Maravai Lifesciences Holdings (MRVI) Risk Factors

Our success depends on our ability to obtain and maintain patent and other intellectual property protection in the United States and other countries with respect to our current and future proprietary products. We rely upon a combination of patents and trade secret protection to protect the intellectual property related to our technology, manufacturing processes, and products. Our commercial success depends in part on obtaining and maintaining patent and trade secret protection for our current and future products, if any, and the methods used to manufacture them, as well as successfully defending and protecting such patents and trade secrets against third-party challenges. Our ability to stop third parties from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing our products is dependent upon the extent to which we have rights under valid and enforceable patents and other intellectual property that covers these activities. The patent prosecution process is expensive and time consuming, and we may not be able to file and prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner or in all jurisdictions where protection may be commercially advantageous. It is also possible that we may fail to identify patentable aspects of our research and development output before it is too late to obtain patent protection. In addition, we or our collaborators may only pursue, obtain or maintain patent protection in a limited number of countries. There is no assurance that all potentially relevant prior art relating to our patents and patent applications has been found. We may be unaware of prior art that could be used to invalidate or narrow the scope of an issued patent or prevent our pending patent applications from issuing as patents. This may be (1) because patent applications in the United States, Europe and many other non-U.S. jurisdictions are typically not published until 18 months after filing, or in some cases not at all, (2) because publications of discoveries in scientific literature lag behind actual discoveries, and (3) because we cannot be certain that we or our licensors were the first to make the inventions claimed in any of our owned or any in-licensed issued patents or pending patent applications, or that we or our licensors were the first to file for protection of the inventions set forth in our patents or patent applications. As a result, we may not be able to obtain or maintain protection for certain inventions. Even if patents do successfully issue, such patents may not adequately protect our intellectual property, provide exclusivity for our current or future products, prevent others from designing around our claims or otherwise provide us with a competitive advantage. We cannot offer any assurances about which, if any, patents will issue, the breadth of any such patents or whether any issued patents will be found invalid or unenforceable or will be threatened by third parties. In addition, third parties may challenge the validity, enforceability, ownership, inventorship or scope of any of our patents. Any successful challenge to any of our patents could deprive us of rights necessary for the successful commercialization of our current or future products and could impair or eliminate our ability to collect future revenue and royalties with respect to such products. If any of our patent applications with respect to our current or future products fail to result in issued patents, if their breadth or strength of protection is narrowed or threatened, or if they fail to provide meaningful exclusivity or competitive position, it could dissuade companies from collaborating with us or otherwise adversely affect our competitive position. The patent positions of life science companies can be highly uncertain and involve complex legal and factual questions for which important legal principles remain unresolved. No consistent policy regarding the breadth of claims allowed in life science patents has emerged to date in the United States. The standards applied by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the "USPTO") and foreign patent offices in granting patents are not always applied uniformly or predictably and can change. Additionally, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and many companies have encountered significant problems in protecting and defending such rights in foreign jurisdictions. The legal systems of certain countries, particularly certain developing countries, do not favor the enforcement of patents and other intellectual property rights, particularly those relating to biotechnology, which could make it difficult for us to stop the infringement, misappropriation, or other violation of our patents or other intellectual property, including the unauthorized reproduction of our manufacturing or other know-how or the marketing of competing products in violation of our intellectual property rights generally. Any of these outcomes could impair our ability to prevent competition from third parties, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects. Further, the existence of issued patents does not guarantee our right to practice the patented technology or commercialize products covered by such a patent. Third parties may have or obtain rights to patents which they may use to prevent or attempt to prevent us from practicing our patented technology or commercializing our patented products. If any of these other parties are successful in obtaining valid and enforceable patents, and establishing our infringement of those patents, we could be prevented from selling our products unless we were able to obtain a license under such third-party patents, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all. In addition, third parties may seek approval to market their own products similar to or otherwise competitive with our products. In these circumstances, we may need to defend or assert our patents, including by filing lawsuits alleging patent infringement. In any of these types of proceedings, a court or agency of competent jurisdiction may find our patents invalid or unenforceable. Our competitors and other third parties may also be able to circumvent our patents by developing similar or alternative products in a non-infringing manner. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects. In addition, competitors may use our technologies in jurisdictions where we have not obtained or are unable to adequately enforce patent protection to develop their own products and further, may export otherwise infringing products to territories where we have patent protection, but enforcement is not as strong as that in the United States and Europe. These products may compete with our products, and our patents or other intellectual property rights may not be effective or sufficient to prevent them from competing with us. Proceedings to enforce our patent rights, whether or not successful, could result in substantial costs and divert our efforts and attention from other aspects of our business, could put our patents at risk of being invalidated or held unenforceable, or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at risk of not issuing, and could provoke third parties to assert claims against us. We may not prevail in any lawsuits that we initiate, and the damages or other remedies awarded, if any, may not be commercially meaningful. Accordingly, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights around the world may be inadequate to obtain a significant commercial advantage from the intellectual property that we develop, acquire or license. Intellectual property that we own or in-license may be subject to a reservation of rights by one or more third parties. For example, one of our patents is co-owned with third parties and some of our patent rights in the future may be co-owned with third parties. If we are unable to obtain an exclusive license to any such third-party co-owners' interest in such patent rights, such co-owners may be able to license their rights to other third parties, including our competitors, and our competitors could market competing products and technology. In addition, we may need the cooperation of any such co-owners of such patent rights in order to enforce such patent rights against third parties, and such cooperation may not be provided to us. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial conditions, results of operations, and prospects. Moreover, the research resulting in certain of our patents and technology was funded in part by the U.S. government. As a result, the U.S. government has certain rights to such patent rights and technology, which include march-in rights. When new technologies are developed with government funding, in order to secure ownership of such patent rights, the recipient of such funding is required to comply with certain government regulations, including timely disclosing the inventions claimed in such patent rights to the U.S. government and timely electing title to such inventions. Additionally, the U.S. government generally obtains certain rights in any resulting patents, including a nonexclusive license authorizing the government to use the invention or to have others use the invention on its behalf. Accordingly, we or our licensors have granted the U.S. government a nonexclusive, nontransferable, irrevocable, paid-up license to practice or have practiced for or on behalf of the United States, the inventions described in the patents and patent applications relating to such inventions. If the U.S. government decides to exercise these rights, it is not required to engage us as its contractor in connection with doing so. The government's rights may also permit it to disclose our confidential information to third parties and to exercise march-in rights to use or allow third parties to use such government-funded technology. The government can exercise its march-in rights if it determines that action is necessary because we fail to achieve practical application of the government-funded technology, or because action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs, to meet requirements of federal regulations, or to give preference to U.S. industry. In addition, our rights in such inventions may be subject to certain requirements to manufacture products embodying such inventions in the United States. If we fail to comply with those requirements, we could lose our ownership of or other rights to any patents subject to such regulations. Any exercise by the government of any of the foregoing rights or by any third party of its reserved rights could have a material adverse effect on our competitive position, business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. Furthermore, patents have a limited lifespan. In the United States, the unextended expiration of a patent is generally 20 years after its non-provisional application filing date. Various extensions may be available, however, the life of a patent and the protection it affords is limited. Given the amount of time required for the development, testing, regulatory review and approval of new products, our patents protecting such candidates might expire before or shortly after such candidates are commercialized. If we encounter delays in obtaining regulatory approvals, the period of time during which we could market a product under patent protection could be further reduced. Even if patents covering our future products are obtained, once such patents expire, we may be vulnerable to competition from similar products. The launch of a similar version of one of our products would likely result in an immediate and substantial reduction in the demand for our product. As a result, our patent portfolio may not provide us with sufficient rights to exclude others from commercializing products similar or identical to ours. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects.

We make certain of our products available to customers as research-use-only ("RUO") products. RUO products are regulated by the FDA as medical devices, and include in vitro diagnostic products in the laboratory research phase of development that are being shipped or delivered for an investigation that is not subject to the FDA's investigational device exemption requirements. Although medical devices are subject to stringent FDA oversight, products that are intended for RUO and are labeled as RUO are exempt from compliance with most FDA requirements, including premarket clearance or approval, manufacturing requirements, and others. A product labeled RUO but which is actually intended for clinical diagnostic use may be viewed by the FDA as adulterated and misbranded under the FDCA, and subject to FDA enforcement action. The FDA has indicated that when determining the intended use of a product labeled RUO, the FDA will consider the totality of the circumstances surrounding distribution and use of the product, including how the product is marketed and to whom. The FDA could disagree with our assessment that our products are properly marketed as RUO, or could conclude that products labeled as RUO are actually intended for clinical diagnostic use, and could take enforcement action against us, including requiring us to stop distribution of our products until we are in compliance with applicable regulations, which would reduce our revenue, increase our costs and adversely affect our business, prospects, results of operations and financial condition. In the event that the FDA requires us to obtain marketing authorization of our RUO products in the future, there can be no assurance that the FDA will grant any clearance or approval requested by us in a timely manner, or at all. Our raw material products are manufactured following the voluntary quality standards of ISO 9001:2015. Our GMP-grade raw material products follow ISO 9001:2015 standards, additional voluntary GMP quality standards and customer specific requirements. We believe these raw material products, including our GMP-grade raw material products, are exempt from compliance with the FDCA and the cGMP regulations of the FDA, as our products are further processed by our customers and we do not make claims related to their safety or effectiveness. We provide API products to customers for use in preclinical studies through and including clinical trials. Our API products are manufactured following the principles detailed in the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) Q7, Good Manufacturing Practice Guide for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (Section 19, APIs For Use in Clinical Trials) in order to comply with the applicable requirements of the FDCA, and the comparable GMP principles for Europe; European Community, Part II, Basic Requirements for Active Substances Used as Starting Materials (Section 19, APIs For Use in Clinical Trials). Manufacture of APIs for use in clinical trials is regulated under § 501(a)(2)(B) of the FDCA, but is not subject to the current GMP regulations in 21 CFR § 211 by operation of 21 CFR § 210. Our API products are provided to customers under customer contracts that outline quality standards and product specifications. As products advance through the clinical phases, requirements become more stringent and we work with customers to define and agree on requirements and risks associated with their product. The FDA could disagree with our assessment that our products are exempt from current GMP regulations. In addition, the FDA could conclude that the raw material and API products we provide to our customers are actually subject to the pharmaceutical or drug quality-related regulations for manufacturing, processing, packing or holding of drugs or finished pharmaceuticals, and could take enforcement action against us, including requiring us to stop distribution of our products until we are in compliance with applicable regulations, which would reduce our revenue, increase our costs and adversely affect our business, prospects, results of operations and financial condition. In the event that the FDA requires us to comply with FDA regulations, for our raw material and API products in the future, including the FDA's current GMP regulations, there can be no assurance that the FDA will find our operations are in compliance in a timely manner, or at all.

Our ability to realize the tax benefits that we currently expect to be available as a result of the attributes covered by the Tax Receivable Agreement, the payments made pursuant to the Tax Receivable Agreement, and the interest deductions imputed under the Tax Receivable Agreement all depend on a number of assumptions, including that we earn sufficient taxable income each year during the period over which such deductions are available and that there are no adverse changes in applicable law or regulations. Additionally, if our actual taxable income were insufficient or there were additional adverse changes in applicable law or regulations, we may be unable to realize all or a portion of the expected tax benefits and our cash flows and shareholders' equity could be negatively affected.

We are subject to data privacy and protection laws and regulations that apply to the collection, transmission, storage and use of proprietary information and personally identifiable information ("PII"), which among other things, imposes certain requirements relating to the privacy, security and transmission of certain individually identifiable information. Numerous other federal and state laws, including state security breach notification laws, state health information privacy laws and federal and state consumer protection laws, govern the collection, use, disclosure and security of personal information. These laws continue to change and evolve and are increasing in breadth and impact. Failure to comply with any of these laws and regulations could result in enforcement action against us, including fines, imprisonment of company officials and public censure, claims for damages by affected individuals, damage to our reputation and loss of goodwill, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects. Additionally, if we are unable to properly protect the privacy and security of personal information, we could be found to have breached our contracts. Many states in which we operate have laws that protect the privacy and security of personal information. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 ("CCPA"), which increases privacy rights for California residents and imposes obligations on companies that process their personal information, came into effect on January 1, 2020. Among other things, the CCPA requires covered companies to provide new disclosures to California consumers and provide such consumers new data protection and privacy rights, including the ability to opt-out of certain sales of personal information. The CCPA provides for civil penalties for violations, as well as a private right of action for certain data breaches that result in the loss of personal information. Further, the California Privacy Rights Act (the "CPRA"), which took effect on January 1, 2023 (with certain provisions having retroactive effect to January 1, 2022), amended the CCPA. Amongst other things, the CPRA and eliminated the "employee exemption" under the CCPA, makes a distinction between "personal information" and "sensitive personal information," imposing heightened protections for "sensitive personal information," and brings business-to-business transactions under its purview. These laws and others like it are yet to be tested and may subject us to increased regulatory scrutiny, litigation, and overall risk. Further, there is discussion in Congress of a new federal data protection and privacy law to which we would become subject, if it is enacted. Various foreign countries in which we operate also have, or are developing, laws that govern the collection, use, disclosure, security and cross-border transmission of personal information. For example, in the European Union (the "EU") and the United Kingdom, the collection and use of personal data is governed by the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), in addition to other applicable laws and regulations. The GDPR came into effect in May 2018,and has resulted in, and will continue to result in, significantly greater compliance burdens and costs for companies like us. Any data security breach could require notifications to the data subject and/or owners under U.S. federal, U.S. state, and/or international data breach notification laws and regulations. Other jurisdictions outside the EU are similarly introducing or enhancing privacy and data security laws, rules and regulations, which could increase our compliance costs and the risks associated with noncompliance. We cannot guarantee that we are, or will be, in compliance with all applicable international regulations as they are enforced now or as they evolve. It is possible that these laws may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our practices and our efforts to comply with the evolving data protection rules may be unsuccessful. We must devote significant resources to understanding and complying with this changing landscape. Failure to comply with federal, state and international laws regarding privacy and security of personal information could expose us to penalties under such laws, orders requiring that we change our practices, claims for damages or other liabilities, regulatory investigations and enforcement action, litigation and significant costs for remediation, any of which could adversely affect our business. Even if we are not determined to have violated these laws, government investigations into these issues typically require the expenditure of significant resources and generate negative publicity, which have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects.

Our revenue and other operating results depend in large part on our ability to manufacture and ship our products in sufficient quantities. Any interruptions we experience in the manufacturing or shipping of our products could delay our ability to recognize revenue in a particular quarter. Manufacturing problems can and do arise, and as demand for our products increases, any such problems could have an increasingly significant impact on our operating results. While we have not generally experienced problems with, or delays in, our production capabilities that resulted in delays in our ability to ship finished products, there can be no assurance that we will not encounter such problems in the future. We may not be able to quickly ship products and recognize anticipated revenue for a given period if we experience significant delays in the manufacturing process. In addition, we must maintain sufficient production capacity in order to meet anticipated customer demand, and we may be unable to offset the associated fixed costs if orders slow, which would adversely affect our operating margins. If we are unable to manufacture and ship our products consistently, in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis, our revenue, cash flow, gross margins and our other results of operations will be materially and adversely affected.

Certain of our raw materials are sourced from a limited number of suppliers and some materials, including a proprietary DNA reagent, certain packaging materials, specific cell lines for Cygnus Technologies' operations and certain raw materials used in our nucleic acid production products, as well as those raw materials sold under the Glen Research brand, are sole sourced. Delays or difficulties in securing these raw materials or other laboratory materials could result in an interruption in our production operations if we cannot obtain an acceptable substitute. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chains have faced challenges, including material availability, global logistics delays and constraints arising from, among other things, the transportation capacity of ocean shipping containers, and these challenges have been exacerbated by the ongoing macroeconomic conditions as discussed above. Any interruption of our supply chain could significantly affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects. While we may identify other suppliers, raw materials furnished by such replacement suppliers may require us to alter our production operations or perform extensive validations, which may be time consuming and expensive. There can be no assurance that we will be able to secure alternative materials and revalidate them without experiencing interruptions in our workflow. If we should encounter delays or difficulties in obtaining raw materials, our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects could be adversely affected.

The success of our business depends primarily on the number and size of contracts with our customers, primarily pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, for our products and services. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic we benefited from a significant increase in demand for our products and service, including our proprietary CleanCap analogs that are used by our customers in the production of COVID-19 vaccines, and also benefited during 2021 and 2022, more generally, from the overall growth of the global biologics market, higher research and development budgets of our customers and a greater degree of outsourcing by our customers. The level of our customers' spending on and demand for our products and services is also subject to, among other things, their own financial performance, changes in their available resources, the timing of their commercial manufacturing initiatives, their decisions to acquire in-house manufacturing capacity (rather than outsource), their spending priorities, including research and development budgets, and their budgetary policies and practices, which, in turn, are dependent upon a number of factors outside of our control. Our customers determine their research and development budgets based on several factors, including their need to develop new biological products, their competitors' discoveries, developments and commercial manufacturing initiatives and the anticipated market, clinical and reimbursement scenarios for specific products and therapeutic areas. In addition, consolidation in the industries in which our customers operate may have an impact on our customers' spending as they integrate acquired operations, including research and development departments and associated budgets. Access to capital is critical to many of our customers' ability to fund research and development, particularly early-stage biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, and historically, these companies have funded their research and development activities by raising capital privately or in the equity markets. Declines and uncertainties in the capital markets, including as a result of ongoing negative macroeconomic challenges, rising interest rates, recent instability in the banking sector, and volatile credit markets, have limited access to capital and negatively affected companies' ability to fund research and development efforts. While 2021 and 2022 saw a significant level of investment in venture- and private equity-backed startup companies, funding for companies at all stages, and particularly early- and late-stage companies, contracted considerably during 2023, which, together with broader economic uncertainty, led certain of our customers to implement more stringent budgetary policies designed to conserve capital, which in turn, caused a reduction in research and development spending and a decline in further purchases of our products and services. We have no assurance as to whether, or when, such research and development spending may stabilize or increase, if at all. Further, if the funding of venture- and private equity-backed biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies remains weak or weakens further, the research and development budgets of our customers may be further reduced or eliminated altogether, which could impact future demand for our products and services. If our customers reduce their spending on our products and services as a result of any of these or other factors, our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and prospects would be materially and adversely affected. Moreover, we have no control over the timing and volume of purchases by our customers, and as a result, our operating results may fluctuate significantly, and our future revenue and operating results can be difficult to forecast. Our inability to forecast fluctuations in demand could harm our business, financial position and future results of operations. See also "-Our operating results may fluctuate significantly in the future, which makes our future operating results difficult to predict and could cause our operating results to fall below expectations or any guidance we may provide" below.

We are subject to the risk of disruption by earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters, fire, power shortages, geopolitical unrest, war (including any escalation of the ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip), terrorist attacks and other hostile acts, public health issues, epidemics or pandemics and other events beyond our control and the control of the third parties on which we depend. Any of these catastrophic events, whether in the United States or abroad, may have a significant negative impact on the global economy, our employees, facilities, partners, suppliers, distributors or customers, and could decrease demand for our products and services, create delays and inefficiencies in our supply chain and make it difficult or impossible for us to deliver products and services to our customers. We rely upon our internal manufacturing, packaging and distribution operations to produce many of the products we sell and our warehouse facilities to store products pending sale. Any significant disruption of those operations for any reason, such as labor disputes or social unrest, power interruptions, fire, hurricanes, a public health crisis (such as a pandemic), earthquakes or other events beyond our control, could adversely affect our sales and customer relationships and therefore adversely affect our business and results of operations. We have significant operations in California, near major earthquake faults, which make us susceptible to earthquake risk. In addition, a catastrophic event that results in damage to specific equipment that would be difficult to replace, the destruction or disruption of our research and production facilities or our critical business or information technology systems would severely affect our ability to conduct normal business operations and, as a result, our operating results would be adversely affected.