Evolus (EOLS) Risk Analysis

From time to time, legislation is drafted and introduced in the U.S. Congress or other countries that could significantly change the statutory provisions governing the regulatory clearance or approval, manufacture, and marketing of regulated products or the reimbursement thereof. In addition, regulations and guidance are often revised or reinterpreted by the FDA and other regulatory authorities in ways that may significantly affect our business and our products. Any new regulations or revisions or reinterpretations of existing regulations may impose additional costs or lengthen review times of any future product candidates. Such changes could, among other things, require changes to manufacturing or marketing methods, changes to product labeling or promotional materials, recall, replacement, or discontinuance of one or more of our products; and additional recordkeeping. Additionally, the ability of the FDA to review and approve new products can be affected by a variety of factors, including government budget and funding levels, the ability to hire and retain key personnel, the ability to accept the payment of user fees, statutory, regulatory and policy changes and other events that may otherwise affect the FDA's ability to perform routine functions. Each of these would likely entail substantial time and cost and could materially harm our business and our financial results. In addition, delays in receipt of or failure to receive regulatory clearances or approvals for any future products would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, in its June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, or Loper, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the longstanding Chevron doctrine, under which courts were required to give deference to regulatory agencies' reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal statutes. The Loper decision could result in additional legal challenges to regulations and guidance issued by federal agencies applicable to our current or future operations, including those issued by the FDA and CMS. Further, the Loper decision may result in increased regulatory uncertainty, inconsistent judicial interpretations and other impacts to the agency rulemaking process. We cannot predict which additional measures may be adopted or the impact of current and additional measures on the marketing, pricing and demand for our products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws provide that we can indemnify our directors and officers, in each case to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Separate indemnity agreements have been issued with each director and executive officer. In addition, as permitted by Section 145 of the DGCL, our bylaws and our indemnification agreements that we have entered into with our directors and officers, among other things provide that: - We have indemnified our directors and officers for serving us in those capacities, or for serving as a director, officer, employee or agent of other business enterprises at our request, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law. Delaware law provides that we may indemnify such person if such person acted in good faith and in a manner such person reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to our best interest and, with respect to any criminal proceeding, had no reasonable cause to believe such person's conduct was unlawful. - We may, in our discretion, indemnify employees and agents in those circumstances where indemnification is permitted by applicable law. - We will be required to advance expenses, as incurred, to our directors and officers in connection with defending a proceeding, except that such directors or officers shall undertake to repay such advances if it is ultimately determined that such person is not entitled to indemnification. - The rights conferred in our bylaws will not be exclusive. We may not retroactively amend our bylaw provisions to reduce our indemnification obligations to directors, officers, employees and agents. As a result, claims for indemnification by our directors and officers may reduce our available funds to satisfy successful third-party claims against us and may reduce the amount of money available to us.

Our registered or unregistered trademarks or trade names may be challenged, infringed, circumvented or declared generic or determined to be infringing on other marks. We may not be able to protect our rights to these trademarks and trade names, which we need to build name recognition by potential partners or customers in our markets of interest. Over the long term, if we are unable to establish name recognition based on our trademarks and trade names, then we may not be able to compete effectively, and our business may be adversely affected. Third parties may assert that we are using trademarks or trade names that are confusingly similar to their marks. If any third party were able to establish that our trademarks or trade names were infringing their marks, that third party may be able to block our ability to use the infringing trademark or trade name. In addition, if a third party were to bring such a claim, we would be required to dedicate time and resources to fight the claim, which time and resources could otherwise be used toward the maintenance of our own intellectual property. Parties making claims against us may request and obtain injunctive or other equitable relief, which could prevent our ability to use the subject trademarks or trade names. Defense of these claims, regardless of their merit, would involve substantial litigation expense and would be a substantial diversion of employee resources from our business. In the event of a successful claim of infringement against us, we may have to pay substantial damages, including treble damages and attorneys' fees for willful infringement. We may be required to re-brand one or more of our products, product candidates, or services offered under the infringing trademark or trade name, which may require substantial time and monetary expenditure. Third parties could claim senior rights in marks which might be enforced against our use of trademarks or trade names, resulting in either an injunction prohibiting our sales under those trademarks or trade names.

Our success depends in part on our continued ability to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified management. We believe that our future success is highly dependent upon the contributions of our senior management, particularly David Moatazedi, our President, Chief Executive Officer and member of our Board of Directors, Sandra Beaver, our Chief Financial Officer, Rui Avelar, our Chief Medical Officer and Head of Research and Development, and Tomoko Yamagishi-Dressler, our Chief Marketing Officer, as well as other members of our senior management team. The loss of services of any of these individuals could delay or prevent the successful development of our product pipeline, completion of our planned clinical trials or the commercialization of Jeuveau, Evolysse™, or any future products we develop. In addition, we could experience difficulties attracting and retaining qualified employees in the future. For example, competition for qualified personnel in the pharmaceuticals and medical aesthetic field is intense due to the limited number of individuals who possess the skills and experience required by our industry. We may not be able to attract and retain quality personnel on acceptable terms, or at all. In addition, to the extent we hire personnel from competitors, we may be subject to allegations that they have been improperly solicited or that they have divulged proprietary or other confidential information or that their former employers own their research output.

We may license or selectively pursue strategic collaborations for the development, validation and commercialization of Jeuveau, Evolysse™, and any future product candidates. In any third-party collaboration, we would be dependent upon the success of the collaborators in performing their responsibilities and their continued cooperation. Our collaborators may not cooperate with us or perform their obligations under our agreements with them. Our collaborators may choose to pursue alternative technologies in preference to those being developed in collaboration with us. The development, validation and commercialization of our product candidates will be delayed if collaborators fail to conduct their responsibilities in a timely manner or in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements or if they breach or terminate their collaboration agreements with us. Disputes with our collaborators could also impair our reputation or result in development delays, decreased revenues and litigation expenses. In addition, we may face significant competition in seeking appropriate collaborators. Whether we reach a definitive agreement for a collaboration will depend, among other things, upon our assessment of the collaborator's resources and expertise, the terms and conditions of the proposed collaboration and the proposed collaborator's evaluation of a number of factors. Those factors may include the design or results of clinical trials, the likelihood of approval by the FDA or similar regulatory authorities outside the United States, the potential market for the subject product candidate, the costs and complexities of manufacturing and delivering such product candidate to consumers, the potential of competing products, the existence of uncertainty with respect to our ownership of technology, which can exist if there is a challenge to such ownership without regard to the merits of the challenge and industry and market conditions generally. The collaborator may also consider alternative product candidates or technologies for similar indications that may be available to collaborate on and whether such a collaboration could be more attractive than the one with us for our product candidate. Collaborations are complex and time-consuming to negotiate and document. We may not be able to negotiate collaborations on a timely basis, on acceptable terms, or at all. If we are unable to do so, we may have to curtail the development of such product candidate, reduce or delay its development program or one or more of our other development programs, delay its potential commercialization or reduce the scope of any sales or marketing activities, or increase our expenditures and undertake development or commercialization activities at our own expense. If we elect to increase our expenditures to fund development or commercialization activities on our own, we may need to obtain additional capital, which may not be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we do not have sufficient funds, we may not be able to further develop our product candidates or bring them to market and generate revenue.

Both Jeuveau and Evolysse™ compete within the medical aesthetics market. The medical aesthetic market is highly competitive and dynamic and is characterized by rapid and substantial technological development and product innovations. Our products face, and we anticipate that our future products will face, significant competition from other facial aesthetic products, such as other injectable toxins and dermal fillers. Our products may also compete with unapproved and off-label treatments. Many of our potential competitors, including AbbVie, who first launched BOTOX for cosmetic uses in 2002 and has since maintained the highest market share position in the aesthetic neurotoxin market with its BOTOX product, are large, experienced companies that enjoy significant competitive advantages, such as substantially greater financial resources enabling them to, among other things, market and discount aggressively. Within the dermal filler market we will also face large, experienced competitors such as AbbVie and Galderma. Competitors may also have greater brand recognition for their products, larger sales forces and larger aesthetic product portfolios allowing the companies to bundle products to provide customers more choices and to further discount their products. Additionally, our competitors have greater existing market share in the medical aesthetic market and long-standing customer loyalty programs and sales contracts with large customers which creates established business and financial relationships with customers, aesthetic societies and universities. These competitors may also try to compete with our aesthetic products on price both directly, through rebates and promotional programs to high volume customers and coupons to consumers, and indirectly, through attractive product bundling with complimentary products, such as hyaluronic acid gels that offer convenience and an effectively lower price compared to the total price of purchasing each product separately. These companies may also seek to compete based on their longer operating history. Larger companies may be better capitalized than us and, accordingly, are able to offer greater customer loyalty benefits to encourage repeat use of their products and finance a sustained global advertising campaign to compete with our commercialization efforts at launch. A number of our larger competitors also have access to a significant number of studies and publications that they could use to compete with us. In the long term, we expect to expand our focus to the broader cash-pay healthcare market. Competitors and other parties may seek to impact regulatory approval of our future product applications through the filing of citizen petitions or other similar documents, which could require costly and time-consuming responses to the regulatory agencies. Larger competitors could seek to prevent or delay our commercialization efforts via costly litigation which can be lengthy and expensive and serve to distract our management team's attention. We could face competition from other sources as well, including academic institutions, governmental agencies and public and private research institutions. In addition, we are aware of other companies also developing and/or marketing products in one or more of our target markets, including competing injectable botulinum toxin type A formulations that are currently in Phase III clinical development in North America for the treatment of glabellar lines. For example, Revance Therapeutics, Inc. obtained approval for an injectable botulinum toxin type A neurotoxin on September 8, 2022, called "Daxxify" and Hugel, Inc. obtained approval for its injectable botulinum toxin type A neurotoxin on February 29, 2024. Additionally, both Galderma S.A. and Medytox, Inc. have submitted a BLA to the FDA for an injectable botulinum toxin type A neurotoxin. With the approval of Revance Therapeutic's and Hugel's BLAs and the potential approval of additional BLAs, we expect the competition in the U.S. injectable botulinum toxin market to further increase. We would face similar risks with respect to any future product candidates that we may seek to develop or commercialize in the broader cash-pay healthcare market. Successful competitors in that market have the ability to effectively discover, obtain patents, develop, test and obtain regulatory approvals for products, as well as the ability to effectively commercialize, market and promote approved products, including communicating the effectiveness, safety and value of products to actual and prospective customers and medical staff. Our strategy of competing in the aesthetic neurotoxin market is dependent on the marketing and pricing flexibility that we believe is afforded to a company with a portfolio limited to cash-pay healthcare, comprised of products and procedures that are not reimbursed by third-party payors. In the event that regulations applicable to reimbursed products are changed to apply to cash-pay healthcare products, we would no longer have this flexibility and we may not be able to compete as effectively with our competitors which may have a material effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, as a result of the royalty payments that we are required to pay under the Medytox Settlement Agreements, we may not be able to discount Jeuveau to the extent that we previously provided discounts to customers without impacting our gross profit margins. If we increase prices for any customers, their volume of purchases may decrease which would have a material and adverse effect on our business and results of operations. In addition, competitors may develop new technologies within the medical aesthetic market that may be superior in safety and efficacy to our products or offer alternatives to the use of toxins or hyaluronic acid gels, including surgical and radio frequency techniques. To compete successfully in the medical aesthetic market, we will have to demonstrate that our products are at least as safe and effective as current products sold by our competitors. Our products also compete with other medical aesthetic products or non-urgent aesthetic services. For example, consumers have recently prioritized spending on weight loss drugs or other beauty products which may impact the amount of discretionary income they have to spend on our products. Competition in the medical aesthetic market could result in price-cutting and reduced profit margins, any of which would harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Due to less stringent regulatory requirements, there are many more aesthetic products and procedures available for use in international markets than are approved for use in the United States. There are also fewer limitations on the claims that our competitors in international markets can make about the effectiveness of their products and the manner in which they can market them. As a result, we expect to face more competition in these markets than in the United States. Our commercial opportunity could also be reduced or eliminated if our competitors develop and commercialize products that are safer, are more effective, have fewer or less severe side effects, are more convenient or are less expensive than Jeuveau or any other product that we may develop. Our competitors also may obtain FDA or other regulatory approval for these products more rapidly than we may obtain approval for our products, which could result in our competitors establishing a strong market position before we are able to enter the market, which may create additional barriers to successfully commercializing Jeuveau and any future product candidates and attracting practitioner and consumer demand.

We purchase our products from our licensors, Daewoong and Symatese. Pursuant to our agreements with our licensors, we are obligated to submit forecasts of anticipated product orders and may, from time to time, submit purchase orders on the basis of these forecasting requirements. For a variety of reasons we may not be able to accurately predict future demand. In addition, we expect our licensors to manufacture our products for other markets in which we do not have exclusive rights. If our business significantly expands, our demand for commercial products would increase and our licensors may be unable to meet our increased demand. In addition, our products have fixed future expiration dates. If we overestimate demand for our products, we will have excess inventory, which may have to be disposed of if such inventory exceeds approved expiration dates, which would result in lost revenues and increase our expenses. If we underestimate requirements for our products, we may have inadequate inventory, which could interrupt, delay or prevent delivery of our products to our customers. Any of these occurrences would negatively affect our financial performance.