an active moiety that has not been approved by the FDA in any other NDA. An “active moiety” is defined as the molecule or ion responsible for the drug substance’s physiological or pharmacologic action. During the five-year exclusivity period, the FDA cannot accept for filing any abbreviated new drug application seeking approval of a generic version of that drug or any Section 505(b)(2) NDA for the same active moiety and that relies on the FDA’s findings regarding that drug, except that the FDA may accept an application for filing after four years if the follow-on applicant makes a paragraph IV certification. EB Pharma has licensed rights from Janssen to develop tipifarnib in virology indications. If EB Pharma obtains regulatory approval for tipifarnib in a virology indication before we obtain regulatory approval in one of our oncology or other non-virology indications, the five-year exclusivity period would commence on the date upon which EB Pharma obtains regulatory approval, and as a result, the period of regulatory exclusivity to which we may be entitled may be reduced or eliminated and the commercial prospects for tipifarnib would be harmed as a result.

Additionally, if EB Pharma obtains approval of tipifarnib for a virology indication, EB Pharma may sell tipifarnib at a lower price, which could adversely affect the price at which we could sell tipifarnib for oncology or other non-virology indications.

We may not be able to obtain orphan drug exclusivity for the product candidates for which we seek it, which could limit the potential profitability of such product candidates.

Regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions, including the United States and Europe, may designate drugs for relatively small patient populations as orphan drugs. Under the Orphan Drug Act, the FDA may designate a product as an orphan drug if it is a drug intended to treat a rare disease or condition, which is generally defined as a patient population of fewer than 200,000 individuals in the United States. Generally, if a product with an orphan drug designation subsequently receives the first marketing approval for the indication for which it receives the designation, then the product is entitled to a period of marketing exclusivity that precludes the applicable regulatory authority from approving another marketing application for the same drug for the same indication during the exclusivity period. The applicable period is seven years in the United States and ten years in Europe. The European exclusivity period can be reduced to six years if a drug no longer meets the criteria for Orphan Drug Designation or if the drug is sufficiently profitable so that market exclusivity is no longer justified. Orphan Drug Exclusivity may be lost if the FDA or EMA determines that the request for designation was materially defective, if the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient quantity of the drug to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition.

We expect that we may in the future pursue an orphan drug designation for at least some of our product candidates, including tipifarnib. However, obtaining an orphan drug designation can be difficult, and we may not be successful in doing so for any of our product candidates. Even if we were to obtain orphan drug exclusivity for a product candidate, that exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from the competition of different drugs for the same condition, which could be approved during the exclusivity period. Additionally, after an orphan drug is approved, the FDA could subsequently approve another application for the same drug for the same condition if the FDA concludes that the later drug is shown to be safer, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care. The failure to obtain an orphan drug designation for any product candidates we may develop for the treatment of rare cancers, and/or the inability to maintain that designation for the duration of the applicable exclusivity period, could reduce our ability to make sufficient sales of the applicable product candidate to balance our expenses incurred to develop it, which would have a negative impact on our operational results and financial condition.

If we obtain an orphan drug designation and FDA approval of tipifarnib for an oncology indication, we would be entitled to seven years of marketing exclusivity for that orphan drug indication. However, if a competitor obtained approval of a generic form of tipifarnib for another indication, physicians would not be prevented from prescribing the generic drug for the orphan indication during the period of marketing exclusivity. Such prescribing practices could adversely affect the sales of tipifarnib for the orphan indication.

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A Fast Track Designation by the FDA, even if granted for any of our product candidates, may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process and does not increase the likelihood that our product candidates will receive marketing approval.

We do not currently have Fast Track Designation for any of our product candidates but intend to seek such designation. If a drug is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition and the drug demonstrates the potential to address unmet medical needs for this condition, the drug sponsor may apply for the FDA Fast Track Designation. The FDA has broad discretion whether or not to grant this designation. Even if we believe a particular product candidate is eligible for this designation, we cannot assure you that the FDA would decide to grant it. Even if we do receive Fast Track Designation, we may not experience a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional FDA procedures. The FDA may withdraw Fast Track Designation if it believes that the designation is no longer supported by data from our clinical development program. Many drugs that have received Fast Track Designation have failed to obtain drug approval.

A Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the FDA, even if granted for any of our product candidates, may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process, and does not increase the likelihood that our product candidates will receive marketing approval.

We do not currently have Breakthrough Therapy Designation for any of our product candidates, but we may seek such designation. A Breakthrough Therapy is defined as a drug that is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over existing therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. For drugs that have been designated as Breakthrough Therapies, interaction and communication between the FDA and the sponsor can help to identify the most efficient path for development.

Designation as a Breakthrough Therapy is within the discretion of the FDA. Accordingly, even if we believe, after completing early clinical trials, that one of our product candidates meets the criteria for designation as a Breakthrough Therapy, the FDA may disagree and instead determine not to make such designation. In any event, the receipt of a Breakthrough Therapy designation for a product candidate may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to drugs considered for approval under conventional FDA procedures and does not assure ultimate approval by the FDA. In addition, even if one or more of our product candidates qualify as Breakthrough Therapies, the FDA may later decide that such product candidates no longer meet the conditions for qualification and rescind such designations.

Failure to obtain marketing approval in international jurisdictions would prevent our product candidates from being marketed abroad.

In order to market and sell our products in the European Union and many other jurisdictions, we or our third-party collaborators must obtain separate marketing approvals and comply with numerous and varying regulatory requirements. The approval procedure varies among countries and can involve additional testing. The time required to obtain approval may differ substantially from that required to obtain FDA approval. The regulatory approval process outside the United States generally includes all of the risks associated with obtaining FDA approval. In addition, in many countries outside the United States, it is required that the product be approved for reimbursement before the product can be approved for sale in that country. We or our third-party collaborators may not obtain approvals from regulatory authorities outside the United States on a timely basis, if at all. Approval by the FDA does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions, and approval by one regulatory authority outside the United States does not ensure approval by regulatory authorities in other countries or jurisdictions or by the FDA. We may not be able to file for marketing approvals and may not receive necessary approvals to commercialize our products in any market.

Any product candidate for which we obtain marketing approval will be subject to extensive post-marketing regulatory requirements and could be subject to post-marketing restrictions or withdrawal from the market, and we may be subject to penalties if we fail to comply with regulatory requirements or if we experience unanticipated problems with our products, when and if any of them are approved.*

Our product candidates and the activities associated with their development and commercialization, including their testing, manufacture, recordkeeping, labeling, storage, approval, advertising, promotion, sale and distribution, are subject to comprehensive regulation by FDA and other regulatory authorities. These requirements include, without limitation, submissions of safety and other post-marketing information and reports, registration and listing requirements, cGMP requirements relating to manufacturing, quality control, quality assurance and corresponding maintenance of records and documents, including periodic inspections by the FDA and other regulatory authorities, requirements regarding the distribution of samples to physicians, tracking and reporting of payments to physicians and other healthcare providers, and recordkeeping.

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The FDA may also impose requirements for costly post-marketing studies or clinical trials and surveillance to monitor the safety or efficacy of the product. The FDA closely regulates the post-approval marketing and promotion of drugs to ensure drugs are marketed only for the approved indications and in accordance with the provisions of the approved labeling. The FDA imposes stringent restrictions on manufacturers’ communications regarding use of their products and if we promote our products beyond their approved indications, we may be subject to enforcement action for off-label promotion. Violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act relating to the promotion of prescription drugs may lead to investigations alleging violations of federal and state healthcare fraud and abuse laws, as well as state consumer protection laws.

In addition, later discovery of previously unknown adverse events or other problems with our products, manufacturers or manufacturing processes, or failure to comply with regulatory requirements, may yield various results, including:

Non-compliance with European Union requirements regarding safety monitoring or pharmacovigilance, and with requirements related to the development of products for the pediatric population, can also result in significant financial penalties. Similarly, failure to comply with the European Union’s requirements regarding the protection of personal information can also lead to significant penalties and sanctions.

Our relationships with customers and third-party payors and our general business operations will be subject to applicable anti-kickback, fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations, which could expose us to criminal sanctions, civil penalties, contractual damages, reputational harm and diminished profits and future earnings, among other penalties.*

Healthcare providers and third-party payors will play a primary role in the recommendation and prescription of any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval. Our current and future arrangements with healthcare providers, third-party payors and customers may expose us to broadly applicable fraud and abuse and other healthcare laws and regulations 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. Restrictions under applicable federal and state healthcare laws and regulations include the following:

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Some state laws require pharmaceutical companies to comply with the pharmaceutical industry’s voluntary compliance guidelines and the relevant compliance guidance promulgated by the federal government and may require drug manufacturers to report information related to payments and other transfers of value to physicians and other healthcare providers or marketing expenditures. State and foreign laws also govern the privacy and security of health information in some circumstances, many of which differ from each other in significant ways and often are not preempted by HIPAA, thus complicating compliance efforts.

Efforts to ensure that our business arrangements with third parties will comply with applicable healthcare laws and regulations will 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, damages, fines, imprisonment, exclusion of products from government funded healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, disgorgement, contractual damages, reputational harm, diminished profits and future earnings, and the curtailment or restructuring of our operations. If any of the physicians or other healthcare providers or entities with whom we expect to do business is found to be not in compliance with applicable laws, they may be subject to criminal, civil or administrative sanctions, including exclusions from government funded healthcare programs.

Recently enacted and future legislation may increase the difficulty and cost for us to obtain marketing approval of and commercialize our product candidates and affect the prices we may obtain.*

In the United States and some foreign jurisdictions, there have been a number of legislative and regulatory changes and proposed changes regarding the healthcare system that could prevent or delay marketing approval of our product candidates, restrict or regulate post-approval activities and affect our ability to profitably sell any product candidates for which we obtain marketing approval.

For example, in March 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act, or collectively the ACA, a sweeping law intended to broaden access to health insurance, improve quality, reduce or constrain the growth of healthcare spending, enhance remedies against fraud and abuse, add new transparency requirements for the healthcare and health insurance industries, impose new taxes and fees on the health industry and impose additional health policy reforms.

Among the provisions of the ACA of importance to our potential product candidates and our business are the following:

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Since its enactment there have been judicial and Congressional challenges to certain aspects of the ACA, and we expect there will be additional challenges and amendments to the ACA in the future.

In addition, other legislative changes have been proposed and adopted since the ACA was enacted. These changes included aggregate reductions to Medicare payments to providers of up to 2% per fiscal year, starting in 2013, that due to subsequent legislative amendments, will stay in effect through 2025 unless additional Congressional action is taken. In January 2013, President Obama signed into law the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which, among other things, reduced Medicare payments to certain providers, and increased the statute of limitations period for the government to recover overpayments to providers from three to five years. These new laws may result in additional reductions in Medicare and other healthcare funding, which could have a material adverse effect on customers for our drugs, if approved, and accordingly, our financial operations. Further, recently there has been heightened governmental scrutiny over the manner in which manufacturers set prices for their marketed products. For example, there have been several recent U.S. Congressional inquiries and proposed bills designed to, among other things, bring more transparency to drug pricing, review the relationship between pricing and manufacturer patient programs, and reform government program reimbursement methodologies for drug products.

We expect that the ACA, as well as other healthcare reform measures that 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. Any reduction in reimbursement from Medicare or other government programs may result in a similar reduction in payments from private payors. 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.

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 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-marketing testing and other requirements.

Governments outside the United States tend to impose strict price controls, which may adversely affect our revenues, if any.

In some countries, particularly the countries of the European Union, the pricing of prescription pharmaceuticals is subject to governmental control. In these countries, 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 may be required to conduct a clinical trial that compares the cost-effectiveness of our product candidate to other available therapies. If reimbursement for our products is unavailable or limited in scope or amount, or if pricing is set at unsatisfactory levels, our business could be harmed, possibly materially.

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 harm our business.

We are subject to numerous environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing laboratory procedures and the handling, use, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials and wastes. Our operations involve the use of hazardous and flammable materials, including chemicals and biological materials. Our operations also produce hazardous waste products. We generally contract with third parties for the disposal of these materials and wastes. We cannot eliminate the risk of contamination or injury from these materials. In the event of contamination or injury resulting from our use of hazardous materials, we could be held liable for any resulting damages, and any liability could exceed our resources. We also could incur significant costs associated with civil or criminal fines and penalties for failure to comply with such laws and regulations.

Although we maintain workers’ compensation insurance to cover us for costs and expenses we may incur due to injuries to our employees resulting from the use of hazardous materials, this insurance may not provide adequate coverage against potential liabilities. We do not maintain insurance for environmental liability or toxic tort claims that may be asserted against us in connection with our storage or disposal of biological, hazardous or radioactive materials.

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In addition, we may incur substantial costs in order to comply with current or future environmental, health and safety laws and regulations. These current or future laws and regulations may impair our discovery, preclinical development or production efforts. Our failure to comply with these laws and regulations also may result in substantial fines, penalties or other sanctions.

Risks Related to the Commercialization of Our Product Candidates

Even if any of our product candidates receives marketing approval, it may fail to achieve the degree of market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community necessary for commercial success.

If any of our product candidates receives marketing approval, it may nonetheless fail to gain sufficient market acceptance by physicians, patients, third-party payors and others in the medical community. For example, current cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy are well established in the medical community, and doctors may continue to rely on these treatments to the exclusion of our product candidates. In addition, physicians, patients and third-party payors may prefer other novel products to ours. If our product candidates do not achieve an adequate level of acceptance, we may not generate significant product revenues and we may not become profitable. The degree of market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved for commercial sale, will depend on a number of factors, including:

We currently have no marketing and sales force. If we are unable to establish effective sales or marketing capabilities or enter into agreements with third parties to sell or market our product candidates if they obtain regulatory approval, we may not be able to effectively sell or market our product candidates, if approved, or generate product revenues.

We currently do not have a marketing or sales team for the marketing, sales and distribution of any of our product candidates that are able to obtain regulatory approval. In order to commercialize any product candidates, we must build on a territory-by-territory basis marketing, sales, distribution, managerial and other non-technical capabilities or make arrangements with third parties to perform these services, and we may not be successful in doing so. If our product candidates receive regulatory approval, we intend to establish an internal sales or marketing team with technical expertise and supporting distribution capabilities to commercialize our product candidates, which will be expensive and time consuming and will require significant attention of our executive officers to manage. Any failure or delay in the development of our internal sales, marketing and distribution capabilities would adversely impact the commercialization of any of our products that we obtain approval to market. With respect to the commercialization of all or certain of our product candidates, we may choose to collaborate, either globally or on a territory-by-territory basis, with third parties that have direct sales forces and established distribution systems, either to augment our own sales force and distribution systems or in lieu of our own sales force and distribution systems. If we are unable to enter into such arrangements when needed on acceptable terms or at all, we may not be able to successfully commercialize any of our product candidates that receive regulatory approval or any such commercialization may experience delays or limitations. If we are not successful in commercializing our product candidates, either on our own or through collaborations with one or more third parties, our future product revenue will suffer and we may incur significant additional losses.

We face substantial competition, which may result in others discovering, developing or commercializing competing products before or more successfully than we do.

The development and commercialization of new drug products is highly competitive. We face competition with respect to our current product candidates, and will face competition with respect to any product candidates that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the future, from major pharmaceutical companies, specialty pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies worldwide. There are a number of large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that currently market and sell products or are pursuing the development of products for the treatment of the disease indications for which we are developing our product candidates. Some of these competitive products and therapies are based on scientific approaches that are the same as or

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similar to our approach, and others are based on entirely different approaches. Potential competitors also include academic institutions, government agencies and other public and private research organizations that conduct research, seek patent protection and establish collaborative arrangements for research, development, manufacturing and commercialization.

Specifically, there are a large number of companies developing or marketing treatments for cancer, including many major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, which may directly compete with tipifarnib, KO-947 and any other future product candidates.

Our commercial opportunity could be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products 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 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 and or slow our regulatory approval. In addition, our ability to compete may be affected in many cases by insurers or other third-party payors seeking to encourage the use of generic products. Generic products are currently on the market for the indications that we are pursuing, and additional products are expected to become available on a generic basis over the coming years. If our product candidates achieve marketing approval, we expect that they will be priced at a significant premium over competitive generic products.

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, preclinical testing, conducting clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and marketing approved products than we 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 and other early-stage companies may also prove to be significant competitors, particularly through collaborative arrangements with large and established companies. These third parties compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified scientific and management personnel, establishing clinical trial sites and patient registration for clinical trials, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our programs.

The insurance coverage and reimbursement status of newly-approved products is uncertain. Failure to obtain or maintain coverage and adequate reimbursement for new or current products could limit our ability to market those products and decrease our ability to generate revenue.

The availability and extent of coverage and reimbursement by governmental and private payors is essential for most patients to be able to afford expensive treatments. Sales of our product candidates will depend substantially, both domestically and abroad, on the extent to which the costs of our product candidates will be paid by health maintenance, managed care, pharmacy benefit and similar healthcare management organizations, or reimbursed by government health administration authorities, private health coverage insurers and other third-party payors. If reimbursement is not available, or is available only to limited levels, we may not be able to successfully commercialize our product candidates. Even if coverage is provided, the approved reimbursement amount may not be high enough to allow us to establish or maintain pricing sufficient to realize a sufficient return on our investment.

There is significant uncertainty related to the insurance coverage and reimbursement of newly approved products. In the United States, the principal decisions about reimbursement for new medicines are typically made by the CMS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as CMS decides whether and to what extent a new medicine will be covered and reimbursed under Medicare. Private payors often, but not always, follow CMS’s decisions regarding coverage and reimbursement. It is difficult to predict what CMS will decide with respect to coverage and reimbursement for fundamentally novel products such as ours, as there is no body of established practices and precedents for these new products. One payor’s determination to provide coverage for a drug product does not assure that other payors will also provide coverage for the drug product. Further, a payor’s decision to provide coverage for a drug product does not imply that an adequate reimbursement rate will be approved. We or our collaborators 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. Nonetheless, our product candidates may not be considered medically necessary or cost-effective.

Reimbursement agencies in Europe may be more conservative than CMS. For example, a number of cancer drugs have been approved for reimbursement in the United States and have not been approved for reimbursement in certain European countries. Outside the United States, international operations are generally subject to extensive governmental price controls and other market regulations, and we believe the increasing emphasis on cost-containment initiatives in Europe, Canada, and other countries has and will continue to put pressure on the pricing and usage of our product candidates. In many countries, the prices of medical products are subject to varying price control mechanisms as part of national health systems. In general, the prices of medicines under such systems are substantially lower than in the United States. Other countries allow companies to fix their own prices for medicines, but monitor and control company profits. Additional foreign price controls or other changes in pricing regulation could restrict the amount that we are able to charge for our product candidates. Accordingly, in markets outside the United States, the reimbursement for our products may be reduced compared with the United States and may be insufficient to generate commercially reasonable revenues and profits.

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Moreover, increasing efforts by governmental and third-party payors, in the United States and abroad, to cap or reduce healthcare costs may cause such organizations to limit both coverage and level of reimbursement for new products approved and, as a result, they may not cover or provide adequate payment for our product candidates. We expect to experience pricing pressures in connection with the sale of any of our product candidates, due to the trend toward managed healthcare, the increasing influence of health maintenance organizations and additional legislative changes. The downward pressure on healthcare costs in general, particularly prescription drugs and surgical procedures and other treatments, has become very intense. As a result, increasingly high barriers are being erected to the entry of new products into the healthcare market.

In addition to CMS and private payors, professional organizations such as the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Society of Clinical Oncology can influence decisions about reimbursement for new medicines by determining standards for care. In addition, many private payors contract with commercial vendors who sell software that provide guidelines that attempt to limit utilization of, and therefore reimbursement for, certain products deemed to provide limited benefit to existing alternatives. Such organizations may set guidelines that limit reimbursement or utilization of our products.

Product liability lawsuits against us could cause us to incur substantial liabilities and to limit commercialization of any products that we may develop.

We face an inherent risk of product liability exposure related to the testing of our product candidates in human clinical trials and will face an even greater risk if we commercially sell any products that we may develop. If we cannot successfully defend ourselves against claims that our product candidates or products caused injuries, we will incur substantial liabilities. Regardless of merit or eventual outcome, liability claims may result in:

Our current product liability insurance coverage may not be adequate to cover all liabilities that we may incur. We may need to increase our insurance coverage as we expand our clinical trials or if we commence commercialization of our product candidates. Insurance coverage is increasingly expensive. We may not be able to maintain insurance coverage at a reasonable cost or in an amount adequate to satisfy any liability that may arise.

Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property

If we are unable to obtain and maintain intellectual property protection for our technology and products, or if the scope of the intellectual property protection obtained is not sufficiently broad, our competitors could develop and commercialize technology and products similar or identical to ours, and our ability to successfully commercialize our technology and products may be impaired.*

We intend to rely upon a combination of regulatory exclusivity periods, patents, trade secret protection, confidentiality agreements, and license agreements to protect the intellectual property related to our current product candidates and development programs. If the breadth or strength of protection provided by any patents, patent applications or future patents we may own, license, or pursue with respect to any of our current or future product candidates or products is threatened, it could threaten our ability to commercialize any of our current or future product candidates or products. Further, if we encounter delays in our development efforts, the period of time during which we could market any of our current or future product candidates or products under any patent protection we obtain would be reduced. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates or products, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such product candidates or products are commercialized.

Our patent rights may not protect our patent protected products and product candidates if competitors devise ways of making products that compete with us without legally infringing our patent rights. For example, our patent rights in tipifarnib are limited in ways that affect our ability to exclude third parties from competing against us. In particular, the patent term for the composition of matter patents covering the active pharmaceutical ingredient, or API, of tipifarnib recently expired in the United States and countries in Europe. Composition of matter patents on APIs are generally considered to be the strongest form of intellectual property protection

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because such patents provide protection without regard to any particular method of use or manufacture or formulation of the API used. Patent term extension may be available in the United States to account for regulatory delays in obtaining human marketing approval for tipifarnib; however, only one patent may be extended per marketed compound. Under our license agreement with Janssen, we and Janssen agree to cooperate in obtaining available patent term extensions. We and Janssen may not reach agreement and no patent term extension may be obtained. Additionally, the applicable authorities, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or U.S. PTO, and the FDA, and any equivalent regulatory authority in other countries, may not agree with our assessment of whether such extensions are available, and may refuse to grant extensions to patents, or may grant more limited extensions than requested. If this occurs, our competitors who obtain the requisite regulatory approval can offer products with the same API as tipifarnib so long as the competitors do not infringe any method of use or formulations patents that we may hold. Competitors may take advantage of our investment in development and clinical trials by referencing our clinical and preclinical data and launch their product earlier than might otherwise be the case.

We expect that following expiration of composition of matter patents and any regulatory exclusivity we are able to obtain, competitors may manufacture and sell generic versions of tipifarnib, at a lower price, which would reduce tipifarnib’s revenues. In certain jurisdictions, legislation mandates generic substitution for brand name drugs.

We depend on our licensors to prosecute and maintain patents and patent applications that are material to our business. Any failure by our licensors to effectively protect these intellectual property rights could adversely impact our business and operations.

We have licensed patent rights from third parties for some of our development programs, including tipifarnib from Janssen and compounds in our menin-MLL program from the University of Michigan. As a licensee of third parties, we rely on these third parties to file and prosecute patent applications and maintain patents and otherwise protect the licensed intellectual property under some of our license agreements. We have not had and do not have primary control over these activities for certain of our patents or patent applications and other intellectual property rights. We cannot be certain that such activities by third parties have been or will be conducted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations or will result in valid and enforceable patents or other intellectual property rights. Pursuant to the terms of the license agreements with some of our licensors, the licensors may have the right to control enforcement of our licensed patents or defense of any claims asserting the invalidity of these patents and even if we are permitted to pursue such enforcement or defense, we will require the cooperation of our licensors. We cannot be certain that our licensors will allocate sufficient resources or prioritize their or our enforcement of such patents or defense of such claims to protect our interests in the licensed patents. Even if we are not a party to these legal actions, an adverse outcome could harm our business because it might prevent us from continuing to license intellectual property that we may need to operate our business.

With respect to the patent portfolio for tipifarnib, which is in-licensed from Janssen, Janssen maintains rights to prosecute and maintain patents and patent applications within the portfolio as well as to assert such patents against infringers within and outside the scope of our license, and to defend such patents against claims of invalidity and unenforceability. Although we have rights to consult with Janssen on actions taken as well as back-up rights of prosecution and enforcement, rights to tipifarnib granted to another licensee, such as EB Pharma, could potentially influence Janssen’s interests in the exercise of its prosecution, maintenance and enforcement rights in a manner that may favor the interests of such other licensee as compared with us.

If we breach any of the agreements under which we license from third parties the commercialization rights to our product candidates, we could lose license rights that are important to our business and our operations could be materially harmed.*

We have in-licensed from Janssen the use, development and commercialization rights in all indications other than virology, for our lead product candidate, tipifarnib. We have also in-licensed rights to potential product candidates in other programs in our pipeline. As a result, our current business plans are dependent upon our satisfaction of certain conditions to the maintenance of the Janssen agreement and the rights we license under it and our other in-license agreements. The Janssen license agreement provides that we are subject to diligence obligations relating to the commercialization and development of tipifarnib, milestone payments, royalty payments and other obligations. If we fail to comply with any of the conditions or obligations or otherwise breach the terms of our license agreement with Janssen, or any of our other license agreements or license agreements we may enter into on which our business or product candidates are dependent, Janssen or other licensors may have the right to terminate the applicable agreement in whole or in part and thereby extinguish our rights to the licensed technology and intellectual property and/or any rights we have acquired to develop and commercialize certain product candidates, including, with respect to our license agreement with Janssen, tipifarnib. The loss of the rights licensed to us under our license agreement with Janssen, or our other license agreements or any future license agreement that we may enter granting us rights on which our business or product candidates are dependent, would eliminate our ability to further develop the applicable product candidates and would materially harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

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The patent applications of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies involve highly complex legal and factual questions, which, if determined adversely to us, could negatively impact our patent position.*

The patent position of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies generally is highly uncertain, involves complex legal and factual questions and has in recent years been the subject of much litigation. In addition, the laws of foreign countries may not protect our rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. For example, India and China do not allow patents for methods of treating the human body. Publications of discoveries in the scientific literature often lag behind the actual discoveries, and patent applications in the United States and other jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all. Therefore, we cannot know with certainty whether we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions claimed in our owned or licensed patents or pending patent applications, or that we or our licensors were the first to file for patent protection of such inventions. As a result, the issuance, scope, validity, enforceability and commercial value of our patent rights are highly uncertain. Our pending and future patent applications may not result in patents being issued which protect our technology or products, in whole or in part, or which effectively prevent others from commercializing competitive technologies and products. Changes in either the patent laws or interpretation of the patent laws in the United States and other countries may diminish the value of our patents or narrow the scope of our patent protection.

Patent reform legislation 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 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, or the Leahy-Smith Act, was signed into law. The Leahy-Smith Act includes a number of significant changes to U.S. patent law. These include provisions that affect the way patent applications are prosecuted and may also affect patent litigation. The U.S. PTO developed new regulations and procedures to govern administration of the Leahy-Smith Act, and many of the substantive changes to patent law associated with the Leahy-Smith Act, and in particular, the first to file provisions, only became effective on March 16, 2013. Accordingly, it is not clear what, if any, impact the Leahy-Smith Act will have on the operation of our business. However, the Leahy-Smith Act and its implementation could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of our patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our issued patents, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

Moreover, we may be subject to a third-party preissuance submission of prior art to the U.S. PTO, or become involved in opposition, derivation, reexamination, inter partes review, post-grant review or interference proceedings challenging our patent rights or the patent rights of others. An adverse determination in any such submission, proceeding or litigation could reduce the scope of, or invalidate, our patent rights, allow third parties to commercialize our technology or products and compete directly with us, without payment to us, or result in our inability to manufacture or commercialize products without infringing third-party patent rights. In addition, if the breadth or strength of protection provided by our patents and patent applications is threatened, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us to license, develop or commercialize current or future product candidates.

Even if our owned and licensed patent applications issue as patents, they may not issue in a form that will provide us with any meaningful protection, prevent competitors from competing with us or otherwise provide us with any competitive advantage. Even if our owned and licensed patents might provide such protection or competitive advantage, we may not have the resources to effectively enforce our rights under such patents, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Further, our competitors may be able to circumvent our owned or licensed patents by developing similar or alternative technologies or products in a non-infringing manner.

The issuance of a patent is not conclusive as to its inventorship, scope, validity or enforceability, and our owned and licensed patents may be challenged in the courts or patent offices in the United States and abroad. Such challenges may result in loss of exclusivity or freedom to operate or in patent claims being narrowed, invalidated or held unenforceable, in whole or in part, which could limit our ability to stop others from using or commercializing similar or identical technology and products, or limit the duration of the patent protection of our technology and products. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing and regulatory review of new product candidates, patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. As a result, our owned and licensed patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours.

Obtaining and maintaining our patent protection depends on compliance with various procedural, document submission, fee payment and other requirements imposed by governmental patent agencies, and our patent protection could be reduced or eliminated for non-compliance with these requirements.

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 U.S. PTO and various governmental patent agencies outside of the United States in several stages over the lifetime of the patents and/or applications. We have systems in place to remind us to pay these fees, and we employ an outside firm and rely on our outside counsel to pay these fees due to non-U.S. patent agencies. The U.S. PTO and various non-U.S. 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, and in many 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

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situations in which non-compliance 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.

We may become involved in lawsuits to protect or enforce our patents or other intellectual property, which could be expensive, time consuming and unsuccessful.

Because competition in our industry is intense, competitors may infringe or otherwise violate our issued patents, patents of our licensors or other intellectual property. To counter infringement or unauthorized use, we may be required to file infringement claims, which can be expensive and time consuming. Any claims we assert against perceived infringers could provoke these parties to assert counterclaims against us alleging that we infringe their patents. In addition, in a patent infringement proceeding, a court may decide that a patent of ours is invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, construe the patent’s claims narrowly or refuse to stop the other party 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 proceeding could put one or more of our patents at risk of being invalidated or interpreted narrowly. We may also elect to enter into license agreements in order to settle patent infringement claims or to resolve disputes prior to litigation, and any such license agreements may require us to pay royalties and other fees that could be significant. 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.

Third parties may initiate legal proceedings alleging that we are infringing their intellectual property rights, the outcome of which would be uncertain and could have a material adverse effect on the success of our business.

Our commercial success depends upon our ability, and the ability of our collaborators, to develop, manufacture, market and sell our product candidates and use our proprietary technologies without infringing the proprietary rights of third parties. There is considerable intellectual property litigation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. We may become party to, or threatened with, future adversarial proceedings or litigation regarding intellectual property rights with respect to our products and technology, including interference or derivation proceedings before the U.S. PTO. Third parties may assert infringement claims against us based on existing patents or patents that may be granted in the future.

If we are found to infringe a third party’s intellectual property rights, we could be required to obtain a license from such third party to continue developing and marketing our products and technology. However, we may not be able to obtain any required license on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Even if we were able to obtain a license, it could be non-exclusive, thereby giving our competitors access to the same technologies licensed to us. We could be forced, including by court order, to cease commercializing the infringing technology or product. In addition, we could be found liable for monetary damages, including treble damages and attorneys’ fees if we are found to have willfully infringed a patent. A finding of infringement could prevent us from commercializing our product candidates or force us to cease some of our business operations, which could materially harm our business. Claims that we have misappropriated the confidential information or trade secrets of third parties could have a similar negative impact on our business.

We may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining necessary rights for our development pipeline through acquisitions and in-licenses.*

Presently we have rights to intellectual property to develop tipifarnib in all fields other than virology, including patents and patent applications we exclusively licensed from Janssen, as well as exclusive worldwide licenses for all therapeutic indications for certain compounds in our other programs, including in our menin-MLL program. Because our programs may involve additional product candidates that may require the use of proprietary rights held by third parties, the growth of our business may depend in part on our ability to acquire, in-license or use these proprietary rights. Additionally, a companion diagnostic may require that we or a third-party collaborator developing the diagnostic acquire proprietary rights held by third parties, which may not be available. We may be unable to acquire or in-license any compositions, methods of use, or other third-party intellectual property rights from third parties that we identify. The licensing and acquisition of third-party intellectual property rights is a competitive area, and a number of more established companies are also pursuing strategies to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights that we may consider attractive. These established companies may have a competitive advantage over us due to their size, cash resources and greater clinical development and commercialization capabilities.

For example, we may collaborate with U.S. and foreign academic institutions to accelerate our discovery and preclinical development work under written agreements with these institutions. Typically, these institutions provide us with an option to negotiate a license to any of the institution’s rights in technology resulting from the collaboration. Regardless of such right of first negotiation for intellectual property, we may be unable to negotiate a license within the specified time frame or under terms that are acceptable to us. If we are unable to do so, the institution may offer the intellectual property rights to other parties, potentially blocking our ability to pursue our program.

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In addition, companies that perceive us to be a competitor may be unwilling to assign or license rights to us. We also may be unable to license or acquire third-party intellectual property rights on terms that would allow us to make an appropriate return on our investment. If we are unable to successfully obtain rights to required third-party intellectual property rights, our business, financial condition and prospects for growth could suffer.

If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets, our business and competitive position would be harmed.

In addition to seeking patents for some of our technology and product candidates, we also rely on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect these trade secrets, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, corporate collaborators, outside scientific collaborators, contract manufacturers, consultants, advisors and other third parties. We seek to protect our confidential proprietary information, in part, by entering into confidentiality and invention or patent assignment agreements with our employees and consultants, however, we cannot be certain that such agreements have been entered into with all relevant parties. Moreover, to the extent we enter into such agreements, any of these parties may breach the agreements and disclose our proprietary information, including our trade secrets, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States are less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. If any of our trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no right to prevent them, or those to whom they communicate it, from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to or independently developed by a competitor, our competitive position would be harmed.

Risks Related to Employee Matters, Managing Growth and Macroeconomic Conditions

We currently have a limited number of employees, are highly dependent on our Chief Executive Officer and our future success depends on our ability to retain key executives and to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel.*

We are an early-stage clinical development company with a limited operating history, and, as of September 30, 2016, we had only 24 employees. We are highly dependent on the expertise of Troy E. Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., our President and Chief Executive Officer, Antonio Gualberto, M.D., Ph.D., our Chief Medical Officer, and Pingda Ren, Ph.D., our Senior Vice President, Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, as well as the other principal members of our management, scientific and clinical teams. Although we have entered into employment letter agreements with our executive officers, each of them may terminate their employment with us at any time. We do not maintain “key person” insurance for any of our executives or other employees. Additionally, Dr. Wilson currently also serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Avidity Biosciences, LLC. As a result, Dr. Wilson is not able to devote all of his business time and attention to our business. Conflicts may arise in the future if there are competing demands on Dr. Wilson’s time and attention and our business may be harmed as a result.

Recruiting and retaining qualified scientific, clinical, manufacturing and sales and marketing personnel will also be critical to our success. The loss of the services of our executive officers or other key employees could impede the achievement of our research, development and commercialization objectives and seriously harm our ability to successfully implement our business strategy. Furthermore, replacing executive officers and key employees may be difficult and may take an extended period of time because of the limited number of individuals in our industry with the breadth of skills and experience required to successfully develop, gain regulatory approval of and commercialize products. Competition to hire from this limited pool is intense, and we may be unable to hire, train, retain or motivate these key personnel on acceptable terms given the competition among numerous pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for similar personnel. We also experience competition for the hiring of scientific and clinical personnel from universities and research institutions. In addition, we rely on consultants and advisors, including scientific and clinical advisors, to assist us in formulating our discovery and preclinical development and commercialization strategy. Our consultants and advisors may be employed by employers other than us and may have commitments under consulting or advisory contracts with other entities that may limit their availability to us. If we are unable to continue to attract and retain high quality personnel, our ability to pursue our growth strategy will be limited.

We expect to expand our development and regulatory capabilities and potentially implement sales, marketing and distribution capabilities, and as a result, we may encounter difficulties in managing our growth, which could disrupt our operations.

We expect to experience significant growth in the number of our employees and the scope of our operations, particularly in the areas of regulatory affairs and commercial, if any of our product candidates receives marketing approval, sales, marketing and distribution. To manage our anticipated future growth, we must continue to implement and improve our managerial, operational and financial systems, expand our facilities and continue to recruit and train additional qualified personnel. Due to our limited financial resources and the limited experience of our management team in managing a company with such anticipated growth, we may not be able to effectively manage the expansion of our operations or recruit and train additional qualified personnel. The expansion of our

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operations may lead to significant costs and may divert our management and business development resources. Any inability to manage growth could delay the execution of our business plans or disrupt our operations.

Unfavorable global economic conditions could adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.*

Our results of operations could be adversely affected by general conditions in the global economy and in the global financial markets. The recent global financial crisis caused extreme volatility and disruptions in the capital and credit markets. A severe or prolonged economic downturn, such as the recent global financial crisis, could result in a variety of risks to our business, including our ability to raise additional capital when needed on acceptable terms, if at all. This is particularly true in Europe, which is undergoing a continued severe economic crisis. A weak or declining economy could also strain our suppliers, possibly resulting in supply disruption. Any of the foregoing could harm our business and we cannot anticipate all of the ways in which the current economic climate and financial market conditions could adversely impact our business.

The United Kingdom’s referendum to leave the European Union or “Brexit,” has and may continue to cause disruptions to capital and currency markets worldwide. The full impact of the Brexit decision, however, remains uncertain. A process of negotiation will determine the future terms of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union. During this period of negotiation, our results of operations and access to capital may be negatively affected by interest rate, exchange rate and other market and economic volatility, as well as regulatory and political uncertainty. Brexit may also have a detrimental effect on our customers, distributors and suppliers, which would, in turn, adversely affect our financial condition.

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

Despite the implementation of security measures, our internal computer systems and those of our CROs, collaborators and third-parties on whom we rely are vulnerable to damage from computer viruses, unauthorized access, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication and electrical failures. While we have not experienced any such system failure, accident or security breach to date, if such an event were to occur and cause interruptions in our operations, it could result in a material disruption of our drug development programs. For example, the loss of clinical trial data from completed or ongoing or planned clinical trials could result in delays in our regulatory approval efforts and we may incur substantial costs to attempt to recover or reproduce the data. If any disruption or security breach resulted in a loss of or damage to our data or applications, or inappropriate disclosure of confidential or proprietary information, we could incur liability and/or the further development of our product candidates could be delayed.

Our operations are vulnerable to interruption by natural disasters, power loss, terrorist activity and other events beyond our control, the occurrence of which could materially harm our business.

Businesses located in California have, in the past, been subject to electrical blackouts as a result of a shortage of available electrical power, and any future blackouts could disrupt our operations. We are vulnerable to a major earthquake, wildfire and other natural disasters, and we have not undertaken a systematic analysis of the potential consequences to our business as a result of any such natural disaster and do not have an applicable recovery plan in place. We do not carry any business interruption insurance that would compensate us for actual losses from interruption of our business that may occur, and any losses or damages incurred by us could cause our business to materially suffer.

Risks Related to Ownership of our Common Stock

Our stock price may fluctuate significantly and you may have difficulty selling your shares based on current trading volumes of our stock.*

Our common stock has been listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “KURA” since November 5, 2015. From September 16, 2015 through November 4, 2015, our common stock was quoted for trading on the OTC Markets—OTCQB tier, or OTCQB, in very limited volume under the symbol “KURO.” Prior to September 16, 2015, our common stock was not publicly-traded. The high and low price per share of our common stock as reported by Nasdaq during the period from November 5, 2015 until September 30, 2016, were $9.06 and $2.50, respectively. The high and low bid quotations per share of our common stock as reported by the OTCQB during the period from September 16, 2015 through November 4, 2015 were $25.00 and $10.00, respectively. We cannot predict the extent to which investor interest in our company will sustain an active trading market on the Nasdaq Global Select Market or any other exchange in the future. We have several stockholders, including affiliated stockholders, who hold substantial blocks of our stock. Sales of large numbers of shares by any of our large stockholders could adversely affect our trading price, particularly given our small historic trading volumes. If stockholders holding shares of our common stock sell, indicate an intention to sell, or if it is perceived that they will sell, substantial amounts of their common stock in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline. Moreover, if an active trading market is not sustained or if the volume of trading is limited, holders of our common stock may have difficulty selling their shares.

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The price of our common stock may be volatile and may be influenced by numerous factors, some of which are beyond our control.*

The market for our common stock could fluctuate substantially due to a variety of factors, some of which may be beyond our control. In addition to the factors discussed in this “Risk Factors” section and elsewhere in this report, these factors include:

In addition, the stock market in general, and the stocks of small-cap biotechnology companies in particular, have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of these companies. Broad market and industry factors may negatively affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. These events may also lead to securities litigation, which can be expensive and time-consuming to defend, regardless of the merit or outcome. The realization of any of the above risks or any of a broad range of other risks, including those described in these “Risk Factors,” could have a dramatic and material adverse impact on the market price of our common stock.

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We have broad discretion in the use of our cash and may not use our cash effectively, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our management has broad discretion in the application of our cash resources. Because of the number and variability of factors that will determine our use of our cash resources, our management might not apply our cash in ways that ultimately increase the value of our common stock. The failure by our management to apply our cash effectively could harm our business. Pending their use, we may invest our cash in short-term, investment-grade, interest-bearing securities. These investments may not yield a favorable return to our stockholders. If we do not invest or apply our cash in ways that enhance stockholder value, we may fail to achieve expected financial results, which could cause our stock price to decline.

FINRA sales practice requirements may limit a stockholder’s ability to buy and sell our stock.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, has adopted rules requiring that, in recommending an investment to a customer, a broker-dealer must have reasonable grounds for believing that the investment is suitable for that customer. Prior to recommending speculative or low-priced securities to their non-institutional customers, broker-dealers must make reasonable efforts to obtain information about the customer’s financial status, tax status, investment objectives and other information. Under interpretations of these rules, FINRA has indicated its belief that there is a high probability that speculative or low-priced securities will not be suitable for at least some customers. If these FINRA requirements are applicable to us or our securities, they may make it more difficult for broker-dealers to recommend that at least some of their customers buy our common stock, which may limit the ability of our stockholders to buy and sell our common stock and could have an adverse effect on the market for and price of our common stock.

Because we became a reporting company under the Exchange Act by means other than a traditional underwritten initial public offering, we may not be able to continue to attract the attention of research analysts at major brokerage firms.

Because we did not become a reporting company by conducting an underwritten initial public offering of our common stock, security analysts of brokerage firms may not continue to provide coverage of our company. In addition, investment banks may be less likely to agree to underwrite secondary offerings on our behalf than they might if we became a public reporting company by means of an underwritten initial public offering, because they may be less familiar with our company as a result of more limited coverage by analysts and the media, and because we became public at an early stage in our development. The failure to receive research coverage or support in the market for our shares will have an adverse effect on our ability to develop a liquid market for our common stock.

The resale of shares covered by our effective shelf registration statement could adversely affect the market price of our common stock in the public market, should one develop, which result would in turn negatively affect our ability to raise additional equity capital.*

The sale, or availability for sale, of our common stock in the public market may adversely affect the prevailing market price of our common stock and may impair our ability to raise additional capital by selling equity or equity-linked securities. We filed a registration statement with the SEC, which was declared effective on July 21, 2015, and subsequently filed a post-effective amendment to such registration statement with the SEC, which was declared effective on April 14, 2016, to register the resale of 13,947,599 shares of our common stock, which represents a substantial portion of the shares of our common stock issued in connection with the Merger. The shelf registration statement permits the resale of these shares at any time, subject to restrictions under applicable law. The resale of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could adversely affect the market price for our common stock and make it more difficult for you to sell shares of our common stock at times and prices that you feel are appropriate. Furthermore, we expect that, because there are a large number of shares registered pursuant to the shelf registration statement, the selling stockholders named in such registration statement will continue to offer shares covered by the shelf registration statement for a significant period of time, the precise duration of which cannot be predicted. Accordingly, the adverse market and price pressures resulting from an offering pursuant to the shelf registration statement may continue for an extended period of time and continued negative pressure on the market price of our common stock could have a material adverse effect on our ability to raise additional equity capital.

We will incur increased costs associated with, and our management will need to devote substantial time and effort to, compliance with public company reporting and other requirements.

As a public company, and particularly if and after we cease to be an “emerging growth company” or a “smaller reporting company,” we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. In addition, the rules and regulations of the SEC and Nasdaq impose numerous requirements on public companies, including requirements relating to our corporate governance practices, with which we will need to comply. Further, we are required to, among other things, file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and operating results. Our management and other personnel will need to

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devote substantial time to gaining expertise regarding operations as a public company and compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and our efforts and initiatives to comply with those requirements could be expensive.

Prior Kura was not subject to requirements to establish, and did not establish, internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures prior to the Merger. Our management team and board of directors will need to devote significant efforts to maintaining adequate and effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting in order to comply with applicable regulations, which may include hiring additional legal, financial reporting and other finance and accounting staff and engaging consultants to assist in designing and implementing such procedures. Additionally, any of our efforts to improve our internal controls and design, implement and maintain an adequate system of disclosure controls may not be successful and will require that we expend significant cash and other resources.

If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal controls, our ability to produce accurate and timely financial statements could be impaired, which could harm our operating results, our ability to operate our business and investors’ views of us.

We are required to comply with certain aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires public companies to conduct an annual review and evaluation of their internal controls and attestations of the effectiveness of internal controls by independent auditors. Ensuring that we have adequate internal financial and accounting controls and procedures in place so that we can produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis is a costly and time-consuming effort that will need to be evaluated frequently. Our failure to maintain the effectiveness of our internal controls in accordance with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could have a material adverse effect on our business. We could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could have an adverse effect on the price of our common stock. In addition, if our efforts to comply with new or changed laws, regulations, and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.

We are an emerging growth company and a smaller reporting company, which will allow us to take advantage of certain reduced disclosure obligations as a public reporting company that may make our common stock less attractive to investors.*

We are an “emerging growth company” under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act and a “smaller reporting company” as defined in applicable rules under the Exchange Act. As an emerging growth company and a smaller reporting company, we are eligible to take advantage of certain extended accounting standards and exemptions from various reporting requirements that are not available to public reporting companies that do not qualify for those classifications. For instance, we are exempt from any requirement that may be adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regarding mandatory audit firm rotation or a supplement to the auditor’s report providing additional information about the audit and financial statements, commonly known as an “auditor discussion and analysis”; we are not required to hold a nonbinding advisory stockholder vote on executive compensation or any golden parachute payments not previously approved by stockholders; we are not required to comply with the requirement of auditor attestation of management’s assessment of internal control over financial reporting, which is required for some other public reporting companies by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; we are eligible for reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic and annual reports; and we are eligible for reduced financial statement disclosure in any registration statements under the Securities Act or reports under the Exchange Act that we may file. For as long as we continue to be an emerging growth company and/or a smaller reporting company, which we anticipate will be for the foreseeable future, we expect that we will take advantage of the reduced disclosure obligations available to us as a result of those respective classifications. As a result, our publicly available disclosure may not be as robust or comprehensive as that of other public reporting companies that do not qualify for those classifications.

Management and our board of directors beneficially own a significant amount of our outstanding equity securities and will be able to exert substantial control over us.

Our executive officers and directors beneficially own a significant percentage of our outstanding equity securities. Accordingly, if they act as a group, our executive officers and directors will be able to significantly influence all business decisions, including with respect to such matters as amendments to our charter, other fundamental corporate transactions such as mergers, asset sales and the sale of us, and otherwise will be able to significantly influence our business and affairs.

Future sales and issuances of our common stock or rights to purchase common stock, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans, outstanding stock options, warrants, or otherwise, could result in dilution to the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause our stock price to fall.*

We expect that significant additional capital will be needed in the future to continue our planned operations. To raise capital, we may sell common stock, convertible securities or other equity securities in one or more transactions at prices and in a manner we determine from time to time. If we sell common stock, convertible securities or other equity securities in more than one transaction,

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investors in a prior transaction may be materially diluted by subsequent sales. Additionally, any such sales may result in material dilution to our existing stockholders, and new investors could gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. Further, any future sales of our common stock by us or resales of our common stock by our existing stockholders or the perception that such sales could occur could cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

Pursuant to our Amended and Restated 2014 Equity Incentive Plan, or 2014 Plan, we are authorized to grant equity awards consisting of shares of our common stock to our employees, directors and consultants. As of September 30, 2016, we had 733,628 shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under our 2014 Plan and options to purchase up to an aggregate of 1,176,591 shares of common stock outstanding. The number of shares available for future grant under our 2014 Plan will automatically increase on January 1 of each year by 4% of the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding on December 31 of the preceding calendar year, subject to the ability of our board of directors to take action to reduce the size of the increase in any given year. On January 1, 2016, the initial automatic increase pursuant to the 2014 Plan occurred, resulting in 854,822 additional shares available for future grant under the 2014 Plan. In addition, we may grant or provide for the grant of rights to purchase shares of our common stock pursuant to our 2015 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or ESPP. As of September 30, 2016, we had 238,705 shares of common stock reserved for future issuance under our ESPP. The number of shares of our common stock reserved for issuance under the ESPP will automatically increase on January 1 of each calendar year by the lesser of 1% of the total number of shares of our common stock outstanding on December 31 of the preceding calendar year and 2,000,000 shares, subject to the ability of our board of directors to take action to reduce the size of the increase in any given year. On January 1, 2016, the initial automatic increase pursuant to the ESPP occurred, resulting in 213,705 additional shares available for future grant under the ESPP. In connection with the Term A Loan, we issued to the lenders warrants to purchase up to 67,976 shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $3.31 per share and if we borrow under Term B Loan, upon the funding of Term B Loan, we will issue to the lenders additional warrants to purchase shares of our common stock. Any future grants of options, warrants or other securities exercisable or convertible into our common stock, or the exercise or conversion of such shares, and any sales of such shares in the market, could have an adverse effect on the market price of our common stock.

Anti-takeover provisions under our charter documents and Delaware law could delay or prevent a change of control which could limit the market price of our common stock and may prevent or frustrate attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.*

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, as amended, and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our board of directors that our stockholders might consider favorable. Some of these provisions include:

In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporate Law, which may prohibit certain business combinations with stockholders owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock. These anti-takeover provisions and other provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, as amended, and amended and restated bylaws could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our board of directors or initiate actions that are opposed by the then-current board of directors and could also delay or impede a merger, tender offer or proxy contest involving our company. These provisions could also discourage proxy contests and make it more difficult for you and other stockholders to elect directors of your choosing or cause us to take other corporate actions you desire. Any delay or prevention of a change of control transaction or changes in our board of directors could cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

Our ability to use our net operating tax loss carryforwards and certain other tax attributes may be limited.

Under Sections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change” (generally defined as a greater than 50% change (by value) in its equity ownership over a three-year period), the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes to offset its post-change income may be limited. As a result of our March 2015 private placement and November 2015 public offering, and other transactions that have

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occurred over the past three years, we may have triggered an “ownership change” limitation. In addition, we may experience ownership changes in the future as a result of subsequent shifts in our stock ownership. As a result, if we earn net taxable income, our ability to use our pre-change net operating loss carryforwards and other pre-change tax attributes to offset U.S. federal and state taxable income may be subject to limitations, which could potentially result in increased future tax liability to us.

We do not intend to pay cash dividends on our capital stock in the foreseeable future.*

We have never declared or paid any dividends on our common stock and do not anticipate paying any dividends in the foreseeable future. Any payment of cash dividends in the future would depend on our financial condition, contractual restrictions, including under our term loan facility, solvency tests imposed by applicable corporate laws, results of operations, anticipated cash requirements and other factors and will be at the discretion of our board of directors. Our stockholders should not expect that we will ever pay cash or other dividends on our outstanding capital stock.

ITEM 6. EXHIBITS

See the Exhibit Index immediately following the signature page of this report.

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SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.

 

 

 

 

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INDEX TO EXHIBITS

 

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Exhibit 31.1

CERTIFICATION

I, Troy E. Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., certify that:

 

 

Exhibit 31.2

CERTIFICATION

I, Heidi Henson, certify that:

 

 

Exhibit 32.1

CERTIFICATION PURSUANT TO

18 U.S.C. SECTION 1350,

AS ADOPTED PURSUANT TO

SECTION 906 OF THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002

In connection with the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q of Kura Oncology, Inc. (the “Company”) for the period ended September 30, 2016, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the date hereof (the “Report”), Troy E. Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and Heidi Henson, as Chief Financial Officer and Secretary of the Company, each hereby certifies, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, that to the best of his or her knowledge: