MaxCyte (MXCT) Risk Analysis

Products from our research and development programs will take time and considerable resources to develop, and may include improvements or changes to our current products, and we may not be able to complete development and commercialization of new or enhanced products on a timely basis, or at all. There can be no assurance that our research and development efforts will produce commercially viable products and solutions and before we can commercialize any new products, we will need to expend significant funds in order to, for example: - conduct substantial research and development;- in some cases, obtain necessary regulatory clearance or approval;- further develop and scale our laboratory, engineering and manufacturing processes to accommodate different products;- source and enter into agreements with new suppliers and manufacturers; and - further develop and scale our infrastructure. Our product development processes involve a high degree of risk, and these efforts may be delayed or fail for many reasons, including failure of the product to perform as expected and failure to reliably demonstrate the advantages of the product. Even if we are successful in developing new products, it will require us to make significant additional investments in marketing and selling resources to commercialize any such products. As a result, we may be unsuccessful in commercializing new products that we develop, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We currently sell and license our products primarily in the cell therapy market, which is characterized by significant enhancements and evolving industry and regulatory standards and a high degree of regulatory scrutiny. As a result, our customers' needs are rapidly evolving. If we do not appropriately innovate and offer our customers comprehensive solutions and otherwise invest in new technologies, our offerings may become less desirable in the markets we serve, and our customers could move to new technologies offered by our competitors or make products themselves. Without the timely introduction of new instruments, single-use disposables software, services, enhancements and new product integrations with electroporation, our offerings may become less competitive over time, in which case our competitive position and operating results could suffer. Accordingly, we focus significant efforts and resources on the development and identification of new products and applications to further drive adoption of our platform. To the extent we fail to timely introduce new and innovative products, offer enhancements to our existing products, adequately predict our customers' needs or fail to obtain desired levels of market acceptance, our business may suffer and our operating results could be adversely affected. We believe our products have potential applications across a wide range of markets and we have targeted certain markets in which we believe our technology has significant advantages, or for which we believe we have a higher probability of success or significant revenue opportunity. For example, we are committed to developing our platform's applications within the life sciences and biotechnology markets, including research, discovery, development, and manufacturing of next-generation autologous and allogeneic cell-based therapeutics, as well as drug or biologic discovery, including protein production for biological therapeutics, viral vectors, vaccines and for the discovery of small molecule drugs. We seek to maintain a process of prioritization and resource allocation among our programs to maintain a balance between advancing near-term opportunities and exploring additional markets and uses for our technology. However, due to the significant resources required for the development of applications data for our products or services for new markets, we must make decisions on which markets to pursue and the amount of resources to allocate to each. Our decisions concerning the allocation of research, development, collaboration, management and financial resources toward particular markets, products or services may not lead to the development of any viable products or services and may divert resources away from better opportunities. Similarly, our potential decisions to delay, terminate or collaborate with third parties in respect of certain markets may subsequently also prove to be suboptimal and could cause us to miss valuable opportunities. In particular, if we are unable to successfully achieve on-going adoption of our electroporation platform technology, it could slow or stop our business growth and negatively impact our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

Many of our customers are early-stage biopharmaceutical and biotechnology with limited financial resources. These customers necessarily are selective with respect to which product candidates they select for development and advance through clinical trials. During 2023 we observed customers, particularly early-stage customers, reprioritize their spending and operations to focus on lead product candidates rather than secondary or tertiary programs. To the extent that our customers limit development and clinical advancement to a smaller group of product candidates, our opportunities to support them with our platform are reduced. As a result of limited financial resources, our customers may also discontinue development of product candidates. To the extent that any of these product candidates are supported by our platform, our product sales would be negatively impacted.

Our offerings include products such as instruments, single-use disposables and the provision of support services to our customers with the goal of supporting the advancement of our customers' cell-therapies and/or drug or biologic discovery activities. We aim to provide our customers with a single, integrated platform to discover, develop and manufacture safer, more targeted and increasingly complex cell-based therapies, designed for integration into customers' current good manufacturing practices environments. We cannot guarantee that the market for our current products will continue to generate significant or consistent demand. Demand for our current products could be significantly diminished by competitive technologies or products that replace them or render them obsolete or less desirable. Accordingly, we must continue to invest in research and development to develop competitive products. Our future success depends on our ability to anticipate our customers' needs and develop new products and enhance current products to address those needs. Introduction of new products and product enhancements will require that we effectively transfer production processes from research and development to manufacturing and coordinate our efforts with those of our suppliers to achieve the desired level of production. If we fail to transfer production processes effectively, develop product enhancements or introduce new products or enabling services in sufficient quantities to meet the needs of our customers, or effectively coordinate with our suppliers, our sales may be reduced and our business could be harmed. The commercial success of all of our products will depend upon their acceptance by the life science and biopharmaceutical industries. Some of the products that we are developing are based upon new technologies or approaches. As a result, there can be no assurance that these new products, even if successfully developed and introduced, will be accepted by customers. If customers do not adopt our new products, services and technologies, our results of operations may suffer and, as a result, the market price of our common stock may decline.

Providing our customers with an established regulatory path for use of our technology in the development of their therapeutics is an important value we provide to our customers. We have established and maintained FDA Master Files and equivalent Master and Technical Files in certain other countries to provide that regulatory path. We may be unable in a timely manner, or at all, to provide similar filings in all countries where our customers desire to perform clinical trials, and regulators may refuse to accept such filings or may change their approach to such filings in a manner that weakens our ability to support our customers. If regulators at any point find that such filings have not been sufficiently maintained or are insufficient to support clinical trials or product approvals, as a result we may need to disclose confidential information to our partners to allow them to include such information in their filings. In addition, while we believe our FDA Master Files and equivalent Master and Technical Files have the potential to create certain efficiencies and reduce certain regulatory development risks for our customers, there is no guarantee that referencing our FDA Master File or Master and Technical Files, as applicable, will result in success in customers' submissions seeking authorization for clinical trials or marketing authorization. We cannot be certain that the FDA or foreign regulators will not require audits of and information on our ExPERT systems used in clinical development as our partners advance their cellular therapies from preclinical through clinical development toward marketing approval. Such additional information requests and audits of our facilities could result in delays in the development and potential regulatory approval of our partners' cellular therapy product candidates, affecting timing of milestone payments and our future ability to enter into new SPL agreements. Failure to adequately respond to any such regulatory requests could result in the regulator preventing our electroporation system from being utilized for a partner's cellular therapy. This could result in our partners not utilizing our ExPERT system for their other clinical programs and negatively impact our ability to enter into partnership agreements with other cellular therapy developers.

We offer our cell engineering platform to partners who are engaged in drug, biologics and therapeutics discovery and development. These partners include large pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies of all sizes and non-profit and academic institutions. While we receive early payments generated through sales of our ExPERT instruments and PAs and recurring revenue through the annual licenses of the ExPERT instrument to our partners, we estimate that the vast majority of the economic value of the SPL partnerships that we enter into with our partners is in the downstream payments that are payable if certain milestones are met or approved products are sold. As a result, our future growth is dependent on the ability of our partners to successfully develop and commercialize therapies discovered or produced using our platform. Due to our reliance on our partners, the risks relating to product development, regulatory authorization or approval and commercialization apply to us derivatively through the activities of our partners. There can be no assurance that our partners will successfully develop, secure marketing approvals for and commercialize any drug, biologic or therapeutic candidates discovered or produced with our instruments. As a result, we may not realize the intended benefits of our partnerships. We have entered into 26 SPL partnerships resulting in a growing number of clinical milestone payments and the first licensed program to receive regulatory marketing approval occurred in 2023. Due to the uncertain, time-consuming and costly clinical development and regulatory approval process, our partners may not successfully develop any drug, biologic or therapeutic candidates with our platform, or our partners may choose to discontinue the development of these candidates for a variety of reasons, including due to safety, risk versus benefit profile, exclusivity, competitive landscape, manufacturing challenges, commercialization potential, production limitations or prioritization of their resources. For product candidates of the type expected to be developed using our technology, there is the potential they could create a safety risk to patients and can also limit product efficacy. It is possible that none of these drug, biologic or therapeutic candidates will ever receive regulatory approval and, even if approved, such candidates may never be successfully commercialized resulting in clinical progress milestones and commercial sales-based payments not being earned. Regulatory authorities have substantial discretion in the review and approval process and may refuse to accept any application or may decide that our partners' data are insufficient to support progression to further stages of preclinical or clinical development or for marketing approval and require additional preclinical, clinical or other studies. The number and types of preclinical studies and clinical trials that will be required for regulatory approval also varies depending on the product candidate (including cell therapies, for which development is inherently challenging), the disease or condition that the product candidate is designed to address, and the regulations applicable to any particular product candidate. Application of the legal and regulatory standards for approval, and the type and amount of clinical data and data supporting chemistry, manufacturing and control necessary to gain approval may change during the course of a product candidate's clinical development and may vary among jurisdictions. It is possible that any product candidates our partners may seek to develop in the future will never obtain the appropriate, necessary regulatory approvals. In addition, even if these drug, biologic or therapeutic candidates receive regulatory approval in the United States, our partners may never obtain approval or commercialize them outside of the United States, which would limit their full market potential and therefore may impact our ability to realize their potential downstream value. Furthermore, approved drugs, biologics or therapeutics may not achieve broad market acceptance among physicians, patients, the medical community and third-party payors, in which case revenue generated from their sales could be limited. Third-party payors may opt to implement efficacy-based payment mechanisms over a multi-year period, which could impact potential product sales in any given year. Likewise, our partners have to make decisions about which clinical stage and preclinical drug, biologic and therapeutic candidates to develop and advance, and our partners may not have the resources to invest in all of the drug, biologic or therapeutic candidates that are produced using our platform, or clinical data and other development considerations may not support the advancement of one or more drug candidates developed using our platform. Decision-making about which drug or therapeutic candidates to prioritize involves inherent uncertainty, and our partners' development program decision-making and resource prioritization decisions, which are outside of our control, may adversely affect the potential value of those partnerships. Additionally, subject to its contractual obligations to us, if one or more of our partners is involved in a business combination, the partner might deemphasize or terminate the development or commercialization of any drug, biologic or therapeutic candidate that utilizes our platform. If one of our SPL customers terminates its agreement with us, we may find it more difficult to attract new partners. Our partners, and therefore our potential financial outcomes under our agreements, are also subject to inherent industry-wide FDA and other regulatory risk. The number of new drug applications and biologics license applications approved by the FDA varies significantly over time and if there were to be an extended reduction in the number of new drug applications and biologics license applications approved by the FDA, the industry could contract and our business could be materially harmed. Furthermore, regulatory agencies may introduce new submission requirements or implement new regulations for cell and gene therapies which could result in extended timelines for our partners, creating uncertainty or delays in achieving milestones. Such delays in these milestones could materially affect our ability to forecast and receive milestone payments outlined in our license agreements. Our partners' failure to effectively advance, market and sell suitable drug, biologic and therapeutic candidates developed using our platform could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects, and cause the market price of our common stock to decline. In addition to the inherent uncertainty in development addressed above, our ability to forecast our future revenues may be limited.

Certain customer agreements contain provisions permitting the customer to become a party to, or a beneficiary of, a technology escrow agreement under which we place proprietary know-how and source code for our products in escrow with a third party. Under these escrow agreements, the know-how and source code to the applicable product may be released to the customer, typically for its use to further develop, maintain, modify and enhance the product, upon the occurrence of specified events, such as our filing for bankruptcy and breaching our representations, warranties or covenants of our agreements with our customers. Disclosing this know-how and source code may limit the intellectual property protection we can obtain or maintain for that know-how or source code or the products embodying or containing that know-how or source code and may facilitate intellectual property infringement claims against us. Each of these could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Depending on future actions by the U.S. Congress, the federal courts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"), the laws and regulations governing patents could change in unpredictable ways that could weaken our ability to obtain new patents or to enforce our existing patents as well as patents that we might obtain in the future. Further, we cannot predict how this and future decisions by these governing bodies may impact the value of our patents. Any similar adverse changes in the patent laws of other jurisdictions could also harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

We may be subject to claims that our technologies infringe upon the intellectual property or other proprietary rights of third parties. Any claims, even those without merit, could be time-consuming and expensive, and could divert our management's attention away from the execution of our business plan. Moreover, any settlement or adverse judgment resulting from the claim could require us to pay substantial amounts or obtain a license to continue to use the technology that is the subject of the claim, or otherwise restrict or prohibit our use of the technology. There can be no assurance that we would be able to obtain a license from the third party asserting the claim on commercially reasonable terms, if at all, that we would be able to develop alternative technology on a timely basis, if at all, or that we would be able to obtain a license to use a suitable alternative technology to permit us to continue offering, and our customers to continue using, our affected product.

Even in those instances where we have determined that another party is breaching our intellectual property and other proprietary rights, enforcing our legal rights with respect to such breach may be expensive and difficult. We may need to engage in litigation to enforce or defend our intellectual property and other proprietary rights, which could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources. Further, many of our current and potential competitors are substantially larger than we are and have the ability to dedicate substantially greater resources to defending any claims by us that they have breached our intellectual property rights. If we are unsuccessful in enforcing our intellectual property rights, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We are subject to anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws and regulations, including the FCPA, the U.S. domestic bribery statute contained in 18 U.S.C.§ 201, the U.S. Travel Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, and other state and national anti-bribery and anti-money laundering laws in the countries in which we conduct or may in the future conduct activities. Anti-corruption laws are interpreted broadly and prohibit companies and their employees, agents, contractors and other third-party collaborators from authorizing, promising, offering, providing, soliciting or receiving, directly or indirectly, improper payments or anything else of value to or from persons in the public or private sector. The FCPA also requires public companies to make and keep books and records that accurately and fairly reflect the transactions of the corporation and to devise and maintain an adequate system of internal accounting controls. In addition to selling our products internationally directly through our sales teams, we currently engage third parties outside of the United States and may engage additional third parties outside of the United States, to sell our products internationally and to obtain necessary permits, licenses, patent registrations and other regulatory approvals. We have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or government-affiliated hospitals, universities and other organizations. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of our employees, agents, contractors and other third-party collaborators, even if we do not explicitly authorize or have actual knowledge of such activities. Any violations of the laws and regulations described above may result in substantial civil and criminal fines and penalties, imprisonment, the loss of export or import privileges, debarment, tax reassessments, breach of contract and fraud litigation, reputational harm, and other consequences.

In the ordinary course of business, we collect, receive, store, process, generate, use, transfer, disclose, make accessible, protect, secure, dispose of, transmit, and share (collectively, process) personal information and other sensitive information, including proprietary and confidential business data, trade secrets, intellectual property, data previously collected about clinical trial participants, and sensitive third-party data collected under confidentiality agreements with our customers and potential customers, including scientific plans (collectively, sensitive information). Our data processing activities subject us to numerous data privacy and security obligations, such as various laws, regulations, guidance, industry standards, external and internal privacy and security policies, contractual requirements, and other obligations that govern the processing of personal information in the jurisdictions in which we operate. In the United States, federal, state, and local governments have enacted numerous data privacy and security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal information privacy laws, consumer protection laws (e.g., Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act), and other similar laws (e.g., wiretapping laws). For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA"), as amended by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ("HITECH"), imposes specific requirements relating to the privacy, security, and transmission of individually identifiable health information. In addition, the California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA") applies to personal information of consumers, business representatives, and employees, and requires businesses to provide specific disclosures in privacy notices and honor requests of California residents to exercise certain rights related to their personal information. The CCPA allows for statutory fines for noncompliance (up to $7,500 per violation) and allows private litigants affected by certain data breaches to recover significant statutory damages. Although the CCPA exempts some data processed in the context of clinical trials, the CCPA increases compliance costs and potential liability with respect to other personal information we maintain about California residents. In addition, the CPRA, expanded the CCPA's requirements, including by adding a new right for individuals to correct their personal information and establishing a new regulatory agency, the California Privacy Protection Agency, to implement and enforce the law, which could increase the risk of enforcement. Other states, such as Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut and Utah, have enacted comprehensive data privacy laws, and similar laws have been proposed in several other states, as well as at the federal, state, and local levels - while some of these also exempt data processed in the context of clinical trials, these data privacy laws could nonetheless further complicate compliance efforts. Outside the United States, an increasing number of laws, regulations, and industry standards apply to data privacy and security. For example, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (the "EU GDPR"), the UK GDPR (the "UK GDPR"), and China's Personal Information Protection Law ("PIPL") impose strict requirements for processing personal information. Under the EU GDPR and UK GDPR, government regulators may impose temporary or definitive bans on data processing and other corrective actions; fines of up to €20 million (£17.5 million under the UK GDPR) or up to 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year, whichever is higher; or private litigation related to the processing of personal information brought by classes of data subjects or consumer protection organizations authorized at law to represent their incidents. Furthermore, the EU GDPR provides that EEA Member States may introduce specific requirements related to the processing of "special categories of personal data," including personal information related to health and genetic information, which we may process in connection with clinical trials or otherwise. In the United Kingdom, the UK Data Protection Act 2018 complements the UK GDPR in this regard. This fact may lead to greater divergence on the law that applies to the processing of such personal information across the EEA and/or United Kingdom, which may increase our costs and overall compliance risk. We also target customers in Asia and have operations, distributors, contractors or employees located or active in Asian countries including, but not limited to China, Japan, Australia, and South Korea and are subject to new and emerging data privacy regimes in Asia, including China's Personal Information Protection Law, Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information, and Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act. In the ordinary course of business, we may transfer personal information from Europe and other jurisdictions to the United States or other countries. Europe and other jurisdictions have enacted data localization laws and cross-border personal information transfer laws. For example, the EEA and the United Kingdom have significantly restricted the transfers of personal information, to the United States and other countries whose privacy laws they believe are inadequate. Although there are currently various mechanisms that may be used to legally transfer personal information from the EEA and United Kingdom to the United States, such as the EEA and United Kingdom's standard contractual clauses, these mechanisms are subject to potential legal challenges and there exists some uncertainty regarding whether the standard contractual clauses will remain a valid, reliable mechanism for lawfully transferring personal information to the United States. If we are unable to implement a valid solution for cross-border data transfers, or if the requirements for a legally-compliant transfer are too onerous, we may face significant adverse consequences, including limitations on our ability to collaborate with partners as well as other service providers, contractors and other companies in Europe; the need to increase our processing capabilities within Europe at significant expense or otherwise change the geographical location or segregation of our relevant systems and operations, and increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines and penalties, and injunctions against our processing or transferring of personal information necessary to operate our business -any or all of which could adversely affect our operations or financial results. Additionally, companies that transfer personal information out of the EEA and United Kingdom to other jurisdictions, particularly to the United States, are subject to increased scrutiny from regulators, individual litigants, and activist groups. Some European regulators have ordered certain companies to suspend or permanently cease certain transfers out of Europe for allegedly violating the EU and UK GDPR's cross-border data transfer limitations. Furthermore, other countries outside of Europe have enacted or are considering enacting similar cross-border data transfer restrictions and laws requiring local data residency, which could increase the cost and complexity of delivering our services and operating our business. In addition to data privacy and security laws, we are contractually subject to industry standards adopted by industry groups and may become subject to such obligations in the future. We are also bound by contractual obligations related to data privacy and security, and our efforts to comply with such obligations may not be successful. For example, certain privacy laws, such as the EU and UK GDPR and the CCPA, require us to impose specific contractual restrictions on our service providers. We publish privacy policies, marketing materials and other statements regarding data privacy and security. If these policies, materials or statements are found to be deficient, lacking in transparency, deceptive, unfair, or misrepresentative of our practices, we may be subject to investigation, enforcement actions by regulators or other adverse consequences. Our obligations related to data privacy and security are quickly changing, becoming increasingly stringent, and creating regulatory uncertainty. Additionally, these obligations may be subject to differing applications and interpretations, which may be inconsistent or conflict among jurisdictions. Preparing for and complying with these obligations requires us to devote significant resources (including, without limitation, financial and time-related resources), which could distract management or divert resources from other initiatives and projects, interrupt or delay our development activities, or necessitate changes to our information technologies, systems, and practices and to those of any third parties that process personal information on our behalf. In addition, these obligations may require us to change our business model. Although we endeavor to comply with all applicable data privacy and security obligations, we may at times fail (or be perceived to have failed) to do so. Moreover, despite our efforts, our personnel or third parties upon whom we rely may fail to comply with such obligations, which could negatively impact our business operations and compliance posture. If we or the third parties on which we rely fail, or are perceived to have failed, to address or comply with applicable data privacy and security obligations, we could face significant consequences, including but not limited to: government enforcement actions (e.g., investigations, fines, penalties, audits, inspections, and similar); litigation (including class-related claims);additional reporting requirements and/or oversight; temporary or permanent bans on all or some processing of personal information; orders to destroy or not use personal information; and imprisonment of company officials. Further, individuals or other relevant stakeholders could bring a variety of claims against us for our actual or perceived failure to comply with all applicable data privacy and security obligations. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our reputation, business or financial condition, including but not limited to: loss of actual or prospective customers, collaborators or partners; interruptions or stoppages in our business operations; inability to process personal information or to operate in certain jurisdictions; limited ability to develop or commercialize our products; expenditure of time and resources to defend any claim or inquiry; adverse publicity; or revision or restructuring of our business model or operations.

We are highly dependent on our senior management team and key personnel. Our success will depend on our ability to retain senior management and to attract and retain qualified personnel in the future, including sales, marketing, scientific and technical professionals, and to integrate current and additional personnel in all departments. The loss of members of our senior management, sales, marketing, scientific and technical professionals could result in lower than expected sales and delays in product development. If we are not successful in attracting and retaining highly qualified personnel, our business, financial condition and results of operations, may be negatively impacted. Competition for skilled personnel in our market is intense and may limit our ability to hire and retain highly qualified personnel on acceptable terms, or at all. To induce valuable employees to remain at our company, in addition to salary and cash incentives, we have issued, and will in the future issue, equity awards that vest over time. The value to employees of equity awards that vest over time may be significantly affected by movements in our stock price that are beyond our control and may at any time be insufficient to counteract more lucrative offers from other companies. Our employment arrangements with our employees provide for at-will employment, which means that any of our employees could leave our employment at any time, with or without notice. Despite our efforts to retain valuable employees, they may terminate their employment with us on short notice. Many of the other cell engineering or therapeutic development companies that we compete against for qualified personnel have greater financial and other resources, different risk profiles and a longer history in the industry than we do. They may also provide more diverse opportunities, better chances for career advancement and higher compensation. Some of these characteristics are more appealing to high-quality candidates than what we can offer. Further, if we hire employees from competitors or other companies, their former employers may attempt to assert that these employees or we have breached legal obligations, resulting in a diversion of our time and resources and, potentially, damages. In addition, job candidates and existing employees often consider the value of the equity awards they receive in connection with their employment. If the perceived benefits of our stock awards decline, either because we are a public company or for other reasons, it may harm our ability to recruit and retain highly skilled employees. Many of our employees have become or will soon become vested in a substantial amount of their equity awards. Our employees may be more likely to leave us if the equity they own have significantly appreciated in value relative to the original purchase prices of the shares, or if the exercise prices of the options that they hold are significantly below the market price of our common stock. Our future success also depends on our ability to continue to attract and retain additional executive officers and other key employees as we expand our business and operations. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, it will negatively affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on a limited number of suppliers for certain key components utilized in the assembly of our ExPERT instruments and manufacture of our PAs and buffer, and in some cases, such as certain instrument components (e.g., CPU chips or PA electrodes), we rely on a single supplier for a particular component, subassembly or consumable. Approximately 56% of our inventory purchased during the year ended December 31, 2023 was purchased from one supplier. Although in many cases we use standard components in our products, in some cases, components may only be purchased from a limited number of suppliers or a single supplier. Identifying and qualifying alternate sources may take time and involve additional expense, and there is no guarantee that current suppliers or alternate sources will timely deliver materials that meet our needs. If our customers experience a shortage or delay in delivery of our ExPERT instruments, PAs or buffers our business could be materially and adversely impacted. We presently do not have long-term supply contracts for these components, and none of our third-party suppliers is obligated to supply products to us for any specific period or in any specific quantities, except as may be provided for in submitted and accepted purchase orders. We are not a major customer of many of our suppliers, and these suppliers may therefore give other customers' needs higher priority than ours. Our industry has experienced component shortages and delivery delays in the past, and we may experience shortages or delays of critical components in the future as a result of strong demand in the industry, high demand in unrelated industries such as shortages of electronic components due to digitization in the automotive industry, or other factors. Many of the other components required to build our ExPERT instruments are also occasionally in short supply. Global supply chain constraints during 2021 and 2022 have resulted in some of our suppliers having to prioritize certain customers. While we seek to maintain priority with our suppliers and have not experienced significant delays to date, there can be no guarantee that we will not experience shortages as a result of supply chain issues. In addition, geopolitical tensions, and sanctions imposed in response thereto, may create new supply chain issues or exacerbate current supply chain challenges. If shortages or delays arise, we may not be able to timely secure enough components at reasonable prices or of acceptable quality to build new products, resulting in an inability to meet customer demand or our own operating goals, which could adversely affect our customer relationships, business, operating results and financial condition. Many of the components that we use are part of the global supply chain and may be manufactured overseas. Therefore, our access to, or ability to acquire, components may be impacted by trade disputes, geopolitical conflicts, public health emergencies, or importation restrictions resulting from such trade disputes between governments. These events may result in increased tariffs, duties or taxes that will increase the cost of the components and we may have to increase the price of our products, or incur an impact on our margins, both of which can materially affect customer demand and resulting revenues. Additionally, damage to a manufacturing facility or other property of any of our suppliers or their distribution channels due to fire, flood or other natural disaster or casualty event may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

A portion of our revenue is derived from sales to biopharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. Much of their funding is, in turn, provided by public and private financings, including investments from venture capital funds and, for public companies, the capital markets. In the near term, we expect that a portion of our revenue will continue to be derived from sales to biopharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. Accordingly, the spending policies and practices of these customers-which have been impacted by market conditions and other factors-could have a significant effect on the demand for our products. In addition, the demand for our products may depend upon the research and development budgets of these customers, which are impacted by factors beyond our control, such as: - macroeconomic conditions, and the political climate;- investor confidence in the biopharmaceutical industry and the amount of capital such investors provide to our potential customers;- reduced pricing of approved therapeutics;- scientists' and customers' opinions of the utility of new products or services;- changes in the regulatory environment;- differences in budgetary cycles;- competitor product offerings or pricing;- merger and acquisition activity within the industry;- market-driven pressures to consolidate operations and reduce costs;- market acceptance of relatively new technologies, such as ours;- clinical trial or milestone failures that impact our customers' ability to raise capital; and - inability to sustain capital requirements or bankruptcy. In addition, while the majority of our revenues are derived from biopharmaceutical customers, various state, federal and foreign agencies that provide grants and other funding may be subject to stringent budgetary constraints that could result in spending reductions, reduced grant making, reduced allocations or budget cutbacks, which could jeopardize the ability of these customers, or the customers to whom they provide funding, to purchase our products. For example, congressional appropriations to the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") have generally increased year-over-year in recent years, but the NIH also experiences occasional year-over-year decreases in appropriations. There is no guarantee that NIH appropriations will not decrease or cease in the future. A decrease in the amount of, or delay in the approval of, appropriations to NIH or other similar United States or foreign organizations, such as the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom, could result in fewer grants benefiting life sciences research. These reductions or delays could also result in a decrease in the aggregate amount of grants awarded for life sciences research or the redirection of existing funding to other projects or priorities, any of which in turn could cause our customers and potential customers to reduce or delay purchases or licensing of our products. Our operating results may fluctuate substantially due to the potential changes in our customers' resources as described above. Any decrease in our customers' budgets or expenditures, or in the size, scope or frequency of their capital or operating expenditures, could materially and adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

We differentiate ourselves from our competition through our commitment to an exceptional customer experience. Accordingly, high-quality customer service is important for the growth of our business and any failure to maintain such standards of customer service, or a related market perception, could affect our ability to sell products to existing and prospective customers. The number of our customers has grown significantly and such growth, as well as any future growth, may put additional pressure on our field application scientists and customer service organization. We may be unable to hire qualified staff quickly enough or to the extent necessary to accommodate increases in demand. Providing an exceptional customer experience requires significant time and resources from our customer service team. Therefore, failure to scale our customer service organization adequately may adversely impact our business results and financial condition. Customers utilize our service teams and online content for help with a variety of topics, including how to use our products efficiently, how to integrate our products into existing workflows, and how to resolve technical, analysis and operational issues if and when they arise. While we have developed significant resources for remote training and customer service, including our virtual product demonstration process, if our customers do not adopt these resources, we may be required to increase the staffing of our customer service team, which could increase our costs. Also, as our business scales, we may need to engage third-party customer service providers, which could increase our costs and negatively impact the quality of the customer experience if such third parties are unable to provide service levels equivalent to ours. In addition, as we continue to grow our operations and reach a global customer base, we will need to be able to provide efficient customer service that meets our customers' needs globally at scale. In geographies where we sell through distributors, we often rely on those distributors to provide customer service. If these third-party distributors do not provide a high-quality customer experience, our business operations and reputation may suffer.

An important part of our sales process includes training our customers on how to safely and appropriately use our products. If our customers are not properly trained, they may misuse or ineffectively use our products. Any improper use of our products may result in unsatisfactory outcomes, negative publicity or lawsuits against us, any of which could harm our reputation and affect future product sales. Even if our products are used improperly by customers, we may face reputational damage if our products are associated with negative outcomes or injuries. Damage to our reputation could make it more difficult for us to sell our products and enter into new partnerships. Accordingly, if our customers fail to safely and appropriately use our products or if we are unable to train our customers on the safe and appropriate use of our products, our reputation may be negatively impacted and we may be unable to achieve our expected sales, growth or profitability.

Our headquarters in Maryland contains most of our corporate and administrative functions, the majority of our research, and all of our in-house manufacturing, inventory and distribution functions. A natural or other disaster, such as a fire or flood, could cause substantial delays in our operations, damage or destroy our manufacturing equipment or inventory, and cause us to incur additional expenses. The insurance we maintain against fires, floods and other natural disasters may not be adequate to cover our losses in any particular case. With or without insurance, damage to our manufacturing facility or our other property, or to any of our suppliers, due to fire, flood or other natural disaster or casualty event may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our results of operations and cash flows are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly changes in the Euro and the British pound. We expect our non-U.S. operations to continue to grow in the near term and we are continually monitoring our foreign currency exposure to determine if we should consider a hedging program. Today, our non-U.S. contracts are generally denominated in U.S. Dollars, while our non-U.S. operating expenses are often denominated in local currencies. Additionally, as we expand our non-U.S. operations, a larger portion of our operating expenses may be denominated in local currencies. Therefore, increases in the value of the U.S. Dollar and decreases in the value of foreign currencies could result in the dollar equivalent of our revenue being lower, which could negatively affect our reported results of operations.